[IC] Maximum Comics

[GreenGrenade]

M A Y 2 N D, 2 0 1 6

There are times when Barry Allen hates his job. Times when all the years he spent studying for it, all of the sleepless nights, all of the countless hours, seem like they’ve only helped with one thing: the realisation that no matter how much he does, or how fast he runs, people will always – always – get hurt. It’s during those times that Barry tries to remind himself of why he chose to become a CSI in the first place; of finding his mother dead in a pool of her own blood, his father carried away in handcuffs; of the conviction he felt for finding his mother’s true killer and clearing his father’s name. He reminds himself that for every day he spends at work, he’s helping bring another criminal to justice – helping ease their victims’ pain just a little bit. Most times, it helps him like his job again. But now, as he stares at Albert Lim’s bloody corpse, all he can think is, I could have stopped this. If I knew this was happening… this kid might still be alive.

There are times when Barry Allen hates his job. This… is one of those times.

Albert Lim lies on his side, lifeless and cold, a pool of blood absorbed by his duvet. The deep red stains his bedroom’s walls. It covers his bed and his desk, his computer and his wardrobe, the ceiling and the fan that hangs from it; messy, violent splatters, disturbing in their number.

“Ever seen anything like this?” asks Patty Spivot.

She’s a former flame of Barry’s, his girlfriend before Iris, now a good friend and colleague; the most talented forensic analyst he knows after himself. She stands next to him, dressed so she doesn’t contaminate the crime scene – although most of her face is covered, her bespectacled eyes still show. They’re all Barry needs to see her horror, and he meets them with his own. During his time as a CSI, he’s seen a lot of terrible things. Some still haunt him to this day. But something like this?

“No. Nothing like this,” he answers.

He walks towards Albert with cautious steps, careful not to smear any blood with his boots. The body is covered in lacerations – they’re deep, some cutting all the way through, their edges burnt. Whatever was used to stab him was hot. His skin is red in places, raw and peeled – electrocution. The red mingles with burn scarring, its shape consistent with that of…

“Lightning,” Barry whispers, his mind working faster than light can travel.

The scars aren’t new, but they aren’t old, either. They definitely aren’t there because of whatever happened to the victim last night.

“Yeah,” says Patty, examining the blood spatter on the wall to his right. “The mother says he was caught in the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion. You know, the particle accelerator.”

She pauses, lost in thought.

“Hmm. The blood’s impact velocity… it would’ve had to be fast for it to spatter this way. Really fast. The weapon would’ve had to be a gun.”

Barry’s brow creases in perplexity. “No, it couldn’t have been. It’s all cuts and burns, no gunshot wounds… I don’t think we’re looking for a regular Joe.”

“So, what?” asks Patty, “You think a mutant did this?”

“No.”

His eyes widen as he begins to fit the pieces of the puzzle. The moment he stepped into the room, he could feel something was different… and yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. But now – with the blood spatter, the deepness and the heat of the cuts, the electrocution, the burn scarring – it all starts to make sense. That feeling he couldn’t quite explain, the feeling that he couldn’t put his finger on… it’s the Speed Force. Residue of the energy that gives Barry his powers. He clenches his fists, dread spreading through him. And to think that yesterday, Iris had woken him up to such great news.

“Not a mutant. A speedster.”

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T H E W E S T - A L L E N H O U S E H O L D ♦ C E N T R A L C I T Y, M O

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I could’ve stared at her forever.

After I walked out of the presentation, she was quick to follow. She looked at me with her beautiful brown eyes, hair perfectly framing her face, tucked behind her ears; they searched mine as she reached for my hand, my skin tingling with electricity not even the Speed Force could replicate. With a vibrant smile, her white teeth shining in the sunlight, she asked me if I was okay.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just… what that guy’s saying… it makes me so angry.”

“Then don’t listen to him, Wally,” she told me. “He’s an asshat.”

Linda Park, ladies and gentlemen. God, I love her.

The rest of the day was nothing special. Y’know, school. Jared Morillo, my best friend, raved about his (alleged) girlfriend, who we had never met or seen pictures of, for the billionth time, and Lilith Clay, Linda’s best friend, did her best to prove that she wasn’t real. Typical, everyday stuff. No explosions or supervillains or Tricksters off their meds.

But before you groan and moan about how Kid Flash is boring and you wanted more ass-kicking, and tell everyone that Spider-Man’s cooler (which, by the way, is hurtful), I’m going to stop you right there and give you what you want. So strap in, dear readers, and get ready for a wild ride, because this is the story of how I met New York’s favourite person to crap on, flush down the toilet and hunt down in the sewers.

But first, to set the scene.

I walked home with Linda, our hands linked together, that wonderful electricity coursing through me again. It put a skip in my step that made her giggle; hands-down the best sound to ever grace my ears. Normally I would’ve ran home, but whenever I got the chance to walk with Linda, you can bet that I took it. Every second with her beat running, every time – no exceptions. And I loved running. If it was my lifeblood, then she was my everything. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a cliché, but dammit, it’s my cliché.

Aunt Iris had already prepared dinner when we arrived. Roast chicken marinated in honey and soy, with a side of vegetables and the bars Dr. Wells worked up for Barry’s and my accelerated metabolism. She’d always been good to me, and the gratefulness I felt towards her and Barry when they took me in after Mom died and Dad ditched never faded away. I kissed her on the cheek to show her, and sat down at the table to tap my feet until Barry got home and I could start eating.

About ten minutes later he walked in, interrupting Iris and Linda’s conversation (they were talking about journalism, like they always did; the result of an aspiring journalist being in the same room as an actual one). His blond hair was a mess, and his face was weary, maybe even a little sad – a far cry from the easy smile he usually wore.

“Hey, hon,” he said, leaning down to give Iris a kiss.

“Hey, Bear,” she smiled. “How was work?”

“Later,” he returned her smile, taking a seat next to her. “How about you, Linda? Wally get you into any trouble today?”

“Oh, you know. Not any more than usual,” Linda laughed.

Though the joke was at my expense, I couldn’t help but join in. She had that kind of effect on me.

“So how was school?” asked Barry.

“Ehhhh. Racists. Hate speeches. Jared and his ‘girlfriend’. Nothing special.” I started digging into the food, the flavor exploding in my mouth.

“Food’s delicious, Aunt Iris.”

Barry raised his eyebrows, some levity replacing his… well, non-levity.

“What?”

He and Iris shared a smile, keeping quiet, like there was some secret they were debating whether or not to tell. It was infuriating. Eventually, Barry broke the silence.

“There was a murder last night,” he said. His smile was gone, and he was looking directly at me. “I was at the scene today.”

“And this is something to smile about, why…?”

He ignored me, pressing on. The weariness returned to his face. “It was just a kid. Your age, maybe a year or so younger.” He paused. “I think a speedster did it.”

What I did next could be described as a double-take, but I don’t think that adequately describes the horror I felt course through me at that moment in time. My mind immediately turned to the one culprit I knew might be responsible, and the moment it did, my body responded in kind – by launching me the heck out of my chair. Images of Thawne flitted in and out of my thoughts, his blazing red eyes burned into my head. The thought of facing him again terrified me, and as much as I tried to recover from my reaction, it was obvious that everyone in the room knew it. Linda looked at me with worry, Iris with sympathy. Barry, though – his eyes reflected my fear.

“You don’t think that it’s – ” I began.

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Maybe. But the M.O.’s different. Bloody. There’s a similar case in New York City – the NYPD think a speedster did it, too. Darryl’s sending me over there to help out.”

My fear was joined by resolve almost immediately. Nothing scared me more than Thawne did; after the beating he dished out to Barry and I, the very thought of seeing him again was enough to make me queasy. But just the notion of someone, a speedster, like me and Barry, using their powers to kill, gave me determination that turned that fear into drive, no matter if the culprit turned out to be Thawne or someone else entirely.

“Great. I’ll see you there.”

“Wally, you don’t – ”

“Yes, I do. C’mon, Barry. It doesn’t matter whether this is Thawne or not. Whoever this is, they’re a killer, and there’s no way I’m going to sit this one out and let you shoulder this all by yourself. We’re partners.”

His lips formed into a small smile. “Okay, Kid. I guess I’ll see you there.”

I turned to Linda. Her eyes were a mix of different emotions; worry, pride… love.

“Will you be okay to get home?”

She nodded. “Go get ‘em, Fleet Feet.”

I pecked her on the lips, taking out the ring that’d been sitting in my pocket for the entire day. It fit perfectly on my third finger, its golden Flash emblem inviting me to tap it – the suit sprung out in an instant, and I moved to put it on, the slightest bit of electricity crackling around me. It fit me like a glove, slipping on without a hitch – Kid Flash now stood before my family, smiling brashly. I turned to leave, starting at a slow jog –

“Wally, wait,” Iris said.

I stopped in my tracks.

“Barry and I have news… This probably isn’t the best time, but…”

“It’s okay. I can wait. You can tell me when I come back.”

I winced at the disappointment that crossed her face, and I almost apologised if not for the understanding that replaced it. “Okay. Be careful,” she said.

I grinned. “When am I not?”

I jogged out the door and ran down the street, gradually building up to just under the speed of sound. When I left suburbia and Central City behind, I let loose, the sonic boom a satisfying thoom as the world slowed around me. It’s weird, how the Speed Force worked; it gave us speedsters two modes to work with, normal and speed. Speed mode activated whenever we used our powers; whenever we were afraid, threatened or even excited. Time slowed down, and before you knew it the only sounds you could hear were a low hum and the beat of your heart. Unless you had a watch on you, you had no idea how much time had passed during your journey from Point A to Point B. The best you could do was guess. By my best estimation, I arrived at the Bronx in just under half an hour.

It was there that I met the webbed wonder, at what’s arguably the greatest fast food joint in the world: Big Belly Burger. I’d like to say that we just bumped into each other and acquainted ourselves over a burger and fries, but no. Nothing’s ever that simple.

