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Issue #2 by D. Golightly
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"Balance - Part Two"
“Okay…this is new.”
Danny Rand stood up on wobbly legs. Moments ago he had been wading through a murky swamp in the everglades of Florida, searching for hope. On the advice of Dr. Stephan Strange, Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, he had been wandering aimlessly for days. When he had inquired about some type of direction for his answers, the good doctor had only told him that the answers would instead seek him out.
After being pulled through some type of nexus at the heart of the swamp Danny had found himself floating in the ether. He stood on nothingness, which should have been impossible, and yet there he was. There was a definite weight to the landscape, although his eyes were telling him that he was in a total vacuum of darkness.
His right arm was burning, and quickly growing numb. He rubbed at it absentmindedly, but was distracted when a booming voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Daniel Rand. There is a blight upon your soul.”
Danny whirled, ready to spring into action should the need arise. However, the disembodied voice came from nowhere, and everywhere at once. He squinted, but there was nothing in the distance that could be used as a frame of reference either.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“A comrade in arms,” the voice replied. “Of sorts. We have much in common, Iron Fist. Perhaps if I stood revealed in a more corporal sense you would feel at ease.”
A green mist billowed from the darkness, condensing right in front of Danny. The smoke thickened and formed into a humanoid figure, cloaked in a green shroud that blanketed the form, hiding it mostly from view. Whoever this person was, Danny could instantly sense a powerful chi within him.
He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the person he was supposed to be looking for.
“Nice party trick,” Danny said. He rubbed at his arm again. “You do kids’ parties?”
“Your mockery is purely a function of your naivety,” the shrouded figure said. “You would do well to silence that juvenile tongue. You have much to learn, Daniel Rand.”
“I’ve always been a great student,” Iron Fist replied. “When does class begin?”
“Immediately.”
The figure moved with swift speed that defied his garments. The heavy shroud should have muffled his quickness, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He lashed forward, flinging his cloak at Danny to feign a strike on his left side. Taken by surprise, Danny moved just a second too slow to avoid the hit coming from the right.
Green smoke enveloped him as the fight progressed. Even though he was standing on nothing, somehow hovering in dead space, he was still able to fight back. Or, at least fight back as much as he had the ability to. This shrouded figure was fast, and his attacks were issued with pinpoint accuracy. Iron Fist was forced to focus on each individual block he put up instead of allowing his body to naturally defend itself as his training had always taken control.
Iron Fist ducked under another sweep of the cloak, jutting his palm up into the man’s face. It was his first direct hit against his attacker, and it was strong enough to knock the hood off of his head.
The fight stopped. The figure stepped back, his face completely devoid of expression. Danny was breathing heavily, but the other man seemed to not even breathe at all. He maintained his stance, ready to go another round if the need arose.
“You look familiar,” Danny said.
“You have seen me in your subconscious, I am sure,” he said. “My name is John Aman, the Prince of Orphans. I helped create the blade now bonded to your chi, and unless you heed my warning it will surely destroy you.”
Danny’s forearm was still pounding with pain. He glanced at his own arm. He knew that his inner energy had been out of whack since he had taken the sword and melded it with the Iron Fist power. Dr. Strange had tried to separate the sword with no degree of success. He figured the sword was an inconvenience, but could it actually kill him?
He concentrated on his chi, summoning the power of the Iron Fist technique. The yellow energy bubbled to life from beneath his skin, surrounding his forearm and hand in a powerful glow. A sword flashed into existence, gripped in his hand: the Blade of the Dragon.
“I’m listening,” Danny said.
# # # # #
“This is the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever done,” Luke Cage muttered.
He sloshed through the abysmal swamp, wishing that he had worn thermal underwear. Skin as hard as diamonds didn’t do much to keep the water out of your socks. At least the mosquitoes couldn’t use him as a meal.
He had flown into Florida the previous day and headed straight for the everglades. That was where his sources had told him that Danny Rand had gone, and that’s where he would find his best friend.
His sources…how exactly had he learned about this place?
He suddenly tripped over a stump that he hadn’t noticed a moment earlier. He hit the foot-deep water face first and choked down a mouthful of black water unwillingly. He sat up coughing, disgusted with the location.
