2 | Sin City, Part 2
Act 2
Chapter 2
Sin City, Part 2
- - -
Manhattan
Gwen shot off the end of the pendulum with a bit more expressive movement, familiarizing herself with the web swinging as time went by.
It’s easier than it looks if you have the privilege of Spider-Sense and unnatural equilibrium, of course. At the end of her forward roll, Gwen shoots another web line at the nearby building; the act requires more experience than she currently has to execute flawlessly. Spider-Sense didn’t help with this, however, and she had to rely on instinct and rough estimation about where and when to latch the synthetic polymer strand to start a swing to prevent herself from kissing New York City’s street below at such a blinding speed. She corkscrewed herself through a triangular space of a flag post before running on a horizontal line against the wall, shooting herself off like a bullet at the end of the surface, twirling around expressively like a performing ballerina; at least with what limited moves she remembers from her childhood before textbooks and TED talk episodes were getting more interesting than ballet.
That dork might be doing on-the-fly calculations while he’s swinging; how is that fair, God? Gwen thought to herself with a roll of her eyes, aiming towards the sky above.He has the brain and the brawl and is also cute!? That’s a bias if I’ve ever seen one!
“O heavenly Father and Lord, I was just kidding.” She sheepishly apologized to the moonlit sky after a distant rumble of thunder sounded from afar. “Please don’t go Old Testament on me; I don’t even know if I can dodge lightning.” Just to be cautious, though, Gwen lowered her traversal plane to surround herself with metal and conductive materials as much as possible.
Her thoughts naturally go back to the evening earlier…
“…GR-28?” she heard herself asking in confusion, not about the component's origin but its presence in Hammerhead’s system.
“You knew of this?” Reed Richards inquired, quirking his brows from across the 4D bench that was full of biological data and toxicological reports.
“Sort of,” she replied, averting her eyes from the holo-projection to the stretchy man. “Some old reports of it got on my desk back when I was an intern, but the research itself was terminated by the board before production.”
“Reasons?”
“Despite its versatile and beneficial properties regarding bio-engineering and genetic treatments, GR-28 was a wild card: It was too perfect as a crucible for CRISPR treatment because it was so infectious, and the replication rate was insanely high without severe negative effects in the short-term exposure.” The geneticist explained at the best of her recollection “but, there’s a problem.” She saw a hint of realization in the scientist’s eyes.
“With a substantial number of replication and division, they start to evolve, so to speak,” Reed added, and she nodded, “and depends on the rate, which, according to you, was quite fast, we’ll be facing a pandemic and fighting a losing battle against an ever-evolving retrovirus that will be almost impossible to study.”
“That’s why OSCORP terminated its development,” Gwen added, casting her eyes to the previous screen again. “So, seeing it here? It’s concerning.”
She decided to trace it to its source, that’s why she’s now perching in front of the OSCORP tower in the middle of the night, wearing her Spider-suit. “There’s gotta be some clues left inside Doctor Octavius's old office,” she mumbled to herself and touched the side of her mask, calling up Edith. “E?”
“Yes?”
“Any suggestion about an entrance into the building?”
“Aside from the lobby?” the AI sarcastically retorted with a tinge of amusement in her tone; it was almost uncanny and fascinating how advanced Edith had become in the year that they’d known each other. “Peter usually went for air vents on the fifth, fifteenth, and thirtieth floors.”
“He trespassed that often?” Gwen inquired, jumping off the roof she was on and starting swinging toward the skyscraper.
“ESU’s chemical supplies were often lackluster in the synthesizing of web fluids, and he couldn’t afford to buy them from suppliers themselves. So, more than a couple of times per month, Peter would slip inside the building and get what he needed, which were basic enough that the company wouldn’t even care to investigate their depletion.” The AI replied, and Gwen could even imagine Edith would be shrugging her shoulders if she had a physical body. “Our little Spider was quite an avid burglar himself, back in the days.”
“Huh, is that why he was so comfortable connecting with Black Cat?” the sunflower-blonde commented as she latched onto the cement wall and started crawling upward.
“He’d never confided anything regarding Felicia Hardy with me,” the AI replied, feeling like a chat between friends, “but from what I gathered, he might feel a strong connection with her because she was the only person who remembers him from before the Incursion.”
“Oh, yeah. I kinda forgot about that fact.” Gwen replied, finally reaching the fifteenth floor. Testing the integrity of the air vent duct cover, she was surprised that the rectangular lid was held in place by a set of springs instead of fasteners. Opening it and getting herself inside the cramped space, Gwen started quietly crawling through the distance, with Edith occasionally acting like a navigation system for important turns and elevations. “What was he like? After the Incursion?” Gwen whispered curiously.
“Peter tried to keep going with a brave face, but I noticed chronic depression and anger management issues.” Edith regaled with her synthetic voice, “He sometimes lashed out at criminals that he was apprehending, but never severe enough to leave permanent damage.”
So, this behavior is not a new development. Gwen remarked to herself, trying to build a case regarding the symbiotic organism that bonded with her boyfriend.
“Soon, its frequency lessened after he was asked to form, train, and lead the New Avengers Initiative under Nick Fury’s request. I…think keeping busy and teaching others positively affected him.” The AI sounded…uncertain for a moment there, but Gwen was so engrossed in trying not to make a sound that she missed it. “Having them around, Harley and Kate, made him somewhat revert to his old self again…I think humans called it companionship.” Edith curiously worded the term.
“Loneliness changes people,” Gwen added. “Thank you for being there with him.” The sunflower-blonde said to the AI, and the synthetic consciousness was lost for words for a long time.
She silently dropped from the air vent onto the familiar floor of the biology lab, making sure that nobody was around, and making her way toward the main terminal at the center of the lab. “Cut the cams,” Gwen demanded, and Edith complied immediately. “Okay…” she mumbled, navigating through the recognizable UIs and system until the last firewall prevented her from entering the archive. “E, can you…”
“Consider it done,” the AI replied, and it took a couple of seconds before the restriction faded away, giving Spider-Woman full access to OSCORP’s database. “It’s almost pitiful how easily I was able to crack their codes.” She sounds…bored.