I met Spider-Man in the parking lot of a Big Belly Burger in the Bronx. But we didn’t go inside to feast on some glorious, greasy goodness. No, I had to save his ass. From who, you ask? Well, isn’t that the question.

I’ll let Spidey tell you.

[Gowi]

Prologue: Flash Foward
New York City, United States
May 2nd, 2016

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Ever heard the story of the tortoise and the hare? Alright, now imagine the hare has a murderous bloodlust and is out to kill the tortoise because he saw something he shouldn’t have. The tortoise is me.

“I’m going to kill you, Spider-Man!”

See what I mean?

“So does that mean you don’t want to come to my wedding?”

He’s fast. Faster than my spider-sense.

Honestly, I think that’s pretty much Spider-Man hall of fame material right there considering I’ve never had a foe that my spider-sense didn’t give this sort of security blanket for me, and some of them haven’t exactly been as slow as New York sludge. In fact, I’m pretty sure dodging bullets and Green Goblin’s inventions should allow me to at least land a hit on this guy but for some reason he’s always a step ahead of me and beyond my reach. If this is what it’s like fighting The Flash or Quicksilver then it really sucks being the guys who want to hurt them. Out of all of my experiences, I can’t think of a fight that has been more frustrating than fighting a figurative speed demon. Even asking Gwen out on a date after all the years of being the most oblivious geek on the planet seemed far less stressful. How am I supposed to fight a guy I cannot hit with my web shooters or my fists? Especially considering the fact that he wants to kill me?

I can barely see him moving thanks to my spider-sense, but he’s just too fast.

My spider-sense blares from behind me and I try to move to dodge but I can’t react in time. The next thing I know is I’m no longer in the apartment complex I had interceded on in Queens— I’m in The Bronx tumbling through the parking lot of a Big Belly Burger. You know, I really could go for a good lunch right now, after all it might be my last one. Now that would be a hilarious story for the Daily Bugle— Spider-Menace comes out of retirement to be killed by heroic speedster. But even if I’m unable to react in time, I have to try to come up with some kind of feasible strategy… or I could pray that Iron Man rescues me again. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing.

“So, do I get any last requests? Last meal? Signed memorabilia?”

“How about a funeral?” There’s a sinister chuckle leaving the guy as he stops in front of me for a few seconds.

He knows he can dodge whatever I can throw at him and is basically beating the whole loveable homicidal maniac trope to death. I wonder if he understands how stereotypical he’s being right now? I suppose this is now officially more stupid than the fighting the kryptonian thing. I can feel my muscles tense as I step backward as a light breath leaks out of my lips. If the guy could see me he would know I’m absolutely terrified and not just smirking at him while I wait for him to make a nice spider-shaped mess across the back of the dumpster that is right behind me. I could try to run, sure, but even if I kept my distance from him I’m pretty sure he could wait me out and with how absolutely livid this guy is I’m sure this is borderline fixation now. Well, at least if I go to sleep for the last time today I can rest knowing I distracted him long enough for his victim to be able to get away from his deranged sci-fi murder fantasy routine for one night.

I wonder if I screamed for Superman if he’d come to save me?

ZZZKRRRTTT!

A loud electric-like crack fills the air and as my little psychopathic friend gets sent into a Ford F150 I jump back, my feet landing flat on the dumpster that was going to become my sort of coffin. My eyes look at who is in front of me and a wide relieved smirk curls on my lips. Oh thank you whoever is in charge of prayers.

“Looks like you need a hand.”

My hero.

“Well, I’m not going to say no.”

I guess the big question is what is Central-Keystone’s premier superhero sidekick doing in New York City? I mean, I’m not going to complain about him saving my butt from being splatted underneath this psychopath’s foot. I rather like not being splatted, really. Kind of a health risk with my motif.

“Cool, so—” He pauses. “—give me a minute.”

There’s a flash of yellow and blue— I can see echoes of it thanks to my spider-sense as Kid Flash slams his knee into the psychopathic speedster’s gut. If I had to guess he’s been doing this way longer than the other guy, which is good considering the other guy almost killed me. I’ve never been much for spectating, but I can’t help but feel I’m not equipped to fight this one. I open the compartment with my webshooters and check my fluid— almost empty. Why is it always almost empty? I’m going to need to talk to Ollie about a new compound prototype because we need to come up with something that lasts longer than our current makeup. It’s something to think about at least.

There’s another zip as the shattering of glass draws my eyes up across the street as I can see the blue speedster tumble through a car dealership. Ouch. Kid Flash zips back in front of me. Is it me or is he a little bit too cocky?

“This guy got a name?”

“Speed Demon.”

“How original! So, you ready to take this guy down?”

Huh? Is he serious? I chuckle nervously. “Oh yeah, sure, let me go grab my Sonic the Hedgehog sneakers and we’ll go right at ‘em.”

He laughs and thats when another loud boom comes across my ears and I see it.

ZZZKRRRTTT!

I try to scream for him to look out and even spray a web or two in defense, but it just doesn't work. I guess I feel bad for the Starbucks he just got sent flying into. Actually, who am I kidding really? I hate Starbucks; I hope Kid Flash is okay, though.

I hold out my arm to websling back into danger. Why am I always doing these things?

[Gowi]

Prologue: Suicide Squad
Unknown Location, Eastern Europe
May 2nd, 2016

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And Roy Harper was exactly told why he needed to help the mysterious warlord who gave him more than enough incentive. They had found out about a little something he was trying to keep on the DL and honestly he was pretty annoyed that he was being baited into working for someone Green Arrow would use as a public pincushion. But at least he wasn’t alone— a fact that was clear as he looked around in the old ruined castle near the the border as he spotted four other people in addition to himself who all had the same “boy, do I hate my life” expression on their face. This long-haired individual had brought together a motley crew of expendables for this little “mission”. Some of the faces familiar to Roy given his personal relationship with several people who were quite good at the whole hero & criminal database management thing, his brows narrowing as he looked over the lot of them.

“Raise your hand if you are getting paid for this crap show.”

All of the faces looked over Roy’s comment, one of which with a wide smirk— but she didn’t raise her hand. None of them did. One of them laughed, and another one scowled.

Just what I thought.

Roy grumbled under his breath as he grabbed the collar of his worn traveler’s jacket, tugging on it to straighten it out. But what was the whole deal with the scenario, really? The walking cliché didn’t say what he wanted them to do, he just told them why they were going to help in. But then again he was trying to keep the ‘mood’ as that was what walking cliché’s liked to do. Next on the checklist was loud theatrics after everyone had gotten “comfortable” with each other, though Roy wasn’t sure that was going to be completely easy considering at least half of his new “friends” happened to be as enthusiastic as he was. If Green Arrow had ever got wind of this he’d never live it down. He could just hear the lectures now.

“So. You use a bow and arrow, huh? Isn’t that a little fucking stupid?”

Roy narrowed his brows, a wide shit-eating grin curling on his lips. “No. It’s really fucking stupid. But yeah, I use a bow. What of it?”

The leather jacket toting girl laughed hard as she slammer her fist into Roy’s left shoulder playfully. Roy personally didn’t care much for it, but he was too distracted and annoyed to really do much about it; not to mention he knew decking a “teammate” no matter how much of an annoying criminal they actually were. Mr. Cliché hadn’t gathered them up for them to play poker for shiggles. Roy was just waiting for the speech and the “plan” that was sure to come with the speech.

“I like you. This is going to be fun.”

Whatever ‘this’ was, Roy just wanted it over and done with. However, no matter what the circumstances were and what they had on him for blackmail, there was no way he was hurting any innocent lives in the process because of it. Roy had one rule that he had inherited in his mind and even during his wayward adventures in Eastern Europe still committed himself to.

No killing.

Roy, shuffled his hands in his pockets in a fit. “Is it?”

Before the woman could offer a reply the lights dimmed and the chattering of an old projector became adamant as here once again was Mr. Cliché with the widest grin on his face yet. An annoyed sigh left Roy’s lips as he looked over the man above a short set of stone stairs, looking down at them as he prepared his little mission briefing.

“Welcome, my friends. We can now get started knowing I have ensured your loyalties to this little gambit. But it is known that it is dangerous, and could risk you your lives— but you know you have no choice in this matter and that will not change after all the work I put into convincing you all. It is good to have people who are willing to die for you. But we have limited time, or well… I have limited time. Your mission will be discreet and covert as you retrieve a package of sorts for me; working together as a skilled team deferring to one another through your already chosen nicknames.”

His eyes moved over the lot of the group. “Arsenal. Mimi. Katana. Technocrat. Cyborg.”

“What and where?”

“I am glad you asked.”

A click of a button and the projector slid to the next panel and Roy cursed out loud with no restraint. “Shit.”

[GreenGrenade]

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M A Y 2 N D, 2 0 1 6 ♦ T H E B R O N X ♦ N E W Y O R K C I T Y, N Y

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I’ll be honest… I’m not sure what hurt more. Sure, the physical pain was considerable, but my pride… oh, my sweet, sweet pride. I could’ve been sent flying through any establishment, literally any – and which one did I end up smashing into?

Starbucks. Starbucks.

I hurtled through a display window, glass spraying over the café’s gaping customers as I crashed into a table, falling to the floor as it broke from the impact. Its two occupants stared at me in shock, holding their cheap excuse for coffee to their chests as if they thought that I might steal it. I stood with a groan, brushing away any glass and splinters that might have stuck to my costume.

“Hey. How you doin’?” I said, glancing at the guy whose table I just demolished. I plucked his drink from his hands, taking a sip, his (I think) girlfriend’s expression that of utmost shock. Gulping it down with a grimace, I handed the coffee back to him. “Thanks.”

To the rest of the café: “Uh. Sorry.”

Yeah, I know. Smooth, right?

A flash of blue lighting crackled at the broken window, revealing the idiot that had been harassing Spider-Man. His suit was decent, a mix of blue, red and gold that actually didn’t look half bad. He stood there with a predatory snarl on his face, his fists clenched and chest heaving; not from exhaustion, but excitement. His gaze swept over the café, teeth bared.