“Christmas.” Luke brushed some moss off of his shoulder and tried not to scream from frustration. “Why the hell would he come down to this godforsaken place anyway?”
Something rustled in the foliage to his right. He turned, expecting to see an alligator or crocodile (he couldn’t tell the difference, and didn’t care to learn – big teeth were big teeth). Instead he was greeted by a huge monster that seemed to be entirely composed of slimy plant life and insects.
The lumbering creature remained silent. It’s red eyes stared directly at Luke Cage, almost challenging him to rise and strike him down. The creature appeared aggressive, as if protecting something, although Cage couldn’t imagine what could possibly be worth protecting in a barren swamp.
“Easy, big guy,” Cage said as he stood, attempting to sound as soothing as possible. “I get the sense that I’m trespassing here. I’m just looking for a buddy of mine.”
The monstrous creature tilted it’s head to one side. Cage suddenly felt an onrush of emotion, somehow conveyed directly from the murky brute. The empathic connection revealed to Cage a vision of Danny Rand treading through the everglades, wandering into a mystical portal of some sort.
It matched an implanted image in his mind almost exactly, which then triggered the second part of his programming. The programming that one Agent Travers had installed into Luke Cage without his memory.
Aggression flooded Cage’s mind, causing a backlash to the empathic connection and severing it. The monster roared in shock, and Cage ground his teeth, ready to fight.
The monster, somewhere between a man and an abhorrent thing, stood its ground as the former Power Man launched himself in pure aggression. He slammed his fist into the thing’s face, driving diamond-hard knuckles into its mossy facial features. It bellowed in response and Cage’s mind was injected with a plethora of feelings and emotions.
Cage drove his other fist into the thing’s chest, shoving it backward, but not able to topple it over. He shot his foot out into the thing’s leg, hoping to buckle what passed for its knee, but it had no effect. He pounded away, screaming mindlessly, denting the surface of the thing’s chest, but doing little actual damage.
The thing reared back and retaliated. With speed that betrayed its size and stature, the thing clobbered Luke across the jaw. The thick tree-like appendage bowled over his face, sending him flying into the swamp. He choked down a mouthful of black water as he struggled to get up, rising only halfway up. He balanced himself on forearms and shins, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Christmas,” he muttered. “What the hell was that?”
The thing stalked up behind him, lumbering high over his bent form. It was not aggressive, but still obviously ready to put Cage down again if needed. Luke dragged his arm across his face to clear the spittle and murky water, and then looked up into the face of the creature that had knocked the sense back into him.
“Nice punch,” he said. “Everything think about contracting yourself out? I made a few bucks with haymakers like that.”
He couldn’t be sure, but the slight gyration in the thing’s torso indicated a meager laugh. It stepped back, giving Luke the space he needed to stand back up again. Luke noticed that from where he stood now he was actually further from where he assumed was the center of the swamp. The trajectory could have been a coincidence, but he didn’t think that he believed in coincidences anymore.
“You’re some kind of protector,” Luke said. “There’s something about this place, right? Something important worth looking after. Don’t worry; I’m not interested in fighting over it. I’m just looking for my friend.”
The thing slowly raised its arm, pointing in the direction that Luke had been traveling before his mind had been overrun with confusion and aggression. Its silent nature told him all that Luke needed to know.
“That way, huh? Alrighty. Don’t suppose you have a towel or something, do you? Right. Didn’t think so. Look, my friend obviously came through here. Was he in some kind of trouble?”
The monster raised one arm up in front of him, stroking what passed as his forearm with the other.
Luke nodded. “Yeah, he said his iron fist powers were out of synergy or something. He bonded with some magic sword awhile ago.” Luke pointed toward the center of the swamp. “Is there something in there that could help him?”
The creature lowered his arms and remained silent.
“Right. You can’t say. Part of being the guardian of this place, I assume. Thanks for the help. Sorry I decked you. Although it doesn’t seem like I really scoffed up your roots at all.”
Luke nodded once more, secured the satchel around his midsection (which he refused to call a fanny-pack), and stalked off deeper into the swamp. He rubbed at his jaw and made a mental note that if he ever had to come to this horrible place again that he would take the long way around instead of trekking straight through that thing’s territory.
