It was ironic, really.

The untested fastest man alive and he was late. Pietro Maximoff glared down at the sterling band on his wrist; it stared back reading half-past. He was supposed arrive at Los Angeles International Airport from Switzerland an hour and a half ago, but because of a freak snowstorm the flight had been laid over.

Pietro stared up past the monolithic ‘Theme Building’ at the airport; the sun sparkled gently off the glassy Martian tentacles that arced loosely around the alien control ship inspired lobby and observation deck. Pietro cupped a hand over his eyes so that he could continue gazing at the otherworldly architecture; he chucked to himself. It was no small wonder that there might be a blizzard on one point of the globe with gentle and tantalizing sun on another. Furthermore, it was impressive that man had come so far as to travel from one spot to the other in a day. This childlike fascination from a man who can break the century-mark in a sprint from standstill.

“Well guy,” Pietro sighed to himself. “We’re in a hurry, so looks like we’re going to have to miss out on that taxi ride you so looked forward to.”

Pietro slung his backpack filled with clothes and other travel items over his left shoulder and chased after the City of Angels, disappearing into the concrete jungle–all before his stale joke had finished fluttering plainly in his place. Contrary to popular belief, Pietro was not always an angry little man–especially when he was running.

Los Angeles was a city full of people, and cars and life; however, at nearly two-hundred miles an hour life came to a crawl. With his eyes able to render nearly three-hundred times faster than the normal human; the world became skewed, nostalgic, and a little like the Six-Million Dollar Man. Memories of him being a young man; the good memories–not the dysfunctional–returned to him every time he would sprint; footfalls of young, perky women walking their English terriers; the predatory pecks of pigeons hot after freshly tossed saltine crumbs; the asthmatic sputter of exhaust from primer grey sedans; all slowed to a glacial pace and allowed for the observer to take mental snapshots of the simplicities in life. Pietro could do nothing but smile.

The Avengers West compound newly refurbished by the Maria Stark Foundation rushed toward Pietro from it’s secluded estate tucked squarely into a pocket of Los Angeles; strangely protected from the mess of downtown LA, yet right at the heart of the city. Still he moved forward; the front gates coming to greet him speedily. When Pietro could finally make out the sounds of the babbling fountain that took center-stage inside the gated drive he knew it was time to brake. It takes quite a concentrated effort for any object to come to rest from one-hundred seventy-five miles an hour; Newton’s first law aside, Pietro was no different.

He came to a full stop a clean foot from the front gate; waiting impatiently for the slothful wind to wisp his antennae-like bangs down the front of his face. When the world finally caught up to Pietro and came to rest, he shoved the rustic cast iron gate aside and stepped within. The courtyard was lavish and private, shouldered in luscious greenery and shade. Tired of the struggle to get past the canopy, the sun fell exhausted to the Terra-cotta masonry that covered the grounds. It reminded Pietro of the small Mediterranean villas clustered just beyond the rabble–it seemed like paradise. Perhaps when he decided on a chalet in the Swiss Alps he had picked the wrong place to waste away in retirement. Either way, the new West Coast compound was extravagant and it reminded Pietro just how much he looked forward to receiving that lofty Avengers stipend again.

Pietro moved to the front door, but before entering he took one last glance over his shoulder at the serene courtyard and exhaled morosely. He knew from experience that once he entered that door there would be times when not even coming home to such a heavenly scene–no matter how precisely scrutinized every fine detail was–there would be days on the other side of that door when he would be pushed to his brink and then past. Pietro thanked the Maria Stark Foundation and their superb team of psychoanalysts for the valiant effort anyway.

He clenched his teeth tightly and trudged past the threshold.

THE HARBINGER ENGINE

Part I: Take California

By Mike Rasbury and Dino Pollard

He knew he would have those days, but Pietro had hoped at least the first day would be all handshakes and complimentary cupcakes. Instead, he found the main entrance tarred with black scorches that ran up, down and across the waist-high auburn paneled walls. Beyond the entrance was a modest nook that served as a waiting room; chairs were toppled, busted and thrown into the center of the floor. Tiny splotches of violet fluids spread from the nook and trailed toward the rear of the hallway where the kitchen lay.

Pietro followed the spatter into the kitchen where the spots became larger and more frequent until they amassed into streams of purple, running down the junctions of grout between the tile floor. He had focused so much on the trail running across the floor that he failed to notice the rest of the kitchen. On the island, centerpiece to the massive mess was a toppled box of cereal; Technicolor nuggets that once resembled corn rained across the marble counters; all bathed in the same purple substance. The viscous purple broth not only drooled down the lip of the island, but also ran in the opposite direction; up across the walls and cupboards, even to the ceiling. Slash marks tore across the ceiling flesh exposing raw wells of the bright matter that bled down across Pietro’s face.

