Back to GatefoldIssue #9 by D. Golightly
July 2017 |
“The New Class: Part One”
“You’ll have to be faster than that!”
A beam of red radiation, condensed to the point of intense heat, sliced through a concrete slab that had been secured to the ground. The beam trailed along an apparent path of destruction, as if predestined to cut down anything that stood upright in the small arena. Its source: a powerful magnifying lens designed by Tony Stark himself. Its intent: to whip trainees into shape.
Five teenagers flipped, whirled, somersaulted, and bobbed through the obstacle course housed within a fifty-square yard gymnasium. They had been recruited one after another as the next generation of heroes; some were more experienced than others, but they all currently had one thing in common.
“Y’all going to get one hell of a sunburn if you keep moving like a bunch of sloths!” Luke Cage shouted down at them.
The beam, operated by Luke’s friend and partner in heroics, Danny Rand, was harmless against organics. Mostly. While it could cut through cement and other building materials, the laser-guided beam couldn’t do anything else but heat up flesh to the point where it would sting a little. It had been designed to cut away rubble from a fallen building without harming anyone trapped beneath, and donated to several search and rescue teams in the NYC area thanks to Stark Solutions. It had also proven a unique training method.
“Is it wrong that I’m enjoying this?” Danny asked as he targeted another teen hero and pulled the trigger.
“Don’t expect any apples on your desk after today,” Luke shot back at his friend before calling down to the field. “Let’s move, people! Time is running out!”
Together Luke and Danny had overcome enormous threats to the city, the world, and even the galaxy. As the hero formerly known as Power Man, Luke had personally gone through a renaissance to make himself a new man. These days he just answered to Cage. Danny, otherwise known as the living weapon called Iron Fist, had gained a corporate empire, lost it, rebuilt himself anew, and done everything in between. Throughout their tribulations they had learned one critical aspect of their shared success: together they were a team to be reckoned with.
To the five students swearing under their collective breath at the moment, however, they were sadistic jerks.
Earlier in the year, Tony Stark had made an offer that sounded simple enough at the time. Using their years of experience, they would help train the next generation of heroes. Not only would guidance from experienced heroes like Cage and Iron Fist provide badly needed structure and oversight to the fledgling teens, but if successful, the program could also be used as a recruitment pool for Avengers’ operations. When the potential of eventually getting an Avengers ID card was brought up, each of the first five heroes identified leapt at the offer.
Supplied with a training facility a few blocks north of Avengers Mansion, Cage and Iron Fist had moved in and prepared their first class of heroes for the worst. Four floors and two subbasements, complete with living facilities and various training rooms, was where they now called home. Dubbed The Quadrangle, or just The Quad, this was where they had run drills, plotted out strategic scenarios, and even launched patrols. Today, however, was the students’ first taste at getting thrown into the proverbial fire.
Their goal was to get to the other side of the arena within one of the most expansive training areas in The Quad before time ran out, and ring the bell that was suspended thirty feet in the air. Given that three out of the five of them could fly, it seemed like an easy task. As soon as the air horn had blown, though, the automated defense systems had kicked in and the radiation had started flying.
As Iron Fist scored another hit on one of the students, Cage couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought Victor would have figured the trick to this one out by now,” he said.
“You’re biased,” Iron Fist replied as he targeted another student.
# # # # # # # # # #
Across the training arena, Victor Alvarez, the Afro-Dominican teen with the ability to absorb someone’s chi and convert it to physical strength, swore under his breath as the red beam washed over his forearm again. Cornered between two concrete slabs, the newly revealed son of Luke Cage tried to work out a plan of action. He could see the bell. He just couldn’t get to it without being targeted by either Iron Fist or one of the automated beams.
“Kevin!” Victor shouted as he peered over the top of the slab. “Where you at?”
Victor could make out the signature blonde locks of his classmate, Kevin Masterson, from behind a concrete sphere placed around twenty feet to his left. The bulky teenager, who was nothing but bone and muscle when he had his magical hammer in hand, peeked out and looked just as agitated as the rest of them. Given that Kevin was easily the strongest of their group, seeing him disheveled wasn’t exactly motivating.
“I’m here!” Kevin said as he ducked back just in time to avoid getting a face full of radiation. “Crap! What do we do?”
If Kevin, in his newly acquired ulterior guise as the Asgard-empowered Thunderstrike, was anything like his father, then he had the power to pulverize the majority of the training room. However, the hammer had recently been handed down to him and he would be the first to admit that he was barely in control of his strength, speed, and summoning powers. It was his primary reason for accepting Iron Fist and Cage’s offer.
His orange tunic barely contained the bulging muscles of his chest, and his long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. In his right hand he tightly gripped the weapon for which he was named, electricity bristling down the hilt and up his forearm.
“Can’t you just fly over the beams?” Victor responded.
Kevin shook his head. “I don’t have a lot of control yet and I can’t avoid getting hit several times as soon as I take off. Where are the others?”
As if in answer to his query, another teenage boy in a white and blue uniform was struck down by a pair of targeting beams. He smashed down right between Victor and Kevin, tossing head over heels until he crashed until another slab. His feet were splayed out in front of him like he had been trying to get to his feet, but his upper body hadn’t gotten the message from his brain to sit up yet. When he finally did, his head bobbed around like was feeling woozy.
“I can’t believe we volunteered for this,” he muttered. “I could have stayed in high school if I wanted to get the crap kicked out of me.”
“Greg!” Victor called out. “You okay?”
Greg Ellis, otherwise known as Gravity, gave a half-hearted thumbs-up and a smile before being blasted in the chest by another beam of radiation, this one guided by Iron Fist himself. Victor and Kevin both cringed at the smoking form of Gravity, who up until now, had been the most energetic of their class.
Having grown up in rural Wisconsin, Gravity had a strong sense of morality to back his impressive power set. Able to manipulate the natural gravitational forces that connected all things, Gravity had the potential to be one of the most powerful hero in the world. After a few failed attempts to strike out on his own as a costumed hero, he had gratefully accepted the offer to come and learn how to live up to his full potential.