# # # # #
“Stay down, brat.”
The verbal put-down was followed up with a physical one. A pile-driving fist rammed down into the youth’s jaw, flattening him to the cold, concrete floor of the old New York warehouse. No witnesses were in the place to see the stars dancing in front of the teenager’s eyes. The kid shook his head and looked back up at the thug who loved every minute of the beating.
He spat on the floor. “Tickles,” the teenager said. He was dark-skinned, a result of being a mix of two different ethnicities. “You ready to start fighting yet?”
A little laugh was stirred into the chortle of disbelief as the thug cocked his fist back to deliver another blow. He was twice as big as the teenager. He had killed men with his bare hands in drunken bar brawls before. He had been ordered to snap the legs of his boss’s enemies. Why wasn’t this punk kid going down?
Before he could strike again and continue the lesson in pain, the youth reached out and grabbed his ankle. The man was about to laugh again. This was a common response right before the pleading began. Weak lowlifes would cling to his pant leg, shaking, weeping, and beg for mercy.
But instead he felt the kid’s fingers dig into his skin. Into his muscle. Into his bone. The thug, shocked and terrified, screamed. He felt his ankle be crushed from the kid’s tightening grip and fell over onto his side.
The kid finally let go and picked himself up. He spit on the floor, clearing his mouth of a little blood. “Next time I tell you something maybe you’ll listen,” he muttered. “Tell your boss I’m out. Now, I don’t mind a fight, but you gots to come prepared, son. If you hadn’t sucker punched me when we got in here maybe you could have avoided that pain.”
The youth smiled. He cracked his neck, and then turned to leave the screaming thug behind him, writhing in agony. He was riled up, itching to put some hurt on some more jerks like the leg-breaker. He smirked at the irony and absentmindedly rubbed at his knuckles.
Victor thought about going to hunt the rest of the crew down at the bar he knew they always hung out at, but he decided against it. Even though his superior strength gave him an instant edge, he didn’t want to interact with those guys anymore. He had said he was out. Out was out, and going looking for trouble was hardly staying away from it.
He had promised his mom that much, although he was sure that his dad would probably be okay with it. Wherever he was. They had never even met, but he felt like he still knew the guy that had knocked his mom up, which was probably because he had caught him on the news a bunch of times busting up supervillains.
A Hero For Hire was what he had been called. Victor didn’t really understand how his dad was different from a mercenary, but still respected him. He wondered if his dad would respect him if he could see him now.
Maybe. He would have to know that Victor was alive, though, and Victor wasn’t interested. He had done just fine on his own, and didn’t need anyone else butting into his life.
It was late. He could still hear the grown man screaming like a baby from inside the warehouse. He looked to his left, the direction where his studio rat-infested apartment was in. Then he looked to the right, the direction of the bar that surely housed a few scumbags that would come looking for him tomorrow.
Victor looked up at the moon, sighed, turned to the right, and started running, summoning as much power as he could.
# # # # #
Cage spun the wheel of his rented eight cylinder muscle car, turning a tight corner into the underground garage of the hotel he was staying at in the city. The nightlife was out, populated by college students and eager tourists looking to partake in a little excitement. Luke Cage had no desire to join them. He was exhausted from treading through the murky swamp all day.
His search had been fruitless, although there was a stinging sensation in the back of his head that he was overlooking something. If it wasn’t for that feeling, that subconscious drive to find Danny Rand or else, he would pack it in and go home. He had a business to run, after all, and Danny had been known to go on his little walkabouts before.
He slipped into a vacant parking spot, let the engine rattle to a stop, and cracked his neck. Who knew that blindly wandering through a swamp could drain you like this when you had strength rivaling Ben Grimm?
He stepped out of the black car and had barely stood up before something slammed against the side of his face. Cage went sprawling, mostly from the shock of being hit when he hadn’t even seen anyone in the garage. He wiped his chin and whipped around to confront who had the balls to crack him upside the head.
“Suffer unto me…” the raspy voice of a man in a green, billowing cloak said to him. “Luke Cage…suffer unto me…”
Plumes of a thick, green fog surrounded the mystery man, wafting along the floor of the garage. It stunk of an ancient musk and Cage wanted to rinse his mouth out just because of his proximity to the all-encompassing smog.
