December 31st, 2011 01:03
"C'mon Burstein, just get on with it."
"I'm really not sure about this, Michael. Look, it's one am right now, why don't we all just go back to our beds and sleep on it a bit more?"
"Look Noah, trust me on this, alright? What-"
"If you're going to ask 'what could possibly go wrong' I'll walk through that door, right now."
"Of course not, I know better than to tempt fate like that! No, I was going to ask, what makes you think this isn't a good idea?"
"Where do I even begin?" Burstein asked with a deep sigh, as he let himself fall down on the couch in my hotelroom.
Steve and Peggy had left a couple of hours ago, Peggy having taken both the Supersoldier Serum and the Brain Booster right then and there, while Steve declined the Brain Booster. He offered that he take it with him in order to think further about it, but I shut that down hard.
I had no trouble enhancing people to the point that they'd become a real problem for my enemies, without truly becoming a threat to myself, but I wasn't just going to give S.H.I.E.L.D. enhancements on a silver platter.
They had Captain America working for them for a couple of years before their fall, and they hadn't managed to reverse engineer the serum, meaning that they probably wouldn't be able to reverse it from Peggy's body either, with the same applying to the Brain Booster.
As for Peggy herself, taking the Supersoldier serum had toned her up, giving her the body of a top athlete, but there weren't any drastic changes like Steve had gone through. The Brain Booster caused that familiar wide-eyed look that all people enhanced with it got, gazing in wonder as they first experienced the new way their mind interpreted the world around them.
Sending them on their way with the sticks in their pockets and with Peggy staring with a wondering look at everything in her surroundings (including an amusingly long glance at Steve), I had dug up the research me and Sterns had done on Jessica's blood and called up Burstein to my room, though my mind kept lingering on the two supersoldiers that I had sent away.
One stick did in fact have the database with names on it like I had told them (minus a few scientists that I wanted to get my hands on myself, like Whitehall, for instance). The other one, on the other hand…
I had long ago realized that my human body was unlikely to handle the strain of becoming omnipotent. The various enhancements I had given it had gone a long way in me being able to handle far more power than a baseline human would (between my durability and regeneration, I feel fairly confident I can handle at least one Infinity Stone, though probably not for any prolonged amounts of time) but it was unlikely to be enough.
At some point, it was very likely that I'll need to build myself a better body.
Now, who did I know that had successfully moved his mind from his body to another medium, and just so happened to be at a location that I had just sent two supersoldiers to?
The stick would enter Zola's code, that much was true. But after that, it wouldn't shred it: it would copy it, or at least as much of it as its data storage capacity would allow (which was a lot). There was so much I could learn from how Zola had cheated death, it would be a shame to just allow him to blow himself up.
Oh, he was a real Nazi bastard (he had joined both the S.A. and the S.S., before even joining Hydra) and I was definitely going to kill him.
But not before I had squeezed every last drop of knowledge that I could from him.
"Look, Michael. There's a reason why we held off with enhancing Jessica." Burstein began tiredly, snapping me from my musings.
Half-turning on the couch, he gave me a grave look.
"We still don't know exactly what her energy field is, not to mention how it would interact with other powers. It's keyed into her genetic structure-"
"Which is precisely why it will work on me." I interrupted, getting an inquisitive look from the tired scientist.
"We can't enhance Jessica with any major DNA-altering serums, because those serums might have unforeseen consequences and might interact with the sequences that are responsible for her powers. But my DNA has already been changed. We know which sequences need to be altered in order to give me her powers-"
"We don't know. We suspect, we hypothesize, but we don't know, Michael. The same dangers that apply to Jessica apply to you as well! For all we know, you might get the powerfield, and then Extremis sets it on fire!"
At this point, Burstein had jumped up from the couch and was pacing in front of the full-length windows.
And he was right too.
My DNA had already been altered, meaning that we could make targeted changes in its structure, mirroring those made in Jessica's genetic template, as opposed to the massive overhaul Jessica would experience from, say, the Extremis virus.
The end-result was equally unpredictable though.
Still, my mind had been made up. This was the whole reason why I had approached Jessica in the first place.
I would not be denied flight.
"Burstein." My voice cut through the worried mumbles of the pacing scientist, who looks up at me with resigned eyes.
"I did the research. Sterns did the research. You did the research. This is going to work."
"But why now?! Michael, we just took the biggest hit in our lives, why are you taking this risk now? Can't you at least wait until we have a proper base, proper facilities-"
"Noah."
At my unyielding voice, the scientists falls silent, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he walks over to the large coolbox that had been sitting in the middle of the room.
"Very well."
And with those morose words, he unclasps the lid, before removing several vials of liquid, multiple syringes, and a Vibranium needlepoint, which will be placed on the syringes so they can pierce my skin.
As he's unpacking the equipment that he'll need, he looks up at me from the corner of his eye.