Can an artificial intelligence even get bored? Or was she just mimicking human emotions and expressions via years of regular exposure? She wouldn’t know, though; computer science was not the topic she was particularly fond of.
“If I were to move illegal and unorthodox virus around one of the most bustling cities on this side of the world, how would I do it…” she mumbled to herself, looking through logs of the company’s hundreds of trucks and transports per day, also going as far as checking the international portions as well. “…Nothing out of ordinary…but If I am Norman Osborn…I would be keeping my cards as close to my chest as possible…” She narrowed her eyes and changed the keyword to Upstate, NY. “A single truck coming and going from an estate there shouldn’t be suspicious, considering the shipment of essentials for their CEO, but the frequency here…four times a week? That’s too immature for someone like Norman Osborn to forget his shopping list.” Gwen pulled up the records, and soon, the data on the screen showed dates, times, plates, and contractors.
The contractors, however, consisted of three companies, and one of them caught her eye. “Either there are some specific shops in Hell’s Kitchen that Osborn wanted to exclusively buy all his essentials from like he’s in some kinda contract, or it’s—” Her words caught in her throat as the sound of latches being disengaged came from the twin doors at the entrance of the room. Without much time to think, Gwen aimed upward and jumped with her superhuman muscles to latch onto the ceiling in a crawl, sticking her feet and palms against the hard surface while holding her breath, hoping that the person wouldn’t hear her panic.
From the upside-down position she lays, Gwen spied a figure of a man walking into the office, sporting a head of waved red hair and some strands of white stylishly adorning his head. His dress suit is of a muted green palette with a deep purple shirt completed with a reddish-gold necktie. His face contorted into anguish, with danger emanating from his body like radiation.
Norman Osborn is here and pissed off beyond imagination.
I can’t even escape through the shaft without making a noise. Gwen mulled, pressing her stomach flat against the ceiling.
“What?!” Osborn roared into the phone after he picked it up just as the second ring was about to commence. “…reschedule it to 4 PM.” His voice lost its edges a little before a long sigh escaped his mouth, he leaned back into the cushioned executive chair, “What a bunch of imbeciles…” he silently groaned through his gritted teeth, massaging the bridge of his nose. He then picked the phone up and took a deep breath while waiting for the other end to pick up, “Good afternoon, Doctor Varanasi…Yes…How is a dinner at Masters’s sounds to you?” he paused, then a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips “Good! I’ll send Francis to pick you up around 8…See you later.” And he put the phone down with a glint in his face.
But not of someone who’s secured a date.
It’s of someone who has just achieved another goal.
- - -
The Masters’s | Upper Harlem
“Welcome, Miss,” a woman, one of the owners, greeted her with a corporate smile and motioned for her to follow into the vacant restaurant, saved for a single table where the recognizable face of Norman Osborn sat in waiting for her arrival with a casual smirk adorning his face. “Have a seat, please. Mister Osborn had already ordered for the both of you.”
“It seems you come prepared, Mister Osborn.” Doctor Varanasi sarcastically said as she softly took a seat that the CEO of OSCORP pulled out for her with a muttered thank you. “But it’s rather strange, however, that we would be meeting here instead of some lavish restaurants.”
“What can I say? You cannot taste the true Manhattan in expensive food, after all.” The red-haired man replied lightheartedly before taking his spot across from her, straightening his back, and raising a glass of wine. “But fret not, Doctor Varanasi; this wine is from my vineyard in Tuscany,” he joked and urged her to take a glass as well. The swirling crimson liquid plays off the decorated lights while both enjoy the depth of fermented grape juice.
Well, you sure as hell aren’t stingy with closing the whole restaurant, Mister Osborn. Gwen muttered internally under layers of heavy makeup and a black-haired wig, scrubbing plates and utensils clean in the kitchen while honing her superhuman ears to eavesdrop on the pair.
“…Have you come to a decision?” Norman asked after wiping the delicious sauce and grease off his lips, eyes looking up at the Indian woman across from him with a quirked brow.
“Must we discuss that in here?”
“This is the safest place you’ll find,” Norman replied with a mirthless grin, impatience rising behind his green eyes. “Speak.” His tone chilled immediately, draining the warmth around the cozy room; even the food tasted sourer after that.
That’s…not a conversation about bioengineering or anything remotely close to Hammerhead… The Spider-Woman mulled confusedly while multitasking, tilting her head as Doctor Varanasi continued talking with Norman Osborn about various related topics and subjects until, ultimately, she could deduce the reason for their meeting. Some kinda genetic disease, but not something I’ve heard before.
“Newbie!” a call came for her from behind, prompting Gwen to stop her train of thoughts and craned her neck with inquisitive eyebrows.
“Yes?”
“Take this to the table!”
“But I’m not—”
“Take it to the table, damn!”
“Okay! Geez…” Gwen exclaimed with a huff and quickly took the plates from her hands before exiting the kitchen, reminding herself to pretend a struggle just a bit to accommodate her petite stature without betraying her superhuman strength. She cleared her throat and approached the table, listening in on their conversation all the while. “Mister Osborn, Doctor Varanasi,” she greeted them as a server should, with a curt bow before presenting their plates to them on the table, “Please, enjoy.” She smiled underneath a facemask and was about to retreat into the kitchen before a call sent a hot needle up her spine.
“Miss Stacy…” Norman casually addressed her with a glint of triumph in his eyes, boring a hole through her facemask and occasionally glancing at the black wig with a smug. “I thought you’d be at Harvard.”
“I’m sorry, Mister Osborn, but I think you’ve confused me with someone else.” She bowed, hiding her face.
“Do not insult my care for my employees, Miss Stacy, especially for someone as promising as yourself, even though you were merely an intern.” His tone was demanding and dangerous, contrasting with the warm smile on his face. “Join us, please. I’d like you to meet each other.” He motioned with his hand to a vacant spot to his right while calling the staff to bring another chair in for her. “My treat.”
As soon as she got rid of her apron, Gwen sighed defeatedly before taking the wig off and settled herself down on the addition chair, alternating her eyes between OSCORP’s ruthless CEO and a well-known geneticist.