“I would suggest leaving. I don’t like audiences. Now,” he ordered, eyes digging into me behind his visor.

“Yeah, y’know, Road Runner might be onto something, people,” I agreed.

They listened, beginning to file out in a panic as they knocked over chairs and tables on their way shuffling out of the building.

“So,” I began, convinced that we had the room to ourselves, “You a metahuman?”

“What?”

“A metahuman. You had to get your powers from somewhere.”

He scoffed the kind of scoff that said, “You’re beneath me. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to you.” Needless to say, he was full of himself. “Chemistry accident in the lab at my school during a storm. Boom. Now I’m God.”

“Ha,” I said, disbelieving. What he was saying... the accident he was describing... there was no way he was powered by the Speed Force. I should’ve been able to sense his connection to it, like a signal on a frequency only I could receive, but there was nothing, as if something was blocking it. “Hahaha – wait, you’re serious?”

A sadistic smile curled on his lips. “You know, I was content with splattering the other stupid “hero” all over the parking lot, but I think it’ll be a lot more fun doing it to you; maybe I’ll do it while I’m robbing this coffee shop blind. So really what I’ve been doing for the last three months, but now with the added satisfaction of being the man who killed the Flash.”

I would’ve laughed if not for the fact that he’d practically confirmed his connection to the Speed Force. It’s textbook super-villainy. If they stay on topic, gloating about how yes, they're completely serious, and then go on and on about how they came to get their powers, they’re most likely full of it. But if they take your shock and build on it with a threat, there’s still a chance that they’re bullshitting you – only now, you can’t help but feel like there’s some tiny grain of truth hidden in there somewhere.

“You know, it’s a little bit rude to kill someone who is just visiting.”

Spider-Man dropped down from the ceiling, sneaking up on both of us; he landed in a crouch, feet planted on the countertop to my left. It was hard to tell how the guy was doing – I had his mask to thank for that – so I just nodded at him, a gesture that he returned.

Speed Demon (God, what a terrible name) growled, obviously annoyed. I suppose I would’ve been, too. One smartass is already annoying, but another one? And with those awful tights? Yeah, I could see why he was so offended. “You know, I was going to let you go… but you just passed my grace period.”

“Did I get first place?” Spidey said, flipping onto the floor beside me.

He held an arm behind his back, something small and plastic wedged between his forefinger and thumb. He dropped it onto the floor, taking a step forwards. A thought crossed my mind that he left it there for me to use, clashing with another that screamed “WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU – ” as he leapt towards the rogue speedster, leg extending in a kick that he had to know would be dodged. That’s when it clicked, and speed mode kicked in – the world slowed down, and in an instant my only companion was my heartbeat. With Spider-Man flying towards Speed Demon at a snail’s pace, I used the distraction to pick up the plastic cartridge he’d dropped, smiling at the brilliance of my plan.

I threw the cartridge… really fast.

Electricity arced behind my arm as I flung the plastic, watching it shoot towards Speed Demon as Spidey inched forward with every passing millisecond. The cartridge exploded on impact, covering the speedster in a sticky, goo-like substance – Spider-Man’s webs – holding him in place for the foot that met his face a fraction of a second later.

“AAARRGH! You can’t be serious!” he cried, recoiling from the blow.

I knew the webs probably wouldn’t hold him for long; if he knew anything about his powers, he would’ve known how to get free within milliseconds. As blue lightning crackled from his efforts to escape, I dashed forward, stopping bare inches away from him.

“Y’know, I’d say sorry, but…” I shrugged, “I’m really not.”

My fist connected with a satisfying crunch, little more than blur; blood spurted from his nose as he tried to cover it with his hands, the webs unwilling to let him. “Agh, myb nobe, you puffer!”

“That looks like it hurt. Not quite like being thrown from Queens to the Bronx, but hey,” quipped Spidey, webs shooting from his right wrist with a loud thwip, beginning to cover Speed Demon. “Please tell me he can’t break free from that.”

“Don’t worry, I gotcha covered.”

My arm blurred with electricity once more as I bopped Speed Demon on the head, watching with fascination as he slumped in his adhesive prison.

I saw him before Spidey did; a perk of being a speedster. The Flash sped into the café in a trail of red and yellow, taking in the display before him with a half-smile on his face. He came to a stop next to me, patting me on the shoulder.

“Oh, hey, Flash. I have a guy you should probably meet. Spidey, Flash. Flash, Spidey.” I gestured between them, a wide grin spreading from cheek to cheek.

“And this,” I motioned to Speed Demon’s unconscious form, “Is Speed Demon. Yeah, I know, very inspired.”

My aloof smile faded, replaced by a stern gaze. “He’s connected to the Speed Force. I think he might be our guy.”

“No,” said the Flash, “He’s not. I’ll fill you in later.”

He turned to Spider-Man, extending his hand. “For now, though. Nice to meet you, Spider-Man. You do great work here.”

Spidey accepted Barry’s hand, shaking it. “Oh, psshh, it’s nothing. So, welcome to New York City. We get the weirdest supervillains; I should tell you about this one time I fought a giant chicken. No, I’m not kidding, he went ‘kraw kraw’ and everything.”

I think that was the moment Barry and I decided that we liked this Spider-Man guy.

Lord knows he needed friends.

[Natty]

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As WHAM!’s incredibly popular “Wake me up before you go-go” erupted from Amadeus Cho’s alarm clock, the young Korean teenager let out a soft tiresome groan. No matter how many times he awoke at this early hour, he knew that he’d never get used to the pain that it constantly brought him inside. His vision still blurred slightly from his drowsiness, Amadeus struggled to prop himself up from where he had been led on his keyboard, only to swear silently to himself when several keys came with him, stuck to his face. Groaning, he stretched his arms about above his head, as he stifled a yawn, before wiping away the keys, with them clattering back down onto the table. He felt weak. Tired. Most of all, his head, and brain, ached. Just a typical morning really.

Coffee. That was what he needed. Something to get the mental juices flowing in that big heads of his. Rattling his brain, he glanced up towards the kitchenette and the coffee maker on the side, before looking back down at his keyboard. His fingers instantly began to dart about across the keys, a task made difficult due to the fact that some of them weren’t even attached anymore. With one final click of the mouse, the computer accepted the macro, causing the coffee machine across the room to activate at once.

Happy due to the fact that his salvation was quickly on the way, Amadeus rose from the seat where he had been sleeping, only to find himself overcome by intense pain all around his body. As he made a mental note not to fall asleep in front of the computer ever again, he continued with his morning stretches. It was during this that the young man’s eyes landed upon a spilled flagon of ale on the floor. Once more his spirits deflated.

Hercules was born the saviour of the Gods and mankind. Known as the Prince of Power, Hercules is one of the strongest beings in existence, an Olympian God and a modern superhero recognized throughout the world for his might. He has been a champion of mankind since ancient times and continues to defend the world in the modern age. That is, when he isn’t going around getting drunk and seducing as many people into his bed as humanly possible. He had come to Amadeus a few months ago now, intent on helping the boy on his adventures. Oh course, like any regular semi-intelligent person would have been, Amadeus was extremely confused as to why. Why on Earth would an Olympian help him of all people? He later discovered that it was because the Goddess Athena was interested in him or some garbage. The thought unnerved Amadeus, although for the time being there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Regardless of why he was here though, the two had quickly grown close, with the young man often finding the Olympian’s antic to be somewhat hilarious.

Of course, like with now, that wasn’t always the case.

He marched forward toward's the Olympian's quarters towards the back of the RV, intent on giving the ex-God a piece of his mind. Upon spying the shut divider however, Amadeus instead decided to hold off. Who knows what sexual horrors would await him in there? Hercules certainly wasn’t alone. The sounds from last night had proved that. So did the multiple sets of clothes that seemed to litter the entrance to his room. Amadeus shuddered in disgust, before turning his attention elsewhere.

Elsewhere came in the form of the weapon’s table. The weapon’s table was exactly that; a table in the back of the RV covered in weaponry. There were gleaming swords, blood-stained hammers, as well as razor sharp battle axes. It wasn’t entirely weapons of this caliber either. Machine guns and rifles also made up a huge part of the pile, as well as pistols, crossbows, and even a series of grenades and explosives. It was ever homicidal murderer’s dream. There was even a minigun! That wasn’t even the center piece however. That prize came in the form of the beautiful golden mace that sat towards the front of the table. It was Hercules’ own personal weapon, forged by the Olympian Hephaestus as a replacement for a wooden club he had favored during his time as a mortal. It was as deadly as it was beautifully crafted. Amadeus wanted nothing more than to have his play with the thing, although the big guy always gave him a big resounding “No.” Still though, the temptation remained, with it growing stronger by every waking minute.

Thankfully, today wouldn’t be that day, as a small beep from behind Amadeus caught his attention; his beverage was done. Barely managing a smile, he wiped his eyes once more for a couple of seconds before grabbing his trusty travel mug and moving himself across the room. He took a gulp of the magnificent liquid as soon as he had filled his mug, intent on getting that oh so satisfying buzz.

As the caffeine hit him, he let out a cool, relaxed smile. The drink had certainly done the trick, with his brain returning to feeling as spectacular as ever in a heartbeat. As such, his eyes widened in realization, with Amadeus remembering as to why he had set that blasted alarm in the first place. Grabbing a protein bar off the counter, as well as his customized Nintendo 3DS from next to his laptop, he set off.

Opening the RV’s door, Amadeus watched happily as Kirby ran out in front of him, tail wagging and tongue dangling cheerfully out of his mouth in the morning air. His pet coyote must have awoken when he had, with Amadeus simply not noticing due to his tiredness. He looked on for several seconds as the coyote sniffed around at the Arizona air, before shuffling off past their makeshift campsite towards the bushes and disappearing into their depths. Once Kirby was out of eyesight, Amadeus decided that he too should get down to business.

