DOGS OF WAR

Part I: Old Friends

By Clayton Tooley

NOTE: This story-arc takes place after Avengers #6 and just after the beginning of West Coast Avengers #1

On a clear night in New York City you can hear many things. Sirens for one, as ambulances, police cars and fire engines race through the dark to where people in need are waiting. Loud music from apartment building windows as one party or another was going on at all hours. On an increasingly frequent basis your chances were better than fair that you would stumble across a super-powered brawl going on, more nights than not. Welcome to New York City in the new millennium.

In the seeder parts of town what was heard most frequently was the sound of gunfire and running feet, as too many people in too little space tried to do too many different things that too many people objected to. On this particular night, there was one place in particular that was getting a lot of action.

From within an alley on a dark street, automatic pistols were being emptied at an alarming rate as two rival gangs pinned each other down from behind trashcans and shipping crates. On one side was the Publik, a gang with a surprisingly varied mix of racial and gender types, but a severely slanted view on their importance in the world, something that led them to inflict whatever cruelties or other impulsive urges they felt necessary to get their points across to anyone they wished.

Opposing the Publik this night were members of the Regulars, a group of white American males who felt they were the rightful, proper owners of not only this section of the city, but of the entire nation. Their leader, Rob, had taken offense to the black leader of the Publik’s attempt to take his sister as his prize for the night. The Regulars felt interracial romance was wrong and felt even more violently opposed to seeing his younger sister nearly raped. She was only 13. Of all those in the alley, the oldest was 16.

Gunn, the aforementioned leader of the Publik, was 16 and felt his advanced age made him not only worthy of Rob’s sister but entitled to her by decree. The Regulars, in his opinion, were nothing but racist mommy’s boys who had too much money and too much time to be a real gang, to know what real suffering was like. So not only was he in this for the fine sister of his rival, but also to make his mark on this shit-ass section of town they lived in, and to make a name for the Publik and for himself.

The four dead boys on the ground, split between both sides, meant nothing to either gang, they were so caught up in the fight.

The bodies meant something to the man who suddenly appeared silhouetted from the streetlight at the end of the alley. His cold blue eyes took in the scene quickly and his frown deepened as the rage he felt at the waste of life welled up in him before he squelched it. Emotion would do him no good right now.

The figure moved forward suddenly, his right arm flicking forward so fast that even the few who had realized he had appeared never saw the shield coming. They felt it when it hit them, though, as the sudden sharp pain was quickly drowned out by the silence of unconsciousness.

By the time the USAgent had reached the scene, his new shield had already taken out half of his competition.

In all, it took two minutes for John Walker to put down every kid in the alley. There was never any doubt really, not for someone with his training, speed and strength. He stood in the center of the alley staring at the four dead boys at his feet. They had each been shot numerous times and their dead eyes stared skyward towards stars they had never wished upon. For all his abilities, all his desire, he still had not been quick enough to get here in time to save these lives.

In his mind he saw a series of images:

–he saw a barn in which he was bound, his neck in a noose. He saw himself move and saw his parents gunned down.

–he saw himself walking away from an oil tanker. He saw the tanker explode while his back was turned. He saw himself smile wickedly as he thought of his best friends dying.

–he saw himself in Limbo, fighting those who were dead. He saw them cursing him. He saw him ‘kill’ them again, still smiling, still joking.

–he saw himself and others falling out of a portal to hell. He saw his head snapping around, his shield not on his arm where it should have been. He saw her hit by the hellfire bolt, her body bloated horribly. He watched the light leave her eyes.

In the alley a cry of rage escaped his lips and he turned, hurling his new shield at the nearest wall and, when it cracked into two pieces upon impact, he felt his rage grow exponentially. He was still seething a few minutes later when the police and paramedics finally showed up and began helping the wounded, bagging the dead and booking the gang members. He had calmed down sufficiently to give a statement and was preparing to leave when he remembered his shield, or what was left of it. It was a useless trinket now, but he didn’t want to leave experimental Government Issue material lying around an alley, so he turned back to retrieve it and stopped.