"You know that, even with these tips, it's going to take someone with superstrength to actually punch through your skin, right? I'm not strong enough to apply the sufficient amount of pressure."
Giving a slow nod, a plan starts to come together in my mind as I grab my phone from the nightstand (just a regular one made of plastic), quickly dialling a now familiar number.
There are only two rings before the phone is picked up.
"Hogarth here. Who is this?" comes a gruff voice, but not at all tired or sleepy, despite the late hour.
"Hello Jeri. Michael here. Can you come by my room please? I need your help with something, and while you're here, I want to discuss something with you. It involves our mutual dislike for a certain appendage."
"… I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Eighteen minutes later, Jeri Hogarth knocked on my door, clad impeccably in her suit and with the most determined look on her face I've ever seen on her.
"Come on in." I say as I walk back into the room, hearing how Jeri closes the door behind her, soft steps following behind me.
"What did you want to discuss Michael?" Jeri asks, only lifting an eyebrow when she spots Burstein carefully bustling around in the impromptu lab he set up in the living room, but otherwise not reacting to the strange sight.
"I'm going to cripple the Hand." I say bluntly, and now Jeri's second eyebrow joins the first one as it is lifted in surprise, right before she gives me an impressive scowl, both eyes flaring up with the familiar hue of Extremis, which I administered to her the moment after the clean-up of my former HQ had been completed, restoring her eye.
"Only cripple?" she asks coolly, but I can hear the hate in her voice.
"Sadly, yes. There are five leaders of the Hand, each called a Finger. There are currently four Fingers in New York, but the fifth one, Sowande, is currently a warlord in Africa, and for the moment out of our reach." I explain, deepening the scowl on Jeri's face even further.
"The four in New York. Who are they, and how are we going to kill them?"
"They are Madame Gao, Bakuto, Murakami, and their leader, Alexandra Reid."
"Alexandra Reid? The name sounds familiar…" Jeri muses, getting a nod from me.
"She is one of New York's upper elite, the 1% of the 1%. I'm not surprised you know about her." I explain.
"Meaning she'll be hard to get to." Jeri concludes as she crosses her arms.
"I've given Sterns a call, he's trying to track her down as best as he can, but who knows how long it takes until he can give us a location, like her home address or something. So while he's doing that, we'll focus on the ones that we do know how to get to."
"I assume this is where I come in?" Jeri asked as she leaned against the back of the couch.
"Yes, you'll be focusing on drawing Madame Gao out of hiding. She's a heroin dealer, and works out of several sweat shops in the shittier parts of New York. Very difficult to track down: since everything's illegal and off the books, there's no paper or digital trail to follow, at least not fast. Which means we make her come to us."
"And just how do we do that? I hope you're not going to suggest breaking up her drug trade or something. I'm not against taking drugs off the street, but that's going to take ages." Jeri said with a frown.
"No, we go after something far more valuable. You see, Gao has been using Rand as the infrastructure for her distribution. So we go after the man who controls Rand."
"You want to go after Ward?" Jeri asks gobsmacked, clearly taken off guard that the company where she started her career at as a lowly intern was now used to facilitate a drug smuggling ring.
"No. We go after the man who controls Ward. We go after Harold." I say with a sly grin, which only widens when I see Jeri's confused, disbelieving expression.
"Michael. Harold has been dead for seven years."
"Nope. He died seven years ago, that much is true. But the Hand resurrected him, and he now controls Rand from the shadows, telling his son what to do." I reveal, and for a moment it seems as if Jeri wants to scoff at the sheer ridiculousness of the statement.
But then the events of the last 24 hours catch up to her, and the words die in her throat.
For a moment, she's silent and the only noise in the room is the soft tinkling of glass and instruments as Burstein is diligently working in his little lab.
"The Hand… they can really… can they really do that? Bring someone back from the dead?" Jeri asks in a small voice, completely at odds with the stone cold lawyer I've known her as.
I immediately catch on to her hidden question, and I don't have to fake my sympathy as I walk over towards her, laying a hand about as large as her head softly on her shoulder, making her look into my softly burning eyes.
"No. Not anymore. They need a special substance in order to do it, but they've run out, or they will very soon. A single dose allows a person to come back from the dead, again and again, but each time they do, there's… less, that returns. They go mad. They'll kill the ones closest to them first." I say to Jeri, who closes her eyes in acceptance.
It was something that had been bothering me for a very long time actually. Harold Meachum died and came back multiple times on just a single treatment with the Elixir. The tale that Yang, leader of the Triads, told Ward about a man from his great-grandfathers village also indicated that the farmer kept coming back from the dead multiple times.
So why were the Fingers so dependent on the Elixir, if it kept bringing people back multiple times?
My current theory was that when left to its own devices, the Elixir would bring the bodies back at least a couple of times, but the mind kept breaking down bit by bit. You needed a fresh shot of the Elixir to keep your mind intact when you resurrected, or at least, that was the theory that I was currently working under.