Slightly curious now and wanting nothing more than to remove the alien substance from his face, Pietro thumbed a stream of it from his cheek and brought it close to his face for further scrutiny. It was at this time, after watching the purple droplet on his thumb jiggle a little and then leap from his thumb to its grisly fate on the tile below that Pietro realized something—the purple fluid was moving—as if alive. He watched the thin and strained puddles lurch lazily forward in an attempt to escape the kitchen; destined once again toward the rear of the compound.

Pietro tailed the struggling pools along the hallways of the compound until the purple stew had congregated into such a lake of the substance. A tide coursed through the lake, trying to propel little morsels of purple through the seam in a steel security door that read “Action Room.”

Pietro recognized the lingo and knew what was on the other side; hundreds of numbered monitors regurgitating feeds from all over the west coast, a soft whisper of white noise that carried news reports from all the major west coast radio stations, a large table surrounded by chairs, with enough room to seat the team, all sculpted from titanium to support whoever may end up taking a seat as a West Coast Avenger. The focal point of the room, Pietro surmised, would be the excessively large viewing screen that could be used to bring up anything the team might need; access to UN, SHIELD, CIA or any other alphabet soup organization files, information from any newspaper or news station database in the world, biographies of any cataloged superhuman, villain, criminal, hero or otherwise and finally the feeds from any of the smaller televisions that flanked the larger one–all for the entire team’s viewing. All the trick gear, no expense spared was just one minor benefit of government ties.

Pietro debated on if he should enter and chance letting the substance inside, but of course he knew he would have to eventually–someone had to know what went on here–and that someone could be locked inside. Pietro looked at next to the door where a keypad rested. This was protocol; any room at an Avengers facility that was not deemed pedestrian was put under lock and key with various six digit codes. A simple plan came to Pietro and he began to type in all the codes he could recognize as being used by the Avengers in the past. It took four tries, but on the last the keypad finally beeped confirmation and gave him the option to proceed. There were two buttons at the bottom of the keypad, a green one marked OPEN and a red one marked CLEAR. Pietro thumbed the red one and the keypad purred down.

He took a deep breath, and moseyed further down the hall. “Okay, one…two…three…”

Pietro sprinted down the hallway back toward the Action Room door, breaking one-hundred miles an hour before he got there. A few steps from the purple sludge, he slammed his foot down and pivoted at the center of the door; with a twist of his hips the gust of wind chasing him whipped around his back, sucking the sludge with it and tossing it far down the hallway near where Pietro began his sprint. In a second of skin toned blur, Pietro’s fingers skipped across the answer to the keypad’s riddle and the door hissed open. He disappeared instantly inside and the door craned shut.

Pietro smacked his palms together in a triumphant manner and smiled to himself.

“Don’t get too proud, bud,” a voice playfully interjected. “Now it’s gonna take even longer to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.”

Woken from his smug sense of triumph over the diminutive purple substance, Pietro looked up and saw a familiar face sprawled wounded across a large titanium table at the center of the room. “Simon, Christ! Are you okay?”

Pietro rushed over to his fallen friend. It was Simon Williams, Wonder Man–rather, it was what was left of Simon Williams; an ionic head, neck, and shoulders.

“It’s a slow process, but I was doing fine until you showed up.” Simon’s purple sizzling lips parted and he smiled. No matter what happened to him, Simon Williams’ movie-star smile was always electric and charming.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, I had no idea that was you. I found the compound in disarray and then–”

“What, you thought the Avengers were beat by Purple Puddles from Outerspace?” Simon chuckled.

“Hey–weren’t you in that movie?”

“Already with the rim-shots; doesn’t take you long, does it?”

Both men laughed in unison. There had been many a time when these two were at odds; whether it by Simon’s rocky relationship with Pietro’s sister Wanda, or when they fought on opposite sides of the hero/villain spectrum from each other. Sometimes it was the two men’s constant internal conflicts that were enough to make them uneasy with each other; the kidnapping of Pietro’s daughter, Wonder Man’s degradation into a purely ion state, on and on. Either way, these two were true heroes and veterans at that; they knew that sometimes they just had to be there for each other; even if it was to laugh at the face of danger. The saddest part about that is the harder they laughed, the worse they knew it was.