“I’m getting a little sick weirdoes picking a fight with me just ‘cause,” the hero said. “Any particular reason you feel like getting an ass-beating tonight?”
The man garbed in drab green rocketed forward, propelled by the thick smoke. He moved in one fluid motion, striking Cage three more times before the hero could take his own stance. The strikes were dealt with pinpoint accuracy, stabbing into his key chi points. Cage stumbled back, his left arm numb.
“Christmas,” he muttered.
The man in green swept forward again, but this time Cage was ready for him. With his right arm he feinted a blow, causing the man in green to toss up a block with his forearm. Then Cage, taking the newfound opportunity, quickly jutted his foot out into the man’s stomach. The feint had worked, and his powerful leg drove his kick home.
Catapulted backward, the man in green tumbled through his own smoke and rolled several times on the ground before springing up again. His hood had been flung back, revealing a bald man that Cage had never seen before.
“Alright, Mr. Clean,” Cage said. “I can dance all night long like this. You might want to start talking before I decide to really kick it into high gear.”
“I am the Prince of Orphans,” the man in green said, his voice distant with a slight echo. “And you are the final blockage standing in my path to total control of the mystic city.”
“Mystic city? I think you got the wrong Hero For Hire, chief.”
“On the contrary,” the Prince of Orphans replied. “My instincts have never been sharper.”
Cage was about to rebuttal once more, but his voice was choked back when he saw a bizarre phenomenon overtake the Prince’s face. A green shadow masked him momentarily before it tried to separate from his features, as if a second skin was trying to free itself from his face. It pulled, wrestling back and forth, and when Cage looked closer he saw that this writhing shadowy form was not a duplicate of the Prince of Orphan’s facial features.
“Danny?”
The smoky face of Daniel Rand, lashed to the Prince of Orphan’s face by thin tethers of the green smog, was desperately trying to get away. It made no sound, but it was obvious that Danny was screaming as if in pain.
“Suffer unto me,” the Prince of Orphans said, and then he lunged for Cage again.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Danny Rand stood up on wobbly legs. Moments ago he had been wading through a murky swamp in the everglades of Florida, searching for hope. On the advice of Dr. Stephan Strange, Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, he had been wandering aimlessly for days. When he had inquired about some type of direction for his answers, the good doctor had only told him that the answers would instead seek him out.
After being pulled through some type of nexus at the heart of the swamp Danny had found himself floating in the ether. He stood on nothingness, which should have been impossible, and yet there he was. There was a definite weight to the landscape, although his eyes were telling him that he was in a total vacuum of darkness.
His right arm was burning, and quickly growing numb. He rubbed at it absentmindedly, but was distracted when a booming voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Daniel Rand. There is a blight upon your soul.”
Danny whirled, ready to spring into action should the need arise. However, the disembodied voice came from nowhere, and everywhere at once. He squinted, but there was nothing in the distance that could be used as a frame of reference either.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“A comrade in arms,” the voice replied. “Of sorts. We have much in common, Iron Fist. Perhaps if I stood revealed in a more corporal sense you would feel at ease.”
A green mist billowed from the darkness, condensing right in front of Danny. The smoke thickened and formed into a humanoid figure, cloaked in a green shroud that blanketed the form, hiding it mostly from view. Whoever this person was, Danny could instantly sense a powerful chi within him.
He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the person he was supposed to be looking for.
“Nice party trick,” Danny said. He rubbed at his arm again. “You do kids’ parties?”
“Your mockery is purely a function of your naivety,” the shrouded figure said. “You would do well to silence that juvenile tongue. You have much to learn, Daniel Rand.”
“I’ve always been a great student,” Iron Fist replied. “When does class begin?”
“Immediately.”
The figure moved with swift speed that defied his garments. The heavy shroud should have muffled his quickness, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He lashed forward, flinging his cloak at Danny to feign a strike on his left side. Taken by surprise, Danny moved just a second too slow to avoid the hit coming from the right.