“Still haven’t found a suitable replacement, huh, Jack?” said the man who was kneeling by his shattered shield, his own strapped to his back. As Captain America stood, holding the pieces of the shattered shield before him, USAgent felt his irrational and subconscious dislike of Cap rise in his throat and once again he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Betcha think it’s real hilarious, don’t you, Rogers?” he basically sneered at the Sentinel of Liberty. “Yours gets busted and Stark and the rest bust their humps to find it and get it put back together. Mine got busted even before you disbanded the Whackos and what have I gotten from my avenging buddies? Jack shit, that’s what!”

“Simmer down, Agent,” Cap said, sighing. He kept fooling himself, hoping that one of these days the irrational hatred that Walker held inside of him in regards to the red, white and blue union suit would subside. Cap knew that Jack felt abused by the system thanks to the Red Skull, and his being forced on the West Coast branch of the Avengers had done nothing to improve his outlook. The Agent would always feel like the ‘bridesmaid’ to the real Captain America, and the Avenger who couldn’t make it on his own. What saddened Cap was that the Agent had every quality it took to be an Avenger in spades, and had shown his devotion, skill and loyalty to both teams a hundredfold in past years, but it was never enough for the Agent and his attitude was too much for most of the other Avengers to take him seriously.

On the other hand, in this one instance, Cap could forgive him his frustration. USAgent was the only person on the planet who understood just what it was like to love a round piece of metal like it was your best friend. Having shared both shields with Jack, Cap could imagine how impotent he must feel without the Vibranium shield the Black Panther had given to Steve Rogers many years ago when he had quit being Captain America, temporarily becoming the Captain.

John Walker had been hired by the Commission to be the new Captain America and he’d had a troubled and violent career, cumulating in the deaths of 13 people and a knock-down, drag-out fight between the two of them as the Red Skull laughed at them. Then John had his death faked, his mind ‘reconditioned’ by the Government and sent back into the field as Jack Daniels, the USAgent, equipped with the Vibranium shield. That shield had served the Agent for his entire tenure with the Avengers West Coast, until it had been destroyed in a battle with the Hangman and his crew, during which the Agent was nearly beaten to death.

Since then, the USAgent had been given a series of knock-off shields from everyone from Tony Stark, the Government and even by a privateer named Edwin Cord. The one Cap held now resembled the Vibranium shield in coloring, but not in heft or strength, obviously.

“Listen, Jack, I didn’t come here to argue with you,” Cap said, handing the shield fragments back. “I actually came at the behest of Hank Pym. He’s been waiting for you to get back into town for a while, and when your communicard signal reported you were here, I adjusted my nightly patrol to where you were registering. It appears I was a few minutes late.”

“Obviously,” Agent said, shuffling from one foot to another. “Me too. Look, I thought the Avengers lost my number? What’s the mad scientist want with me?”

“That’s neither true nor fair, Agent,” Cap said, shaking his head. “But that’s neither here nor there. Hank knew I would be in the area tonight and asked if I’d give you the message.”

“Consider it given,” Agent said, turning to walk out of the alley. “And stop tracking my card or I’ll smash it.”

“Nice talking to you too,” Cap said to himself before he returned to his patrol.

On his ride to Avengers Mansion, John Walker racked his brain trying to figure out what High Pockets wanted with him. He hadn’t seen Pym since the Morgan Le Fey incident, or any other Avenger for that matter, and he wasn’t exactly missing them. But loyalty was one thing he believed in deeply and Pym had always been straight with him. “Oh well,” he said aloud. “Least I can grab some grub off of Jarv.”

In the months since he had left Edwin Cord’s little bloodhound party, he had been bouncing around on one government project to another with little time to settle down anywhere. He had plenty of cash in the bank, his work for the Commission had paid well enough, and he didn’t spend much, but he usually just crashed on whatever base or Helicarrier he was on at the time. Perhaps it was time for him to rethink his lifestyle. The streets of this city were getting more dangerous all the time, and while his missions for the government were ‘usually’ important, they didn’t do what the country really needed. They didn’t better people’s daily lives.

“God bless America,” he said sarcastically to himself as he arrived in front of the mansion on a tire-blistering slide. Hopping off of his bike, he took the shield fragments with him as he walked up to the front door. He could feel the scanners hidden around him scan him from the inside out. At least the security system was efficient, even if the rest of the team was usually made up of ineffective nimrods that caused more damage than they stopped.