Which meant that I had to assume that if I killed the Fingers, they would be able to resurrect on their own, though a bit less sane than before.
Meaning that I would need to be… thorough.
"So what's the plan then? I put pressure on Ward, he leads me to Harold and then Harold leads me to Gao?" Jeri asked, and I shook my head.
"Almost. Yes, Ward will give you Harold, but he wouldn't be able to point you in the direction of Gao. We'll need to make her come to him. Harold is forced to work for them, and he's chafing under their rule. You need to convince him that, not only are we willing to kill the Hand, we're fully capable of it too. Make him antagonize the Hand enough that Gao will show up to set him straight."
"What if she realizes that it's a trap? What if she sends her underlings, instead of showing up in person?" Jeri put forwards, but I waved her concern off.
"If she does, then all she will have done is give us more leads to her location. Everybody talks. Eventually."
I can hear Burstein pause at my ominous words, before he continues working in silence, but if Jeri's unsettled then she doesn't show it, her face on of utmost determination.
"Fine. That's Gao. What about Murakami and Bakuto?"
"Finding Bakuto is going to be relatively easy. He has a student here in New York, and a dojo somewhere nearby. I don't know the exact location of the dojo, but I do know where the student is. I'll take care of her, while you take care of Harold." I explain, getting a nod from Jeri.
"And this Murakami?"
"One of their most enigmatic members. His lieutenant and at least one of his corporations are based in New York, but from what I know about him personally, he spends a lot of time in Japan. There's every chance that he's not in New York right now. So I've got Sterns looking for any mention of his man instead, Nobu Yoshioka."
Getting told that yet another leader of the Hand might be out of reach clearly annoys Jeri, so I easily placate her growing anger.
"There was no chance of us killing the Hand in a single blow, Jeri. They are too widespread for that, they have too many connections. But Alexandra is in New York, and we will get our hands on Gao and Bakuto, giving us a lead to her. With those three taken out, only Sowande and Murakami remain. Murakami never did much care for the other Fingers and I can see him choosing to remain in Japan indefinitely. I don't know much about Sowande, but if he's in Africa, he'll inevitable have to deal with Wakanda, and immortal or not, that's going to be difficult enough for him that he won't focus on New York. That leaves their forces here in enough disarray that Hydra will be able to mop up their grunts."
"Hydra?" Jeri asks with surprise, getting a nod from me.
"Those six people that got assassinated? Those were Hydra agents. There will be a backlash, but I've managed to move certain people in places that will put pressure on them, meaning that they'll focus on their own anonymity first and foremost, severely reducing their striking power. But the disorganized remains of a hidden ninja-organization? Hopefully, pitting two weakened forces against each other like that will cause for mutual destruction."
That clearly pleases Jeri, who gives me a tight smile as her eyes begin to burn with vicious anticipation.
With the basics of a plan in place, I turn towards Burstein, who I can tell has only been pretending to be busy for a couple of minutes in order to give me and Jeri some privacy as we contemplated murder.
"Is everything ready?"
Giving a brisk nod, the disgruntled scientist walks over to Jeri, a row of five syringes held neatly in a little rack.
"Michael, sit on the bed please." He asks without much warmth in his voice, clearly still not on board with the risky procedure I'm forcing him to do.
Following his instructions, I watch as he explains to Jeri which syringe she needs to inject me with in which order and on which place on my body, switching out the Vibranium tip with each shot.
Without much fuss, Jeri accepts the first syringe, places the Vibranium tip on it, and jams it unceremoniously into the side of my neck, drawing a surprised grunt from me. She repeats the process twice more, before she's forced to stop, the point of the Vibranium glowing a worrying red.
Without saying a word, Burstein takes the glowing tip from Jeri's outstretched palm with a pair of tongs, drops it in a metal tray filled with water, which bubbles and hisses when he drops the Vibranium needle in it.
Handing her another Vibranium tip, Jeri quickly finishes up the final two shots, and just in time as well, because I've been feeling progressively worse and worse with each passing second ever since the first injection.
As the room starts spinning, I can hear the muffled voices coming from Burstein and Hogarth, but I put them out of my mind as I drag myself towards the bathroom, uncaring that my hands are digging deep furrows into the walls as I try to grab a handhold.
Suddenly I can feel someone lifting me up, and lolling my head to the side, I can see the lithe form of Jeri as she slings my arm over her shoulders, carrying me towards the bathroom.
I crash to the tiles in front of the toilet boil (shattering them as I do) and before I can stop myself, I'm throwing up, feeling like absolute shit. As the worst wave of nausea finally passes, I manage to open my eyes somewhat, staring forlornly at the ruined remains of the toilet in front of me.
"Huh. I didn't know you threw up lava." I can Jeri muse, before I'm hurling again.
Eventually, I'm just completely spent, and Jeri drags me towards the bed, which Burstein has covered in several Amber Armor sheets. For a moment I'm confused, until I notice that I'm steaming.