“Doctor Varanasi, this is Gwen Stacy; she’s the only one who completed her internship for Curtis Connors.” Norman introduced her with a convincing smile, aiming at the geneticist.
“Oh?” The Indian doctor quirked her brows, averting her eyes with curiosity towards the blonde. “You must either be very talented or very resilient to survive Curt’s unforgiving standards.”
“I can assure you she’s of the former,” Norman interjected before she could speak for herself. “To be honest, I have been meaning to offer her a position; OSCORP Biotech would be very lucky to have her.” Norman casually said, drawing a surprised expression on the blonde’s face. Then, the Connecticut man averted his eyes from the Indian woman towards the petite blonde. “What do you say, Miss Stacy? A secured biologist position at my company as soon as you finish your Master’s degree?”
What’s he playing at? Gwen internalized confusedly.
Then, it hits her like a bat to the head, recalling their interaction at Doctor Connors’s exhibition long ago.
“…you wanna use me to get close to Peter.” She stated, matter-of-fact, devoid of any uncertainty. Her face hardened, eyes narrowed and sharpened, glaring at the CEO.
Norman allowed a hearty laugh to fill the intense air around the three of them, shaking his head with a hint of a smirk while taking a sip from his wine. This left them in an anticipating silence. “Please, give yourself some credit, Miss Stacy; not every good thing in your life happens because of your association with Peter Parker. I could probably sway him over to my company if that’s the case; after all, I’ve heard he recently resigned from RAC out of his own volition.” Norman said with a hint of satisfaction. “The details interested me none, however, but it makes me wonder if this has anything to do with Doctor Susan Storm’s reclusion from the public eyes?”
Gwen scooted her seat back forcefully, anger rising against the nosy implications coming from the CEO, eliciting an annoying fit of chuckles from the Connecticut man. “I have better things to do.”
“Aside from spying on me, you mean,” Norman cut in, face still harboring a grin, but his eyes turned cold and calculated, boring their penetrating glare into her. “It’s not an acceptable thing to be doing, especially for one relying on a university’s scholarship such as yourself, Miss Stacy.” The words made her stop, and Gwen slowly turned towards the red-haired man who managed to instill an inexplicable dread and revulsion by the cloak-and-dagger nature he often operated in, as well as the recount she’d heard from her boyfriend about his maniacal counterpart from another reality. “A scholarship that, I might add, relies heavily on OSCORP’s charitable donation for years now.” He drums his fingers on the table’s surface in a rousing rhythm, harboring a triumphant grin on his face. Then, he motioned for the seat where she’d just gotten out of. “Maybe we can discuss the terms of conditions where I would not withdraw that donation in the near future? What do you say?”
Gwen looked at the man who, despite having no superhuman capabilities and not an ounce of the insanity, still managed to be as dangerous if not more according to the stir of her Spider-Sense.
With a reluctant huff, the petite blonde returns to her seat just as the food arrives and quietly picks the famed burger apart while listening to Norman Osborn’s obnoxious conversation with Doctor Varanasi, which has been masterfully steered away from whatever they were talking about before her exposure. Glancing at the staff to the side, Gwen noticed the looks of apologetic shame on their faces and sighed in defeat.
- - -
Frank stood at the edge of a waterfront, black coat and hoodie covering his face and body against the chilling wind and prying eyes. His hands tucked inside the pockets, with the right one loosely gripping around the handle of a .45 as his eyes and ears roamed the scenery for a courier as informed. At a distance, a group of Jazz musicians congregated around a campfire, playing a chaotically melodic tune of a song his distant memory recognized to be Sinnerman by Nina Simone into the air surrounding this part of town, keeping their morale up high while getting through a devastating disaster together.
Oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
The Punisher scanned each person with trained eyes, noticing distinct gaits in their movements for any potential danger planted by the motherfucker who sent those superhumans to extort him with a threat to Amy’s life.
He leans on the railings to limit the approaches.
Don't you see me prayin'?
Don't you see me down here prayin'?
Then, on the right, he saw a pair coming out of the shadow.
The man walking closely behind was a fucking nobody to him, not even a known criminal, but the woman at the front leading them toward him stirred a raging fire inside his chest.
Amy Bendix, the girl whom he last saw almost a decade ago, walking stiffly, showing the sign that there is something pressed into her back, forcing her to keep walking. His grip on the handle tightened, and he was ready to take a risky shot that might save her, but he was keeping a calm posture for now. He watched as the pair grew closer and closer until they stopped about a dozen feet before reaching his location. The smallest hint of relief passed over Amy’s face when she recognized the man waiting for them on the waterfront, mostly through his familiar presence and posture.
“…Have you come with the offering?” the man behind Amy asked, voice cold and calm, pressing whatever it was in his right hand harder into the woman’s back, eliciting a short yelp.
“You’ll get your deal when she’s here, with me,” Frank indicated to the spot beside him with a tap of his foot, eyes alternating intensely between Amy and the man behind her wearing a long greyish coat. “Or you can scrape his smears off the floor yourself. Your pick.” As he played his ultimatum, Castle slipped his left hand out of his pocket with a detonator and a dead-man’s switch in hand, wiggling it at the negotiator sent by whoever it was controlling the two superhumans that had ambushed him earlier.
Amy’s eyes widened in surprise at the way the Punisher was casually gambling her life, yet it was weirdly familiar in a way.
Frank Castle was not someone who would let an enemy take advantage in a confrontation, not even if someone’s life depended on it.
He just had to come out on top, like always.
And, strangely, and begrudgingly, she kinda gets it.
This way, even if the bastards who kidnapped and are now using her as a bargaining chip play a bluff, it would be a lost-lost bet as nobody wins anything.
A shot to the back might be fatal, but maybe she’ll live; modern medicine, you know? With the GRU around helping the rehabilitation effort of the New Yorkers, she’s in good hands.
It’ll hurt like hell, though.
But that’s something she’s willing to bet on, yet she hesitates because of the look Frank is giving her.
A plea.
Something she’d never seen before on him.
So, she stayed put, letting her trust in the man before her take control of the situation.