“Where’s Wanda…the others?”

“I’m sorry, Pietro. they’re…gone.”

“What do you mean they’re gone? What the hell happened here?”

“It was bad, Pietro; little pockets in time began to bubble and burst. We couldn’t tell if it was going forward or back in time but the compound began to disappear–we began to disappear. We tried to stop it, but it’s impossible fight time itself. I got hit by one of the pockets and it dematerialized me into what you see now. They waited for the others to weaken and then they attacked–”

“Who…who attacked?”

The white noise that hummed gently beneath the surface of the Action Room grew impatient at that precise moment and roared in an explosion of pent up aggression. The main viewer screen that consumed the majority of the room blinked twice and the image of a female reporter in a red blazer filled it.

“…Fisherman’s Wharf is under attack by a large creature who appears to be over sixty-feet tall…” her report cut out.

The camera panned to the left of the reporter and zoomed unsteadily out of focus toward a large, light blue blob that lumbered from side to side. The blurry goggle-eye of the camera winced into focus once more. The blue ghost across the lens showed itself–a furred behemoth, with the slightly retarded gait of a gorilla that betrayed the creature’s focus and intent. The beast, filled with a childlike eccentricity meandered down the Wharf splintering the docks with each footfall, and sampling anything he could find. An ice cream vending station long since abandoned was the latest victim; pried apart simply like a banana peel, the cart’s content poured on to the wagging impatient creature’s tongue. The creature let the multi-colored river of cream slop down tongue and duck-billed mouth, chased by a stream of slimy saliva. The cart still craned high above his head, the animal shook it dry. Infuriated when the steel fruit’s juices no longer rained down into his gullet, the cart was tossed away; it skittered down to docks until it reached the end and smashed through the guardrail, diving into the deep below.

From their viewing port safely detached from the chaos on Fisherman’s Wharf the two Avengers watched in a peculiar horror; entranced by the images blinking on the screen, unable to look away. A sensation commonplace amongst all disasters; a primordial terror consumed by morbid infatuation.

The room became awash in pacing red light and the grating chatter of an alarm system. “Guess that means us, huh?”

Pietro’s head twitched slightly, freeing his eyes from the viewing port. He rubbed his sore eyes with his thumb and index finger; they were red, dry and sore. This day had gone from good to bad to worse and even as cliche as it seemed he should have expected it; “So is the life of an Avenger,” he muttered disagreeably.

“What?” Simon hadn’t been able to pick up his comrade’s sarcasm over the pitch of the alarm; not that he was sure the comment was meant for him in the first place.

“Nothing,” Pietro resigned, “we’ll have to worry about or loved ones later; I have a date with big, dumb and ugly.”

“If you th–“, Simon paused. He concentrated his eyes on Pietro’s eyes looking back at him; he read them. It pained him to admit, but those eyes were right; he was in no condition to assist in the conflict. In his current state he was half-man and half a puddle of ionically charged sludge–in no good order for combat. Simon resigned; “make it quick.”

Pietro looked at Simon curiously; saw that charming smile and smiled himself. Shortly thereafter he had disappeared from the Action Room; the only traces left of him a tremor in the air and a faint scent of his cologne.

Across the country, in an abandoned church on the outskirts of New Jersey, not far from New York, Tandy Bowen slept a restless sleep. She found herself tossing and turning in the church pew, her dreams giving her no respite. In her nightmare, she kept seeing her partner, Tyrone Johnson, in danger. She saw him becoming enveloped in darkness, and she heard laughter. She suddenly awoke with a start, her hair clinging to her face and neck with sweat, her eyes wide.

“Nightmare?”

She looked to the source of the voice and saw her partner, Tyrone. He stood—or rather, hovered—near her. His entire body was encased by the large navy cloak which had become his namesake. It shadowed the chocolate skin of his face, and all Tandy could see was the bright, otherwordly glow of his eyes that she had come to know.

“Yeah…” she said. Her hand went to her head to wipe the sweat away. “Vivid, too.”

Tyrone said nothing, gave no expression. Tandy had become used to that in their time together—he was a man of few words. Had been ever since they first met, years ago. They were both captured and an experimental drug was tested on them, a drug which awakened their latent mutant powers. Contrasted with Tyrone’s powers of darkness, Tandy possessed powers of light. Since that day, the two of them have fought crime as Cloak and Dagger.

“Come on,” he said.

“Something up?”

“Maybe.”