I'm heating up more and more, and my sweat immediately evaporates. My bathrobe is already charring in places. If I had lain down like this, then there's a very good chance that I've would've set my room on fire in mere minutes.
As I drop down onto the bed with a pained grunt, even as Jeri strips my bathrobe from me (given that she bats for the other team, there's nothing I got that she's all that interested in, and Burstein is a medical professional so he just ignores it with practiced ease), I try to feel the changes occurring in my body.
Ever since I had taken all those Heart-shaped Herbs, I had an unparalleled feeling of my body, feeling it down to every single muscle fibre. It was what had given me my new sense of superhuman agility and balance, but now I was using that sense to try and feel out just what the hell was happening to me.
And it wasn't good.
The changes in my DNA were happening alright, but my body was fighting it, my healing factor seeing the changes as foreign and as such as something that needed to be repelled and fixed.
'No! No, it's alright, let the change happen! For fuck's sake, this is my body! Listen to me!' I roar inside my mind, over and over again as I try and force my body to stop fixing me.
Slowly, oh so very slowly, I can feel how the heat in my body starts to die down. I can feel how my body stops fighting the changes in my DNA as it obeys my command. It increases the nausea ten times over, but so far, every procedure I had performed on myself was accompanied by absolute agony, so I could deal with some nausea.
Far away in the background, I can hear Burstein talking to me in an urgent tone, but his voice is muffled and I can't make out the words. So I wave him off with a weak twitch of my arm, as instead I keep focusing inwards, trying to guide my body into accepting the changes, forcing it to stop fighting with all of my willpower.
Slowly, my vision starts to darken, and even as I can feel something settle inside of myself, I drift off into unconsciousness.
December 31st, 2011 7:56
The first thing I hear is snoring. I'm pretty sure it's not me, considering that I'm currently in the process of waking up, so with monumental effort, I open my eyes (it feels as if someone replaced my eyelids with lead or something) and look around me.
It takes a few moments before I recognize my surroundings, but eventually everything comes back to me. The fact that I'm lying in a hotelroom, because my HQ was reduced to rubble due to an attack by the gangs using Wakandan weaponry, so I killed them and then I wanted to go after the Hand, so I had Burstein enhance me-
As that last thought crashes into my brain, I shoot up straight in my bed, only vaguely noticing the leather sheets underneath me. I immediately try to replicate what I had done early this morning, trying to 'look' inwards into my own body.
There's definitely… something.
My senses had been enhanced by the various serums inside me, but they had skyrocketed ever since the Heart-shaped Herb, especially my sense of self. And I could sense there was power inside me.
I wasn't sure what this power was (was it chi? My weird-ass soul? Extremis, maybe?), or even whether it was something new, or something that had always been there.
I needed to test this. A strength test wasn't really possible here (punching through a wall or something was something that I had been capable of for some time now, and there was nothing in the hotel that could have strained my previous level of strength), so in order to see if the procedure was successful or not, I'd have to determine whether or not I could fly.
But how to go about it?
Should I go to an open clearing, jump as high as I could and then try to miss the ground on my way down? I could also of course just go to the roof of the hotel and then jump off the building, figuring it out on the way down. Even if it turned out that I couldn't fly, the fall would maybe hurt a bit, but I'd be fine in moments anyways.
I was drawn from my musings by the door to the room opening, and after a few moments, Jeri Hogarth entered into my field of vision, two coffees held in one hand, and a paper bag in the other.
With barely a glance, she tossed the bag onto the couch, which gave a disgruntled 'oomph!'. For a moment, I just sleepily blinked at the suddenly sentient furniture, before I saw Burstein work himself to a sitting position, holding the bag in his hands as he blearily picked out a donut out of it.
As he began munching on it with a vacant stare, I was drawn from my own sluggish musings as I saw Hogarth standing by the side of the bed, one coffee held out to me.
"Good, you're awake."
Accepting the coffee with a tired grunt, I try and wash away the disgusting taste lingering in my mouth, even as I try to blink the grit from my eyes.
"So did it work?" Jeri's voice cut through my sluggish thoughts, forcing me to look up at her as I took another sip from my coffee, only now noticing an ache going through my entire body, all the way from my skin to my bones.
"Only one way to find out."
About a an hour and a half later, I and Burstein (Jeri went off to secure a meeting with Ward Meachum) are standing in the middle of a grassy field in the middle of nowhere outside New York, with the scientist still blinking away the sleep in his eyes.
I on the other hand am fully awake now, having spent the time trying to go over my body as the pain slowly started to fade. There was definitely some sort of power inside me now, so all I had to do was draw it out until I was surrounded in a field, just like Jessica naturally was.
As Burstein's computer has finished booting up, the scientist gives an almighty yawn, before visibly shaking himself.
"Alright Michael, this is Test One: Unpowered Flight. Ready when you are." Burstein says behind the foldout table which is covered in laptops, measuring equipment and camera's.