Striding forward, he set off down a dirt trail, taking the odd sip from his travel mug every so often. Within a couple of minutes, he found himself emerging on an old worn out road, on the edge of what appeared to be the top of a cliff. Not fazed however, he kept going, quickly passing by the “Grand Canyon” display board without little more than a glance. He stopped as he neared the edge, preparing himself both mentally and physically for what was to come.

He took another swig.

Peering over the edge, he finally laid eyes on it. The entire reason they were at this dreaded tourist trap. There, sleeping at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, was none other than the government’s own escaped personal Frankenstein’s monster; American Kaiju.

Today was going to be a blast.

[Nexus Prime]

May 1^st, 2016. Star City, California.

Silas King slammed both fists upon his desk, inadvertently scattering various documents and files that had been piled up on the edge. His chair creaked as the man leaned forward, dark eyes glaring at the unlucky messenger across from him.

"What do you mean the shipment was destroyed again? I told you assholes to increase security!"

The younger man flinched at the words screamed at him. He was just the poor sap who had gotten the unfortunate duty of informing King of the most recent raid, and had no authority to affect anything, security or otherwise, in the operation. But he wasn't foolish enough to remind Silas King of that fact. It was well known that King, a captain in one of the Pacific's largest drug cartels, had quite a temper, having earned his higher position for his ability to keep the lower lieutenants and their underlings in line through promises of brutal violence and retribution of any failure. It was also rumored that he was close to, and had the direct ear of, the Pusher Man himself. All in all, it was best not to give the already angered drug trafficker any more reason to be upset, the messenger decided.

"I'm sorry, sir, but this week's product we were going to ship to the Philippines was intercepted by --" His voice was cut off by another loud crash as Silas brought his fists back to the table even harder.

"It was her again, wasn't it?" Silas spat out the question, venom in his words, practically daring the courier to confirm what he already knew.

The messenger's eyes flicked back and forth, nervous to respond. He eyed the two guns in the room; one in the waistband of King's personal muscle, and the other to the right-hand side of his desk, just within arm's reach of the cartel captain.

"Y-yes, sir." He stammered out a response, tendrils of fear gripping at him. "Several of the men you had guarding the shipment, the conscious ones, all spoke of a woman in black who jumped them from the shadows."

Silas leaped out of his chair, sending it skirting back behind him and clattering against the wall. "That's the fourth fucking time this goddamned bitch has screwed with the shipments! We're losing product almost as fast as we can make it, and our business partners are beginning to question us!"

A metal cigar tray was flung across the room, nearly striking the now whimpering messenger in the temple, as King seethed at this latest misfortune.

"It's just a fucking girl," his screaming caused veins to start bulging from his neck. "This isn't Gotham, she isn't the goddamned Batman! I thought I hired dangerous men to guard the shipments, not fucking pussies!"

King reached for his handgun, tired of the incompetence of his employees and wanting to make a point of no longer tolerating its presence in the way his simple mind usually leaned towards. Just as he gripped the weapon, a new voice interjected the fury-filled silence.

"Sir, if I may make a suggestion."

King whirled around to face the owner of the voice. Red-headed and strikingly beautiful, she seemed out of place in a room belonging to the captain of a drug cartel. Her grey business attire definitely clashed with what the three criminals present wore - even the sniveling messenger was wearing an untucked, plain t-shirt, and sneakers. Her thin glasses framed green eyes, and she wore a polite smile as she spoke to her superior, unfazed by his tirade.

She was already talking again, not waiting for King to renew his shouting. "This woman who keeps disrupting operations is clearly skilled, at least enough to dispatch close to a dozen heavily armed men on multiple occasions. For all we know she isn't working alone. It is possible, after all, that she is merely the distraction while others attack from out of sight.

"Even still," she continued. "there are certain measures that can be taken to prevent this mystery woman from interfering again."

Silas King eyed her, his fury still present but his curiosity now piqued at her statement. His methods may be simple, but Silas wasn't stupid, he had already taken several precautions after the first instance, and with the most recent before this one he had more than doubled security at the docks. His supply of able men wasn't unlimited, though, and he couldn't continue to sacrifice them to this assailant indefinitely. So the notion that there could be a method he hadn't considered was worthwhile to hear out, he knew.

The woman before him, who looked more like an accountant than a member of an international drug trafficking organization, was named Sara White. She was the former adviser to one of his lieutenants in Washington state, and King's current counsel on intricate matters after his last had died in the flood caused by the April First Invasion. Sara had been highly praised by his lieutenant, having been instrumental in the evasion of law enforcement agencies in Seattle, and had been proving the same here in Star the past month. In fact, aside from the woman in black, his side of operations had been running smoother than ever before in recent times, and most of that could be attributed to Sara's newly valued advice and input.

"I'm listening," growled King. He still held the pistol in his right hand, but it was now at his side and pointed harmlessly at the floor. For the moment, at least.

***

Ten minutes later the messenger exited the room hurriedly, sweat clinging to his brow and soaking his hair as he quietly thanked every higher power he could think of that King's counsel had spoken up when she did, taking any and all heat that had been focused on him away. With Silas King's reputation as it was, the young man was confident that he had been mere seconds away from, at the very least, a case of shattered knee caps for merely being the proverbial bearer of bad news.

Following behind, at a much calmer pace, heels clicking against the wooden floor, came Sara White. As she left King's office and rounded the nearby corner, a subtle smirk broke across her face. It was the smirk of a woman who was very pleased with herself. It was also the smirk of a predator who had just laid out a very carefully planned trap, long in the making, for an unsuspecting prey. While Silas would believe this trap was intended for the woman in black that had been troubling him for weeks, the reality of the situation was going to be far more problematic for the cartel captain than he ever could have realized.

The well-dressed woman whispered to herself as she made her way outside of King's run-down complex. "Good job, Dinah. You've really outdone yourself."

[GreenGrenade]

_{Guest-starring @Nexus Prime as Captain James Gordon...}

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M A Y 2 N D, 2 0 1 6 ♦ T H E N A R R O W S ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y, N J

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Gotham was quiet. It seemed that it always was these days, what spirit it had beaten out of it when the skies filled with mortal gods, its people retreating into silence as they took time to mourn. But that wasn’t anything new. Ever since its establishment, it had been this way. Gotham was always mourning. This time, it just had a greater loss to grieve.

The crime scene was nestled between two run-down apartment blocks in the Narrows. The buildings were arranged in such a way that the alley was tucked into the shadows, away from prying eyes; it was the perfect place for a murder, covered by a pitch-black blanket in the night. The GCPD had cordoned off the area – yellow tape blocked the only entrance, police cruisers and officers stationed in front to usher away any curious passers-by. Remote area lighting was set up around the scene, CSI’s recording evidence in coveralls and masks.

Batman stood near the police barricade, hidden in darkness. Near him was Captain James Gordon. He still looked like the lieutenant the Bat had met six years ago, determined, ever the beacon of good amid the cesspool of corruption that was Gotham. He watched the crime scene from his spot near a cruiser, back straight; he carried himself with military-like discipline, unwilling to let himself slip on the job. But Batman could smell the cigarette smoke on his trench coat, stronger than usual, and the bags under his eyes told the same story: Jim was weary. But unlike most people – unlike Batman – he shouldered that weariness and the stress that came with it, and used it to fuel himself. If anything, Jim was more purposeful than ever.

“Jim,” said Batman.

Any other person would have jumped out of their skin, to be snuck up on like that. But Jim had been at this for six years. He didn’t even turn to look.

“Batman.”

“What can you tell me?”

“Three vics,” Jim began. “No identification yet, but we're working on it. Medical examiner tells me this was a precision job, and judging from the way the bodies were left I'd say this was a professional hit. Multiple contusions from blunt force trauma and several lacerations to the heads and torsos. Each had their throat slit right along the jugular. Someone with serious skill killed these men, and they did it fast enough that no defensive markings were left; these guys didn't stand a chance.”

The captain finally turned slightly to glance back at Batman. “Whoever did this is definitely in your area of expertise, which is why I called you in. That, and one other thing.”

Jim stepped to the side to allow the vigilante room to peer at the back end of the alley, and gestured with his right hand towards the brick wall there. “I think someone left you a message.”

One of the victims had been crucified to the wall, pinned by metal stakes. His throat opened up in a bloody smile, his head hanging low, the blood seeping into his clothing. It dripped onto the ground in steady drops, pooling four feet below him. To his right was a calling card, no doubt left by the killer, drawn in their victims’ blood –

An owl’s head, shining in red, its bloody ink trickling down the wall.

The other two victims lay on the ground below it like nothing more than discarded dolls, thrown away by a bored child who got tired of toying with them.

The owl could have meant any number of things. One was Leland Owlsley. He was a stretch; although he was based relatively close to Gotham in New York City, the crimelord didn’t have any reason to expand his operations, least of all in an underworld already undergoing a power struggle in the shadows of the Kryptonian Invasion. And to announce his presence so boldly, leaving a message for a vigilante that he most likely didn’t think of as anything more than a myth, didn’t fit his M.O.; he prided himself on his intelligence, and despite it, he often relied on his strength in combat – he didn’t showcase the skill required to kill these men so efficiently.

He was off the suspect list, for now.

The other potential culprits were so obscure that they bordered on near impossibility or myth. The White Owl had long been incarcerated, and the Court of Owls was nothing more than a nursery rhyme told to the children of Gotham and Blüdhaven to scare them into behaving. Their Talons were nothing more than words spun into nightmarish thoughts, and although thoughts could kill… it was never this gruesome.

“Pennywise,” said Batman, holding his fingers to the button activating his comm-link. “Are you seeing this?”

The lenses over his eyes were streaming the Batcave everything he saw.

“That I can, sir,” replied Alfred.

“I need you to look for anything that might be linked to this owl symbol. People, organisations – everything. Anyone that might be skilled enough to kill these men without a struggle. Send over what you find.”

“Of course, sir.”

