Current Day:
“Hey! Get over here!” the thick voice called out, tapping a pen on his clipboard.
“Yes, boss,” the scruffy man replied, he’d been standing back near the truck, eyeing the building.
“C’mon, you know what we’ve got to get done today, go see Ben, he’s in charge of movin’ all the stuff. Earn some bread to pay those union dues already.”
“Whatever you say, boss-man,” the man’s head went down for a minute and a cruel grin spread across his face, he hustled over to a second truck full of crates.
“Hey, Ben,”
“You okay, man? You don’t sound right, catchin’ a cold or something?”
“Something,” the man said, unbeknownst to Ben, the man before him was not as he appeared; holographic image inducers can work wonders.
He got his instructions and hefted a crate through the back entrance of the building and into the service elevator. The crate was marked with the Worthington Industries sigil. Once on the top floor, he dropped the crate in the corner of a storage room and investigated the top few floors. Personal living quarters, private office and study, small gym and great big windows on the uppermost ceiling, offering a view of the night sky and a perfect way in and out for a heist.
Now the man dashed into a closet as he heard footsteps approach. Some of the movers stumbled in with another, larger crate. One complained about the weight of the boxes, the other told him to quit whining and soon they left. With the room now clear, he crept out towards his goal.
In the library, the man found what he had come for. On the far wall across from the entrance hangs a valuable print of Brueghel’s painting “Icarus.”
“I’ve found it, Fred,” the man spoke into a receiver hidden by his image inducer.
“Good, mate. Now get out before you get found out, Jack,” his partner in crime advised over their communications link.
“Will do. Still seems like a lotta trouble for a stupid copy.”
“So long as this bloke’s money is good, an’ he’s offerin’ a lot of money. Now get out already.”
The man wandered out into the hall and found a flight of stairs, he took them down to the bottom floor and wandered out a side entrance, leaving no-one the wiser as to his disappearance.
One Week Ago:
“So let’s run through the checklist on Mandarin’s Lethal Legion,” Warbird asks, the Avengers currently sit at their meeting table. After recovering from the Mandarin’s assault yesterday, she’s called an official meeting. Sitting in are Mimic and Jack Frost.
“The Mandarin has been secured in a special wing at Ryker’s and is awaiting trial, in a containment unit built by Tony Stark. Diablo disappeared--“the Vision starts to recount the laundry list of villains they recently dealt with.
“So did Dragonfly, she went crazy down here on the ground while you, Rhodes and Darkstar were in orbit, Vision. I’m guessing Diablo teleported down here and got in contact with her telepathically somehow; I’d seen them fraternizing a bit on the satellite. She took off before anyone could stop her, and we couldn’t spare anyone to go after her,” Mimic offers up.
“Thank you, Calvin. Llyron was disposed of and incarcerated, again, for that, thank you, Calvin. Amora escaped in the confusion, as has been reported. However, you managed to detain Quicksand and Paibok, both are in custody. Paibok will most likely be shipped to Project: Pegasus for holding and study. Quicksand was detained and is in a holding cell at Ryker’s awaiting trial as well. Blackwing, whom we found unconscious in the space station, is in holding at Ryker’s and also awaiting trial. I believe that covers it,” The Vision finished.
“That’s about it, I’d say, but, and not to be rude, but what about Jack Frost. As perceived by how many New Yorkers, he was a malicious and serious threat,” Mimic muses to the others.
“Jack’s not going anywhere” Hammond leans forward, not quite angry, but certainly getting close.
“Calm down, Jim. Jack isn’t going anywhere, I spoke with our governmental liason, explained everything—certainly in this world weirder things have happened then the Mandarin taking over someone’s mind, Jack’s been pardoned of any crimes. In fact…the President wants to meet him,” Carol said with a beaming smile, her Avengers were a success.
“Me…really? Why?” Jack wonders aloud, somewhat taken aback.
“He was a big Liberty Legion fan as a kid, he even says you saved his dad’s life one time,” Carol replies.
“I’m still trying to get used to all that’s happened…but meeting the president couldn’t hurt,” a small smile creeps across the wintry face.
“He wanted all of the Avengers to come, but I need some of the team to stay here, Cap got in touch yesterday; he and Tony want to put together a press conference, officially unveil the new team. So I’ll only be sending Hammond and Darkstar with Jack Frost.”
Current Day, Nightfall:
“We good to go, mate?” Fred asks his partner, but as they set out, they have shed their civilian names and take to the skies as the mercenaries: Boomerang and Jack-O-Lantern!
Under the guise of night they fly to Warren Worthingon’s new abode.
“Shit,” Jack exhorts.
“What?”
“He’s havin’ some sort of party, he’s just barely set up, I figured tonight would be clear. Now we’ve got too many people to do this tonight.”
“Too bad, we have to. Boss man wants it done, and we’ve got a load of cash ridin’ on this, mate. Stealth or power, how you wanna go?”
“Try it quiet first, but be ready for a fight I guess,” Jack finishes. He remounts his glider disc and flies down to a side window. Boomerang follows with his boot jets.
“Here, the library’s empty, we can still get in and out quietly,” Jack informs. “Window’s locked, think you can cut the pane out?”
“Yeah,” Boomerang takes out a razor-edged boomerang and pulls out a suction handle, to hold the pane in place while he carves it out with the razor-rang. Without incident he removes the window and places the glass pane on the window sill next to them.
“Once I’m inside and I’ve got the painting, I’m just going to bust through the window-frame and book it, be ready,” Jack tells his partner. Boomerang nods and settles on the window sill as Jack enters through the window.