Green smoke enveloped him as the fight progressed. Even though he was standing on nothing, somehow hovering in dead space, he was still able to fight back. Or, at least fight back as much as he had the ability to. This shrouded figure was fast, and his attacks were issued with pinpoint accuracy. Iron Fist was forced to focus on each individual block he put up instead of allowing his body to naturally defend itself as his training had always taken control.
Iron Fist ducked under another sweep of the cloak, jutting his palm up into the man’s face. It was his first direct hit against his attacker, and it was strong enough to knock the hood off of his head.
The fight stopped. The figure stepped back, his face completely devoid of expression. Danny was breathing heavily, but the other man seemed to not even breathe at all. He maintained his stance, ready to go another round if the need arose.
“You look familiar,” Danny said.
“You have seen me in your subconscious, I am sure,” he said. “My name is John Aman, the Prince of Orphans. I helped create the blade now bonded to your chi, and unless you heed my warning it will surely destroy you.”
Danny’s forearm was still pounding with pain. He glanced at his own arm. He knew that his inner energy had been out of whack since he had taken the sword and melded it with the Iron Fist power. Dr. Strange had tried to separate the sword with no degree of success. He figured the sword was an inconvenience, but could it actually kill him?
He concentrated on his chi, summoning the power of the Iron Fist technique. The yellow energy bubbled to life from beneath his skin, surrounding his forearm and hand in a powerful glow. A sword flashed into existence, gripped in his hand: the Blade of the Dragon.
“I’m listening,” Danny said.
# # # # #
“This is the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever done,” Luke Cage muttered.
He sloshed through the abysmal swamp, wishing that he had worn thermal underwear. Skin as hard as diamonds didn’t do much to keep the water out of your socks. At least the mosquitoes couldn’t use him as a meal.
He had flown into Florida the previous day and headed straight for the everglades. That was where his sources had told him that Danny Rand had gone, and that’s where he would find his best friend.
His sources…how exactly had he learned about this place?
He suddenly tripped over a stump that he hadn’t noticed a moment earlier. He hit the foot-deep water face first and choked down a mouthful of black water unwillingly. He sat up coughing, disgusted with the location.
“Christmas.” Luke brushed some moss off of his shoulder and tried not to scream from frustration. “Why the hell would he come down to this godforsaken place anyway?”
Something rustled in the foliage to his right. He turned, expecting to see an alligator or crocodile (he couldn’t tell the difference, and didn’t care to learn – big teeth were big teeth). Instead he was greeted by a huge monster that seemed to be entirely composed of slimy plant life and insects.
The lumbering creature remained silent. It’s red eyes stared directly at Luke Cage, almost challenging him to rise and strike him down. The creature appeared aggressive, as if protecting something, although Cage couldn’t imagine what could possibly be worth protecting in a barren swamp.
“Easy, big guy,” Cage said as he stood, attempting to sound as soothing as possible. “I get the sense that I’m trespassing here. I’m just looking for a buddy of mine.”
The monstrous creature tilted it’s head to one side. Cage suddenly felt an onrush of emotion, somehow conveyed directly from the murky brute. The empathic connection revealed to Cage a vision of Danny Rand treading through the everglades, wandering into a mystical portal of some sort.
It matched an implanted image in his mind almost exactly, which then triggered the second part of his programming. The programming that one Agent Travers had installed into Luke Cage without his memory.
Aggression flooded Cage’s mind, causing a backlash to the empathic connection and severing it. The monster roared in shock, and Cage ground his teeth, ready to fight.
The monster, somewhere between a man and an abhorrent thing, stood its ground as the former Power Man launched himself in pure aggression. He slammed his fist into the thing’s face, driving diamond-hard knuckles into its mossy facial features. It bellowed in response and Cage’s mind was injected with a plethora of feelings and emotions.
Cage drove his other fist into the thing’s chest, shoving it backward, but not able to topple it over. He shot his foot out into the thing’s leg, hoping to buckle what passed for its knee, but it had no effect. He pounded away, screaming mindlessly, denting the surface of the thing’s chest, but doing little actual damage.
The thing reared back and retaliated. With speed that betrayed its size and stature, the thing clobbered Luke across the jaw. The thick tree-like appendage bowled over his face, sending him flying into the swamp. He choked down a mouthful of black water as he struggled to get up, rising only halfway up. He balanced himself on forearms and shins, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Christmas,” he muttered. “What the hell was that?”