Batman ducked beneath the yellow tape – “CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS” – the crime scene investigators giving him a wide berth as he traversed the alley. He stopped in front of the bodies, taking in every detail. His cowl’s HUD fed him information; their approximate height and weight, the measurements of the lacerations that covered them, estimations made by programs he’d created to aid him in his investigations. The victims were tall, all above six feet; they had muscle to accompany their height, with little fat to it, looking to be around one hundred and ninety pounds in weight. Whoever killed them had to be fast and strong to leave them so defenceless – a common crook would have been faced with a challenge, the victims’ strength and number an advantage against one man with a knife.

The lacerations were long and deep. Exempting the throat cuts, they were about seven inches in length, some cutting through skin, flesh and muscle to the bone – those on the victims’ faces were smaller in comparison, little more than scratches. Weapon likely had a spear-point blade, noted Batman, Lacerations missed any vitals – purposeful. The killer wanted to cause pain. Toyed with them. Angles of the cuts suggest that they’re left-handed.

The victims’ skin broke where the contusions stained it, patches of blue amid drops of red. Blunt force likely exerted through fists. Tissue disruption indicates the use of brass knuckles. Hits were hard – the cause of death. Throats were slit post-mortem.

Jim said that the police were yet to identify the victims. It would take too long to wait for them to get a match, waste too much time – time that the killer could spend finding their next target. That was a risk Batman couldn’t take. Using the screen on his left gauntlet, he ran pictures of the victims through his own facial recognition software, containing data from the GCPD, FBI, CIA, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Interpol. He got a match within seconds.

Happy Ackerman. Dutch Hancock. Koby Hillam. Small-time crooks turned big-time thugs, wanted for multiple counts of assault and battery, grand larceny and armed robbery. Their employer: Edward Nashton. The Riddler.

Currently held within Arkham Asylum.

“Pennywise. Anything?” Batman asked through his comm-link.

“I’m afraid not, sir. But you might want to beware of the Talon. Just look at how it’s left these gentlemen,” deadpanned Alfred.

Batman ducked under the tape once more, coming to stand next to Jim in the shadows. The more he ran the possibilities through his head, the more he was beginning to think that the killer was a new player. Who this new player was, he didn’t know – but the information he gathered from the crime scene should help push him in the right direction. The victims were scum, but the killer was even more so. Innocent or not, they didn’t deserve to die.

“The killer’s left-handed, likely a male,” said Batman. “He used a spear-point blade, probably a knife. All lacerations but their slit throat were made with the intent to hurt, not kill. Whoever he is, he’s skilled enough to toy with his victims.”

“Yeah,” Jim glanced up at the body pinned to the wall, the man's face permanently distorted in pain from the moment of death. "I get the distinct feeling this guy had motives other than simple murder; playing with his victims before finishing them off like some sick predator definitely fits in line with that. A killer with professional talent like this wouldn't have left us so many clues if he didn't want to, or enjoy it.”

Batman nodded, continuing. “The victims died from blunt force trauma. The killer hit hard, with technique. He used some form of brass knuckles. Slit their throats after their deaths.”

“Thanks. I appreciate you coming in on this, Batman. I'm swamped with other cases as it is, and I still have the mayor breathing down my neck about clean up operations in the lower districts...”

The older man stopped, stroking his moustache lightly as he studied Batman's crouched form. James Gordon had spent enough time around and with this particular vigilante to recognise that certain aspects were off; that something had changed ever since that incident with that clown creep last year. Batman could try and hide it behind his cape and cowl, put on a façade of indifference that was to be expected, and most people would buy. Most people thought the caped crusader was some sort of legend far beyond the understanding of mortal men. But Captain Gordon understood what Batman really was, and that even the so-called "Dark Knight" could be affected by horror and tragedy.

“And Barbara will be coming back from university soon, so I've got that to prepare for,” said Jim, changing the subject. “I know she loves being independent and self-reliant these days, but I'll be more than glad when she's home again.”

Hidden from Jim behind his cowl’s lenses, Batman’s eyes rose to meet the captain’s. He hadn’t seen Barbara in a long time. Ever since she decided to lay the Batgirl to rest in pursuit of a better future – one outside of a coffin – she and Batman had maintained contact, although the effort was mostly coming from her. Alfred liked to presume that it was because her departure had hurt Batman, and if the vigilante was to be honest with himself – a rare occurrence – Alfred was right. It was why, when she’d heard of what the… clown… had done, of what he’d forced Batman to see, and called him to give him a shoulder to lean on, he did what he’d done to everyone else, and pushed her away. It was why Dick had left, in part. Batman didn’t blame him.

“She's doing great, though. Really proud of her and the future she's making for herself,” Jim went on. “She still asks about you when we talk on the phone, you know, not that I can ever tell her much. I'm sure she'd want to hear how you're doing, though. Make sure her hero and saviour is as well off as she's been. If you want to give me something I can tell Barbara to put her at ease that you're doing alright, I'll be sure to let her know...”

“Tell her I’m fine, Jim. She has no need to worry about me.”

A giggle, somewhere in the far recesses of his mind. A pale face. An insane smile. They flashed across his vision, replacing Jim for just a split second – ushering a wince that caused the captain to frown.

The shadows grinned at him. “You’re lyyyyy-ing,” they sang.

“Right,” Jim said, dubious. “I’m sure she doesn’t.”

His doubt hung in the air, like a bad smell. After a few seconds, Batman broke the silence, turning away. “Take care of yourself, Jim.”

“You too, Batman.”

Batman withdrew his grapnel gun from his belt, aiming at the roof above him. He pulled the trigger, the wire shooting out with speed, its clawed end clasping onto the edge with an audible impact. Pulled taut, the gun worked to carry Batman up, whirring in the process. He climbed from the edge of the roof with ease, walking west to the corner where he’d parked the Batmobile. The night wasn’t coming to an end; not yet. He had someone he wanted to talk to first. The Riddler was about to get an unexpected visit.

A camera flashed on the neighbouring rooftop. It went unnoticed by Batman, its owner smiling in the evening gloom.

“Perfect.”

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V I C K I V A L E ' S P E N T H O U S E ♦ T H E F A S H I O N D I S T R I C T ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y, N J

It felt good to write again. Ever since Vicki Vale had received the offer to host her own show, she found that the time she once had to sit down in front of her laptop and write – truly write – came few and far between. Now her time was spent interviewing celebrities with questions that were not her own, and talking about news she had not covered or delivered herself. She often felt like the Vicki Vale Show was only hers in name, and she supposed that that was exactly what she’d bargained for, just like anyone else in showbusiness did – but the bitterness still remained, a part of her that wished she could do what she loved as she liked it, not as her producers did. It was why she’d jumped at the offer to keep writing for the Gotham Gazette as a guest columnist; her time as the newspaper’s star journalist was time she looked back on with yearning – the piece she wrote on Carmine Falcone’s fall was still the one she was proudest of.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she was writing now. It was part-tribute, part-recount; a piece on the Kryptonian Invasion in remembrance of those that died, commending the endurance of human spirit, while at the same time speaking against the storm of hate aimed at metahumans that came after the tragedy. The words had started to flow out of her the moment she sat down, and now, three hours later, a monster displayed itself on her computer screen, only continuing to grow with every press of the keyboard. She’d hit a groove, and she knew it. The words spilled onto the screen in a flurry of passion, the building blocks of what would surely take the place of her Falcone piece as the best article she’d ever written, and –

Her phone buzzed, snapping her out of her trance. Just like that, the magic was gone.

Vicki sighed, tucking a lock of her red hair behind her ear. It was probably Bruce; he hadn’t been returning her calls, and it was just like him to send an apologetic text at this hour of night. She didn’t blame him. He was doing an admirable job in his effort to help rebuild Gotham, no doubt too busy to even consider catching up with friends. Picking up her phone, she frowned – the text was from an unknown sender. She entered her passcode.

Her gasp penetrated the silence of her apartment. The message definitely wasn’t from Bruce.

It was a picture of a rooftop, darkness swallowing the light, making the photo grainy at best – but the figure that stood at its centre, back to the camera, devil horns piercing the air and cape suspended mid-flow, was undeniable in its apparent identity.

Below the attachment was a caption to accompany it, sending chills through Vicki’s spine, confirming her suspicions:

Where’s Batsy?

She fumbled to respond to the text, her nerves getting the better of her as she struggled to type the right letters. She knew that she should be deleting the messages, wiping them from her phone’s, and her own, memory. She couldn’t afford to get distracted by what was most likely a hoax. She’d had her run through the rumour mill; she’d heard stories of the Bat, ranging from a demon that preyed on men in the dark of night, to those claiming that he was nothing more than a myth spun by the GCPD to strike fear into the hearts of criminals. But her curiosity, her excitement, got the better of her, and she sent her mystery contact a reply.

Who are you?

Three dots appeared on her phone for four agonisingly long seconds before a new text arrived. It was cryptic, giving nothing away and yet raising gooseflesh all the same. Just two words.

A messenger.

[Dblade26]

New York City,
Chinatown
The Wrong Neighborhood

Danny was pretty sure what he was looking at was some rundown, disturbingly soiled alley in Chinatown instead of a bar, but when he asked about it the old man who called himself Orson seemed to cling to his own sense of mystery like it was a cane keeping him standing. Danny definitely hoped they weren't drinking here, he was pretty sure one of the rats he'd seen scurrying off was as big as some humans and the door they were standing in front of now was stained with what he was hoping was rust. Fear of enclosed spaces wasn't natural to him, but this alleyway truly made him feel like the walls were leaning in. They pressed up against him like his tormentors at school and gave him a distinct feeling of 'you do not belong here, move on' that went beyond his discomfort at the feeling of griminess that seemed to float through the air and settle on every surface like some sort of corrupted psychic snowfall.

Orson for his part seemed completely at home, whistling a little tune Danny couldn't place as he strode right up to the door with a little bit of dance to his movements. He knocked out a pattern on the door like he expected to be welcomed in, a big grin on his face even as a pair of hostile eyes came into view with the little metallic clack of a shutter being opened. Danny hung back, instinctively shrinking from those eyes as they darted around like the pupils wanted to break free from the whites in pursuit of their own ocular dreams before settling on Orson and narrowing down with knife-like sharpness. A voice, slightly raspy and muffled behind the door's metal but identifiable as human:

"Who knocks thrice upon the shady mansion gate?"