Before either Victor or Kevin could react further, their attention was stolen away by a loud whooping cheer, followed by several rapid fire klat! klat! klat! sounds. Victor turned just enough to see another of their classmates tumble out from behind a concrete structure, coming up to one knee, and unleashing a volley of bullets through the arena from his pair of six-shooters.
Victor tracked his aim and saw one of the lenses from an automated defense gun crack and shatter, effectively shutting it down. He and Kevin cheered their thanks, pumping their fists in unison as Michael Marshal, the newly minted Gunhawk, smiled and holstered his twin guns.
Garbed in a black vest, jeans, and black wide-brimmed hat, Gunhawk smirked and tipped his hat toward his compatriots. As the newest of their ilk, Marshal had nearly declined the offer to come and train under Iron Fist and Cage’s tutelage. He had reluctantly been on the front page of the Daily Bugle after singlehandedly thwarting the Looter, who had been rampaging through his neighborhood. He told them that it was mostly just dumb luck that he had clobbered the clearly drunk villain, but when he told them who his uncles were and how he had acquired his weapons and sense of chivalry, they had spent an entire afternoon convincing him otherwise.
“All in a day’s work,” he boasted with a wink.
“A regular sharpshooter,” Victor quipped as he finally felt confident enough to come out from behind his slab. “Think you can—HEY!”
Gunhawk’s eyes went wide as he fixed on what Victor had grown excited about. Despite the arena feeling like a warzone, it was relatively safe…or so he thought, until a grenade rolled precisely between the four young men.
Gravity was up on his feet instantly. He extended his right arm and opened up a gravity well directly beneath the grenade, kicking it straight up in the air and hopefully pushing its blast radius away from them.
“I got it!” Thunderstrike yelled. The blonde youth bent his knees slightly and then, with minimal effort, leapt the twenty feet up to bring himself level with the hovering grenade. He cocked back his arms like a batter ready to face down a knuckle ball and then swung the uru mallet hard enough to shatter steel.
Gunhawk, Victor, and Gravity felt the searing burn of the red radiation pour over them as the grenade, apparently rigged to act like the beams that had been tracking them during the session as opposed to a standard shrapnel device, detonated on impact with the hammer. Thunderstrike took the worst of the blast, and was knocked back down to the ground with a resounding thud!
“No fair!” Gravity hollered, but Iron Fist and Cage only smiled and shook their heads. “You didn’t say anything about grenades!”
Gunhawk swung around and crouched behind the same slab that Victor was seeking cover with again. Gravity took up a similar position a few feet from them and he looked distraught. They weren’t getting anywhere with this exercise. In fact, none of them had even come close to ringing the bell yet.
WHOOSH!
Except for Karima, of course.
The fifth and final inductee into the class of new heroes, Karima Shapandar, rocketed by overhead, deftly avoiding the beams by twisting through the air like a fighter jet. Propelled by anti-gravity nodes that protruded from her ankles, Karima was more akin to a tank than a human being. While she detested her code name, Omega Sentinel, she had to admit that it was fairly appropriate for her power set.
Merged with Sentinel technology, Karima was not only a technopath, but she also had advanced technology incorporated directly into her physiology. Not quite a cyborg, Karima was possibly the next phase of human evolution. She was by far the best flyer in their group and had been making yet another run at ringing the bell by herself while her classmates unwittingly acted as decoy targets. It would be a great plan, except for two small problems.
First, she hadn’t shared her plan with anyone.
And second, she wasn’t as great a flyer as she thought.
As she bobbed down a few feet to avoid getting cut down by a sweeping beam, she barrel-rolled to her left and arched her back, avoiding getting struck by another perpendicular beam. Her agility was on par for the exercise, but she couldn’t slow down efficiently. She reached out with her hand, nearly within reach of the bell…only to miss it by inches and slam shoulder-first into the far wall.
The four boys cringed as they saw their teammate slide down the wall and try to shake the cobwebs loose. Thunderstrike stood up just in time to see Iron Fist target her and he launched his hammer at the cannon. His aim was slightly off, however, and while he nudged the base enough to throw off Iron Fist’s shot, it still blasted Omega Sentinel off the ledge and down to the floor of the arena.
The hammer returned to Thunderstrike’s outstretched hand and he said, “I really wish she would stop leaving us behind to eat her dust during these things.”
“Yeah, she has no sense of…teamwork! That’s it! Duh!” Victor smacked himself in the forehead and crossed his eyes momentarily. Gravity, Thunderstrike, and Gunhawk all twisted to look at him. “Luke and Danny are always going on about teamwork, right? Well, they’re picking us off one by one. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Gravity said. “We should bribe them.”
“No!” Victor cracked his neck and knuckles, feeling a little adrenaline get back into his system now that he felt like he had his feet grounded again. “We need to work together. C’mon, this is like superhero 101 type stuff.”
Thunderstrike kneeled down beside them, bracing his muscular frame against his hammer. “What’s the plan, fearless leader?” he asked.
Victor’s eyes went wide. “Me?”
Gunhawk withdrew his twin revolvers as smooth as silk, flipping them once each before pulling both hammers back. He said, “Seems to me like you stepped up to the plate first, Vic. What do you want us to do?”
Victor chewed his bottom lip for a moment and stood on his toes just enough to get a good look at Karima. She had pulled herself together and was flying through the air again, coming back their way. “Okay,” he said. “Get her attention so we can bring her on board. Let’s see if a little misdirection can get us closer to ringing that bell and ending this.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Cage watched Omega Sentinel narrowly avoid being struck by Thunderstrike’s wayward hammer as she finally dropped from the air and took a ground approach. He stole a quick glance at the suspended bell, which so far had remained silent.
“Think we’ll be here past lunch?” he asked.
Iron Fist tilted his head back and forth a few times, as if weighing the answer before saying it aloud. “Probably,” he responded.
Cage readied another grenade and tossed it down below near Gunhawk, who looked like he was about to have an accident when he saw it roll his way. The modern cowboy threw himself behind a barrier just in time. As he poked his head out and quickly scooped up his dropped black hat, Cage saw an expression of pure rage on his face.