The door opened before he reached the top of the front steps and Edwin Jarvis was standing there, as impeccable as ever. “Master USAgent,” he said, managing to make such an absurd title sound regal and important. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you, Jarvis,” he said, pulling his mask back. Something about Jarvis put him at ease, a rarity in the world. Of course, he’d only met Jarvis a half-dozen or so times in his tenure in the Avengers West Coast, but he still liked him. “Here, got a gift for you.” He handed the man the shield fragments, which Jarvis took gladly without complaint, hefting the weight admirably.

“I shall see it is disposed of properly, sir,” he said, shutting the door. “Master Pym is waiting for you in his lab.”

“Big surprise,” Jack said, moving through the living areas of the mansion. He entered the elevator in the back and went to the level where the mad scientists laboratory was located. When the door opened, he was greeted with three former Avengers whom he had as close a friendship with as any. “Simon, Wanda, Vihz, how’s it hang’n?”

“Agent?” the Scarlet Witch said in surprise, unaware he was visiting as well. She wondered if he’d been called in for the creation of the new teams and briefly worried that Cap was going to assign him to the West Coast team again.

“That’s right, Witchie,” he said, pointing at her stomach. “I see your bellybutton.” He smiled at the sour look she gave him, before playfully punching Wonder Man in the shoulder with a good portion of his augmented strength. “Can’t kill you, can they, Williams?”

Wonder Man didn’t budge, but he did smile. “Can’t say the same for you, Agent,” he said, playfully punching Jack in the shoulder, smiling at the slight grimace he got in return. “Good to see you, man. Come up when you’re done; we’ll have a beer and a burger, catch up before I head west again.”

“We’ll see,” Jack said, rubbing his shoulder. The ionic Avenger was stout. “Depends on what Pym’s got in store for me. You’re as conversational as ever, Vision.”

“I also am glad to see you, Agent. Did you expect that I would not be?” the Vision said, his dark eyes as blank as his face.

“No, I figured you were gushing on the inside,” Jack said with a crooked smile. “Look, I’ll see you guys later.” Moving on down the hall, he finally arrived in the lab, finding a scene he expected. Henry Pym was standing before a contraption of some sort, its guts exposed and sparking as he touched an arc welder to something or another. He wore a set of green goggles over his eyes, his blond hair spilling over them. He was wearing a white lab coat over his Giant Man uniform, and the Agent thought he didn’t hear him come in behind him.

So when Pym said, “I’ll be right with you, Agent,” he was pretty surprised. Shaking his head, the Agent moved into the lab, looking over all the complex crap lying around. A few minutes later, Pym turned to him and took off his goggles.

“Hello, John, I’m glad you came so quickly,” Pym said, smiling.

“Good to see you, but I prefer Jack, actually, Pym,” the Agent said.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, the government restored my birth name, so legally I’m John Walker again, but I kinda like the ‘Jack’ they gave me, so it’s what I answer to, mostly.”

“All right, Jack,” Pym said, showing no curiosity whatsoever to the strange request as he moved to another desk and picking up a scanner. “Listen, I have some exciting news for you, but I need to take one quick reading of your head, if you don’t mind.”

“My head?” Jack said, curious but not concerned. “What the hell, go ahead…”

Quickly, Pym moved around to the back of Agent’s skull and scanned his head quickly. Then, he went to the desk and placed the scanner on a device on the desk. Then, from within the device, he withdrew two gloves that looked like they were made out of spider webs. “All right, here we go. Please put these on under your gloves.”

Quickly, Jack took off his red gloves and donned the mesh-like gloves, noting how they seemed to quickly attach to his skin and it felt as if he weren’t wearing anything at all. His fingertips, he found, were situated in small cutouts, leaving them free, which would make reading or picking his nose easier. He then put his red gloves back on and made a fist, noting his hands still felt the same.

“Ok, what’s the catch? This going to keep my palm odor down or what?” Jack said, smiling.

“Actually, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Hank deadpanned as he picked up a hand held control. “But I want you to see this,” he said, pushing one of the buttons.

Suddenly, on the Agent’s right forearm appeared his old shield, good as new. It looked just like his old one and, amazingly, it felt the same weight and balance. His jaw dropped open and he took a couple of experimental swings with it, noting it felt the same. God, it felt just the same!

“Jesus, Pym, what did you do?!”

“It’s not your shield,” Pym said, “at least, not the one made by T’Challa. It’s a holographic/photonic shield, similar to what you used with Force Works. Actually, Tony’s work was the building block of all of this, but I’ve made some improvements. Throw it, see how it works.”