Orson's voice had the tone of long practiced ritual on it to Danny's ears, as solemn and memorized as any of the Thunderer's teachings:

"One who sees his reflection in the lakes and rivers."

A pause then as Danny held his breath expectantly though he didn't know exactly what he was waiting for except that he knew that something was going on. Despite his confusion the younger Iron Fist waited for the result.

"Are you shitting me, old man? Listen up grandpa, I dunno how long you've been out of the game for but you can't just go around throwing out sixty year old code responses and expect to get anywhere! You and junior over there are lucky I don't get some guys to beat you both senseless! and another thing-"

Orson just sighed and raised his hand in response to the doorkeeper's irritated tirade, a phantasmal greenish light filling the alley as he made the movement. Danny crept forward again and strained to see exactly what it was his apparent predecessor was doing as a soft, serpentine hiss altogether different from the incendiary crackle of the Iron Fist technique arose with the glow. He saw Orson's fingers weave through complex patterns, the legs of a spider dancing at the center of a web of light. He spoke in a calm, measured voice as his fingers continued to flutter through a pattern of luminescent hand-signs the likes of which Danny had never seen

"You're mistaken. Our credentials are in order, aren't you happy to see us?"

The voice answered back, this time oddly flat and emotionless.

"Oh, of course. Please come in, honored elder."

The strange feeling of unease faded away as the door opened wide to reveal...well, not much. The doorkeeper was dressed like an old-fashioned east asian stage hand or maybe a ninja, the tight full-body black cloth outfit still revealing nothing but his glassed over eyes. Behind him was just a cement staircase that spiraled downward with no real illumination, though a muddle of faint but raucous sounds drifted up from it to Danny's ears. Orson strode in slightly angrier now, muttering under his breath as he started down the spiraling descent into darkness. Danny felt his way along the damp wall more cautiously, though he was left more disoriented by everything he'd just witnessed than any shadowed stairway.

"Orson? Orson what's going? Secret code phrases, some sort of underground speakeasy in Chinatown, and what about that mystical hypnosis thing with your hand?"

Danny received no reply, only the echo of their footsteps on cement steps and the ruckus from below growing louder and more distinct.

"Orson seriously, what is all this?"

Orson's footsteps stopped and Danny could only guess they'd reached the doorway, though in the darkness all he could see was the back of the old man's coat. He did speak up then, over the creak of the door being opened.

"Ain't it obvious? It's your first step into a wider world, kid."

A sudden flood of light and stinging smoke assaulted Danny's eyes and left him temporarily blind as his vision adjusted from the empty darkness of the entryway, but even without vision the rooms laid out before him were striking.

With the door no longer muffling noise he could follow currents in the ocean of sound. Chatter and yelling in half a dozen or more languages filled his ears, the glottal twang of Cantonese interspersed with more crisply clipped yet harsh Mandarin and even the flowing singsong of the K'un-L'un dialects were recognizable, though occasional slips into English stood out to him most readily. Dice clattered in bowls and tiles clacked down on tables to shouts of victory or defeat and somewhere further off food sizzled. Beyond all of that flowed the notes of some piece for an erhu and guzheng duet from a distant corner, serenity in the midst of all the cacophony.

A further step inside and he was surrounded by smells, beginning with the pungent smoke that seemed to fill his brain up with fuzz until he willed it away with the Thunderer's training. There was more in the air than the haze of drugs. The char of sizzling meat, the cleaner smoke of open flame, the accent of more spices and perfumes than he could name or number all drifted through the room. Without even being able to see, he felt like he'd suddenly moved several centuries and half a world away from New York City. It felt...comfortable in a way that life just hadn't since he'd left K'un-L'un.

He blinked tears away for more than one reason as his sight returned, showing him a room brightly lit with electric lighting despite the smoke that hung in the air and a decor that looked like a Qing dynasty gambling hall fused with a teahouse, or to Danny's mind something out of the seedier portions of K'un-L'un that he'd sneaked a look at as a young child. Servants in black qipao and changshan with faces concealed by silver masks drifted from table to table taking orders and delivering food, tea and alcohol bustling between the main area and a pair of continuously swinging kitchen doors. In the far right corner a pair of similarly masked musicians played as he'd pictured them while customers came and went through a large doorway in the back covered by red and gold curtains that seemed to be the source of most of the smoke, shouting and sounds of gambling.

Orson had already taken a seat at the center of the room and started signaling to the masked attendants, though instead of waving Danny over he pointed over Danny's left shoulder. The boy turned to see that the wall was taken up by a series of racks holding golden masks similar to the ones worn by the staff, nodding to Orson as he slipped one over his face. they'd been lucky so far that no one had recognized him as a public figure. The heir to a multi-billion dollar conglomerate showing up in a place like this would probably raise some eyebrows. Besides, it might not have been the Iron Fist mask, but it was close enough to feel comfortable to him. He took a seat to Orson's right at the table as the old man started signaling to a waiter that glided over with steps that were conspicuously silent even through all the noise. As Orson ordered Danny looked around still rather amazed at his surroundings.

"Don't even offer, No booze. but gimme peach juice, I'm an old man who's gotta watch his health y'know."

The silvered face nodded "Very good, and for the Young Master?"

"Get the kid jasmine tea, he'll need to steady his nerves for the night ahead. A whole pot's worth, not just a cup, after all ya never know."

The waiter departed and Orson started taking tooth-picks out of a container at their table and laying them out in different ways, snapping some and placing the fragments just so, apparently bored enough to play games despite studying the pattern he was making with razor focus. His indifference in the face of Danny's obvious curiosity at everything frustrated the younger man, so naturally he started pelting him with questions again.

"Seriously, there's just some secret...what, kung fu social club hidden in New York that I don't know about? Are there other places like this? Besides that, what are we doing here? I mean I know we're finding a fragment of the stone, but how? and-"

Orson held up a hand.

"Look, I can't exactly explain all the nuances of several centuries worth of secret societies and history to ya in one go kid but I can see I'm not gonna get any peace until I dole out some wisdom so here's the basics. Between the world where you've been gettin' your head dunked in toilets by punks ya could kill six ways from Sunday and the other world where they treat ya like a mix between a grand-high prince and a slave just 'cause ya beat one dragon in a fistfight, there's a middle ground. It's got a whole mess of names. The Jianghu, The Wulin, the Martial Brotherhood, the Heroes' Hall, whatever you call it it's more or less the same thing. Some of us might wear masks, go by fancy names like you and me but we aren't the same as the 'capes and underoos on the outside' crowd even if we get involved with 'em nowadays. We're older than that, much older and we have our own rules, our own culture, our own traditions. Places like this are a gathering spot for those that belong in our world, not just in New York but worldwide. All the sorcerers, the ghosts, the demons, the ancient kung fu vendettas and secrets within secrets, ya didn't leave 'em behind when you left K'un-L'un. It's just here the ninjas might spent their off-hours as lawyers and sometimes the demons pack guns."

If Danny thought he was overwhelmed by his situation before, his head was really spinning now, his whole notion of the world turned on its' head. Obviously he'd known that the mortal world had magic and monsters and superhuman heroes of its' own, but this was different. This was a world he could understand, where he might even belong, right here under his nose. For the first time in a long time he felt...hope, even happiness. If this was the world he needed to hunt through in order to find his father's killers then maybe it really was possible, maybe he hadn't given up immortality in paradise for nothing. Maybe there could even be a real life for him, both as Danny Rand and Iron Fist.

"But...why didn't the Thunderer and the Yu-Ti tell me about any of this?"

Orson frowned at his young masked accomplice as he set another toothpick down "There's...a lot they haven't told you about, Danny. The hypnotic technique, me being alive, all this is only the start of it. For one thing-"

"Orson Rand you old warhorse!"

Danny looked back towards the curtains to see a man with Chinese features wearing an odd red and black jumpsuit, grinning from ear to ear as he approached them. There was something...very, very familiar about the man's features to Danny though for the life of him he was sure he'd never seen him before. Beyond the odd sense of familiarity, Danny noticed the way the man moved. Even just while walking across the room he displayed perfect economy of motion, effortless grace and readiness. Danny had never seen anything like it and he had learned from Lei-Kung and other immortals with centuries if not millenniums of training and experience. Orson didn't stand to greet the newcomer, but he did go from grimace to grin at the sight of him.

"Shang Chi you unchanging bastard, the years've been too good to ya! So I'm guessing ya got my message about the ah..." Orson pointed down at the table and Danny's gaze followed his finger to the mess of toothpicks on the tabletop for the first time. For an instant he was shocked to see that rather than some careless idly placed jumble or game, the little fragments had been carefully arranged in the shape of the personal sigil of Lei-Kung the Thunderer. That quick glimpse was all the young martial artist was able to get as Orson's hand swiped across the table with speed Danny hadn't thought him capable of as soon as he got a terse nod from the new arrival.

"It should all be arranged. I take it this is the boy you told me about?" He turned to regard Danny with an easygoing smile "Welcome to a strange new world, you can call me Brother Shang. A companion of Orson's is a companion of mine. I'm in New York fairly often, so be sure to seek me out if you ever need help in the future alright? But for now-"

Orson stood up abruptly "For now he and I have a deal to finalize and details to go over. Stay here and stay outta trouble, kid. Just...treat things like K'un-L'un and you should be fine."

Danny was definitely annoyed at having his questions cut off and being left out of whatever it was they were planning, but as the two men walked off toward the rowdiness in the back he figured he might as well just wait and find out once they were done. There was no sense risking his one shot at moving toward revenge, after all. Instead he waited for the tea to arrive, sipping on it while enjoying the homey if lively atmosphere of the odd club and contemplating all that Orson had revealed so far and what the old man's very existence implied for everything he thought he knew about his life, his father and K'un-L'un.