Closing my eyes and widening my stance somewhat, I dig deep inside myself, but it's a slow going process.
The Heart-shaped Herb has given me unparalleled senses, but this is a two-edged sword. I can clearly feel the energy inside me (how is it produced anyways? No! Focus, Michael!), but I can also feel the grass brushing against my boots, the wind smoothly crossing over my scalp. 'Looking' further inside myself doesn't just give me sense of the energy, it also allows me to feel my own heartbeat and how my muscles in my legs are coiled.
It takes nearly fifteen minutes before I finally get a 'hold' of the energy-
"Yes!"
-which slips through my grasp the moment my intense focus fades even the slightest amount due to my excitement.
It takes only thirteen minutes the next time I try to grasp the energy inside myself, and this time I can hold it for about five minutes, before I can hear a bird chirp in the distance and I lose it again.
Slowly but surely, it takes me shorter and shorter amounts of time to get to the new energy inside me, and I can keep it in place longer and longer. Eventually, after nearly forty-five minutes, I feel that I've gotten a good enough grasp on it, that I open my eyes.
Seeing this, Burstein sits a bit straighter in his plastic chair, pulling down his scarf as he gives me a questioning look. Giving a nod of my own, I bend at the knees, keeping my focus inwards…
And then I jump.
The snow around me is blasted back as I rocket off into the air, cratering the ground underneath me and tearing up great chunks of dirt. After about six stories, I can feel my momentum lessen, but I keep my will focused solely on the energy inside myself.
And then as I slowly start to descend, I pull.
I'm so focused on sensing inwards, that it takes me a couple of moments before I realize something very important.
I haven't hit the ground yet.
Opening my eyes against the gales of wind surrounding my body, I gaze in wonder as I see the clouds rapidly approaching me. Looking down, I can see the ground falling away, a wildly gesturing Burstein becoming smaller and smaller.
Leaning a bit to the side, I start falling away to the side, before I try to adjust my course by leaning to the other side, which throws me into a dizzying spin.
Turns out, steering is going to take a bit of practise.
Coming to a sudden halt in the hair by just going spread-eagled and focusing all of my thoughts on STOP, I'm just hanging there, slightly out of breath as excitement starts to bubble inside of me, eventually coming out in great bellows of laughter.
I'm flying.
It wasn't the first time, as I had done it a few times in the first few versions of my armour, but I hadn't done it very often and it was a completely different kind of feeling.
Flying in my armour had felt as if I had strapped a go-kart to my body and was then stuck in a never-ending rollercoaster.
But this…
It's difficult to put into words, but try to imagine swimming. But there's no resistance around you, no effort, no weight. You're just floating there, in absolute freedom.
Hearing faint shouts coming from the ground far below me, I focus back on the tiny Burstein, who is still waving excitedly at me.
Drawing from my experience flying my kit bashed Iron Man suit, I slowly float over until I'm hanging in the air a couple of feet in front of Burstein above the crater I made during my jump, at an altitude that would put me at the same height as some of the shorter skyscrapers in New York.
And then I cut the power.
Immediately I start plummeting like a rock, and a laugh escapes me as I feel like I'm in one of donut-things you see in amusement parks, only a thousand times faster and more exhilarating.
In only a couple of seconds I've descended to the ground, my booted feet slamming into the ground with a thunderous crash, producing a shockwave of dust and air, nearly bowling over Burstein who's standing not twenty feet away from my impact zone.
Stepping outside of the second crater I've made (and besides a slight stinging feeling in my ankles which is gone in seconds, I'm completely unharmed), I turn towards Burstein with the biggest grin of my life on my face.
For a couple of moments, the scientist just stares at me with an open mouth, before he slowly leans over to his laptop, pressing a single button.
"Test One… success."
December 31st, 2011 10:38
Standing in the shade a large tree on the edge of a small park, hood up, cap on my bald head and sunglasses in front of my burning eyes, I keep watch on the door of the building across the street from me, meanwhile reading a text that Hogarth sent me.
-Got meeting w/ W.M. Will update. JH.-
As I hear the door open, I slide the piece of plastic into my pocket as I watch in thinly veiled amusement as a bunch of sweat covered children slowly trickle outside, going off on their own ways, either alone or in groups of two or three.
When the last kid has left, I bend at the knees, before shooting off into the sky, making sure that I don't produce any shockwaves or loud noises, before landing on top of the now empty building.
It's amazing, just how little humans think about ever looking up.
Making my way over to the stairwell, I quickly descend a few floors, before I come to the right one. As I walk further into the hall, my eyes fall on a door with a logo painted on its dark wood.
Chikara Dojo.
The smile that crosses my face is completely void of warmth, before I school it in into a more inviting expression. Giving a quick knock, I can hear footsteps approaching the door, before it's swung open, and I focus on the little woman in front of me.
"Hello, Miss Wing. May I come in?"