“That won’t be happening, Punisher,” the man behind her gritted. “Hand him over, and we’ll give you yours.”
“Ya see, buddy?” Frank leaned back against the railings, intentionally shifted to line his right side with the best trajectory for a quick draw at this distance, and hoped beyond hope that Amy would be intuitive enough to get the message. “I’ve been dealing with scums and crazies like you and yours for years. I studied them. Hunted them. Killed them.” He emphasized each sentence with burning anger and hateful glee, tightening his grasp around the textured handle even more. “One damn thing I learnt from all them corpses is…that ain’t a single one of you was ever an honest type!” he roared and Amy, thankfully, took the cue by lurching forward and get down to the ground with a forceful movement, surprising the man behind and got out the hailing rounds coming from Frank Castle’s direction. A sharp pain shoots up from her right shoulder, but Amy keeps her head down and rolls away from the line of fire, letting the Punisher take care of business as usual.
The Jazz band screamed and scattered away as the bullets started flying. Yet, it ended all too soon as the Punisher landed a fatal shot in the man’s center of mass, destroying the internal organs with a hollow-point, mangled up the flesh, and sent a wave of deadly shock into his system. He collapsed with a writhing seizure, coughing up foaming blood as his lungs were destroyed and his heart desperately beating in a futile attempt to keep him alive.
Frank kept his pistol trained on the downed man and quickly approached Amy, who was still lying in a fetal position on the cement floor. “Kid? You hurt?” he averted his eyes for a second to address her and firmly squeezed her shoulder. “Amy? Talk to me!”
“You guys done cowboying?” she asked with ragged breathing, adrenaline coursing through her entire body, and her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. She heard a chuckle coming from the Punisher.
“Sounds like you’re fine,” Frank added and noticed the limp on her right shoulder with a slight grimace. “We gotta get outta here.” He said and quickly helped her up, albeit with a sharp yelp of pain from the woman. “Stop whining.” He playfully chided her, receiving a glare.
With almost too much ease, Frank led Amy through dark alleys and secluded corners of New York City, avoiding the police and CRUD patrols until they reached the safer part of Harlem, deep within Luke Cage’s territory. He keeps the pressure on Amy’s injured shoulder, ignoring her muffled winces, knocking on a black door without a number on an apartment.
She should have been here.
The door creaked open as the occupant inside peeked through a small gap between the door and the frame with a shocked expression, her eyes widening at the recognition her nightly guests brought. “Castle?!”
“Kid got shot.” He simply answered her unsaid question and motioned for the grunting woman on his arm, “Ya know how it is.”
“Sorry for a surprise visit, Miss Temple.” Amy apologizes with a sheepish grin.
“You should’ve gone to a hospital,” Claire Temple sighed heavily before stepping to the side, allowing the two a passage into her apartment. “Fill me in?” she voiced at the Punisher after directing the injured woman to the dining table and heading into her bathroom for a kit.
“A nine mill, single wound, right shoulder,” Frank answered as curt and informative as possible, still pressing the wound even though Amy protested painfully. “Through.”
“That’s good,” the Night Nurse returned with a pair of nitriles covering her hands and a face mask, bringing along a tray of medical essentials. “Means I don’t have to do some caveman surgery.” She jabbed a little before shooing the Punisher away and starting the treatment. Frank relented and relocated to the window, looking out with cautious eyes.
“Must be nice, living all dry and high up here.” Castle attempted a small conversation, which only elicited a tut of annoyance from the nurse. “The city doesn’t feel the same, it’s…quieter.” He said while scanning the calmer street of Harlem, now filled with tents and sleeping bags of the survivors migrated from downtown away from the devastated landscape where the Atlantean hits.
“Being hit with a tsunami would do that, especially if it flooded almost 60% of the whole city.” Claire retorted, starting the suture while having Amy bite down on a fold of gauze to keep from screaming and biting her tongue. “It’s getting crazier by the day,” she breathed out, finishing up the entry wound. “Back then, I thought watching Luke tanked a whole magazine, or seeing Jones punching through a concrete wall, or watching Danny summon the Iron Fist was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Now there’s Spider-Man, Tombstone, Fisk, Rhino, shape-shifting aliens, and now there are Atlanteans? It’s surreal, sometimes. It’s like this hellhole of a city attracts them.”
Frank kept his silence.
- - -
“The Punisher betrayed our agreement.” The glowing woman said quietly into the phone, connected with the person on the other end, as she was standing atop a building overlooking the scene below of policemen and EMTs circling the area where a shooting had happened earlier tonight. Lying there amid the outline of white spray paint was their friend, one of the devotees among their ranks. “Amish is dead…he shot him.” Her voice cracked and wavered, and the swirls of shadow lightly enveloping her arms like a caress, consoling her. “…Yes, father. We’ll see to it.” She answered with a heavy heart, and the line went silent. “This is horrible, Ty.” She spoke to the wind and thin air surrounding her, but not long after that, the transparent matter around her took shape and a silhouette of a man cladded in a long black cloak appeared like an apparition behind her, the jagged hem of his cloak covering her glowing figure, absorbing the excess light like a starving wolf. The glow surrounding her dims steadily until she looks just like a normal girl again, with fair-blonde hair cascading downward to rest on her shoulders, and her glowing white eyes gave way to a pair of pale blue orbs. She hugs herself like the cold gale irritated her, the immaterial nature of the cloak gives little insulation. “Amish doesn’t deserve this.”
“Don—don’t blame y—yourself, Tan—Tandy.” The man cloaked in darkness, now tangible enough to be observed, stuttering out wanting to comfort her as best as he could, lowered himself at her side into a crouch, a hand landed firmly on her shoulder, purchasing as much physical contact as possible before time ran out. “Th—The Punisher’s a ba—bad guy, there’s nothing we ca—can do to change someone like th—that.”
“He got cut by my dagger, Ty.” Tandy, as called, looked up with confusion in her eyes at the dark-skinned man whose body slowly started to be immaterialized again. “He should be volunteering somewhere now, or even taking the clothes, or changing his ways…not walking around killing people again; good people!” She gestured weakly below at the body lying inside a white outline. “I don’t understand, Ty; how did my powers not work on him?” She looked down at her palms, calling the light daggers from her fingertips, absentmindedly playing with them.
