Eric O’Grady’s miniature ship flew down onto the roof of the Grace & Tumbalt skyscraper. It went into hover mode and the cockpit opened, allowing O’Grady to jump out. His Ant-Man armor increased his size until he returned to his normal height. Once he became large enough, he took the tiny ship in the palm of his hand and affixed it to his belt.

“Tiger?” he asked, glancing around the surface. After they left Grace & Tumbalt the previous night, the White Tiger told Ant-Man he had to investigate a lead about his father, Jonathan Payton Cole. “You here?”

No response. Ant-Man remained alone on the roof. “Coulson, you read me?” The response came in the form of static echoing inside Ant-Man’s helmet. “Well, that’s just great.”

“You won’t be hearing from Coulson.”

Ant-Man heard the voice come from behind him and spun around. The White Tiger climbed over the roof’s ledge, his feet likely clinging to the side of the building via the vibranium-soled boots he wore as part of his costume.

“What’s with the theatrics?” asked Ant-Man, folding his arms over his chest.

The White Tiger said nothing, but brought his right arm across his chest, his hand clenched in a fist. The flash of bright, blue energy in the shape of a blade showed Ant-Man that in that fist, the Tiger held one of his hi-tech daggers provided to him by the King of Wakanda.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m sorry for this.” The White Tiger swung his right arm in a wide arc, energy blades firing from the ornate hilt.

Ant-Man twisted to avoid most of the strikes, activating the Pym Particles in his suit to shrink him down to size. Propulsion units kept him aloft, allowing him to maneuver through the energy blades. Once the path was clear, he made a bee-line for his partner-cum-enemy. Even when miniaturized, Ant-Man retained the full strength he possesses at his normal size. With the added benefit of his armor’s enhanced strength, that meant he could pack one wallop of a punch.

He proved it as his near-microscopic fist connected with the White Tiger’s jaw, the force of impact sending the Secret Avenger flying across the roof of Grace & Tumbalt. The helmet’s auditory functions enhanced the sound of his voice, projecting it so the White Tiger could hear him even at ant-size.

“The next strike will come with a complimentary stinger shoved up your ass,” he said. “Now you mind telling me just what the hell you think you’re doing?”

“What I have to.” The White Tiger reached into the leather trench coat he wore over his ivory jumpsuit. He pulled out a small, translucent plastic card. Ant-Man recognized it as the White Tiger’s Kimoyo card, essentially a smartphone years ahead of the currently-available technology. The Whiter Tiger entered a command and Ant-Man’s armor flashed a warning over his retina.

{{SYSTEM COMPROMISED.}}

Ant-Man couldn’t move, his boot-jets deactivating and the suit returning him to normal size. The entire armor locked him down and a surge of electricity was sent flowing through his body, forcing him into convulsions.

The White Tiger stood over his former partner’s prone body, staring down at him with glowing, yellow eyes. “In case it turned out you couldn’t be trusted, Nomad had a failsafe installed into your armor, allowing me to shut it down with my Kimoyo card.”

“Guess he didn’t count on you bein’ the traitor, huh?” asked Ant-Man.

“Again, I’m sorry,” said the White Tiger. “I didn’t want it to go down this way, but I’ve gotta do what’s best for my family. I hope you can understand that.”

“Oh go fuck yourself!”

The White Tiger jammed an energy dagger into Ant-Man’s chest, the setting just high enough to leave the victim unconscious. The Tiger sighed, pulling off his mask to reveal the light-skinned face of Kasper Cole.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect you would.”

LETHAL WEAPONS

Part II

By Dino Pollard

The Steranko

Johann Fennhoff stirred awake, opening his eyes to see the normally-opaque wall of his tiny prison cell now translucent. He sat up on the cot and stood, limping over to the wall and looking through it. To any casual observer, there seemed to be no barrier at all between him and the man who stood across from him.

“Mr. Monroe,” said Fennhoff.

