Firefly in…

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE

By Ciaran Spencer

It was a warm summer’s evening in New York City, and high above the Manhattan streets a man in gleaming crimson and gold armor was propelling himself at a rate of knots – and at a haphazard zigzagging trajectory – on pulsing, motorized wings while being pursued by a persistent fellow in a red and blue costume, swinging merrily on strands of silk. This was a genuine case of the spider and the fly, and to say that the fly wasn’t enjoying the experience was most definitely an understatement.

Thomas Ewing just wasn’t cut out for the life of a super-villain. In the past he’d tried his hand at both costumed larceny and terrorism and had failed miserably on both counts. And he absolutely loathed jail, which – for any villain who wasn’t particularly good at what he or she did, like Thomas – was an inevitable occupational hazard. Also, he’d recently developed a mild case of pyrophobia. A fear of fire was natural and understandable for most ordinary joes but it was doubly unfortunate when you were a villain for whom fire was a weapon of choice. It was like the Green Goblin developing an allergy to pumpkins.

And then there was Joss Whedon and that whole embarrassment… but Thomas hadn’t wanted to think about that tonight. He’d just wanted to show up at the location where his clandestine meeting had been due to take place, demonstrate his suit’s capabilities before handing it over and claiming his ten thousand dollars fee, and then go celebrate with a six-pack of Bud and a night watching guys in shiny trunks wallop the snizz out of each other on pay-per-view. Tonight should have been the end of Firefly, his nefarious alter ego, or at least Thomas’ stint behind the faceplate; what the new guy did with the suit was up to him. If he wanted to be Firefly Mark II then best of lady luck to him, but otherwise, so long and sayonara.

Trouble is, no one had thought to inform the amazing Spider-Man of any of this.

Goddamn Spider-Man, for the love of Pete!

And so now Thomas Ewing, the ever-fearsome Firefly, a man who’d lasted all of five seconds in his previous flyweight bouts against the majesty of second-raters like Nova and Luke Cage, was about to get his superheated ass handed to him to by a real hero, and was probably going to end up in Ryker’s again, and it wasn’t goddamn fair!

“Okay, okay, let me get this straight,” an amused voice filtered down from somewhere overhead. “Are you a Beetle? There are so many variations these days it’s impossible to keep track. Gold Beetle? Red Beetle? Scarlet Scarab? Or… oh, wait, wait! Are you the Beetle, just with a pimped color scheme? Sweet Mary Margaret, is that you, Abner Jenkins…?”

Thomas hadn’t heard of Abner Jenkins. He was familiar with the villain known as the Beetle however, just because his Firefly costume was apparently based on a riff of the Beetle’s original armored carapace design (or so some geek fanboy named Turk had informed him the last time he was incarcerated). But that was as far as it went. Also: Spider-Man? Never shut up. And moved so fast, and so erratically, that it was nigh impossible to keep track of what he was saying let alone trying to reply. Thomas decided it was best to keep quiet and to concentrate on trying to escape, weaving in and out of block after block of office buildings at twenty stories above street level, borne aloft on wings now shifted into overdrive.

Don’t let him needle you, he told himself, desperately. Just lose him somehow and get to the warehouse on the docks where the deal’s going down. Don’t let him goad you into doing something stupid, like you always—

“Bronze Beetle, maybe? Maroon Beetle? Crimson Beetle? Dung Beetle? Or… wait again! Maybe you’re a Glow Worm. Are you a Glow Worm? Are you a Golden Glow Worm? Gorgeous Glow Worm? Glamorous Glow Worm? God, you’re not a Goblin Glow Worm are you? I hate Goblins, especially Goblins who Glow—”

“Firefly!!” Thomas yelled, suddenly losing his temper and whirling in mid-air. “It’s Firefly, okay? Just… Firefly.”

“Ooooooo. Firefly, huh?”

Damn it!

Spider-Man appeared away to Thomas’ right flank, gliding effortlessly on a silken thread, his body a coil of brash red and blue as he completed an elegant somersault. “So, this is a publicity thing?” he asked. “You know, to get the show back on the air? I mean, I sympathize. I liked it. All my friends liked it. Fox pulled the trigger way too early and now we’re all hurting. And, man, this is what it comes to, right? All that pain, all that wasted potential. You don’t have to do this, Joss. Trust me. All you have to do is tap in to your inner serenity, my friend—”

Thomas bellowed in rage, thrusting out a hand and attempting to grab his enemy’s leg as he sailed past him for the umpteenth time, more like a cat toying with its prey than an arachnid. Spider-Man was too quick however, and seemed to possess an uncanny precognition. Firefly couldn’t get near him. Fortunately he wasn’t at a total disadvantage: whenever Spider-Man tried to snare him with his webbing, even a veritable cocoon of it, his silk combusted into smoke and flame a second or two after contact with Firefly’s suit. This seemed mightily perplexing for the hero, who kept pressing Thomas for information like some high school science nerd, such as what manner of chemical concoction his costume was secreting. Like, seriously, what the hell? Apparently Spider-Man believed that his webbing was fireproof to a certain degree. Thomas wanted to taunt him, grateful for even this small victory, but in truth he didn’t have the faintest idea how his suit worked either. He just wore the goddamn thing – and tonight, ironically, he’d been trying his best to get rid of it for good.