His cloak opened wide and Tandy stepped inside. The folds of the massive cape closed in around her. She knew he would access his control of the Darkforce to transport them to their destination, wherever that may be. The experience would be disorienting for most, but Dagger had long become accustomed to this mode of transportation.

Those who knew him well would say that Pietro Maximoff, Quicksilver, was arrogant; one of his more endearing qualities. The topic wasn’t something even he would debate–he knew it was true. For instance, more central on his mind, rather than how he would fair against the sixty-foot tall mass of raging beast who had been rending Fisherman’s Wharf into lunch-meat was the question if he could do it without dirtying his fancy tweed pants. Pietro hadn’t had the time to change into his gear before the ordeal at the Compound, and the fiasco with big, dumb and ugly. If the creature ruined his pair of pants, Pietro decided, it would get to know one of his less-than-favorable qualities; his short temper. Pietro laughed internally. Nothing could save the creature if that were to happen.

Fisherman’s Wharf wasn’t that far from the Avengers West Compound, and with Pietro running as fast as his civilian clothes would allow, he made up the distance in a matter of minutes. A quick scan of the area showed that the local authorities had done a good job of keeping the public away from the docks, piers and the Wharf itself. Good. The more civilians near the beast and Pietro’s job would become that much more taxing. On any given Summer day the Wharf played tourist attraction to several thousand patrons at any give hour; today would have been no exception. Fortunately, it seemed the creature hadn’t been interested with human destruction, and most had escaped, only a few injured-by-chance patrons and those stranded on the fairground rides–now vacated by their attendants–remained in the creature’s path of destruction.

First, Pietro needed to check in with police; he stormed over to their makeshift headquarters and tucked between the fortified of wall squad cars made around the area. Once he passed the first blockade of police rides his civilian clothes forced him to camoflauge in with the other victims, reporters, and inquisitive citizens. A slightly heavy-set female draped in police blues; her face mottled with rust-colored freckles and her dusty hair pulled plainly back into a red rubber band had seen Pietro slither into the hub and stalked toward him.

“Excuse me,” she started.

Pietro dismissed her slightly, hoping to pick up enough information through reconnaissance alone and avoid police interference all together. He continued to ignore the officer; instead poking his head around the hub, picking up excerpts of police band radio reports and eye-witness accounts.

“Excuse me,” hailed the voice of the female officer again.

She had closed the gap between them and now Pietro had to mind her. “Yes?” he snapped impatiently.

“We requested that civilians step back and give the police their space so that they may concentrate on the incidence.”

Wow, Pietro thought; impressed. She played that very diplomatically.

“Haven’t the time for this, so listen; I’m an Avenger, I’m here to help.” Pietro watched as the officer eyed him; gave him the up and down.

“A little underdressed for this kind of function aren’t ya, Avenger?” she smirked mockingly.

“Fair enough; sure you get that a lot.” Keep it in check, Pietro warned himself. “I’d show you my membership if I had it in this pair of pants, but we both know we don’t have time to go through this, and you know that the police aren’t prepared for this kind of situation. What have you got to lose by throwing some kook on the tracks?”

She glared at him quizzically.

“Now,” Pietro started again, “what’s the situation?”

She tried to refrain; not to trust this man, who for all she knew was some kook. Pietro glared down upon with his fiercely ice-blue eyes; filled equal parts urgency, condemnation, and trust. She retreated under his gaze. “The majority of the patrons are safe; a few with minor injuries have been treated. Only those with critical injuries and those stranded on the rides are left in danger.”

Just as Pietro had suspected.

“All right, I’ll keep that thing occupied; keep the collateral damage minimal. Can you mobilize a team to rescue the injured still on the Wharf while it’s distracted?”

“We can try, we’ll get all those on the ground level, maybe. Those still on some of the attractions, the ferris wheel especially, we’ll need a whole Fire Battalion and a couple of hours for.”

The female officer’s voice broke for the first time; described just how hopeless the situation felt to her. It was an honest answer and the one Pietro had expected. It was all uncertain; she couldn’t be sure that Pietro was even who he said he was. If he was, the task at hand was still difficult; if he wasn’t, well, lives would be lost. Lots of lives.

“Be ready to move quickly, it won’t take me long to get that thing’s attention.”

“Okay,” she affirmed, but Pietro had already vanished.

Nelson Hollars ejected the clip from his .45 and examined it. He snapped it back into the hilt of the gun and glanced around.

“How many times are you gonna keep checking that damn gun?” asked Matt Prawl.

“Piss off,” said Nelson. “I’ll check it as much as I want. Now when’s this prick supposed to show up?”