“I d—don’t kno—” Ty’s answer got cut mid-sentence as his body completely immaterialized into a flitting silhouette, gulping the rest of the sentence in silence. He noticed that after a moment and got visibly upset at himself. Then, with clear difficulty, they started communicating with ASL, as they had to do so many times before.
‘I don’t know, Tandy. We don’t know how our powers work, it could be that there’s a lapse.’
‘The sinners we’ve dealt with before would suggest otherwise, Ty.’
‘They are just thieves and thugs, not a psychopathic killer like him.’
‘My light cleanse darkness from their hearts.’
‘That’s what Father told us.’
‘You questioned him?’
‘It’s better than blindly trusting someone.’
‘But I trust you!’
‘And I do the same, but it’s different with him. He’s a stranger, Tandy.’
“A stranger who took us in and gave us food, beddings, and a place to stay?”
‘I’m not ungrateful, far from it. I’m just saying that maybe—’
“Ugh! I don’t wanna talk about it.” Tandy abruptly cut him off with a dismissal wave of her hand and stood up, stretching a little before pointing down at the body of their friend with a determined look. “We have to get him back with us.” And with a reluctant nod from the immaterial shadow of a man draped in a cloak, Tandy sent a couple of light-daggers at the lightbulbs and the sirens, darkening the scene saved for the dim glow emanating from her photonic constructs.
While the commotion started and all of the officers and technicians down below frantically looking upward to the source of an ambush, Tyrone drifted silently towards the corpse of a man named Amish before covering his cold body inside a blanket of void, then he consumed himself and the corpse into the spiral darkness, vanishing from sight.
Soon, he materialized again at her side and let the cold, breathless body of Amish gently falls to the hard cement of the rooftop where Tandy immediately kneeling with a turmoil in her face, eyes watering as she took in the framed agony left on his face from the hand of a killer like the Punisher.
“…I’m so sorry, Amish…” Tandy whispered against the wind and started sobbing quietly, laying her shaky hand softly upon his lifeless eyes and slowly closing them.
- - -
Gwen dropped onto one of the Chrysler’s eagles with a huff and perched on the metallic avian for about a minute before she unintentionally crushed the metal beak of it under her superhuman grip as anger fumed through her body. Tucking the hem of her white mask up, she breathed a frustrated groan out to the chilling air of the night.
Her hand fished a hard and rectangular-shaped business card of Norman Osborn out and flipped to the blank side. “That slimy prick…” Gwen mumbled to herself, fighting the urge to just tear the piece of crispy paper apart and scatter it in the high wind, but the unbearable conversation she’d had earlier with the CEO of her former employer rang in the back of her head.
“…I believe you have had a curiosity about a certain medical procedure, or rather an aspect of one, that was involved in saving your life not that long ago, Miss Stacy,” he looked at her with that pair of falconoid gaze that sent shivers coursing through her body. “A rather experimental and expensive aspect that shouldn’t be accessible to anyone, much less you.”
She remembers her blood boiling.
“The Semi-Blood; such a fascinating miracle by Doctor Morbius. With a right hand guiding him, there will be a bright future ahead of us all.” Norman’s eyes pandered towards her, and a slight smile spread across his face, sending a shiver down her spine. “I’ve invited him over to my estate this weekend. Such an opportunity won’t come so often, right?”
She kept her silence.
“You are welcome to join; there will be many bright minds conglomerating there, sharing wisdoms and ideas, and it would be a shame to not giving you that opportunity.”
“What’s the catch?” She sneered with dripping venom. “Mister Osborn?”
“Now, now. Wasn’t that a bit hostile?”
“It’s the hot sauce.” She countered immediately, internally cringing at the ridiculous reasoning. Then, she forced a smile onto her stoic face. He just chuckled while shaking his head.
“To answer your question, yes, I do have an agenda.” He looked and made sure she finished her burger and then produced a business card from his jacket and a pen from the table, quickly scribing a note onto the blank side. “Get inside and ask for a lady named Cynthia; she’ll take care of everything.” He said and took a moment to finish the note before handing it to her. “The number below is one of my drivers; call him after you’ve finished with Cynthia.”
“Finished?” Gwen ignored Doctor Varanasi’s curious gaze and kept her confusing glare on Norman Osborn.
“A dress, Miss Stacy. It is to be a prolific event, after all.” He replied, smirking at the corner of his lips.
Gwen breathed out and tucked the business card back into the suit’s hidden pocket, massaging the bridge of her nose and her forehead firmly. “…Edith?”
“What is it?”
“Can you…get inside Metro-General’s database, look for my case; a surgery.”
“May I ask, why?”
“…Needa confirm something.” She whispered with a grimace.
It took the advanced AI about five minutes before a beep came through. Gwen called the data up on the HUD integrated into the lenses and read through extensive medical records related to her GSW and the following surgery, as well as the procedures adopted. “…Semi-Blood’s not something my insurance covers, at least not until Michael Morbius patented and commercialized the formula for a few years before…so, if that’s the case…” she whispered with a sour taste on her tongue, her eyes roamed the letters until it landed on a particular name of a company that granted her case a special allowance under the guise of a new employee’s insurance policy.
- - -
Frank sits and listens to the background classic rock from the jukebox inside Josie’s while nursing a half-full bottle of beer in his hand, his back facing the entrance. Soon, a clicking of heels reaches his ears and he raises his bottle as a signal without looking back.
The woman with curly black hair and olive skin silently took a seat on his left side with a pointed look and crossed her arms around her midriff. “Is this your way of apologizing for breaking into my house?” Dinah Madani greeted him with her trademark quirking eyebrows, “Vodka, thanks.” She aviated a little to order a drink to one of Josie’s girls, then returned her demanding face to the retired Punisher before her. “By the way; that fucking shootout earlier? Stupid.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead calling a woman here for a drink, agent,” Frank replied with a scoff, taking another swig before chewing on roasted peanuts from the tray. “Also, I didn’t break anything to get into your house; give me some credit.”