He knew that these kids were novices, but this was getting a little silly. So far the only one that had shown some sense was the Masterson kid, who had tried to take out Iron Fist’s turret a few minutes ago after Karima had gone down. They were spending so much time avoiding getting hit and just getting to the bell that they were all taking the exercise at face value. It showed a lack of an ability to reason under fire.
It made him feel like they needed to get the kids back in the classroom instead of putting them through exercises like this one, which in turn made him want to just throw his hands up and call it a day. At first Stark’s offer had seemed like a great idea, but now that he was actually acting like a mentor, he wasn’t so sure. He could teach someone how to put down one of the Masters of Evil or rescue a kitten from a tree, but tactics? Not so much. While he was no slouch, he was far from a trained educator.
Omega Sentinel rounded the back of a barrier beneath him and he was about to toss a grenade right on top of her, but Gravity darted around the other side and he paused. It looked like they were finally working together.
“They have their two best flyers grounded,” Cage commented. “Looks like they’re trying to flank us.”
“That’s progress,” Iron Fist said as he pulled the trigger on his turret several more times. “I’ve got Gunhawk, Thunderstrike, and Victor pinned. Maybe they’ll—whoa! Incoming!”
Several of the cement barriers in the far corner of the arena opposite where the boys had congregated suddenly exploded, showering a twenty foot radius with rubble. Several chunks made it all the way to the base of the tower where Iron Fist and Cage were standing. A cloud of dust plumed upward and after a moment they saw a golden hammer race back to where Thunderstrike was crouched.
“A distraction?” Cage inquired, but Iron Fist didn’t have time to reply.
Both Gravity and Omega Sentinel burst straight upward from the base of the tower, popping up directly in front of Cage and Iron Fist. They were too close for either Cage to hit them with a grenade without being inside the blast zone or for Iron Fist to twist his turret to target them.
Gravity pointed his left hand at Cage and quickly pulled it back again, using his powers to rip the grenade belt from Cage’s hands. Had he been prepared for the surprise attack he could have held onto it for dear life, but he was caught with his guard down and it went soaring across the arena, now useless.
Likewise, Omega Sentinel dropped into a crouch directly beneath the turret’s nozzle and placed her hand on its barrel. A wire zipped out of her wrist and tapped into its circuitry. Before Iron Fist could even swizzle the turret away from her all power had been shut off. It was now nothing more than a giant, oblong paperweight.
“Not bad,” Iron Fist said. “You still have the automated defenses, though.”
“Oh,” Karima said with a smile. “We know.”
“We have them covered,” Gravity added, and he pointed back down to the floor. “Or at least, they do.”
Several more bursts of shattering concrete erupted from the floor as Thunderstrike began to simply pulverize his way through the arena. The dust clouds being kicked up made them difficult targets for the automated beams to track and after three of the outburst the slashes of red radiation stopped completely.
The newfound solitude didn’t stop Gunhawk, now able to freely stand his ground and pick his shots, from firing back. Bullets struck the lenses and one after another the defenses were obliterated. Within moments the arena had been turned into a safe zone thanks to their coordinated efforts.
From the center of the room, a form was spat out that arched through the air directly at the bell. Victor, using his increased strength to catapult himself across the room, screamed dramatically as he headed directly for the bell. He landed beside it and struck it with his fist as he did so, sending a resounding gong! throughout the arena.
“Yes!” Gravity hollered. He twisted around in circles as he levitated upward, pumping his fists. “Suck it! We are so awesome! We did it! In your face!”
Karima smirked, as did Thunderstrike and Gunhawk as they approached from the ground, the latter of which even sardonically tipping his hat. Iron Fist and Cage looked to Victor, who was trying hard to look casual as he leaned back against the bell, which wasn’t supporting his weight at all since it was hung on a rope and not fixed in place. He kept sliding off it, but was determined to strike a pose regardless.
“How about it?” Omega Sentinel finally said. “Did we pass?”
“Did we pass?” Gravity chimed in. “Of course! Didn’t you hear the sweat sound of that bell? I wish I could make it my ringtone.”
“I give a B+,” Iron Fist said.
“It’s a C for me,” Cage added.
Gravity’s mouth dropped open in shock. He gently lowered down and ripped the hood and yellow goggles off of his face. “What?” he exclaimed. “Are you serious right now? Didn’t you see him leap through the air like a Sayan? And, and, and how I totally yanked away your bombs? Or how Kevin just smashed apart everything that was standing still? Or Mike’s crack shot shooting? Or Karima’s ability to not hog the spotlight?”
“Yeah, we saw,” Cage replied. “We saw all of the unnecessary destruction you caused. How could we miss it?”
Gunhawk slipped over the ladder that led from the ground to their level just as Thunderstrike and Victor leapt up or across, respectively. Omega Sentinel crossed her arms and started to mutter as Gravity just hovered with a flabbergasted look on his face.
“Look,” Iron Fist said. “We applaud the teamwork and the strategy. Using your own unique strengths to counter the opposing forces is what exactly how a team needs to operate. You showed initiative, creativity, and resilience. These are all things that will save lives in the field. That’s why you’re getting passing grades today.”
“But…but…teamwork!” Gravity blurted out.
“Y’all aren’t making a lick of sense,” Gunhawk said. “You wanted the bell rung and we rang the damn bell.”
“I don’t get it,” Thunderstrike said. “What did we do wrong?”
“What was the point of the exercise?” Cage asked.
“They told me is was to pick a leader, form a plan, and work like a team to accomplish a goal,” Omega Sentinel replied. “I should have known better.”
Cage shook his head. “No. What did we tell you the goal was? What did we literally tell you the exercise was today?”
Victor said, “To ring the bell. Wait…oh, c’mon! You don’t mean to literally just ring the stupid thing?”
Iron Fist nodded slowly and looked at each of them in turn. “All Gunhawk had to do was shoot it once, or Thunderstrike could have thrown his hammer at it, or Gravity could hit it with a gravity well to make it ring when it fell over, or Omega Sentinel could have locked onto it with any number of her weapons, or Victor could have just thrown a rock at it like a baseball.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Thunderstrike said. He threw his hands up and ground his teeth. “Why wouldn’t we—”
“Make an assumption and leap straight to the most difficult solution?” Cage interrupted. “Any single one of you could have completed this exercise within seconds of it starting. Sometimes the best way to handle a situation is to just follow the instructions and get it done. As heroes, you don’t always have to blow stuff up and show off your abilities. Sometimes you just do the job that needs done, like ringing the damn bell instead of showboating around like a bunch of circus performers.”