The “prick” Nelson had referred to was Clayton Rumble, a local enforcer in Hell’s Kitchen. He was one of Wilson Fisk’s men, but since the Kingpin of Crime had vanished, presumed dead, all bets were off. Not only Hell’s Kitchen, but all of New York, was on the verge of a struggle for control over the underworld.

Headlights pierced the darkness of the empty parking lot. Nelson and Matt both stood, as did the five men they brought with them. The black Lincoln came to a stop and all four doors opened. Six men exited the vehicle, and one of them stepped forward. He held a cigarillo between his lips and puffed on it.

“Well?” asked Prawl.

“You get twenty percent,” replied Clayton.

“Fuck that!” exclaimed Nelson. “Fifty-fifty.”

“Are you out of your mind?” asked Clayton. “We’ve got Hammerhead, the Owl, the Maggia—everyone’s vying for a piece of the pie. We’re taking a huge risk going into their territories.”

“Like we haven’t taken any risks ourselves?” asked Nelson.

“Thirty,” said Clayton.

Nelson walked between Prawl and Clayton and pointed his gun directly at Clayton’s head.

“How about I just shoot you and we take it all?”

Clayton Rumble’s men all cocked their guns and took aim. Similarly, the men who were with Nelson and Prawl also raised their weapons.

“You wanna play hardball, junior?” asked Clayton.

“Alright, everyone chill!” exclaimed Prawl. “Rumble, how does Forty-five sound?”

“No dice,” said Clayton. “Not after what this shit did to me.”

“Alright then, thirty-five,” said Prawl.

“Thirty,” said Clayton.

“Done,” said Prawl. He motioned for his men to lower their weapons and they did. Nelson, however, kept his gun up. Prawl placed his hand on Nelson’s and slowly lowered his arm. Once the gun was down, Clayton signaled for his men to lower their guns.

“Now, let’s get this over with,” said Clayton. Prawl nodded and he motioned for one of his men to step forward. The man came forward carrying two large gym bags. He set each of them down beside Clayton. One of Clayton’s men took the two bags back to the car.

“What now?” asked Prawl.

“They’re gonna check the product, make sure it’s all in order,” replied Clayton. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Prawl, but… okay, I don’t trust you.”

A blinding light suddenly appeared in the parking lot. All the men moved to cover their eyes. When the light seemed to clear, they opened their eyes and saw Cloak and Dagger standing between them.

Pietro stopped a few yards shy of the building-tall creature. The beast had it’s back turned to him; more intent on swatting it’s way through the piers. Corners of nearby buildings erupted in the monster’s onslaught; bricks rained down from the sky and billows of dust clogged the air choking the visibility. With each new step across the wooden docks the ground gave way; vomited splinters. There was little something so small as Pietro could do to deter the beast from underneath it’s gait. Whatever he needed to do, he would have to do it from on the leviathan itself.

Pietro let the creature take another set of steps forward, while he himself took a few back; he exhaled.

All or nothing, he thought.

He began to sprint, his eyes locked on the back of the creature. When he had enough speed and was close enough, he leapt at the creature. Pietro tucked himself into a tight formation like he would diving into the water; hands clasped together and out in front of him cutting a pocket in the air for him to slip into. The running start launched the human projectile high into the air; half the height of the creature.

Pietro grabbed two fistful of the creature’s thick mane to right himself on the thing’s back. Enveloped in the stout and sweaty fur, it was instantly arid, like a New Mexico desert. Pietro used the arm of his olive blazer to dap away the sweat collecting on his brow.

He had hoped that his presence on the creature would have been enough to stop it’s destructive progression down the waterfront, but it hadn’t. He needed to brainstorm for another idea and before they ran out of waterfront to destroy.

As he wrangled with the fur inside his fists the mane would part and expose a soft bed of pink flesh below. The image he had first seen of the creature on the viewport had reminded him of a gorilla; the creature’s motions were very apelike. Pietro could likely count how many times he had gone to the zoo as a child on one hand but somewhere along the line he had picked up a behavioral pattern of apes–the picking of ticks off one another.

He pulled his arms wide, parting the fur and exposing the pink flesh. He bit down on the sensitive skin as hard as he could; he became the tick.

The creature lurched, reeled back and roared violently toward the heavens. Pietro bit down again. Aggravated further, the creature began to shimmy ferociously, hoping to rock the pest free. Pietro bit down again. The creature could take no more; it began to blindly claw for the pest on it’s back with both hands.