“Okay, Joss, enough – ow! – with the – ow! ow! – leading me a merry dance – ow! And seriously, enoughwiththeburnyfirething!!”

Every time Spider-Man threw a punch or kick that connected there was a brief spark of ignition causing him to recoil before he went up in flames. At one point the toe of his red boot had been smoldering, much to Firefly’s delight. The trouble was, even those brief blows were rattling Thomas’ skull inside his helmet like an apple in a barrel and it was only a matter of time before Spider-Man connected hard enough to administer a clean knockout – especially as, no matter how far and fast Firefly flew, he just couldn’t seem to gain any distance from his enemy’s accursed web-swinging.

If only he hadn’t been running late tonight. If only he’d not worn the damn suit and had instead kept it decompressed and packed in its case, and had simply hailed a cab to get across town, rather than taking one last flight and risking getting spotted by some do-gooder hero. It wasn’t even like he’d robbed a bank or caused a scene in Times Square or something. Honestly, wasn’t there a Hobgoblin or a Hypno-Hustler for this idiot insect to go exchange one-liners with? Thomas was so depressed…

A flagpole jutted out from the side of a building up ahead. Firefly swerved towards it as Spider-Man attempted to steer him in the opposite direction from above, grabbing it in both fists and wrenching it clear of its concrete mooring with the sheer force of his momentum. The flag immediately erupted in flames, and the pole itself followed moments later as the strange chemical secretions from Firefly’s suit did their work. Firefly banked, his mechanical wings flaring out to steer him in a tight arc, and he launched the burning pole like a javelin. Spider-Man twisted at the waist, a tangle of limbs, but with incredible precision and timing nonetheless. The pole sailed past him as if time had slowed, although in truth the hero had unfathomably judged the angle and velocity of the missile inside a split-second. Even so, the trail of fire in the pole’s wake threatened to engulf him, causing him to twist and flip in mid-air again and eliciting a genuinely vexed yelp.

Firefly had gained a momentary advantage. He shot forward, wings horizontal at his back, a brief trail of phosphorescent fire in his wake. Glancing down and away to his right he saw the docks that he’d been trying to reach. Somewhere down there, outside one particular warehouse, was the man he’d arranged to meet. He wondered if inadvertently leading Spider-Man to the rendezvous point would compromise their negotiations. He was guessing the answer to that was a stern Hell, yes. But what other choice did he have? If he kept running – that is, flying – then the webslinger would surely catch him sometime soon…

Thomas made his decision. He snapped downwards and began a rapid descent, flitting back and forth in a renewed zigzag to try and keep his adversary at bay. Unfortunately for Firefly, Spider-Man was no longer enjoying the chase.

“No, no, no, Ladybird! No Ugly Bug Ball for you.”

The hero stretched out both arms as he somersaulted overhead, releasing a volley of impact webbing from his wrist-shooters. Between ten and twenty golf-ball-sized pellets rained down on Firefly, striking him with a series of smacks along the breadth of his wings, and although each one then burst into flame the strength of the initial rapid, repeated impacts caused the villain to veer off course. He managed to dodge the sudden corner of one building as he skeered off sideways but he caught the cornice of the next one square in the stomach, sending him spiraling out of control and shedding black smoke like a fighter plane with a damaged fuselage.

Panicking, Thomas looked on with wide eyes through the shielded goggles of his mask, wondering how close he was to the ground… and in that moment he saw something peculiar, a glint of golden light down below that appeared to unleash a brief beam of flickering light, like a shooting star. He immediately dismissed it as a trick of his disorientation, perhaps the shine of lamplight from some office window. But then, as he whirled in his tailspin and struggled to right himself, he saw something even more inexplicable: behind him, Spider-Man was in trouble.

The web-slinger was convulsing in mid-air, his arms and legs askew and his back arched. He seemed in considerable pain, and completely out of control of his own body. He jackknifed, his head thrown back, his limbs twisted… he spasmed again… and then he fell, no longer supported by momentum or by strands of silky webbing. As Spider-Man plummeted and Thomas lost sight of him against the backdrop of neon-lit streets below he felt like crying out in triumph, even though he had no idea what had just happened. Maybe his luck wasn’t so goddamn awful after all – maybe Spider-Man had just suffered cardiac arrest!

Regaining mastery of his wings and then his downward trajectory, Firefly swooped low into the shadowed docks alongside the inky blackness of the Hudson River, searching out the address he required. Turned out he was almost on top of his target location – and there, loitering at the edge of the pier, was a tall man in an expensive black coat and hat. The man he was supposed to meet.

Firefly landed, taking care to cradle his chest and gut as he came to rest. The suit didn’t look damaged after his recent impact with a stone cornice but his ribs sure as hell did. He hoped he wouldn’t need to go to some seedy backstreets hospital to get himself checked over.