“That’s not fair,” Karima shot back.
“Neither is anything you’re going to come up against out in the real world,” Iron Fist responded. “We’re not trying to teach you to be fair. We’re trying to teach you how to do what’s right without killing anyone.” He gestured down at the decimated arena, where the dust had yet to fully settle. “The bad guys absolutely won’t play fair when it comes to this stuff, so neither should you. Just do it responsibly.”
“Cheating responsibly,” Gunhawk said. He smirked. “I like it. Alrighty…well! It’s about time for some breakfast, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” Cage replied. “Right after you clean up this mess.”
The blaring silence from the five students spoke volumes, but Cage and Iron Fist leapt down from the tower and starting strolling for the exit anyway. Cage couldn’t help himself from turning around just before leaving and saying, “What’s the matter? With a little teamwork you’ll have this place swept up in no time!”
# # # # # # # # # #
“Come in,” Cage said.
The door to his private quarters slid open to reveal Victor standing with arms crossed and a mean mug plastered on his face. The Quadrangle had ample living space, with each room outfitted with a bedroom and living room. Despite the plush accommodations, right about now Cage felt very confined.
“What’s up, Vic?” he asked.
“That was a load of crap this morning,” Victor said as he stepped into the living quarters. “We finally got over ourselves and worked like a single unit, you know? And then you tell us we were wrong anyway? That ain’t right.”
“I stand by what Danny and I did, son” he shot back. He stepped over to a recliner and fell onto the soft cushions. “Hopefully the lesson will stick.”
Victor shook his head and made a noise of irritation. “It’s not just the whole teamwork thing. We got ourselves straightened out so we could win, right? We knew that, or thought we knew, that we had to work together. And you know who they listened to? Who they picked for the team leader?”
“You.”
“Yeah, me. Not that it matters now.”
“You feel like they won’t respect you or something?”
“Well, why would they? I got it wrong.”
Luke took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He and Victor had grown close over the last few months, ever since he had learned that Victor was his biological son, born back before he had gone to prison. Being a father figure, if Victor even looked at him that way, was uncharted territory for him and he always felt like conversations like these took him by surprise. He was really just guessing at the right thing to say most of the time.
“They allowed you to lead them,” Cage finally said. “Yeah, maybe Danny and I messed with your heads a little today, but that won’t change the fact that when put into a difficult situation, they all went with your plan. Own it and they’ll do that again.”
“You think I could be a leader?” Victor looked him directly in the eyes, which would have made Cage uncomfortable a month ago, but now he found that he welcomed to intimacy. “You think they would want me to be one?”
“I think you’ve got it takes. ‘Course, having a code name might actually help things along. It would show you were one of them. They all chose one for themselves right away. You’ve been holding out. It creates a line between you, like you think you aren’t one of them.”
“Code name,” Victor said. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that.”
Cage raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious. “Oh, yeah? What you got in mind?”
“I was thinking…I mean, if it’s okay with you…about going by Power Man.”
It was a good thing that Luke was already sitting, because he felt for sure like his knees were wobbling. He tightened his lips because he was worried that his mouth would drop open if he didn’t. The air was pregnant with his pause, and when he realized he hadn’t said anything for a long time, he rushed to get some words between them.
“Yeah!” Luke said. “I mean, of course! It’s yours. The name, I mean. Haven’t used it in years.”
“Cool,” Victor said as he stood up. He went to the door and stopped halfway through, turning back to look at his seated father. “Thanks.”
The door slid shut, leaving Cage alone again in his room to just stare at the blank, closed door. “Power Man,” he whispered, and then he smiled.
# # # # # # # # # #
“His plan won’t work.”
A man wearing the face of Luke Cage stood on the Empire State Building’s observation deck, looking down at a city that was both familiar and alien to him. He knew the names of the streets, the landmarks, and even where to get a decent slice of pizza. The geographical aspects of New York were well known to him, but it was populated with foreigners. None of these people, despite what they looked like, were his people.
“I agree,” a man wearing the face of Danny Rand replied. “Forget the American’s offer. We can control this city ourselves. He’s destined to fail, we can both see that. There’s no reason we should allow ourselves to be dragged down with him.”
Like this other Luke, he looked down at the city and felt nothing but disgust. However, he also saw an opportunity. Had he come to this world with the denizens of his recently acquired Dangerous Dojo he could have swept over the city like a force of nature, taking it as his prize alone. But he didn’t have his kung fu army. He had no one except the one who called himself The Warden, a man he had fought against just as much as he had alongside in recent days.
“I’ll admit that working together on that contract from the Spider had potential, Dragon Fist,” The Warden said. “Too bad the Goblin got away.”
“Yes,” Dragon Fist said. “Too bad. But now here we all, brought here by the Great American and left to fend for ourselves. Like you, I think we can uncover opportunities here, but as both of us have come without our resources, it makes sense to join forces.”
The Warden’s jail had been filled with subjects of incredible power that would do his bidding in exchange for favors, or even release. Without them, however, just as Dragon Fist pointed out, he was crippled. Finally, he said, “You know they will come for us right?”
“You mean the Luke Cage and Danny Rand of this world? Of course. But only if we let them.” He pointed to a recently constructed building just a few blocks from the noticeable Avengers Mansion. “Their new home. Why wait for them to come to us, when we can go to them?”
The Warden smirked and smacked his hands together. The noise, empowered by his augmented strength, made all of the other tourists on the observation deck jump in surprise. He rubbed his hands together and felt himself getting eager for their first move. Despite being in this backwards world, despite being ripped out of his comfortable lifestyle, maybe there was a way to make a little cash and gain even more respect here.
“When do we make our move?” The Warden asked.