The creature caught Pietro off guard; it was shockingly quick and agile for its size; Pietro had to rely on his superhuman speed and agility to narrowly avoid the surprise attack. Pietro kicked off the creature’s back with all his might; sending him flailing into the air just as the massive claw cut down where he had been. Still clutched tightly to the creature’s fur, Pietro reeled himself back on it’s back. When he landed this time, Pietro crashed knee deep into thick and sticky substance. The sour scent invaded his nostrils; the pungency reeked of blood.

The creature had clawed itself, created an open wound. The rampage had stopped altogether; now Pietro’s presence could not be ignored, it was now a threat and that consumed all the creature’s efforts. A few more rabid swipes chased after Pietro; all he could do was pinball across the massive shoulder blades to avoid being speared. With each slash, the creature did more harm than help, opening up more wounds on it’s back.

It became increasingly difficult for Pietro to evade effectively; the creature’s entire back was now slick with it’s own blood, making a grip on the mane–or sprinting up the beast–impossible. Pietro was also growing fatigued. The jet lag from a long flight in, all the sprinting, and now the rodeo on the back of a sixty-foot beast. His body was geared for endurance, but even it had its limitations.

It was time to make a move. Pietro began to claw his way up the creature’s back, slipping belly deep in the claret spills of blood trapped under the fur. He slithered up the beast; careful to avoid further swipes until he had struggled his way to skull of the beast. Pietro took a short rest there and glanced over his shoulder to the Wharf behind him. The precious few minutes he had stalled the rampaging creature had allowed them to whisk away some of the injured. Good, but not nearly good enough. People were still stranded on the ferris wheel. Felling the behemoth was far past due.

Pietro crested the creature’s massive head, rolled clear of another slash and heaved his upper body over the side of the creature’s skull. He huffed in exaggerated exhaustion; at how burdensome bucking the beast had become. For a moment, caught up in the intensity of his struggle against the creature, Pietro grew disoriented; blood rushed to his head, his eyes blurred, his cheeks burned hot, feeling left his face. Oddly, all he could sense in that split second were his bangs; his silver, sweat saturated tendrils slapping his face as he hung upside down from the creature’s skull. Pietro swatted them away defiantly; his eyes cleared up; he stared face-to-face, directly into the black coal pupils of the creature.

The behemoth had noticed Pietro too; those pupils burned white-hot and short excited cooing escaped the giant’s billed mouth. The irritant had been found; no longer was just a tickle dancing across it’s back, now it was a breathing living thing; one that the creature knew exactly where to find. At that exact moment the beast contemplated what the little pest tasted like.

Like staring through a window, thoughts churning in the creature’s primitive skull had been plainly transmitted through it’s eyes. Pietro gulped; he recalled what little effort it took for the creature to rip through the ice cream cart.

Pietro did the first thing that came to mind; he struck the large black eyeballs with his fist. The strike moved so quickly it appeared to never come at all. If the creature had any eyelids, even they would not have detected the fist until it were too late. As quickly as the first had come, a volley of others hailed down upon the vulnerable eye. Pietro’s invisible fists struck again, and again, and again; an unrelenting assault of fists. The creature reared toward the sky and roared again, this time in real agony. The battered pupil spat blood; large purple mounds of bruise grew up from around the eyebrow and cheek–created a shield of battered flesh up over the eye.

The creature roared again. Within the onslaught, lasting only several seconds, it’s left eye had been struck over a hundred times. It had had more than it’s share of Pietro. It slapped it’s right palm over the entire top of it’s skull. Pietro was too worn down to escape, the calloused blue flesh slapped down on him, crushing his midsection. A loud and wet snap from inside his sternum and all the air was thrust from body. A broken rib. Pietro choked for air. The creature’s hand closed in on him; the fur he had used to cling on the beast’s skull was uprooted around him. Pietro’s busted body toppled like a teddy bear out the bottom of the leviathan’s grasp. Tufts of the creature’s fur, like feathers in the wind fell after Pietro toward the wooden docks nearly one-hundred feet below.

The men all opened fire. Dagger leapt into the air away from the bullets. Cloak stood his ground, however. His cape opened wide, revealing nothing but darkness inside. The bullets vanished within the folds of the fabric, his eyes glowing brightly. Dagger moved about. In her hands, she generated slivers of light and hurled them forward. The projectiles struck their mark, knocking weapons from the hands of the gunmen.