Taking a quick look around the room, Jack noted a safe path and gave the shield a whirl. He knew that Pym wouldn’t let him throw it in here unless he was absolutely certain it would respond to someone with his skills. As he let go of the shield and watched it arc away, he felt his chest tighten in an emotional response a grown man having seen all he had shouldn’t have experienced. But he did, blast it, he did!

The shield arced back to his hand after a dozen ricochets, without damaging a thing. It slipped onto his arm easily; his hands finding the straps like an old friend come home. He smiled, drawing the shield close to him, turned to a smiling Pym. “How can I thank you?”

“You’re an Avenger, no thanks needed, but its not just that,” Hank said. “This shield is maintained by the gloves, but they have a range of almost 200 yards before the shield losses cohesion. The battery supply will last a long time; the gloves use kinetic energy to recharge the cells continuously, just by you moving around. Better yet, like the shield Cap carried around a while ago, this one’s shape can be changed.”

Pressing another button, the shield changed from his old shield into a black metal rod. Another button changed it into a steel chain. Another made a red rubber whoopee cushion with a smiley face on it. “The holomatrix can simulate anything physical, any material and any color, even texture and weight.”

“Great,” Jack said, happy when Pym made it his shield once again. “How do I get it to do that?”

“This is the part that’s going to hurt a little,” Pym said, moving to him. “This,” he said, holding up a metallic disk about an inch in diameter, “is an artificial mental control disk created by the Controller. Tony and I have augmented it to not control minds, but to allow you to control the circuitry embedded in your shield. Once implanted on your brainstem, it will allow you to mentally control your shield.”

“Mentally control it?” Jack said, uneasy. “What if someone uses this chip to control me?”

“Shouldn’t happen, we’ve installed safeguards,” Pym said, waving absently in the air.

“Shouldn’t?” Jack said.

“Well, people shouldn’t come back to life either, but they do. Often.”

“Good point,” Jack said. “All right, what do I have to do?”

“Stand still and try not to move when it hurts,” Pym said, moving behind the unmasked Agent and placing the disk to the back of his neck. As soon as it touched uncovered flesh, it attached and began to seep into the skin. It was fascinating to watch, as far as Henry was concerned, even though he had helped to design it to do so. It was not so fascinating for Jack.

“Son of a —!” he screamed, nearly falling forward from shock and pain. “What the hell are you doing, Pym? Feels like a torch on my neck!”

“Just a few more seconds, Jack, I promise.” True to his words, not five seconds later, the pain stopped and Jack moved a hand to his neck, rubbing the unblemished skin that was tender.

“Ok, so, how do I control this thing?” he asked, holding up his shield.

“Think of something you want it to become,” Pym said. Sighing, Jack held his arm up and wished for a beer. The shield immediately changed shape and in his hand he held a beer bottle. Surprised, he lifted the bottle up and shook, but it contained no liquid. “Sorry,” Hank said. “It doesn’t do liquids.”

“Now you tell me,” Jack said, smiling. He spent the next few minutes thinking about other things and his shield responded. He finally tired of this and thought of turning it off and it winked away. “Neat toy,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Ah, long day, I can’t wait for a shower and a shave.” He looked down, and in his hands, he was holding a white towel and a razor. “Um, Pym, doesn’t this thing go off?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that it will take a while for you to learn the control that will keep you from doing stuff like that. Eventually you’ll be able to do it instinctively.”

“Oh, joy,” Jack said, wishing the items away.

“Good news is that if you take the gloves off, you won’t be able to manipulate them. It requires contact with your body to complete the connection. You cannot control the shield’s flight mentally, but you can turn it off if it becomes separated from you, and in effect, restart it on your hand.”

“So if I’m disarmed, it’s not for long. I like that,” Jack said.

Henry was just about to answer when the communications console activated and the familiar goatee-faced Tony Stark appeared before them, his bright eyes concerned.

“Tony!” Pym said, moving forward and smiling. “I’ve got the Agent here and he’s pleased with the new shield.”

“Yeah, thanks Stark,” Jack said, the closest he ever came to being nice.

“You’re welcome, Agent,” Tony said, “but that’s not why I called. I hoped you would be there because I have some news that is disturbing to me, more so for you.”

“Why’s that?” Jack said, closing his fists.

“The Watchdogs are back.”