“The name’s Nomad, Doctor Faustus,” replied the leader of this team of Secret Avengers, operating out of the small helicarrier.

“It has been some time since I had a visit from any of you,” said Doctor Faustus. “I wake to find my meals but otherwise, total silence. Total isolation. The indefinite use of solitary confinement is considered a form of psychological torture, is it not? I wonder, how would the World Security Council react if they discovered SHIELD was employing such techniques?”

“And who said anything about SHIELD?” asked Nomad.

“Very amusing, Jack.” Doctor Faustus returned to the cot, sitting on it and raising his injured legs with some difficulty onto the thin mattress. “We are both well-aware of your organization’s connection to Nick Fury, just as you are aware of my connection to Control and the Weapon Plus Project. Let us not play coy any longer.”

“Thought you liked mind games, Faustus.”

“This is not a game you can play, my friend. Perhaps you should summon the Black Widow. Or that delightfully unstable individual you are calling Ant-Man.”

“The Winter Soldier. What you did to Barnes—the suspended animation, the brainwashing—something similar was done to me.”

“Yes, I’d heard of that interesting little incident,” said Faustus.

“Was Strucker just building on work already done to me in the past?” asked Nomad.

“Perhaps you should ask him.”

“He’s dead.”

Faustus grinned. “Then I suppose you are—what is that quaint expression? Up Shit Creek.”

“So that’s how it is.” Nomad held a small device in his hand and at the touch of a button, the translucent wall flashed for a brief second, indicating that it had been deactivated completely.

“What is this?” asked Faustus, his eyes growing wide.

Nomad stepped into Faustus’ cell. “You’re right about one thing, Fennhoff—I’m no expert at psychological manipulation. Certainly not in your league. But there are some things I’m good for.”

He drew one of the battle staves from the thigh it was holstered to, the device held in his other hand. With the touch of a button, the wall appeared once more—opaque this time—closing it off to the rest of the Steranko.

When Eric woke, he was unrestrained—although with his armor disabled, he may as well have been, given that he was unable to move. He lay on a couch and cast his eyes as much as possible around the large, spacious office. He recognized it as the office of Nigel Blacque, the man called Triage, and so knew he must be on the sixty-second floor of the Grace & Tumbalt building.

The White Tiger stood in front of him, with Triage standing to his left. Flanking the Tiger’s right was a man larger than the other two, wearing what appeared to be an African tribal mask with dreadlocks from the top—must be Kibuka, Kasper’s father, thought Eric.

“Never figured you’d turn traitor on us, Cole,” said Ant-Man.

“Coming from a rogue SHIELD agent, that really hurts,” said the White Tiger. “Do you think I give a shit what you think of me, O’Grady? The only thing I care about is my family.”

“Really? You seemed pretty keen on taking out both Blacque and your old man when you found out they’d been playing you,” said Ant-Man.

“These two? They can go to hell for all I care.” The White Tiger gestured to both Kibuka and Triage. “I’m talking about my real family—my mom, my girlfriend, my son. They’re who I’m protecting, and the 66 Bridges can provide that protection. Can see to it that my family never wants for anything ever again.”

“It is time,” said Kibuka, holding out an African Mambele, a weapon with a blade and curved back section and a spike on the hilt. “Kill this interloper, and then do what you were born to do, boy. Stand by my side as my successor. You and your brother, together.”

“Don’t need that, Pop.” The White Tiger instead drew one of the ornate hilts. “Wouldn’t it be more poetic to use one of the Black Panther’s weapons to kill an Avenger?”

The corner of Triage’s mouth crept up in a grin. “Like the way you think, dog.”

The White Tiger said nothing, just activated the device. A blue energy blade emerged from the hilt, glowing with intensity. “On this setting, you’ll die within seconds and all the coroner will register is that you had a heart attack.”

“Kas, stop—!”

Despite Eric’s plea, Kasper brought the dagger down onto his chest, the blade vanishing as it passed through the armor’s breast-plate. Eric’s body went into convulsions and he screamed in agony. Within a few moments, the screams subsided and the Ant-Man’s body was completely limp. Kasper removed the dagger and deactivated the blade, turning to face his father and half-brother.