NEXT: A C.O.D.E. Confidential tie-in! For more on The Warden and Dragon Fist, check out their Mirror Mirror story!
A beam of red radiation, condensed to the point of intense heat, sliced through a concrete slab that had been secured to the ground. The beam trailed along an apparent path of destruction, as if predestined to cut down anything that stood upright in the small arena. Its source: a powerful magnifying lens designed by Tony Stark himself. Its intent: to whip trainees into shape.
Five teenagers flipped, whirled, somersaulted, and bobbed through the obstacle course housed within a fifty-square yard gymnasium. They had been recruited one after another as the next generation of heroes; some were more experienced than others, but they all currently had one thing in common.
“Y’all going to get one hell of a sunburn if you keep moving like a bunch of sloths!” Luke Cage shouted down at them.
The beam, operated by Luke’s friend and partner in heroics, Danny Rand, was harmless against organics. Mostly. While it could cut through cement and other building materials, the laser-guided beam couldn’t do anything else but heat up flesh to the point where it would sting a little. It had been designed to cut away rubble from a fallen building without harming anyone trapped beneath, and donated to several search and rescue teams in the NYC area thanks to Stark Solutions. It had also proven a unique training method.
“Is it wrong that I’m enjoying this?” Danny asked as he targeted another teen hero and pulled the trigger.
“Don’t expect any apples on your desk after today,” Luke shot back at his friend before calling down to the field. “Let’s move, people! Time is running out!”
Together Luke and Danny had overcome enormous threats to the city, the world, and even the galaxy. As the hero formerly known as Power Man, Luke had personally gone through a renaissance to make himself a new man. These days he just answered to Cage. Danny, otherwise known as the living weapon called Iron Fist, had gained a corporate empire, lost it, rebuilt himself anew, and done everything in between. Throughout their tribulations they had learned one critical aspect of their shared success: together they were a team to be reckoned with.
To the five students swearing under their collective breath at the moment, however, they were sadistic jerks.
Earlier in the year, Tony Stark had made an offer that sounded simple enough at the time. Using their years of experience, they would help train the next generation of heroes. Not only would guidance from experienced heroes like Cage and Iron Fist provide badly needed structure and oversight to the fledgling teens, but if successful, the program could also be used as a recruitment pool for Avengers’ operations. When the potential of eventually getting an Avengers ID card was brought up, each of the first five heroes identified leapt at the offer.
Supplied with a training facility a few blocks north of Avengers Mansion, Cage and Iron Fist had moved in and prepared their first class of heroes for the worst. Four floors and two subbasements, complete with living facilities and various training rooms, was where they now called home. Dubbed The Quadrangle, or just The Quad, this was where they had run drills, plotted out strategic scenarios, and even launched patrols. Today, however, was the students’ first taste at getting thrown into the proverbial fire.
Their goal was to get to the other side of the arena within one of the most expansive training areas in The Quad before time ran out, and ring the bell that was suspended thirty feet in the air. Given that three out of the five of them could fly, it seemed like an easy task. As soon as the air horn had blown, though, the automated defense systems had kicked in and the radiation had started flying.
As Iron Fist scored another hit on one of the students, Cage couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought Victor would have figured the trick to this one out by now,” he said.
“You’re biased,” Iron Fist replied as he targeted another student.
# # # # # # # # # #
Across the training arena, Victor Alvarez, the Afro-Dominican teen with the ability to absorb someone’s chi and convert it to physical strength, swore under his breath as the red beam washed over his forearm again. Cornered between two concrete slabs, the newly revealed son of Luke Cage tried to work out a plan of action. He could see the bell. He just couldn’t get to it without being targeted by either Iron Fist or one of the automated beams.
“Kevin!” Victor shouted as he peered over the top of the slab. “Where you at?”
Victor could make out the signature blonde locks of his classmate, Kevin Masterson, from behind a concrete sphere placed around twenty feet to his left. The bulky teenager, who was nothing but bone and muscle when he had his magical hammer in hand, peeked out and looked just as agitated as the rest of them. Given that Kevin was easily the strongest of their group, seeing him disheveled wasn’t exactly motivating.
“I’m here!” Kevin said as he ducked back just in time to avoid getting a face full of radiation. “Crap! What do we do?”
If Kevin, in his newly acquired ulterior guise as the Asgard-empowered Thunderstrike, was anything like his father, then he had the power to pulverize the majority of the training room. However, the hammer had recently been handed down to him and he would be the first to admit that he was barely in control of his strength, speed, and summoning powers. It was his primary reason for accepting Iron Fist and Cage’s offer.
His orange tunic barely contained the bulging muscles of his chest, and his long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. In his right hand he tightly gripped the weapon for which he was named, electricity bristling down the hilt and up his forearm.
“Can’t you just fly over the beams?” Victor responded.
Kevin shook his head. “I don’t have a lot of control yet and I can’t avoid getting hit several times as soon as I take off. Where are the others?”
As if in answer to his query, another teenage boy in a white and blue uniform was struck down by a pair of targeting beams. He smashed down right between Victor and Kevin, tossing head over heels until he crashed until another slab. His feet were splayed out in front of him like he had been trying to get to his feet, but his upper body hadn’t gotten the message from his brain to sit up yet. When he finally did, his head bobbed around like was feeling woozy.
“I can’t believe we volunteered for this,” he muttered. “I could have stayed in high school if I wanted to get the crap kicked out of me.”
“Greg!” Victor called out. “You okay?”
Greg Ellis, otherwise known as Gravity, gave a half-hearted thumbs-up and a smile before being blasted in the chest by another beam of radiation, this one guided by Iron Fist himself. Victor and Kevin both cringed at the smoking form of Gravity, who up until now, had been the most energetic of their class.
Having grown up in rural Wisconsin, Gravity had a strong sense of morality to back his impressive power set. Able to manipulate the natural gravitational forces that connected all things, Gravity had the potential to be one of the most powerful hero in the world. After a few failed attempts to strike out on his own as a costumed hero, he had gratefully accepted the offer to come and learn how to live up to his full potential.