Even as I talk, I take an step forwards, but unlike literally everybody else I have ever used this tactic on, little Miss Wing doesn't even so much as flinch, even as we now stand chest to chest to each other.
"No. You may not. Leave." She says clearly and stone-faced, her eyes staring unwaveringly into my burning ones.
I had expected for the spitfire to be a bit difficult to handle, but I hadn't expected this level of hostility right off the bat.
Taking yet another step, which means that we're almost touching each other right now, I loom in the doorway, a smile still on my face though my eyes are now burning like hellish embers, and judging by the way she tenses her muscles, I can tell that she knows I'm losing my patience.
"I'm afraid I must insist. May I come in."
It wasn't voiced as a question, and Colleen knows that she can't stop me from just literally walking over her, so she grudgingly takes a step back into her dojo, giving a short jerk with her head.
"I can call the police on you, you know." She tells me as she walks over to stand in front of me again, her arms crossed in front of her.
"You could, yes. You're not going to, however." I admit easily, as I close the door behind me.
"Oh? And why is that?" she asks me sarcastically, though her sneer falters when I turn back to face her, and she sees my face as I allow a bit of my real emotions to leak through into my expression.
"Because you don't want the police here, Miss Wing. Because if they do, it's not just me they'll be asking questions, but you as well. There will be many, of course, but I think my favourite one would be 'how exactly did you first come into possession of this dojo?'." I rumble as I slowly approach the martial artist, who quickly moves backwards, matching me step for step.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Colleen says quickly, but her widened eyes tell me that she's rattled by the covert reference to her sensei.
Well then, let's see what overt shall accomplish.
"Miss Wing. Where is Bakuto's hideout?"
At the name of the man who taught her everything she knew, Colleen freezes in place, her eyes widening in surprise and fear.
"I… I don't-"
"Do not lie to me, Miss Wing. If you've been following the news lately, then you can understand that I'm in a very bad mood. I know the Hand was behind the attack. I know that Bakuto is one of the five Fingers. And I know that he has a compound somewhere in the vicinity of New York, where he takes in the lost souls of this world, so he can brainwash them into perfect little soldiers at his leisure. The only thing I don't know is where the fucking thing is. You do."
Her face goes white as I reveal my knowledge, and her eyes dart to her where her bedroom is, where she keeps that white katana of hers. Both of us know that it won't do her any good against me, but it's a warrior's instinct to have a weapon in hand when facing an enemy.
And the moment I dropped her sensei's name, I became an enemy in her eyes.
Now, back in my old life, I thought that Colleen Wing was a pretty badass character, both in the Defenders show, as well as in Iron Fist (though I had always felt that she lost a lot of her badass-status the moment she hooked up with Danny and started playing second-fiddle to him). There were even a few rumours floating around that she would make an appearance in the second season of Luke Cage, but I switched universes before that came out, so I never found out whether those rumours were true or not.
The point is, as a character, I rooted for Colleen because I thought she was a badass lady.
But she wasn't a character anymore.
Right now, she was an obstacle.
"I'm going to ask this only once, Miss Wing. If you refuse to answer, or if you lie, then I'll stop asking. I'll start demanding instead. And I can guarantee you, you will not like it when I am forced to demand something." I growl lowly as I keep advancing on the young woman, even as her back hits the wall of her dojo.
Looming over her, I bend down until our eyes are on the same height, and I will mine to burn even brighter, until they're filled with a hellish glow which Colleen is forced to look away from.
"Where. Is. Bakuto."
For a few moments, her mouth opens and closes, and it seems as if she's about to give him up after all. Then I can spot a subtle twitch in her stance, and I know that she's made her choice.
Too bad it's the wrong one.
With her skill, and with how close I am leaning in, there's no way for me to dodge her strike, and her elbow slams into my left eye (figures someone trained by the Hand would spot that single weakness from the news coverage of the fight) and as I instinctively rock back despite the fact that I'm not hurt all that much, she uses the opening to dash towards her living room.
Blinking my eye a couple of times until it's fully repaired itself in a few seconds, I turn towards her living room as well, and with a few quick strides I'm standing inside it. Spotting what is likely her bedroom, I stomp towards it, throwing open the door with a loud bang.
For a moment, I look in surprise at the empty room, before I spot movement from the corner of my vision, right as Colleen descends towards me from the top corner of the room she had been hiding in, her blade out and flashing in the low light of the room.
Annoyance flashes within me when I notice that she's again aiming for my eye, but I have a bit more space to move in now, so I dodge the strike simply by turning my head, allowing the katana to scrape uselessly across my temple.
Taken off guard (when you spend your entire lifetime honing your skill with the blade, you're inevitably thrown for a loop when it just bounces off your target) Colleen doesn't quite manage to turn her charge into a smooth roll as she had intended, and instead stumbles when her bare feet hit the floor.
I react even before she's made contact, and my arm comes around in a wide swing, catching her in the ribs and throwing her into the wall. I didn't put that much strength into it, but it's still enough to break her bones.