The thing stalked up behind him, lumbering high over his bent form. It was not aggressive, but still obviously ready to put Cage down again if needed. Luke dragged his arm across his face to clear the spittle and murky water, and then looked up into the face of the creature that had knocked the sense back into him.
“Nice punch,” he said. “Everything think about contracting yourself out? I made a few bucks with haymakers like that.”
He couldn’t be sure, but the slight gyration in the thing’s torso indicated a meager laugh. It stepped back, giving Luke the space he needed to stand back up again. Luke noticed that from where he stood now he was actually further from where he assumed was the center of the swamp. The trajectory could have been a coincidence, but he didn’t think that he believed in coincidences anymore.
“You’re some kind of protector,” Luke said. “There’s something about this place, right? Something important worth looking after. Don’t worry; I’m not interested in fighting over it. I’m just looking for my friend.”
The thing slowly raised its arm, pointing in the direction that Luke had been traveling before his mind had been overrun with confusion and aggression. Its silent nature told him all that Luke needed to know.
“That way, huh? Alrighty. Don’t suppose you have a towel or something, do you? Right. Didn’t think so. Look, my friend obviously came through here. Was he in some kind of trouble?”
The monster raised one arm up in front of him, stroking what passed as his forearm with the other.
Luke nodded. “Yeah, he said his iron fist powers were out of synergy or something. He bonded with some magic sword awhile ago.” Luke pointed toward the center of the swamp. “Is there something in there that could help him?”
The creature lowered his arms and remained silent.
“Right. You can’t say. Part of being the guardian of this place, I assume. Thanks for the help. Sorry I decked you. Although it doesn’t seem like I really scoffed up your roots at all.”
Luke nodded once more, secured the satchel around his midsection (which he refused to call a fanny-pack), and stalked off deeper into the swamp. He rubbed at his jaw and made a mental note that if he ever had to come to this horrible place again that he would take the long way around instead of trekking straight through that thing’s territory.
# # # # #
“Stay down, brat.”
The verbal put-down was followed up with a physical one. A pile-driving fist rammed down into the youth’s jaw, flattening him to the cold, concrete floor of the old New York warehouse. No witnesses were in the place to see the stars dancing in front of the teenager’s eyes. The kid shook his head and looked back up at the thug who loved every minute of the beating.
He spat on the floor. “Tickles,” the teenager said. He was dark-skinned, a result of being a mix of two different ethnicities. “You ready to start fighting yet?”
A little laugh was stirred into the chortle of disbelief as the thug cocked his fist back to deliver another blow. He was twice as big as the teenager. He had killed men with his bare hands in drunken bar brawls before. He had been ordered to snap the legs of his boss’s enemies. Why wasn’t this punk kid going down?
Before he could strike again and continue the lesson in pain, the youth reached out and grabbed his ankle. The man was about to laugh again. This was a common response right before the pleading began. Weak lowlifes would cling to his pant leg, shaking, weeping, and beg for mercy.
But instead he felt the kid’s fingers dig into his skin. Into his muscle. Into his bone. The thug, shocked and terrified, screamed. He felt his ankle be crushed from the kid’s tightening grip and fell over onto his side.
The kid finally let go and picked himself up. He spit on the floor, clearing his mouth of a little blood. “Next time I tell you something maybe you’ll listen,” he muttered. “Tell your boss I’m out. Now, I don’t mind a fight, but you gots to come prepared, son. If you hadn’t sucker punched me when we got in here maybe you could have avoided that pain.”
The youth smiled. He cracked his neck, and then turned to leave the screaming thug behind him, writhing in agony. He was riled up, itching to put some hurt on some more jerks like the leg-breaker. He smirked at the irony and absentmindedly rubbed at his knuckles.
Victor thought about going to hunt the rest of the crew down at the bar he knew they always hung out at, but he decided against it. Even though his superior strength gave him an instant edge, he didn’t want to interact with those guys anymore. He had said he was out. Out was out, and going looking for trouble was hardly staying away from it.