Kibuka removed his mask, revealing the face of Black Jack Cole. He had a wide, appreciative smile on his face and when his son approached, he embraced him.

“Now you are truly my son.”

“For a guy named after an ant, he’s heavy as shit!”

It took four security guards to carry Ant-Man’s body from the service entrance of the Grace & Tumbalt building. And even then, they strained with the weight. They paused for a second and dropped the body, stretching out their limbs to try and regain some feeling.

“I’ll go get the van, then we’ll get rid of ‘im.” One of the guards walked from the entrance and into the parking lot. A black, unmarked van sat in one of the spots. He fished in his pocket for the keys and hit the unlock button on the dangle. The van beeped and the lights flashed. When he went to open the front door, he saw another man sitting in the driver’s seat with short brown hair, dressed in a black suit with a blue tie.

“Good evening.”

The guard didn’t have a chance to respond before SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson opened the driver’s side door and slammed it into the guard, knocking him back. Coulson stepped out of the car and grabbed the disoriented guard by his hair, then threw him face-first into the driver’s side window, shattering the glass.

Coulson calmly walked towards the remaining three guards, taking a SHIELD-issued service pistol from the holster concealed beneath his jacket. Once the guards realized what had happened, they reached for their weapons. Coulson put a bullet in each of the guards without missing a step, their lifeless bodies hitting the pavement. He holstered the weapon and knelt down beside Ant-Man’s body, taking a small PDA from his jacket. A few commands were activated and the armor shocked Eric O’Grady, his eyelids shooting open.

Eric took a deep breath and sat up, coughing. He removed the helmet from his armor and looked to see his former partner kneeling beside him. “Wh-what the hell just happened?”

“You died,” said Coulson. “So to speak.”

“So to speak?”

“The Tiger’s blade was on a setting just high enough to make it look like you’d been killed. Once they got rid of your body, I used the built-in failsafe to have the armor jolt you back to life.”

“Wait . . .” Eric held up his hand as he tried to process this sudden onslaught of new information. “You telling me that Kas was faking it?”

“Precisely,” said Coulson.

“Well if he was just going to pretend to kill me, why not just tell me about it?” asked Eric.

“It had to look like you genuinely believed the Tiger had betrayed you.”

“Coulson . . . I was trained as a deep-cover agent. Don’t you think that means I know just a little bit about how to act the part?”

“We had to be sure,” said Coulson.

Eric sighed. “Let me guess—your idea to keep me in the dark, right?”

Coulson gave a slight grin. “Come on, we need to finish this job.”

“Just think—soon this empire I have built will be yours,” said Kibuka. “And one day, you shall pass it on to my grandson.”

“Uhh, Pops?” Triage wore the green visor that granted him access to scanners more advanced than the human eye could see. “We’ve got a pro—”

The glass window of Triage’s penthouse office shattered with a small explosion. A miniaturized Ant-Man flew through the opening, his jets barreling him fists-first into Triage’s forehead. The blow hurled Kasper’s half-brother across the room, leaving cracked drywall in its wake.

Ant-Man returned to his normal size, then jammed one of his stingers into Triage’s neck. Kibuka rose from the desk and reached for the ornate mask. “I do not know how you survived—”

“Isn’t it obvious, Dad?” The White Tiger’s Antarctic vibranium claws tore through Kibuka’s body armor as if it were paper, slicing through his skin and quickly drawing blood. Kibuka backed away from his son, hand reaching for the wounds on his chest.

“We played you,” said Ant-Man. “Although would’ve been helpful had I known . . .”

The White Tiger moved in for another strike, destroying Kibuka’s mask with one swipe of his claws. “You betrayed everything you taught me! Had me running in circles! And all for what?”