With Cloak’s cape open, a dark, gaslike substance escaped from the dimension held within him. It clouded their vision, and Dagger was able to dispatch more of them with her light projectiles. Cloak generated a vortex within himself, sucking a few of them inside. His cape closed over them before opening a few moments later, leaving the men shivering and quaking with intense fear.

Dagger leaped forward and her foot connected with Nelson’s jaw, with her fist striking Clayton’s. She backed away from them, waiting for them to make the next move. Once they recovered, they were about to strike at her simultaneously, but she quickly hurled two light projectiles at them. Both men fell to the ground.

“Argh!”

“Cloak!”

Pietro’s body sickly smacked the dock; his shoulders exploding like fireworks under the flesh–more broken bones. The boards underneath him splintered and a rush of cold ran over him; his view into the blank white sky above became marred by a fathom of sea. Still sputtering for air, Pietro tried to correct his descent into the cold void; if he couldn’t he would drown.

He watched the white canvas of sky grow helplessly further from him–signs that he was still sinking.

The sound of the dock buckling snuffed out by layers of seawater; a hail of tattered wood sinking into the black nothingness; the familiar blue claw chasing for it’s prey. Pietro’s ears erupted in the back of his skull and he watched it all in surrealism as his final breath prepared to flee his body.

Cloak lay on the ground, his face contorted into a visage of pain. Dagger sat on the ground, holding his head in her lap, her elegant fingers gently stroking his face. He had begun writhing in agony for some unknown reason once they had dispatched the dealers, and she was trying to hold him steady. She spoke to him, but he offered no reply and his face gave no indication that he had even heard her.

“Ty, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Come on, baby… come back to me…”

“…something… something wrong…”

“What is it? What’s wrong? Come on, tell me.”

“Disturbance… being pulled… like I’m being pulled…”

“Being pulled by what? What are you saying, Ty?”

He closed his eyes and his body fell limp. Tandy’s jaw dropped and she lightly smacked his cheek, trying to wake him.

“Ty, Ty what is it?” she asked. “Ty wake up! Ty!”

He made no motion and she began to frantically shake him harder in an attempt to revive him. She shouted his name, and she continued to do so for what felt like an eternity. In reality, it had only been a few moments before Cloak’s eyes had suddenly snapped open once again. He looked up at her with their eerie glow.

“…Tandy.”

“I’m here, Ty,” she said. “What happened?”

“I… I’m not sure…” he said, as he brought himself up. He placed a black-covered hand on his forehead and rubbed it. “There’s something out there, but I don’t know what it is. It’s calling to me, though. But something about it isn’t natural. It doesn’t… feel right.”

“Where?” asked Dagger.

“Don’t know. But I think I can track it to its source. I have to go, find out what this is.”

He turned away from her and he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Not without me,” she said. He turned to face her and looked down into her eyes.

“We don’t know what this is, it might be dangerous.”

“All the more reason for me to back you up,” she said. “We’re partners, remember?”

One side of Cloak’s mouth slowly curled into a half-smile. The folds of his cloak opened wide and Dagger stepped inside. Slowly, the cape closed over her, and the two of them allowed themselves to be absorbed into the darkness, both confident that the Darkforce would take them where they wanted to go—to the source of the disturbance.

The creature held Pietro by the back of his blazer just in front of it’s bill; curiously snuffling the scents of the pest. The damp and lukewarm exhalations from the creature’s nostril soothed him awake. He had passed out underneath the water just before the creature pulled him out again. Pietro ran through his body, trying to move any part he might need to escape his situation. Bit by bit he realized that more parts on him were broken than not; his sternum, his right shoulder, his left hand–all busted. The pieces of him that weren’t fractured were still throbbing, strained, and deeply bruised. He was for a lack of a better term–broken. His lungs were razed and still smoldering–just now getting air back in them. The last thing he tried were his legs; strangely, and perhaps fortunately, they seemed to respond; only a little worse for the wear.

Another snort from the creature’s bill–this one discernibly different; agitated. A glassy displeasure consumed the creature’s singly good eye and the beast started to whimper. Pietro didn’t have a clue what that meant for him–whether it was good or bad, but what he did know is that the creature started to lower him toward the docks. The only thing Pietro could think of was to stay still, play dead. Maybe the creature would fall for it, think him dead, and leave him alone. Maybe.

The behemoth hunched low and set Pietro down fairly gently on his feet. He struggled to stand, but did so, still unsure if he should move or not. The monster then returned to regular height, it’s eye still entranced on Pietro. It’s right foot came up off the Wharf and Pietro became consumed in its shadow. Just like a human would do to a spider, the creature wanted to stamp out it’s pest.