“Fine,” Madani retorted and leaned against the stiff recliner, gesturing with a nod. “What’s the occasion?”
“Hear anything about the guy that was dead? A name? An address? Any associates?”
“It almost sounded like you are back in the game,” Dinah pointed out.
“Might as well be,” Castle gruntled, emptying the rest of the bottle and leaned away from the CIA agent “Whoever these fuckers are, they used Amy like some…some bargain chip, Madani; I ain’t letting it slide, not this.” He growled lowly, eyeing the hand that was rested on the table, anticipating whether she will flip or not. “It’s personal.”
“I don’t give a shit if it’s personal, Frank,” Dinah pointedly glared at him, her eyes burning with rising irritation “I gave you an out once, that’s it! No Punisher. We’re done!” she growled, “You know how fucked my career is? I can’t afford to let you slip away a second time. Either Langley will kick me into a super-max for the next decade, or I have to deliver you on a plate myself, and frankly,” Dinah chuckled grimly at the accidental pun, “I would do it in a heartbeat.”
- - -
The House
Kate moored the boat and anchored it to the pier around eight, exhausted from the board meetings all day. She dropped Harley off at Brooklyn Stark Technology, following the forced relocation after the tsunami, and the Iron Man decided to spend some nights at the Eco-Compound up north to sort through the company’s investment crisis following his demotion from the Avengers.
“Another week of this? Come on—” She was about to finish her whine when her eyes cast onto a figure leaning against the back porch pillar, looking at the moonlit water at a distance. The silvery light betrayed the golden mane of the petite woman, exposing their identity. “Aww, you shouldn’t have.” Kate greeted lightheartedly at Gwen Stacy, the de facto mistress of the house, and quickly ascending the steps.
The weak and heavy smile made its way onto the blonde’s face, faltering the archer’s pace a little. “Hey,”
“…you okay?” the raven-haired athlete added as she stopped near the mulling petite woman, searching the veiled face for any indication. Is she missing Pete or Doctor Storm? The Bishop’s heiress kept the question inside, not wanting to assume anything out loud.
“…I don’t know…” the superhuman whispered to the wind, keeping her eyes locked on the light show on the wave’s surface. “…I guess, in a way.”
“Wanna talk?” The raven-haired man sits on the railing as well, separated only by a wooden pole. “I had to listen to logistics and numbers all day today, please,” Kate added with a small chuckle, intended for it to lighten the air a little.
“Nah, you already went through enough torture,” Gwen replied with an attempted deviation tactic, smiling a smile that didn’t survive a trek to her eyes. “You don’t wanna hear me whining the rest of the night away.”
“Try me, Gwen.” Kate quickly retorted with a sincere smile, hugging the pole and leaning in closer. “Contrary to what the news said, I have good ears too.” She attempted another.
The blonde looked at the Avenger on her right with a quirked eyebrow, studying the displayed sincerity on the woman’s distinguishable and shapely face under the silver light with her enhanced sight; she thought Kate Bishop would have a perfect face, yet in this proximity she can spot a few blemishes and shallow scars marring the honeyed skin. It humanized her a bit, but the fact that this woman can shoot an arrow at a microscopic spot from a few hundred yards away will always be otherworldly.
Yet, that sliver of altered perspective allows Gwen to see Kate Bishop not as a superhero who is so far out of reach but just another woman.
And it dictates her to pull down a wall she didn’t know she had put up since her trip to the Big Apple earlier today. “I spied on Norman Osborn today.”
“Huh?”
“Long story short; the bioengineering procedures done to Hammerhead have some traces of a compound named GR-28; it was supposed to be OSCORP’s artificial retrovirus designed as a CRISPR crucible agent,” Gwen started while shimmying a bit, “it was supposed to be the future of genetic engineering until something went wrong, I guess. I don’t have the details, but the virus worked a little too good; it can, in theory, evolve at a mind-boggling rate due to its accelerated cellular-replication rate.” She noticed a look of mild confusion from the archer and let out a small huff of amusement before clearing her throat “Cells get damaged and aged in every second that passed, so they compensate that loss by a process called Cell Cycle; there are G1 for growth, S for DNA synthesis, G2 which is a preparation phase for cellular division, and M for mitosis or cellular replication.” Gwen listed by counting down her fingers.
Kate slowly nodded, trying her best to follow the impromptu biology lesson of this evening.
“Now, through faster cell cycles, GR-28 can potentially be indestructible. A fast-evolving virus that we can’t study if a pandemic started.”
“Dibs on the katana,” Kate interjected with pursed lips after a moment, followed by Gwen’s little, amused chuckle.
“Thought you’d go with a crossbow.”
“I’d probably need to grow a beard and be in a biker gang before that.” Hawkeye retorted lightheartedly.
“Maybe we can go pick up Michael Rooker to be your gruff brother, too.” Gwen jabbed with a short laugh before the silence rushed back in, albeit with less intensity than before. Then, the petite blonde huffed an air into the night and averted her eyes toward the veiled moon above. “I don’t think a zombie virus is possible.”
Kate sensed the superhuman biologist trailing off and couldn’t help but look at the way the silvery glow of the celestial body played with her features- pretty features.
What is it with short blondes that attracts her so much?
“Anyway, someone must’ve used GR-28 to introduce the mutagenic agents into Hammerhead’s body to prepared him for further experimentations,” Gwen continued, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips at the way Kate is studying her “and with how only OSCORP knows about its existence, I decided to…get to the root.”
Then, she regaled the archer with a short version of her interaction with Norman Osborn.
“Ugh! And I thought the Duquesnes family was bad.” Hawkeye scoffed with utter disbelief at the businessman’s actions in the blonde’s story. “I mean, I kinda tolerate Jack enough, but the rest of his family? Especially that little shit? I wished I can use some of them as a target practice.” The raven-haired sharpshooter elaborated dramatically, “But this Osborn guy? What a guy!”
Both laugh along into the silence of the night, accompanied by faint waves crashing into the shoreline, cutting through rocks and creating small riptides.