The face of Black Jack Cole was now bared before the White Tiger. Kasper pulled his mask off as well, then lunged at his father. He delivered a powerful punch fueled by the power of the Panther Herb. Another blow came next, and finally, he had Black Jack on the ground, his face bloody. Kasper drew his energy dagger and activated the blade.

“You think this is the end?” asked Black Jack. “66 Bridges everywhere! Your betrayal won’t go unnoticed. Have me arrested, those in my pocket will see to it I’m released.”

“That’s what you think.” Kasper held up his Kimoyo Card. “Since I set foot in here, I’ve had my Kimoyo Card wirelessly copy every single one of the files Grace & Tumbalt has. Transmitted them to a guy in the CIA by the name of Cameron Dalin.”

“Hah! The CIA provides us with protection!” said Black Jack.

“That’s why Dalin is distributing the information to several influential reporters. By tomorrow, there will be so many Congressional investigations into the CIA’s dealings with the 66 Bridges, the Agency will figure they’re better off cutting you loose,” said Kasper. “You’re done, Pop.”

“And what of those you claim to fight for? Do you think your family will be safe, Avenger? Do you think I will not hesitate to exact revenge on my betrayers?”

Kasper jammed the energy dagger into his father’s head. Black Jack’s body seized up before he fell to the ground, eyes closed. Kasper stared down at him. “Just be glad I let you live, you bastard.”

Wakandan Consulate
New York

“Officer Cole.”

Even after all the time he’d known T’Challa, Kasper still felt a chill go down his spine whenever the King of Wakanda spoke. T’Challa sat behind a desk, wearing a dark suit with a hand stroking the thin, black goatee on his face.

“I think you’ve heard some things about what’s been happening,” said Kasper.

“Yes, I heard of your recent attempt to bring down the 66 Bridges, and of your father’s role in their organization,” said T’Challa. “And I received a call from Nick Fury. He told me you have been extremely helpful in some recent matters.”

“There’s a problem, though,” said Kasper. “After what I did to the Bridges, they’re gonna want retaliation.”

“Not only them,” said T’Challa. “There are those in the CIA who will be very disappointed by this turn of events and the spotlight it has thrown upon their activities.”

“My family’s in danger, Panther. My mom, Gwen, and my unborn son. I need to get them out of Harlem, get them somewhere safe,” said Kasper. “Can you grant them asylum in Wakanda? Just temporarily, until I can make other arrangements.”

“No.”

Kasper’s shocked face almost instantly went to anger. “‘No’? After everything I’ve done? I would think I would’ve proved myself, at least enough to ask for this!”

“Then you would be mistaken,” said T’Challa. “You have proved yourself beyond this. So I am prepared to offer you Wakandan citizenship, which will enable your family to remain in Wakanda indefinitely. The Consulate will facilitate your family’s transportation. I promise you that their safety will be guaranteed.”

“I know, ‘cuz I’m going with,” said Kasper.

“Do you not have matters to attend to in America?”

“The Bridges will lie low for now, and as for my other commitments, I think it’s fair to say that it’s about time I started spending some time with my family,” said Kasper.

The Steranko

Doctor Faustus woke at the sound of his cell door opening. The energized field dropped and he saw his liberator walking towards him. Faustus struggled to climb to his feet and his new friend tossed him a cane.

“I must admit, I wondered how long it would take for the Contessa to send you in,” said Faustus.

“We have to hurry, they’ll realize something isn’t right.”

“Very well, then lead the way . . .” began Faustus. “. . . Winter Soldier.”

The rescuer gave Faustus a final look. He didn’t have the cybernetic arm of Bucky Barnes, nor the armament. But what he did have were the staves that just the other day were used to beat Faustus senseless, and a gold belt buckle in the shape of the letter N. He revealed what he held in his hands.

“Never liked playing second-fiddle to Barnes.” Jack Monroe revealed what he held in his hands, a helmet with horns protruding from the top. He placed it over his head, a sinister grin and red eyes hidden in the darkness of the helmet’s open face. “I prefer . . . Scourge.”

NEXT: Contingency