Before either Victor or Kevin could react further, their attention was stolen away by a loud whooping cheer, followed by several rapid fire klat! klat! klat! sounds. Victor turned just enough to see another of their classmates tumble out from behind a concrete structure, coming up to one knee, and unleashing a volley of bullets through the arena from his pair of six-shooters.
Victor tracked his aim and saw one of the lenses from an automated defense gun crack and shatter, effectively shutting it down. He and Kevin cheered their thanks, pumping their fists in unison as Michael Marshal, the newly minted Gunhawk, smiled and holstered his twin guns.
Garbed in a black vest, jeans, and black wide-brimmed hat, Gunhawk smirked and tipped his hat toward his compatriots. As the newest of their ilk, Marshal had nearly declined the offer to come and train under Iron Fist and Cage’s tutelage. He had reluctantly been on the front page of the Daily Bugle after singlehandedly thwarting the Looter, who had been rampaging through his neighborhood. He told them that it was mostly just dumb luck that he had clobbered the clearly drunk villain, but when he told them who his uncles were and how he had acquired his weapons and sense of chivalry, they had spent an entire afternoon convincing him otherwise.
“All in a day’s work,” he boasted with a wink.
“A regular sharpshooter,” Victor quipped as he finally felt confident enough to come out from behind his slab. “Think you can—HEY!”
Gunhawk’s eyes went wide as he fixed on what Victor had grown excited about. Despite the arena feeling like a warzone, it was relatively safe…or so he thought, until a grenade rolled precisely between the four young men.
Gravity was up on his feet instantly. He extended his right arm and opened up a gravity well directly beneath the grenade, kicking it straight up in the air and hopefully pushing its blast radius away from them.
“I got it!” Thunderstrike yelled. The blonde youth bent his knees slightly and then, with minimal effort, leapt the twenty feet up to bring himself level with the hovering grenade. He cocked back his arms like a batter ready to face down a knuckle ball and then swung the uru mallet hard enough to shatter steel.
Gunhawk, Victor, and Gravity felt the searing burn of the red radiation pour over them as the grenade, apparently rigged to act like the beams that had been tracking them during the session as opposed to a standard shrapnel device, detonated on impact with the hammer. Thunderstrike took the worst of the blast, and was knocked back down to the ground with a resounding thud!
“No fair!” Gravity hollered, but Iron Fist and Cage only smiled and shook their heads. “You didn’t say anything about grenades!”
Gunhawk swung around and crouched behind the same slab that Victor was seeking cover with again. Gravity took up a similar position a few feet from them and he looked distraught. They weren’t getting anywhere with this exercise. In fact, none of them had even come close to ringing the bell yet.
WHOOSH!
Except for Karima, of course.
The fifth and final inductee into the class of new heroes, Karima Shapandar, rocketed by overhead, deftly avoiding the beams by twisting through the air like a fighter jet. Propelled by anti-gravity nodes that protruded from her ankles, Karima was more akin to a tank than a human being. While she detested her code name, Omega Sentinel, she had to admit that it was fairly appropriate for her power set.
Merged with Sentinel technology, Karima was not only a technopath, but she also had advanced technology incorporated directly into her physiology. Not quite a cyborg, Karima was possibly the next phase of human evolution. She was by far the best flyer in their group and had been making yet another run at ringing the bell by herself while her classmates unwittingly acted as decoy targets. It would be a great plan, except for two small problems.
First, she hadn’t shared her plan with anyone.
And second, she wasn’t as great a flyer as she thought.
As she bobbed down a few feet to avoid getting cut down by a sweeping beam, she barrel-rolled to her left and arched her back, avoiding getting struck by another perpendicular beam. Her agility was on par for the exercise, but she couldn’t slow down efficiently. She reached out with her hand, nearly within reach of the bell…only to miss it by inches and slam shoulder-first into the far wall.
The four boys cringed as they saw their teammate slide down the wall and try to shake the cobwebs loose. Thunderstrike stood up just in time to see Iron Fist target her and he launched his hammer at the cannon. His aim was slightly off, however, and while he nudged the base enough to throw off Iron Fist’s shot, it still blasted Omega Sentinel off the ledge and down to the floor of the arena.
The hammer returned to Thunderstrike’s outstretched hand and he said, “I really wish she would stop leaving us behind to eat her dust during these things.”
“Yeah, she has no sense of…teamwork! That’s it! Duh!” Victor smacked himself in the forehead and crossed his eyes momentarily. Gravity, Thunderstrike, and Gunhawk all twisted to look at him. “Luke and Danny are always going on about teamwork, right? Well, they’re picking us off one by one. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Gravity said. “We should bribe them.”
“No!” Victor cracked his neck and knuckles, feeling a little adrenaline get back into his system now that he felt like he had his feet grounded again. “We need to work together. C’mon, this is like superhero 101 type stuff.”
Thunderstrike kneeled down beside them, bracing his muscular frame against his hammer. “What’s the plan, fearless leader?” he asked.
Victor’s eyes went wide. “Me?”
Gunhawk withdrew his twin revolvers as smooth as silk, flipping them once each before pulling both hammers back. He said, “Seems to me like you stepped up to the plate first, Vic. What do you want us to do?”
Victor chewed his bottom lip for a moment and stood on his toes just enough to get a good look at Karima. She had pulled herself together and was flying through the air again, coming back their way. “Okay,” he said. “Get her attention so we can bring her on board. Let’s see if a little misdirection can get us closer to ringing that bell and ending this.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Cage watched Omega Sentinel narrowly avoid being struck by Thunderstrike’s wayward hammer as she finally dropped from the air and took a ground approach. He stole a quick glance at the suspended bell, which so far had remained silent.
“Think we’ll be here past lunch?” he asked.
Iron Fist tilted his head back and forth a few times, as if weighing the answer before saying it aloud. “Probably,” he responded.
Cage readied another grenade and tossed it down below near Gunhawk, who looked like he was about to have an accident when he saw it roll his way. The modern cowboy threw himself behind a barrier just in time. As he poked his head out and quickly scooped up his dropped black hat, Cage saw an expression of pure rage on his face.