That was enough confirmation for Pietro. The creature pressed it’s foot to the Wharf, smashing it inward. Pietro watched from a safe distance away.

Glad the legs still work, he thought.

From his perch on the street adjacent the Wharf, Pietro watched and listened as more wooden planks exploded under the creature’s malignant pander. The dock moaned several times in agony; both in the high pitched wail of bursting wooden musculature and in the low, baritone growl of steel infrastructure. Thick metal joints buckled and bolts popped free directly where the Wharf and it’s supports met. The wooden planks laid shoulder-to-shoulder rippled like a wave of water and the dock slanted to one side–toward the sea below. The ferris wheel above swayed back and forth, losing it’s balance. The people trapped in it’s steel canopy screamed for their lives.

Pietro knew he had to get that beast off the dock if everyone was going to be able to walk away at the end of this. That presented a problem; with a creature so giant, and his entire upper body out of order, there was little in the way of a solution. Pietro knew however, that he would have to force the creature into the water. Perhaps the thing couldn’t swim, and even if it could, with all that fur, it’s impressive dexterity would be dulled. It was far from a failsafe plan, but there was little else.

Pietro looked around, for anything he could use to tether the creature with. There was nothing strong enough on the Wharf, but above him on the street where power lines. They would have to do.

Pietro stared past the sun, up the wooden beam that held up the power lines. He put his feet in motion. Within seconds he was screaming up the face of the cylindrical beam, with such speed that he overshot the top and ran clear into the air. He let gravity pull him back down to the crown of the beam. He struggled at first with his balance atop the narrow crown nearly tumbling back down to the ground; he went to raise his arms perpendicular to his body, right himself but his broken shoulder ignored him.

After a short battle with his balance, Pietro stood steady on the beam and grabbed one of the power lines in his busted left hand; it screamed, burning in pain. Pietro tried to ignore the agony, tried to ball his fist as best as he could. His grip wasn’t strong but it would have to suffice. He leapt off the beam in the opposite side of the generator, the cable still in hold. As gravity force him downward, Pietro shrunk his knees toward his chest, forcing him closer to the beam. He then extended once more so that his feet skated down the beam; he began to run down it, taking control of his fall. The generator spewed fire as the cable was forced from it. Sparks that were able to tag Pietro on his way down danced across his backside turning his blazer and pants into swiss cheese. Little spots all over his legs, buttocks, back and skull tinged with a burning pain; the smell of melting skin and hair attacked the air.

Pietro’s controlled fall grounded him, but the speedster didn’t stop running. He darted straight after the ankles of the confused creature who still hunted for it’s pest. He ran circle after circle around the creature until the entire strand of cable had been wound the creature’s feet. The creature had seen the blurs of color sprinting around him but hadn’t decided what was going on until it was too late. It tried to move, but couldn’t; it lost it’s balance and crashed through guard rails, head over into the sea below. A jubilant geyser spat high into the sky, celebrating the creature’s disposal.

Pietro collapsed; his hands thrust to the top of his knees. Shocks of pains snaked up his body routinely. He exhaled deeply, causing more pain in his labored ribs. In the half-hour since he felled the behemoth creature, the police and fire departments had cleaned up the Wharf and began to free those trapped on the rides. Pietro himself had even received minor treatment from the medics on the scene; his right arm was in a splint, his left hand heavily bandaged and his ribs were in a brace. He looked himself up and down, the majority of his body obscured by white bandage, his olive blazer and grey tweed pants drenched in rust-colored blood and salt-water; both dotted with holes and tears.

What a day.

A faint, repetitive blat from inside his pant pocket roused Pietro from his mental and physical resignation. He unbuttoned the pocket and fished around for the noise-maker. It was the palm-sized communicator he had swiped from the Avengers West Compound.

He clicked a button on the side, “Quicksilver.”

“This is Wonder Man, I’ve got some bad news.”

“Couldn’t get much worse.”

“You might want to reserve judgment until you hear what it is.”

“Fine. Spill it.”

“A maximum security facility in Silicon Valley that deals with secret military technology and weaponry has reported a break-in. They used an encrypted channel designated for the Avengers. The message was redirected here…they say that it’s an invisible thief.”

“Wonderful,” Quicksilver sighed. Pain rocked his body. “Suppose you’re still in puddles all around the Compound?”

“Almost done,” Wonder Man reported grimly. “But right now, you’re the only Avenger in the sta–“

“I’m on it.”