As she's lying there on the ground, gasping for air, I kneel down next to her. My eyes fall onto the katana she's still grasping in her hands, and slowly I reach out and grab it by the blade. I effortlessly start moving it from her grasp, even as her eyes widen in fear and she tries to hold onto it with all her strength.
She fails.
Casually, as if I don't feel any resistance at all, I move the blade from her hands and examine it as I hold it up to eye level.
"Here's something that I don't get about the katana: why do people like it so much? Iron melts at 2800 °C, yet the tatara in which katana are forged can only reach 2600 °C, meaning that traditional blades are filled with slag inclusions, making them brittle. And then a blacksmith folds it over and over, and ends up beating all the carbon out of the steel. They only have one edge with which to cut with, and not really much of a spearing point, like longswords have. So why the fascination with them? I'll freely admit, I am guilty of it myself, I think they're cool as shit, but as far as blades go? The katana is pretty… weak." I muse to myself (fully aware that what I'm saying is only half-correct, but I'm trying to rile the woman up), as I grip the tip and the base of the blade between my fingers, and slowly start to apply pressure.
As the blade visibly starts to bend, Colleen forces herself to sit up a bit straighter, her hand outstretched as she pleads with me.
"P-please… d-don't…" she gasps out, but I am unmoved as I easily keep bending the blade further and further, ignoring the dark red blotches that slowly start to stain her white shirt.
Am I an evil bastard for doing this?
Yeah, pretty much. After all, it wasn't Colleen who attacked me. But at this point, she's part of the organization who did, and my only link to Bakuto's hideout.
I am willing to do far, far worse.
"Where is the hideout, Miss Wing. It won't take much more effort from me to shatter this heirloom, and then I'll be forced to focus on… breaking something else."
I bend the blade a bit further.
Colleen Wing was a proud, strong-willed woman who could handle herself in a fight, who was trained by some of the most evil bastards on Earth. Everyone breaks under torture, eventually, but I wasn't sure where Colleen's threshold was, though undoubtedly it would be very high.
It would most likely involve doing massive, permanent damage, and while I had no qualms with going that far (though my respect for her as a character meant that I'd rather not have to), it would both involve a lot of time and a lot of screaming, which would inevitably draw attention.
But going after her heirloom?
That might hurt her more than any damage I inflicted on her body.
"P-please…" she begs again, crying now.
"I understand, Miss Wing. You feel that you owe the man. It is to be expected. He gave you your skills, he gave you this dojo. But what is the price for that? The Hand owns you, Miss Wing. They owned your soul the moment Bakuto decided to make you his, and he spent your entire life training your body into something that would be of use to him. You think you are unique? That he cares for you? He is millennia old, Miss Wing. There are countries, civilizations, that are younger than he is. Do you think that in all that time, there had never been another? That there had been no one else, who he cherished, who he trained, who he gave what they craved the most? Do not be foolish, Miss Wing, we both know that you are not that naïve. But have you never wondered about the other ones? The ones that have come decades and centuries before you? About what happened to them? Either they died young, on the blade of his enemies, or his own. Or they grew old, their souls still his, but with bodies that were useless to him. You know what kind of man he is, do you really think that he would keep around something useless? Those too fell on his blade. After millennia, only he remains. The man is incapable of love, Miss Wing. He is a monster." I tell her in a soft voice, going after every psychological weak point that I can think of.
I bend the blade a bit further. It's visibly straining now.
"P-p-please…" Colleen sobs, crying openly now.
"This can all go away, Miss Wing. I will leave, and I'll take down the Hand. You have built a pretty good life for yourself. Help me in safeguarding that life. Help me make sure that you will never again have to lie awake at night, fearing a knock on your door, and hearing that the Hand wishes for their perfect little soldier back, fearing that you'll have to stain this sword with innocent blood. Help me. Where. Is. Bakuto?" I whisper, leaning in a bit further to the crying woman.
As she stares up at me with broken, helpless eyes, I know that I've won.
Victory tastes like ash in my mouth.
December 31st, 2011 12:23
I was floating in the air just below the clouds, a tiny speck against an endless sky as I looked at the Compound below me. Several buildings, scattered around a few open fields, and surrounded by forests on all sides, with only one road leading to a tiny village a few miles back.
It had taken me an hour and a half, flying at my top speed (I felt that with just a bit more speed and training, I could break the sound barrier, but I wasn't quite there, yet) before I reached the Hand Compound, and from this far up, it just looked like a regular university campus.
Despite the snow covering everything, there were still a fair amount of people out and about, which made sense considering they were receiving training from hell in order to be moulded into the Hand's next generation of weapons.
Even from this far up, I can still see individual people, though it's impossible to make out any features. For now, I don't have to. I patiently wait until I see a large group go out into the snow covered field that lies in the centre of the compound, as they all go through what appear to be warm-up stretches.