“You’re late,” the man in the hat barked, although he seemed more bemused than angry. Thomas huffed, reaching up to remove his helmet. It came loose with a hydraulic hiss, and the rest of the suit instantly powered down.

“Yeah. I had some trouble…”

“So I saw.”

Thomas eyed the other man warily. “You did, huh? Well, don’t worry. The suit’s impact resistant and still fully functional. If you want, I can show—”

“Don’t concern yourself, Mister Ewing. I don’t particularly care about the suit.”

The man spoke with a hard Eastern European accent. He was Hungarian, though Thomas didn’t know his Hungarys from his Latverias; besides, he was more stunned by what the guy had just said.

“Don’t care about the suit?” he repeated, jaw agape. “Well, milk me to the goddamn farm and back. What the hell did you arrange a meet for if you’re not interested? Is this some kind of set-up…?”

The man in the hat smiled widely. He was a rugged type, with a scar sliced into his lower lip. Thomas suddenly felt nervous, as he always did around rugged men with scars. That was what prolonged incarceration periods did to a fellow.

“My employer didn’t send me here for the suit itself,” the well-dressed stranger elaborated. “She wants the power source. The source of that volatile chemical you can barely contain.”

Thomas looked startled and made a move to put his helmet back on. The suit didn’t work when the helmet was removed, disconnecting the overall circuitry – that made him a sitting duck, he now realized. However, with the helmet back on he was protected. If this weirdo tried anything he’d end up crispy fried, and then—

“Uh-uh,” the man admonished, inclining his head. “Too late for that, I’m afraid…”

In the darkness there was a sudden spark of golden light – one that Thomas found familiar. It was just like the glint he’d seen a short while earlier, the one that had occurred before Spider-Man had been mysteriously incapacitated. Thomas realized now that this light was being projected from the stranger’s right eye socket, and as he looked closer he saw that this socket was filled not with a normal eyeball but with a complex lock of slowly revolving, concentric rings, each of them solid gold.

And then, as he looked on, Thomas’ entire body was consumed with a greater agony than he could ever have believed possible. Every nerve ending, every single band of hypersensitive tissue throughout his body’s entire somatic nervous system was simultaneously tightened and tweaked like the strumming of a hundred thousand guitar strings, causing him to convulse and twist and then collapse in a spasming, frothing heap on the asphalt, his physical body writhing in his armored shell.

This is what happened to Spider-Man, Thomas thought frantically, in some small part of himself that hadn’t yet been rendered insensible by the pain. This—

But there was nothing more, because in the next moment Thomas Ewing expired, his nervous system rupturing in a rapid series of devastating internal detonations that he could never have hoped to recover from. Death in this case was a mercy.

The man in the hat came to stand over Thomas’ body as it continued to shudder even in demise. He smiled, rubbing his hands together as if in pride at his craftsmanship. “A pity,” he said, affably. “We were never properly introduced. My name – my adopted name – is Goldeneye. For obvious reasons.”

It was a goddamn irony, to be sure. If Thomas had still been alive he might even have laughed; there he was, teased mercilessly about his own super-villain moniker throughout his prison term, and he’d run afoul of an enemy named after an 80s James Bond flick…

Goldeneye glanced about, scanning the darkened wharf. Spider-Man would be on the scene before long, he knew. It was one thing to cybernetically annihilate the nervous system of a regular human victim up close, but quite another to engage a superhuman adversary at distance. He’d been fortunate that he’d used his long-range eyescope to tag the wall-crawler as cleanly as he had earlier, but the hero certainly wouldn’t be incapacitated for more than a few minutes. And the fall wouldn’t have killed him either. These infernal saintly types, they always had some higher power looking out for them.

No, this needed to be quick.

Goldeneye bent down and hefted Thomas’ now inert body, turning him over onto his front. His mechanical wings were spread wide like those of a pinned moth but the assassin ignored them, instead searching for the power pack core that jutted out just beneath the hub where the wing roots were clustered. It was there, just as his employer had advised – and the base of the core detached, again, just as he’d been told it would. That woman, she knew her stuff…

Inside the casing there was an opaque cylinder, one that glowed from within. This was no normal power source, and it wasn’t charged with any normal fuel. There were lights inside. Small, flickering, randomly pulsing lights.

Like fireflies.

But not like any fireflies typically found on this earth.

Goldeneye smiled and cocked his head. If one listened carefully then one could hear the poor little things screaming. And who could blame them, trapped like this for so long, the only outlet for their magical fire being through the crude cortex circuitry of some pathetic super-criminal’s low-tech armored suit…? This was the real power, and this was what his employer wanted.

Goldeneye grinned, delighted. He would be richly rewarded for this.

Pocketing the pulsing cylinder, he turned and strode away into the darkness, whistling quietly beneath his breath. By the time Spider-Man arrived on the scene Goldeneye would be long gone.

Out of New York… and on the road back to Salem.

Goldeneye first appeared in Power Man & Iron Fist # 86 (1982). See above comment.

Spider-Man appears courtesy of Tobias Christopher, who writes Omega’s Amazing Spider-Man. Thank you, Tobias!