He was lost in thought like that until an astonishingly immense set of hands clapped down on the table from behind him. Cursing himself internally for becoming so distracted Danny looked back and up at a massive ogre of a man, close enough that Danny could not only feel the heat of his breath but unfortunately the stench of it too. His face was red with rage and his mustache flared as he bellowed:

"Boy, you sit at the table of Khumballa The Mountain, Champion of the wrestling pits of Halwan! Remove yourself or be crushed!"

Danny had had just about enough of being ordered around without explanation lately, it was bad enough when Orson had done it let alone some big thug.

"Are you going to sit at the table or eat it? If it's the first one you're welcome to join me, though with an ass as fat as yours I can see why you'd need all four chairs. I guess if nothing else the tea might improve your reeking bre-aack!"

The strangled noise was caused by both hands and the python-like arms they were attached to suddenly wrapping around Danny's torso in a grip that would have quickly cracked the boy's ribs if he had reinforced himself with qi an instant slower. Danny whipped his head back to crack into the big wrestler's face with a satisfying crunch that left a warm little spray of blood on the back of his head and made the larger man yowl with pain and drop him. As he whirled around and caught his opponent in the side of the head with an elbow that cut across his already battered face, Danny was still struggling to catch his breath. Because of that his strikes lacked force and speed and Khumballa caught the driving punch of the followup Ram's Head Blow that should have felled him in his own massive fist. He pulled the younger and smaller martial artist into another crushing grip, though Danny wasn't sure if strangulation or stench was the bigger threat, pressed as he was into unenviable levels of closeness to the big man's chest. He attempted knee strikes, foot stomps, trips and even nerve strikes to the shins with his feet despite having his arms pinned but it was like wrestling with an elephant. As darkness started closing in and oxygen became a distant memory Danny began to reach for his qi to take the fight to the next level, though he worried about accidentally killing the big bruiser.

"Now boy, you will meet your end in my Grip of Death. It is too good a death for you, but-"

Whatever Khumballa was going to say next was drowned out in a shower of ceramics, hissing hot tea on flesh and nasally howling as he released Danny, clutching at his even further ruined face.

"I toldja you'd need the whole pot for your nerves kid!" Orson had apparently crept up from behind, snatched up the teapot and smashed it and its contents into the wrestling champion's face in defiance of every conception of honor. The younger Iron Fist watched with a mix of admiration and disgust as, Without waiting for the big brawler to recover Orson picked up a chair from another table, broke it over Khumballa's head to drive him to his knees and finished him off with a perfectly executed version of Danny's failed Ram's head blow to the back of the skull. The punch sent him slumping unconscious if not dead onto the table he'd angrily claimed.

"Now that is how ya win a bar fight. Consider that lesson one. When I said treat the place like K'un-L'un I didn't mean get into fights with the locals and treat it like one of Lei-Kung's duels. Now c'mon, now that I've already taken you and this dope to school, we're going on a field trip."

Orson stalked out as Danny looked around at the bits of chair and teapot, the collapsed thug and the shocked patrons and staff alike before taking out his wallet. He casually took out a small stack of hundreds and slapped them down at the table. "Some of it's for dinner but most of it's for the show. Looking forward to coming back again!"

Danny followed Orson out in a hurry past the once again hypnotized door guard, dropping the mask as he went. "So where are we going now?"

Orson turned to look at the boy with the sort of smile that said he was once again clinging to secrets "Liberty Island. Right after we change, Shang Chi said to expect assassins and maybe a dragon so y'know...make sure to dress appropriately."

For the first time in what felt like forever, Danny realized that he was smiling too.

[Dblade26]

Liberty Island,
Racing Against Time

Before Danny knew it they were on a nighttime speed boat headed to the Statue of Liberty, which if it weren't being piloted by some very military-looking guys in ski masks would have struck Danny as illegal as hell all by itself. Asking about them had just made Orson grin again and mention that Shang Chi had friends in high places. The traditional masked garb of the Iron Fist gave little protection against the spray of the harbor as it mixed with the cool night air, but it was hardly equal to the icy mountains of K'un-L'un and putting it on for the first time since the Kryptonian invasion gave him more comfort than warm clothes and a windbreaker ever could.

There were shouted instructions over the sound of the engine and the whipping of the wind from the lead ski mask, but before Danny knew it he and Orson were disembarking on the island alone, rushing toward the entrance at the base on foot. It all seemed easy enough up until they were just in sight of the initial entrance, when three figures stepped into view to block the only easy access point. As they moved closer, Danny couldn't help but notice that one of them moved with almost the same easy grace and constant readiness as Shang Chi, a man with East Asian features and an odd tattoo partly visible under his shirt of a snarling black cat. The man beside the tattooed one wore more weapons than he did clothes and a black mask that concealed his features other than a bright red ponytail in the back. What he lacked in grace and control he made up for in swagger and steel. He had a sword sheathed behind each shoulder, a glaive in his hands and so many daggers sheathed all along his waistline and on straps across his barbarian action-figure-like chest that Danny wondered how he didn't clang and jangle as he moved. Even his boots and the bracers on his wrists looked metal lined. But trailing behind the other two was the man that drew Danny's attention the most, without any need for an armory's worth of ancient weaponry, an outlandish outfit or a mysterious chest marking.

In fact he was wearing a black suit and tie of the sort that Danny's admittedly shallow knowledge of upper class society told him said 'I already own everything here, you just don't know it yet' without also screaming 'tasteless' and shoes that were the exact level of uncomfortable to announce he was too rich to ever be a pedestrian. On the other hand they were accented by what Joy Meachum would call 'an unforgivable fashion sin' in the form of sunglasses at night. His fashion sense at a Kung Fu duel was hardly the only thing that alarmed Danny. No, what was far more important was the way he stood there radiating pure power. It pressed Danny down, seared against Danny's skin and shimmered in the air between them like heat off of a bonfire. It was a presence like he'd only felt once before but he recognized it instantly: Shou-Lao the Undying.

This was a dragon in human skin.

As if to prove the point he smiled, briefly revealing teeth more at home in a shark's mouth and the flickering purple of a forked tongue before an illusion shifted it back into a businessman's cold-blooded grin.

Danny fell into a wary fighting stance, but Orson's stepped out in front of him and moved to bar him from engaging the three. He nodded to the dragon.

"So Chiantang, ya brought The Cat and Zaran the Weaponmaster. Shang's told me they're good."

The Cat spoke up next, a genial if predatory flash of teeth accompanying his words "You know us, but we don't know you. The two of you both wear the symbol of the Immortal Iron Fist, but it's been nearly seventy years since the Last Iron Fist died. So what does that make you two?" Zaran chimed in, "If I'm about to add a couple of K'un-L'un Immortals to my kill count, I'd at least like a name or title to throw out when I'm listing my feats for the ladies."

This, at least, Danny understood. His honor as a warrior of K'un-L'un demanded he list off his title and deeds before they fought in order to show proper respect for each other's prowess as fighters. The dragon spoke up before Danny could get a chance to respond though.

"They're no one of consequence. Just an old man clinging to the ghosts of the past and a boy who's barely earned the mark he wears."

"Y'know if you're hesitant about my reputation you could always ask the last dragon I faced! Oh, wait..."

The dragon's forked tongue slithered out again past his illusory smile and despite his boast Danny suppressed the urge to shiver at the memories of Shou-Lao that sight evoked. "The boy has spirit, Randall. When the Anomaly Fragment restores me, I believe my first act will be to make you watch as I devour him."

Danny readied another retort as much to steel himself as mock the monster, but all of them were cut short as a sixth voice echoed out into the night around them.

"Foolish serpent. None of you will leave here with the fragment or your lives, for it belongs to my Master."

The darker shadows around the already gathered fighters slowly pooled into humanoid form and solidified until they became a shape that had haunted Danny's dreams at night, driven him to train for ten long years, been the fixture of his endless fantasies of revenge since he was six years old. It was the ghost ninja that fought his father, multiple copies of the specter already rising up to surround them, all speaking as one.

"Iron Fists, Dragon, Warriors...it matters not who you are, all will serve my Master or die."

Danny's body practically moved on its' own, every second of training, of mourning, of plotting revenge distilled down into one lunging punch. His fist obliterated that masked face effortlessly, hands barely feeling a thing as they passed through and the phantasmal body collapsed. It was cathartic, almost therapeutic to finally have a target for all the pain in his life, to fight back against the things that had terrorized him for what seemed like his entire life.

Unfortunately it was about as effective as throwing a pebble into a river and two more images of the Ghost Ninja rose up to take the defeated one's place. The layered laughter from their legion of identical throats grated on his mind and for a long instant he wanted nothing more than to silence them, to fight against them no matter how many came at him like his father had.

"Kid I'll take care of this! don't let Chiantang get the fragment!"

Orson's words snapped Danny back into awareness of the situation in time to see the dragon fleeing inside at high speed, using the distraction of the ninja and the interposed bodies of the two mercenaries men to get ahead. Years of training in the Light Body Technique and the endless possibilities of qi meant it was effortless for Danny to leap up and over both of the mercenaries and the Ghost Ninja and land at the entrance to the monument and only a fraction of a second passed between that and him taking off in hot pursuit of the suit-wearing serpent.

Uncomfortable shoes or no, Chiantang seemed to have no problem keeping ahead of Danny despite his best efforts being considerably faster than even the best athletes at full sprint. It was all Danny could do to keep the dragon in his sights, ignoring the entrances, the museum and most annoyingly the endless number of stairs they rushed over for what seemed like ages as they raced to the top, the journey punctuated by what sounded like occasional explosions from the battle outside. At last they reached the topmost point of the statue's interior, but there was no time for Danny to catch his breath or admire the view as Chiantang darted over to an alcove that was home to a narrow, rickety latter. It was forty feet straight up to the hatch but he made the inhuman vertical leap with style as he punched it open like it was made of wet tissue paper. Even with a body that moved like it was lighter than air Danny couldn't replicate the feat. He had to leap and pull himself up into further leaps off of the rungs before he sailed into the night air and touched down on the small platform that was the Statue of Liberty's Torch. It was a small, circular walkway ringed by small floodlights highlighting the golden, electronic glow of the torch that made Chiantang in his black suit and shades seem even darker and more harshly outlined, darker even than the night sky above them. The platform was open to the frigid night air buckled and swayed slightly in the wind and Danny had to struggle to maintain his balance before training took over and helped him start making automatic adjustments and he was able to focus on the task at hand.