They go through a couple of synchronised movements, before I spot movement coming from the far side of the field and I spot a single figure walking towards the front of the large group, pacing a bit back and forth as he observes the assassins in training.
Descending a couple of hundred feet, I confirm my suspicions: right there is Bakuto, one of the five Fingers of the immortal Hand.
I cut the power.
Plummeting down at breakneck speeds, I can't fully suppress my worry. I'm (fairly) sure that I'll survive this, but this is the highest I've ever fallen, and it's definitely going to hurt. I'll probably break a few bones, but my worry is more centred around how many I'll end up breaking, and how long it'll take to fix them.
And then I can't worry any further because HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT MOTHERFUCKING HURTS WHY THE FUCKING FUCK DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, FUUUUCK!
The familiar heat of Extremis immediately kicks in, and the pain quickly fades to a background noise as my legs (and would you look at that, I only broke every single bone in both legs, yay me) start to knit themselves together.
Despite the horrific impact, there's of course not a single scratch on me.
As I fully straighten, I am reminded why I thought this was a good idea, as the dust cloud around me finally begins to settle.
I had aimed at roughly the middle of the large group of would-be ninja's, who were centred around the middle of the courtyard.
Except where they had stood, there was now a massive crater, bits of debris and… human falling down around me.
Quickly jumping out of the three feet deep massive hole, I land on the edge of the upturned earth, seeing whatever people that weren't reduced to bits by my meteor impact strewn around the courtyard, those closest to me either dead or unconscious, and those further away shakily working themselves back to their feet.
Amongst them is Bakuto.
Even as he painfully straightens, I dash forwards in a straight line, shouldering two of his students out of my way with enough force to send them flying. Bakuto has just enough time to widen his eyes, before my enormous hand closes around his skull.
I don't make any demands. I don't make any threats. In fact, I don't say anything at all.
I just start squeezing.
As I can see him screaming, I'm a bit confused at first, before I finally realize what's wrong.
He doesn't make a sound.
Thinking back on it, I haven't heard a thing ever since my impact. Guess I busted my eardrums or something. It doesn't really matter, they'll regenerate themselves any moment-
"-AARRRGGHHG!"
See?
Dropping the panting Finger to the ground, my boot descends on his left knee with a dry crack, and once more a scream comes from the immortal asshole. I repeat the process with his other knee, before I feel something pinging off the back of my helmet.
Even if the Hand knew that it was me, and for whatever reason decided to report this attack to the authorities, they couldn't prove it if I kept my identity hidden, and didn't display any of my fire powers. After all, Michael McCole didn't wear advanced armour, and he certainly couldn't fly.
The only reason that I hadn't worn the armour when I went to visit Colleen was because it would've been too conspicuous, and it was difficult enough already to sneak around with my size (though I had made sure that nobody had seen me enter her dojo). Some very creative threats were hopefully sufficient in keeping her from stepping to the police, but she was something that I would need to find a way to deal with, preferably without killing her.
Turning around, I see three men running out of one of the buildings, firing automatic rifles at me as they fan out. Almost laughing out loud at the sheer uselessness of their attack (I shrugged off Wakandan weaponry bare-chested, the fuck did they think those peashooters were going to do to me?) I simply raise one of my arms, the massive gauntlet concealing a Hammer-tech machine gun.
A few quick bursts later, and my would-be attackers are dead.
Feeling something impact my shin through the thick cargo pants I'm wearing, I can see Bakuto's wide-eyed gaze as he looks from the small tanto he has stabbed me with, to my featureless helmet glaring down at him.
Bending down, I quickly snatch the hand with the knife in my own, before I crush it with about as much effort as it would've taken a human to snap a toothpick.
Ignoring his renewed cries, I look up as over a dozen new people run into the courtyard, some of them adults wielding machine guns, some of them youngsters wielding swords or just their bare fists.
While the people trained here were on the young side, I rationalized to myself that I still wasn't breaking my 'no killing kids' rule, given that most of the people here were either eighteen or over, and were all trained killers.
Still, other than the group I had just crushed with my impact, I wouldn't exactly go out of my way to start killing the brainwashed youngsters here.
But those security people, that were even now opening fire on me, their bullets flattening on my metal armour or indestructible leather duster?
Now they were fair game.
It was a matter of moments for my on-board targeting system to high-light the adults wielding machine guns.
It took even shorter to lift my arms, and squeeze the triggers.
The sound of gunfire was deafening, but a few seconds later every single security guard was down on the ground, riddled with holes.
Try resurrecting from that, bitches.
Leaning down again, I grip Bakuto by his shoulder (the one connected to his unbroken arm) and snap that too, making him scream again.
"Sensei!"
The voice is young, and as I look up, I can see a woman run towards me with tears running down her face, a katana held high above her head. In the moments it takes for her to cross the ruined courtyard at her deadsprint, I idly wonder how old she is.
Eighteen? Nineteen? Certainly no older than in her early twenties.