“So, are you gonna attend this thing?” Kate opened the bottle after a long while, leaning into the pole nearest to the blonde.
“I don’t have a choice, Kate,” Gwen sighed, shoulders slumped and head dipped lower. “I’ve always wanted to study at Harvard like…like Sue; she’s my idol, you know? She’s so smart, and her contributions to the science world are nothing short of amazing. I just wanted to be like her, making a difference through what I love.” Gwen looked at the moon’s reflection on the wavering surface. “It still confuses me sometimes that I had a chance to get to know her so…intimately like this, you know? And that was partly because I know Peter.” She breathed heavily in exhaustion. “The Amazing Spider-Man. He fought in a battle that saved the universe when he was seventeen! He’s a third in ESU only because he had to cut classes to make money or save people’s lives, otherwise, the one who graduated with a valedictorian degree should have been him, not me.” Gwen breathed a grim chuckle, shaking her head. “…why would they still be with me if I’m just a nobody?”
The question left her lips, and the night held its answer, kept hidden and contained in the depths of uncertain hearts.
- - -
The Baxter Building
“Lemme ask you somethin, Reed.” Ben started after setting a stainless-steel cup down on the blocky railing of the building’s penthouse, overlooking the city below. The strong aftertaste of a Kentucky Bourbon burns still in his esophagus as hard work and contributions deserve at least a moment of respite once in a while. He looked at the man whom his question was aimed at, lounging on the recliner with his body unnaturally stretched like a sack of heavy water.
“Shoot,” the Smartest Man Alive toasted with a tinge of a slur in his voice, indicating the onset of intoxication.
“…why did you let things between Suzie and Spidey happen?”
“…‘Let things between them happened’? What do you mean?” the Stretchy Genius craned his neck like a snake to look at the stone giant.
“You fancied, or rather fancy her still; I see it from time to time, even if you are trying not to let it show.”
Reed chuckled shortly before taking another swig with a deep exhale, “I’ll admit, there’s still some…unresolved feelings left, but…I couldn’t.”
Ben quirked his brow, or the ridges where they are supposed to be, quizzically, without a word.
“She chose to be with Peter, Ben; that’s the most important thing.” Reed looked upward to the partially clear sky courtesy of the city’s damaged utilities and infrastructures. “Spending time under her dad’s tutelage gave me some ideas of how her childhood might have been like. Funny, I would even say that I lived through her childhood as well.” Reed said with a grim tone, recalling unpleasant memories. “…Nathaniel wasn’t exactly a dad most of my childhood, he’s more like a…well, really I was more like a lab experiment to him than a son,” Reed grumbled and emptied the glass in one swig, grimacing at the intensity of hard liquor burning in his guts. “He had this idea about perfecting what Heinrich Himmler started with the Lebensborn program; everything I did, ate, read, listened to, or even played, were all calculated and planned excessively by him.”
“…I’m his Magnum Opus, not because I was his son, but because I can become what he’d envisioned. An undeniable living proof.”
“So, I guess…in a way, I’m happy with how things turned out,” Reed added after a moment.
“Huh. I don’t get you smart people.” The stone giant scoffed and refilled their respective containers. “But I guess Suzie’s choice is not so bad.”
“That’s something we can agree on, old friend. Not bad, indeed.” Reed replied with a nod, looking at the City That Never Sleeps, standing proud even after the absence of her steadfast sentinel.
- - -
Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters
“…that’s not something I’m familiar with, sorry,” Illyana uttered after a minute of recollection, trying to remember the daemons she’d seen and known in Limbo to match the description that Storm provided regarding the red-haired telepath’s recent outburst.
When Ororo Munroe and Logan asked for her help earlier, she’d thought Peter Parker, or Spider-Man, was now experiencing a demonic possession of some kind, which could explain her uneasy feeling around the Arachnid’s presence.
Looking around, she noticed Kitty’s shoulders slumped and a look of worry crossed her freckled face, “…but I’ll see what I can find.” The petite mutant perked after that, which also brought a fluttering sensation into Illyana’s stomach, akin to someone somehow swallowing a whole army of butterflies.
“What can we do for you?” Logan, ever practical, asked while nursing an unlit cigar between his canines.
“Some provisions would be appreciated; there’s a possibility that my physical body will be affected by the instability and distortion between realms.” The blonde Rasputin replied, and the Wolverine nodded before signaling for Shadowcat to go get the survival pack from the Danger Room storage for that.
With her phasing mutations, Kitty was able to go and come back in under a minute with two packs of the requested items. “It’s a bonus!” the Deerfield teenager announced as she presented them to the Swordsmaster.
Illyana harbored a smile on her lips as she was about to take the items, but it was replaced by a surprised joy after the brunette abruptly gathered her into a bear hug, nuzzling the ponytailed head under Illyana’s slightly taller chin.
“Thank you,” Kitty whispered as she felt the Russian go rigid as a wooden doll at the sudden contact but smiled softly after a pair of hands envelope her into a hug as well.
“Все для тебя, куколка…” Illyana replied in her mother’s tongue with a deep inhale of air before summoning the Crimson Guard armor over herself while taking a step back away from the others, then manifesting Soulsword into her grip, a protruding energy blade pointed upward in an angle. The ginormous blade itself is almost weightless, made out of pure energy derived from the essence of her soul. “I’ll be back.” She announced with a thumbs up, especially to the woman that unknowingly had a firm grip on her heart. Then she swung the armament through the air, cutting the fabric of reality, and slipped through the dimensional rift.
“…did she just Terminator us?” Kitty inquired after a moment with quirked eyebrows and a playful glint in her eyes.
- - -
Sanctum Sanctorum
Stephen shot awake as an intense sensation bombarded his trained mind, forcing him to get up from a slumber inside the study and quickly limping towards the main hall with the Cloak of Levitation lazily flowing along.
“The lanterns are lit…” Strange noted to himself and quickened to the hall as fast as his recovering body would allow. Stretched his arm to the side, The Sanctum Master summons the replica of Gleipnir to his hand while closing in on the distance between him and the uninvited guest who possesses immense magical energy. As he drew closer to the distorting source, his steps stuttered when the visage of the intruder came into view.