He knew that these kids were novices, but this was getting a little silly. So far the only one that had shown some sense was the Masterson kid, who had tried to take out Iron Fist’s turret a few minutes ago after Karima had gone down. They were spending so much time avoiding getting hit and just getting to the bell that they were all taking the exercise at face value. It showed a lack of an ability to reason under fire.
It made him feel like they needed to get the kids back in the classroom instead of putting them through exercises like this one, which in turn made him want to just throw his hands up and call it a day. At first Stark’s offer had seemed like a great idea, but now that he was actually acting like a mentor, he wasn’t so sure. He could teach someone how to put down one of the Masters of Evil or rescue a kitten from a tree, but tactics? Not so much. While he was no slouch, he was far from a trained educator.
Omega Sentinel rounded the back of a barrier beneath him and he was about to toss a grenade right on top of her, but Gravity darted around the other side and he paused. It looked like they were finally working together.
“They have their two best flyers grounded,” Cage commented. “Looks like they’re trying to flank us.”
“That’s progress,” Iron Fist said as he pulled the trigger on his turret several more times. “I’ve got Gunhawk, Thunderstrike, and Victor pinned. Maybe they’ll—whoa! Incoming!”
Several of the cement barriers in the far corner of the arena opposite where the boys had congregated suddenly exploded, showering a twenty foot radius with rubble. Several chunks made it all the way to the base of the tower where Iron Fist and Cage were standing. A cloud of dust plumed upward and after a moment they saw a golden hammer race back to where Thunderstrike was crouched.
“A distraction?” Cage inquired, but Iron Fist didn’t have time to reply.
Both Gravity and Omega Sentinel burst straight upward from the base of the tower, popping up directly in front of Cage and Iron Fist. They were too close for either Cage to hit them with a grenade without being inside the blast zone or for Iron Fist to twist his turret to target them.
Gravity pointed his left hand at Cage and quickly pulled it back again, using his powers to rip the grenade belt from Cage’s hands. Had he been prepared for the surprise attack he could have held onto it for dear life, but he was caught with his guard down and it went soaring across the arena, now useless.
Likewise, Omega Sentinel dropped into a crouch directly beneath the turret’s nozzle and placed her hand on its barrel. A wire zipped out of her wrist and tapped into its circuitry. Before Iron Fist could even swizzle the turret away from her all power had been shut off. It was now nothing more than a giant, oblong paperweight.
“Not bad,” Iron Fist said. “You still have the automated defenses, though.”
“Oh,” Karima said with a smile. “We know.”
“We have them covered,” Gravity added, and he pointed back down to the floor. “Or at least, they do.”
Several more bursts of shattering concrete erupted from the floor as Thunderstrike began to simply pulverize his way through the arena. The dust clouds being kicked up made them difficult targets for the automated beams to track and after three of the outburst the slashes of red radiation stopped completely.
The newfound solitude didn’t stop Gunhawk, now able to freely stand his ground and pick his shots, from firing back. Bullets struck the lenses and one after another the defenses were obliterated. Within moments the arena had been turned into a safe zone thanks to their coordinated efforts.
From the center of the room, a form was spat out that arched through the air directly at the bell. Victor, using his increased strength to catapult himself across the room, screamed dramatically as he headed directly for the bell. He landed beside it and struck it with his fist as he did so, sending a resounding gong! throughout the arena.
“Yes!” Gravity hollered. He twisted around in circles as he levitated upward, pumping his fists. “Suck it! We are so awesome! We did it! In your face!”
Karima smirked, as did Thunderstrike and Gunhawk as they approached from the ground, the latter of which even sardonically tipping his hat. Iron Fist and Cage looked to Victor, who was trying hard to look casual as he leaned back against the bell, which wasn’t supporting his weight at all since it was hung on a rope and not fixed in place. He kept sliding off it, but was determined to strike a pose regardless.
“How about it?” Omega Sentinel finally said. “Did we pass?”
“Did we pass?” Gravity chimed in. “Of course! Didn’t you hear the sweat sound of that bell? I wish I could make it my ringtone.”
“I give a B+,” Iron Fist said.
“It’s a C for me,” Cage added.
Gravity’s mouth dropped open in shock. He gently lowered down and ripped the hood and yellow goggles off of his face. “What?” he exclaimed. “Are you serious right now? Didn’t you see him leap through the air like a Sayan? And, and, and how I totally yanked away your bombs? Or how Kevin just smashed apart everything that was standing still? Or Mike’s crack shot shooting? Or Karima’s ability to not hog the spotlight?”
“Yeah, we saw,” Cage replied. “We saw all of the unnecessary destruction you caused. How could we miss it?”
Gunhawk slipped over the ladder that led from the ground to their level just as Thunderstrike and Victor leapt up or across, respectively. Omega Sentinel crossed her arms and started to mutter as Gravity just hovered with a flabbergasted look on his face.
“Look,” Iron Fist said. “We applaud the teamwork and the strategy. Using your own unique strengths to counter the opposing forces is what exactly how a team needs to operate. You showed initiative, creativity, and resilience. These are all things that will save lives in the field. That’s why you’re getting passing grades today.”
“But…but…teamwork!” Gravity blurted out.
“Y’all aren’t making a lick of sense,” Gunhawk said. “You wanted the bell rung and we rang the damn bell.”
“I don’t get it,” Thunderstrike said. “What did we do wrong?”
“What was the point of the exercise?” Cage asked.
“They told me is was to pick a leader, form a plan, and work like a team to accomplish a goal,” Omega Sentinel replied. “I should have known better.”
Cage shook his head. “No. What did we tell you the goal was? What did we literally tell you the exercise was today?”
Victor said, “To ring the bell. Wait…oh, c’mon! You don’t mean to literally just ring the stupid thing?”
Iron Fist nodded slowly and looked at each of them in turn. “All Gunhawk had to do was shoot it once, or Thunderstrike could have thrown his hammer at it, or Gravity could hit it with a gravity well to make it ring when it fell over, or Omega Sentinel could have locked onto it with any number of her weapons, or Victor could have just thrown a rock at it like a baseball.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Thunderstrike said. He threw his hands up and ground his teeth. “Why wouldn’t we—”
“Make an assumption and leap straight to the most difficult solution?” Cage interrupted. “Any single one of you could have completed this exercise within seconds of it starting. Sometimes the best way to handle a situation is to just follow the instructions and get it done. As heroes, you don’t always have to blow stuff up and show off your abilities. Sometimes you just do the job that needs done, like ringing the damn bell instead of showboating around like a bunch of circus performers.”