Jack-O-Lantern creeps across the room silently, reaching with his gloved fingers up to the painting, grasping the frame and gently, as quietly as possible, taking it down from the wall.
“Heavier than it looks,” he grunts to himself in a low voice.
Suddenly the doors open and a the screams of a woman reverberate through the room, directed at the man with the flaming-pumpkin-head.
In seconds, the host of the party, Warren Worthington III is in the doorway, Jack catches a look of him, the handsome billionaire with the curious blue skin; he’s a former X-Man and current Avenger. Jack grabs the painting, tosses a small pumpkin shaped grenade at the window, blowing out a chunk of the wall and he jumps out. With a nimble leap into the night air he mounts his glider disc and takes off.
Warren takes of his suit jacket and vest and jumps through the opening, his angelic feathered wings burst through his dress shirt, he raises his right leg and pulls the pants leg up, revealing a hidden holster of some sort, he takes what appears to be a hilt out of it, yet there’s no blade to accompany it.
“Felicia! If you can grab your stuff and meet me out here, we’ve got a merc to take care of,” Warren says and just as he finishes two boomerangs wiz past him, and embed themselves in the stone building. Warren turns and with a flap of his great wings he raises himself higher into the air. “Felicia, Cat, make that two mercs,” he shouts through the window as he catches a sight of Boomerang and Jack-O-Lantern.
Boomerang unleashes another volley of his chosen weapon at Angel, the boomerangs embed themselves into the building and seconds later blow up, the minor concussive charges shaking Angel from his altitude.
Quickly he recovers and flies up, Jack-O-Lantern tosses a pumpkin grenade at the high-flying Angel, and in a flash, the bomb is cut in half and disabled. Angel floats in midair, his wings gently flapping to keep him aloft, in his right hand he holds the bladeless hilt he’d unsheathed earlier, yet now from the top of the hilt a blade of coherent energy appears.
“What the fu—“
“Watch the mouth pumpkin-head!” and before the mercenary can turn to the feminine voice, Felicia Hardy—the Black Cat—swings across the street on her cat’s line, kicking Jack-O-Lantern across the face. The mercenary falls off his glider disc and begins his free fall to the street. Black Cat releases her cat’s line and dives down, catching up to the mercenary and grabbing him by his uniform.
Yet no good deed goes unpunished, and Jack-O-Lantern shoots a one of his “ghost grabbers” at the Cat, a film of black adhesive, covering and binding her.
His glider comes after him, and he grabs the floating golden disc, delivering a blow to the Black Cat’s midsection, knocking the air out of her and forcing her to let him go. Jack begins his ascent back to the rooftops on his glider disc while Felicia continues her descent.
She flexes her hand and claws pop out from the her finger tips, she tears into the ghost grabbers, the ebon goop drips from her claws, but now that she’s free, she launches her cat’s line again, channeling the momentum of her fall into the swing, propelling her high into the air.
She releases the line and launches it again and swings up to a rooftop across the street. Stealthily, Felicia makes her way over the rooftops, tracking the battle as her teammate, Angel staves off the two mercenaries as Black Cat runs and leaps across the street, landing on the rooftop nearest the mercenaries. She launches her cat’s line, binding Jack-O-Lantern by the feet, with effort and determination, she tugs him off his glider disc and pulls him down to the rooftop. The fall isn’t enough to seriously hurt the mercenary, especially in his padded costume, but it renders him unconscious and takes him out of the fight.
Fred Myers, the villain Boomerang, hurled one of his favored weapons at Angel, which the mutant hero deftly deflected with his energy sword, much as the mercenary had intended. The boomerang had contained an explosive mechanism meant to deliver a payload of knockout gas. Cutting the weapon had unleashed the gas; a cloud of the soporiferous vapor was blown into the Angel’s face, nigh instantaneously leaving him unconscious and at the whims of gravity.
Twenty minutes later:
Warren wakes from his fitful slumber, he sits up and finds himself in his lounge of his new apartment.
“Easy, Warren,” Felicia says, she’s still wearing her Black Cat garb, but has removed her mask and gloves and let down her hair.
“What happened, I got hit with some knockout gas and then…nothing, now we’re here.”
“They got away with your Brueghel print. Not sure why’d they’d want it, it’s a nice painting and all, but as far as things go, for the effort they put in for it, they could have made a better score. No matter how valuable, it was just a print. But, I couldn’t handle both myself and save you, so they got away.”
“It is…curious. Two costumed mercenaries, Jack-O-Lantern and Boomerang, I’m fairly certain. We can report it tomorrow.”
“Yeah, and what was that sword thing you were using?” Black Cat asks, holding the metallic hilt out to him.
“Oh, I was rooting around in the Avengers’ files room awhile ago and came across their weapons locker, all the gear and stuff they’ve used that fell out of favor or whatever over the years and I found it,” Angel says, taking it from the Black Cat and activating it, a beam of photonic energy erupted from the hilt, forming a blade of searing light. “It was used by the Black Knight a few years ago, but he later got some new equipment and forgot about it. I put in a call to him and he gave me his blessing to put it to use. I used to love fencing as a spoiled millionaire brat in boarding school and I’ve kept my skills up to par over the years. So why not?”
“You certainly put it to good use; you’re just full of surprises Mr. Worthington.”
“Just trying to keep up with you Miss Hardy, so my housewarming party turned out to be a flop.”
“Oh well, who needs fancy suits and dresses and dozens of people you don’t know that well to have fun? I think we can amuse ourselves,” she replies, leaning in and putting her arms around him. Thus, they retire for the night.
Issue #9 2006 |
Written By James McKenna |
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