It had taken a ridiculous foot chase, but he had finally caught the dragon and-

Crap, he'd finally caught the dragon.

Chiantang gave him a very toothy grin.

"Excellent work boy! Now tell me, what exactly was your plan after following me up here alone?"

Danny shot back as cocky a smile as he could manage without giving away his fear.

"Well I'm the Iron Fist so I kinda figured I'd slay you y'know, with my bare hands and all. It's kind of in the job description."

Chiantang spread his arms wide, stance relaxed, mocking. "By all means, try."

Danny focused as hard as he could on his opponent. Forget the swaying of the platform, the howling high altitude winds, the searing pressure of a dragon's qi, the fear: there was nothing but himself and his enemy. As everything else faded away, he struck. He was an arrow loosed from the bowstring, momentum and energy and sharp piercing death personified, the driving thrust of a spearhand strike ready to claim another dragon's heart.

Chiantang brushed the deathblow aside with all the concern of a man clearing cobwebs, his speed a wondrous terror even to Danny's qi-enhanced reflexes. Danny stepped in, cut upwards with his elbow, saw surprise register on the dragon's face the instant before it snapped upward from the impact. The sunglasses flew free of Chiantang and seemed to drift lazily down in the wind to Danny's slowed sense of time though he was already moving into his next attack. It didn't matter. Chiantang was so much faster than he'd thought possible that a hand was wrapped around his throat and lifting him into the air before he could react. As the world rushed back into normal time Danny noticed just why he wore those sunglasses. Even in human form Chiantang had the slit-eyed pupils of a snake, irises that smoldered golden in black, white-less sockets. The grimace he gave the teenage Iron Fist made crocodiles look downright lovable and the dark blood that dripped from his mouth only made things more like a monster movie as Danny struggled to breathe.

"Seventy years. Seventy years since one of you arrogant apes has been able to strike me, to make me bleed. I believe you now, boy. I believe you're an Iron Fist, because no other human can vex me, can inspire me to hatred like your kind. Even after your K'un-L'un sorcery bound me in this wretched prison of flesh and cast me out into this world of stinking monkeys, even after I was forced to claw and crawl and kill my way to the top of the dung pile just to be worshiped as a dragon should, even after countless centuries you still drive me to madness! You who stole a dragon's fire! Well no more! Now it will be an Iron Fist's qi that powers the spell to restore me, just as soon as I burn you to a soot stain and a memory!"

He threw Danny hard onto the platform and his head slammed against the base of Liberty's flame. He saw stars for an instant before he pulled himself together only to see Chiantang looming over him, mouth gaping inhumanly wide as roiling smoke and fire surged forth in a pretty good imitation of a portal to hell. Danny scrambled backward in desperation, certain that his second time facing a dragon was about to end much more fatally than the first. But his fingers brushed something, something he could feel even hidden in a hollow of the metal base of the torch's flame, a thrumming, pulsing energy like a beating heart. It called to his own heart, behind the dragon brand on his chest and before he knew what he was doing he reached out with his own qi, calling in return and then-

Then he was a fragment of the Heart of the World, he was the Heart of the Dragon. The first thing he noticed was that he was filled with a burning, brilliant energy and an awareness of just how extraordinary that felt. He had been a smoldering coal deprived of oxygen, now suddenly he was kindled into a true flame, awakened to a higher state of being. Danny could have marveled at it all for days or weeks, but there was a presence there with him, dragging him back to the here and now where he was in danger. He saw it all with perfect clarity. Chiantang's fire would burn him to ash, he would retrieve the Anomaly Stone Fragment from his sooty remains, a dragon would rampage through New York City.

It doesn't have to be that way. That presence again, this time guiding his qi as well as his thoughts. It was so elegant, so simple. They were the Heart of the Dragon, they had nothing to fear from a dragon's fire.

The flames struck Danny and internally the part of him that was still him flinched, expecting an agonizing, burning death. But the only thing that burned away was the top half of his outfit as the flames were sucked into the dragon mark on his chest, as Chiantang's fire became his fire, his power. He rose calmly to his feet as the black suited dragon stood stupefied, mouth still distended in reptilian shock.

"I am the Thirty-Sixth Iron Fist, Immortal Weapon of K'un-L'un. I gave up paradise and eternal life for this power and as long as I draw breath, I'm going to use it to fight, to hold back the storm when no one else can."

Danny had no idea exactly what the words meant, but he knew he had to say them and he knew what came next. He poured all of his energy, from the fragment, from Chiantang's fire, from the Qi of Shou-Lao and from everything that made him Daniel Thomas Rand-Kai right into his fist. He kept going until it began to smolder, to glow, until it became like unto a thing of iron.

You want an Iron Fist's qi? Here it is."

For just an instant and for the first time in its history, Liberty's Torch blazed with a very real, blindingly bright golden fire. Danny was pretty sure someone who looked at just the right time might see a peculiar, human-shaped skipping stone get thrown out across the water.

"And...that...is how I slay dragons."

He passed out for the second time in twenty-four hours. But this time he slipped unconscious with a smile on his face.

---

It all wrapped up pretty neatly after that as far as Danny could tell. The mercenaries gave up the fight and fled after their boss, in Orson's words 'got thrown clear across to Battery Park' and the Ghost Ninja withdrew as suddenly as he'd arrived as soon as he'd sensed the fragment's energy unleashed. By the time he'd woken up they were already being evacuated by boat thanks to Shang Chi's 'friends' while Orson discussed just how they planned to contain the fragment's energy. Danny didn't remember much of it, just bits and pieces while he tried to pull himself together.

Really, the next time he was able to think clearly and take things in he was already changed and in front of the door into the building he lived in with Joy Meachum. He looked over at Orson and grimaced.

"She's going to kill me, you know."

Orson laughed and shrugged his shoulders, stepping back from the doorway as if to distance himself emotionally too.

"Family's one area you've got me beat at, kid. You're gonna have to fight this battle alone. But hey, you just channeled the spirit of an ancient warrior and punched a dragon off the Statue of Liberty. You can handle a dame, right? Besides I've gotta get going, make sure the fragment's secure with Shang's people, get looking for the next fragment, tie up loose ends that sorta thing. But hey I'll be around. Heaven's Will is Wide an' all."

The distinctly K'un-L'unan phrase coming out of Orson's mouth made Danny's mouth quirk into a smile. He almost hated to admit it, but the insane day he'd spent with the old man had made him feel more alive than any other time since he'd left K'un-L'un. Not just because he was finally on a path to finding out more about his father's killers but because well...it all just felt right.

"Hey old man, you sure you don't want to stay, we could-

Orson was gone, because of course he was gone. Danny sighed and marched through the doors, bracing himself to face the other part of his life.

---

He had expected shouting, threats of military boarding schools or maybe even giving him up to be the state's problem. Tears and an embrace were the last thing he was prepared for, to the point that he had to suppress an initial reaction to treat it as an attack and act accordingly.

"Aren't you mad?"

"Are you kidding? You little idiot, I'm furious! But I'm also just glad you're alive. You walked out of school and just...vanished for a whole day! I thought you were kidnapped, or that you got caught in the crossfire of some crazy super-powered feud between masked maniacs! For God's sake Danny you didn't even call! Just half an hour longer and I would've had police and private security turning the city upside down looking for you! I mean, do you even realize you're covered in bruises?"

Danny wasn't sure what to say, how to justify himself. The truth would only worry her more at least in his mind, worse yet he might never find his father's killers and bring them to justice behind the army of private guards and restrictions he would likely end up with if she knew the truth 'for his own protection'. At the same time, he didn't want to lie to her and not just because he was a terrible liar.

"I got into some pretty big fights...so I went to Chinatown. After all the years in Asia it felt...familiar compared to the rest of New York. I hate that school and the people in it and I just...I really needed to get away, do something different. I'm sorry, I really should've tried to call you but I got so caught up, in everything around me and...kind of in my own head."

She let go of him then, sighing and drying her eyes while sitting down in a chair facing a rather spectacularly panoramic window. The penthouse was large, filled with little souvenirs from all sorts of trips Joy's father Harold and Danny's father Wendell had picked up on business trips through Asia: a pair of little replica clay soldiers guarding the door, a white ceramic elephant in one corner whose howdah doubled as an umbrella holder, even a crossed pair of dao swords Danny was fairly sure his father had kept maintained just in case were just a few. All precious and beautiful, but all also little reminders of the memories neither of them could let go.

"There's going to be consequences for this Danny. Serious ones, because there have to be serious consequences starting tomorrow. Tonight though, I'm just glad you're safe. I've lost so much...we both have...if I lost you all over again..."

This was the closest they'd come to talking about what happened all those years ago in the Himalayas, when both of them had lost their parents in the mountains, though Joy was much older and in college at the time. Since he'd come back and she'd been named his guardian she had tried to be something half-way between a mother and an older sister to him. She was probably one of the closest things to family he had left considering she and her father had both known him since he was in diapers.

"You're right, we've both lost a lot. I...should be more careful about that."

She stared out at the city and Danny's own eyes couldn't help following her, out towards the skyscraper with both of their legacies in big, burning lights on the top: RAND Inc. Looking at it was happy and painful all at once and it made him wonder if the sight made her feel the same.

"Maybe a little of it's my fault too. I've been so busy trying to deal with it in my own way that I've been inconsiderate to you too. We've got to start sticking together. It's what they would've wanted."

What they would've wanted...

He kept staring out at their parents' monument, turning over everything that had happened today. He'd finally made some progress in the hunt for answers surrounding his father's death, met new allies and enemies and discovered an entire hidden world to explore. With luck he'd even fixed his relationship with Joy.

It wasn't perfect, a lot of might not even be good...

But it was a start.