“That’s not fair,” Karima shot back.
“Neither is anything you’re going to come up against out in the real world,” Iron Fist responded. “We’re not trying to teach you to be fair. We’re trying to teach you how to do what’s right without killing anyone.” He gestured down at the decimated arena, where the dust had yet to fully settle. “The bad guys absolutely won’t play fair when it comes to this stuff, so neither should you. Just do it responsibly.”
“Cheating responsibly,” Gunhawk said. He smirked. “I like it. Alrighty…well! It’s about time for some breakfast, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” Cage replied. “Right after you clean up this mess.”
The blaring silence from the five students spoke volumes, but Cage and Iron Fist leapt down from the tower and starting strolling for the exit anyway. Cage couldn’t help himself from turning around just before leaving and saying, “What’s the matter? With a little teamwork you’ll have this place swept up in no time!”
# # # # # # # # # #
“Come in,” Cage said.
The door to his private quarters slid open to reveal Victor standing with arms crossed and a mean mug plastered on his face. The Quadrangle had ample living space, with each room outfitted with a bedroom and living room. Despite the plush accommodations, right about now Cage felt very confined.
“What’s up, Vic?” he asked.
“That was a load of crap this morning,” Victor said as he stepped into the living quarters. “We finally got over ourselves and worked like a single unit, you know? And then you tell us we were wrong anyway? That ain’t right.”
“I stand by what Danny and I did, son” he shot back. He stepped over to a recliner and fell onto the soft cushions. “Hopefully the lesson will stick.”
Victor shook his head and made a noise of irritation. “It’s not just the whole teamwork thing. We got ourselves straightened out so we could win, right? We knew that, or thought we knew, that we had to work together. And you know who they listened to? Who they picked for the team leader?”
“You.”
“Yeah, me. Not that it matters now.”
“You feel like they won’t respect you or something?”
“Well, why would they? I got it wrong.”
Luke took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He and Victor had grown close over the last few months, ever since he had learned that Victor was his biological son, born back before he had gone to prison. Being a father figure, if Victor even looked at him that way, was uncharted territory for him and he always felt like conversations like these took him by surprise. He was really just guessing at the right thing to say most of the time.
“They allowed you to lead them,” Cage finally said. “Yeah, maybe Danny and I messed with your heads a little today, but that won’t change the fact that when put into a difficult situation, they all went with your plan. Own it and they’ll do that again.”
“You think I could be a leader?” Victor looked him directly in the eyes, which would have made Cage uncomfortable a month ago, but now he found that he welcomed to intimacy. “You think they would want me to be one?”
“I think you’ve got it takes. ‘Course, having a code name might actually help things along. It would show you were one of them. They all chose one for themselves right away. You’ve been holding out. It creates a line between you, like you think you aren’t one of them.”
“Code name,” Victor said. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that.”
Cage raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious. “Oh, yeah? What you got in mind?”
“I was thinking…I mean, if it’s okay with you…about going by Power Man.”
It was a good thing that Luke was already sitting, because he felt for sure like his knees were wobbling. He tightened his lips because he was worried that his mouth would drop open if he didn’t. The air was pregnant with his pause, and when he realized he hadn’t said anything for a long time, he rushed to get some words between them.
“Yeah!” Luke said. “I mean, of course! It’s yours. The name, I mean. Haven’t used it in years.”
“Cool,” Victor said as he stood up. He went to the door and stopped halfway through, turning back to look at his seated father. “Thanks.”
The door slid shut, leaving Cage alone again in his room to just stare at the blank, closed door. “Power Man,” he whispered, and then he smiled.
# # # # # # # # # #
“His plan won’t work.”
A man wearing the face of Luke Cage stood on the Empire State Building’s observation deck, looking down at a city that was both familiar and alien to him. He knew the names of the streets, the landmarks, and even where to get a decent slice of pizza. The geographical aspects of New York were well known to him, but it was populated with foreigners. None of these people, despite what they looked like, were his people.
“I agree,” a man wearing the face of Danny Rand replied. “Forget the American’s offer. We can control this city ourselves. He’s destined to fail, we can both see that. There’s no reason we should allow ourselves to be dragged down with him.”
Like this other Luke, he looked down at the city and felt nothing but disgust. However, he also saw an opportunity. Had he come to this world with the denizens of his recently acquired Dangerous Dojo he could have swept over the city like a force of nature, taking it as his prize alone. But he didn’t have his kung fu army. He had no one except the one who called himself The Warden, a man he had fought against just as much as he had alongside in recent days.
“I’ll admit that working together on that contract from the Spider had potential, Dragon Fist,” The Warden said. “Too bad the Goblin got away.”
“Yes,” Dragon Fist said. “Too bad. But now here we all, brought here by the Great American and left to fend for ourselves. Like you, I think we can uncover opportunities here, but as both of us have come without our resources, it makes sense to join forces.”
The Warden’s jail had been filled with subjects of incredible power that would do his bidding in exchange for favors, or even release. Without them, however, just as Dragon Fist pointed out, he was crippled. Finally, he said, “You know they will come for us right?”
“You mean the Luke Cage and Danny Rand of this world? Of course. But only if we let them.” He pointed to a recently constructed building just a few blocks from the noticeable Avengers Mansion. “Their new home. Why wait for them to come to us, when we can go to them?”
The Warden smirked and smacked his hands together. The noise, empowered by his augmented strength, made all of the other tourists on the observation deck jump in surprise. He rubbed his hands together and felt himself getting eager for their first move. Despite being in this backwards world, despite being ripped out of his comfortable lifestyle, maybe there was a way to make a little cash and gain even more respect here.
“When do we make our move?” The Warden asked.
NEXT: A C.O.D.E. Confidential tie-in! For more on The Warden and Dragon Fist, check out their Mirror Mirror story!