He had promised his mom that much, although he was sure that his dad would probably be okay with it. Wherever he was. They had never even met, but he felt like he still knew the guy that had knocked his mom up, which was probably because he had caught him on the news a bunch of times busting up supervillains.
A Hero For Hire was what he had been called. Victor didn’t really understand how his dad was different from a mercenary, but still respected him. He wondered if his dad would respect him if he could see him now.
Maybe. He would have to know that Victor was alive, though, and Victor wasn’t interested. He had done just fine on his own, and didn’t need anyone else butting into his life.
It was late. He could still hear the grown man screaming like a baby from inside the warehouse. He looked to his left, the direction where his studio rat-infested apartment was in. Then he looked to the right, the direction of the bar that surely housed a few scumbags that would come looking for him tomorrow.
Victor looked up at the moon, sighed, turned to the right, and started running, summoning as much power as he could.
# # # # #
Cage spun the wheel of his rented eight cylinder muscle car, turning a tight corner into the underground garage of the hotel he was staying at in the city. The nightlife was out, populated by college students and eager tourists looking to partake in a little excitement. Luke Cage had no desire to join them. He was exhausted from treading through the murky swamp all day.
His search had been fruitless, although there was a stinging sensation in the back of his head that he was overlooking something. If it wasn’t for that feeling, that subconscious drive to find Danny Rand or else, he would pack it in and go home. He had a business to run, after all, and Danny had been known to go on his little walkabouts before.
He slipped into a vacant parking spot, let the engine rattle to a stop, and cracked his neck. Who knew that blindly wandering through a swamp could drain you like this when you had strength rivaling Ben Grimm?
He stepped out of the black car and had barely stood up before something slammed against the side of his face. Cage went sprawling, mostly from the shock of being hit when he hadn’t even seen anyone in the garage. He wiped his chin and whipped around to confront who had the balls to crack him upside the head.
“Suffer unto me…” the raspy voice of a man in a green, billowing cloak said to him. “Luke Cage…suffer unto me…”
Plumes of a thick, green fog surrounded the mystery man, wafting along the floor of the garage. It stunk of an ancient musk and Cage wanted to rinse his mouth out just because of his proximity to the all-encompassing smog.
“I’m getting a little sick weirdoes picking a fight with me just ‘cause,” the hero said. “Any particular reason you feel like getting an ass-beating tonight?”
The man garbed in drab green rocketed forward, propelled by the thick smoke. He moved in one fluid motion, striking Cage three more times before the hero could take his own stance. The strikes were dealt with pinpoint accuracy, stabbing into his key chi points. Cage stumbled back, his left arm numb.
“Christmas,” he muttered.
The man in green swept forward again, but this time Cage was ready for him. With his right arm he feinted a blow, causing the man in green to toss up a block with his forearm. Then Cage, taking the newfound opportunity, quickly jutted his foot out into the man’s stomach. The feint had worked, and his powerful leg drove his kick home.
Catapulted backward, the man in green tumbled through his own smoke and rolled several times on the ground before springing up again. His hood had been flung back, revealing a bald man that Cage had never seen before.
“Alright, Mr. Clean,” Cage said. “I can dance all night long like this. You might want to start talking before I decide to really kick it into high gear.”
“I am the Prince of Orphans,” the man in green said, his voice distant with a slight echo. “And you are the final blockage standing in my path to total control of the mystic city.”
“Mystic city? I think you got the wrong Hero For Hire, chief.”
“On the contrary,” the Prince of Orphans replied. “My instincts have never been sharper.”
Cage was about to rebuttal once more, but his voice was choked back when he saw a bizarre phenomenon overtake the Prince’s face. A green shadow masked him momentarily before it tried to separate from his features, as if a second skin was trying to free itself from his face. It pulled, wrestling back and forth, and when Cage looked closer he saw that this writhing shadowy form was not a duplicate of the Prince of Orphan’s facial features.
“Danny?”
The smoky face of Daniel Rand, lashed to the Prince of Orphan’s face by thin tethers of the green smog, was desperately trying to get away. It made no sound, but it was obvious that Danny was screaming as if in pain.
“Suffer unto me,” the Prince of Orphans said, and then he lunged for Cage again.
TO BE CONTINUED!