Her flowing golden hair was parted in places by the metallic crown of sanguine crimson forged by otherworldly material that gave off a menacing aura. Her striking blue eyes were framed inside a demonic armored mask depicting a likeness of a snarling ogre. The entirety of her body covered the segmented full-body armor of the same material and palette as the crown atop her head, resembling that of a snake’s skeleton, with spikes adorning her shoulders and arms and thighs.
The visage was not the perpetrator to his shocked stutter, however, but the armament clasped firmly in the hand of the person.
The legendary mystic weapon, the Soulsword.
A weapon is forged by splitting one’s soul and molding it into the core of the armament, binding its blade and the wielder’s life into one.
A deadly gamble so few were determined enough to partake.
And as of this era, he knows of only one person who would possess both the Crimson Crown of Limbo and the Soulsword, as foretold in the Book of Vishanti.
“It’s an honor, Sovereign of Otherplace,” He stopped and bowed to the young sorceress, “Queen of Limbo.” Stephen Strange rose to his full height before clearing his throat and addressing her again with a more casual tone, “Illyana Rasputin, welcome to the New York Sanctum.” He stood with his hands joined behind his back, holding the mystic relic out of sight to show some hospitality.
“Greetings, Master Strange,” Illyana bowed in kind, storing the Soulsword by sheathing the entire thing into her chest, sending it to its resting place at the center of her soul. “I have come with a request.”
“Of course,” Stephen replied with a chuckle. “May we discuss this urgent matter upstairs?”
“…that is troublesome.” Strange relayed after a while, rubbing the apex of his trimmed goatee. A cup of honeyed mead rested idly in front of them both, while the Queen of Limbo leaned against the backrest after reducing her armor to only her left arm. “I’ve never heard nor read about an entity similar to what you described, but if this information holds, drastic measures are to be prepared.”
“It is true, Master Strange; my friends would never lie.”
“The doubt I expressed was not aimed at you nor your sources, Illyana, but rather at the scarcity of knowledge this library contained about such a thing.” Strange waved his hands around to indicate the vast circular room filled with shelves full of old tomes and scrolls as well as artefacts dating back to the beginning days of Kamar-Taj. “This could only lead to two conclusions; either this entity is a newborn—”
“Or it’s so dangerously ancient that the mere knowledge of it threatens the stability of reality.” Illyana breathed with a raspy voice.
Strange only nods in agreement with a grim look, his mind already running rampant, finding a solution to this dire problem.
The best option is to analyze Spider-Man as soon as possible…
“Anyways, I shall leave the Earthly matters to you,” Magik announced and stood up, stomping her foot once to summon the Stepping Disc underneath, readying herself for a trans-dimensional long trip. “Maybe there’s some old wretched left who knows something about it.”
“Good luck, then. Illyana Rasputin.” Stephen bowed again as the glowing ring steadily ascended and consumed the Sorceress Supreme of Limbo.
“To you, as well, Sorcerer Supreme.” She nodded before the Crimson Guard covered her face under its protective layer, and Magik disappeared from reality.
“That title belongs to Wong now, but eh.” Strange shrugs, and quickly drops down to enter a meditation, searching for Spider-Man’s consciousness.
- - -
Illyana stepped down from her trans-dimensional traversal power, and a shudder ran up her spine the very moment an intense sulfuric air of the hellish realm invaded her nostrils, searing the mucus membranes inside.
The twisted branches of the dead trees adorned the landscape, just as she disdainfully remembers, veiled in blurry shadows cast by the blinding glow of the Soulsword. Tiny hellish creatures scattered away from the searing shine, scared of the alien glow in this darkened land basking under the muted light of its Black Sun. She treks along the twisted path leading to an imposing palace made of The Old King’s husk—an ancient being felled and turned into a palace—with a grimace as echoing cries reach her ears.
Cries of a lost child scared hopelessly in a strange land. The haunting sounds she didn’t remember to be so deafeningly sorrowful when they were reflecting off the walls of her cell.
Illyana took a reinforcing breath, straightened her back, and marched on toward the hollowed carcass.
The entryway of the castle still bears the ruin she’d left all those years ago, with the steel gates cut cleanly in half diagonally by the newly forged Soulsword as she was looking for an escape. Charred bones of daemonic legions lined the hall, fallen to her wrath.
Scorched marks on the walls.
Craters on the floor.
Holes here and there where the legions of Belasco’s loyalists swarmed in with intent to kill.
When she arrived here by the cruelty of fate all those years ago, Limbo was filled with generals and warlords under the Cruel One’s rules. When she broke free of their sadistic imprisonment, only the harmless ones were left alive.
They titled her the Queen of Limbo, ruler of a desolated ruin.
That’s the story they’ve been instructed to spread, a tale of a crazed golden-haired witch who wields the legendary blade. Laying waste to the once-fearsome daemonic army of the Cruel Sorcerer Belasco.
But, there’s someone else living here.
Or, rather, something.
Illyana approached the Black Gates and kicked them open, revealing the destroyed throne room she’d once cowered in at the foot of Belasco’s chair, a prized trophy of his twisted reign, a child of prophecy foretold to bring glory and bloodshed.
“…Darkchylde…” a raspy and dried voice sounded from above, and Illyana cast her piercing eyes toward its origin with hatred.
“...Have you come…to release me…daughter?”
“Cease your treacherous tongue, foul daemon!” Illyana roared and slashed the air ahead of her with the glowing blade, then an arc of mystic energy was hurled forward and landed near the hanging figure above. The blackened chains pierced and wrapped around the daemon, looping around its crooked neck. “Dispel your trickery, or taste my wrath!”
The daemon tutted its forked tongue and reluctantly complied, abandoning the illusion of a horned man with waving hair to assume its supposed appearance; a starkly-white face with no eyes and nostrils, only twisted grin remains.
“Questions I sensed within, Darkchylde, so out with it.” The Hanging Daemon urged her in its maniacal tone, writhing around playfully in its confinement. “Riddle me, Ruin-Bringer! Enlighten my torment, I shall dare!”