Chapter 78- Justice Served Cold

  Savage Lands, Golden City- Imperial Pace, Throne Hall- Spring, Alt- 152 (Afternoon)

  Sea-King Tallis of the Golden People

  The healers' tonics made staying awake difficult, but nothing could wake a warrior faster than the sound of a horn, especially an unfamiliar one. "What's going on? Who is sounding that horn?" Tallis demanded of his court. Then he tried to rub his nose with his hand, but the sling and pain reminded him that he was still injured, so he used his other hand instead.

  Some of his guards left the hall to check for him, but those who remained shared worried looks.

  “What?” He asked again confused.

  One of his sorcerers stepped forward and looked at the floor while he said. "Well, it's just that the lookouts reported the sea acting strange, and you dismissed it earlier as nothing, your highness."

  “I did?” He muttered and was about to request that they again tell him what was wrong with the seas. But the rumbling of the earth made that concern vanish completely. His stiff body tried to rise, but the rumblings and shakes worsened and Tallis fell back onto his throne.

  The guards that had left before came half crawling half running to get back inside the hall, shouting. “My King!” the lead one pointed towards the ceiling, while the other waved his spear around pointlessly. Just before the ceiling burst forth, like a giant from the stories had punched it. Stone and steel beams fell crushing them and a few other men and servants caught in the explosion.

  The golden king looked up wondering what caused the explosion, since he didn't feel any extra mystical energy about them. And then he saw him, a sturdy pink-skinned man, while the man was armed with a mystically charged golden trident, he was wearing only a pair of bck shorts.

  “Imperious Rex!” The stranger shouted into the hall, before jumping through the hole in the ceiling. Tallis' guards did their duty and charged the stranger with their spears and swords, and yet it was for not, as the stranger cut down man after man with his trident. Armored or not, his men were like wheat to the intruder.

  Tallis reached for his own weapon, and then remembered that they lost it in the battle in the Fall People’s territory. His search however stopped when, he felt ground begin to shake and rumble again. “What is that? Is he causing it?” Tallis demanded an expnation.

  The st guard in the room was run through, so his sorcerers unched their attacks. One cast Grasping Earth, while the others unched either a Gravel Spear or Stone Barrages. The stranger backhanded away the spears, one at a time, and he just took the volley of stones hitting him like they were only the wind.

  “That would be Giganto wrecking your pitiful harbor and industrial district.” The stranger answered him.

  Tallis didn’t know what a giganto was, but given that the man just by himself syed his guards and was unafraid of his sorcerers magic, he felt it safe that the man was confident in his companion’s strength. “Kill him. Kill him!” The golden king pointed and shouted.

  While his men started to chat follow-up spells, and more soldiers entered the hall. The stranger smmed the butt of his trident against the rock holding him in pce, one strike was all he needed to free a foot, and then the man just flew, that was all that Tallis could call it, before he impaled first a sorcerer and then another on his weapon. As he continued to move, he reached to the head of the closest struggling man, and just pulled his head from his shoulders before throwing the head at another of his sorcerers.

  His st sorcerer got another Gravel Spear formed and fired at the stranger, who just rose slightly higher into the air to dodge it, before lining up and throwing the still impaled trident at him. The weight of two men and the force behind the throw just broke his st advisor in half, his torso flew with his comrades while his legs remained standing for a moment before dropping to the floor.

  “Why are you doing this?!” Tallis demanded.

  “You really have the audacity to ask that?" The stranger asked that, a growl in his tone. He righted himself in the air so that he could look down on Talis, the little white wings grew out of his ankles fpping subtly to keep him in the air. "I am Namor, King of Atntis. And you are being punished for trying to kidnap and rape my daughter, my firstborn!"

  This Namor charged him, just like Tallis wanted him to as he opened his mouth and unleashed his Voice. And the results stunned him, what should have sent the other man flying backwards only slowed the Attean King’s charge.

  Then he quickly forgot the pain of his arm, as Namor punched both through the meat of his chest and ribs, before pulling out Tallis' right heart. Then the king's other hand forced the golden king's mouth open.

  "The punishment for ying hands on my daughter, I am going to make you eat your own hearts," Namor whispered to him.

  Tallis' eyes went wide, and he unleashed his Voice again and again, the pressure in his chest from repeatedly using his powers was making him bleed out even faster. So while slowing the other man down, it did not stop Namor from forcing his core into his mouth. His vision was already colorless and almost gone as he felt his mouth forced to chew his own flesh.

  Tallis was already gone, when Namor punched his other breast and removed his left heart.

  Jersey City Safe House, New Jersey- 04- 11- 2008 (Late Afternoon)

  Ava Starr- (Ghost)

  Ava opened the fridge a little harder than she should have, grabbed one of the few remaining water bottles and was about to sm the fridge door, when she recalled her little brother Levi was trying to sleep on the couch in the adjoining room.

  She then proceeded to drink a third of the bottle, before staring at her big brother and asking him. “You didn’t think to come and help me rescue Levi?”

  Sevastian crossed his arms, and gred the way he does when he started to say. “You disappeared on me, you don’t know…”

  "I was grabbed by a teleporter," Ava said louder than she wanted to.

  Seva sighed but continued his answer. "As I was saying, once the army rolled up and they started using some kind of sonic weapons, which worked on me even when I was intangible, I did all that I could to get away clean. It took me three days to lose them completely.'

  ”You report in yet?”

  Ava drank more of her water to dey answering. “No… and I don’t pn to.”

  “You want to say that again?” Her brother said sternly.

  She didn’t insult his intelligence and instead expined her actions. “The teleporter brought me to Magneto, who had a science guy with him. He could tell what was wrong with us with only a gnce, he said he would help us out, but only if we cut ties with Hydra.”

  "Hydra are the people who saved us," Seva stated, before pointing at his suit that he was still wearing and hers which was on the kitchen table.

  “They only made us useful for them. They haven’t even tried to cure us… We’re too valuable.” Ava argued, flexing two fingers on both hands when she said the st bit.

  Both of them jumped when a boot suddenly kicked in their front door, and a fully kitted Hydra trooper walked inside with an assault rifle raised, and another followed in with one of the antique vapor rifles. And yet despite the firepower the two men held, it was the woman who walked in behind them that made the Starr siblings hold themselves back.

  Lady Hydra of Manhattan, her long dark hair was wavy and bounced with each step, and her tanned Asian face made pcing her origins difficult. She wore her two-tone green skin-tight jumpsuit and yellow trench coat, the way it hung open made it suggest that she was unarmed, but her extended five-inch cws in pce of fingernails reminded everyone that she was never unarmed.

  “Hydra does tend to do that.” Lady Hydra agreed with her as she continued to walk in.

  Ava was slightly jealous of how confident the woman moved as she strode up to her brother. She then held up her thumb to him and ordered. "Suck it, or get a scar."

  The oldest Starr sibling looked briefly at her, before he shrugged and leaned down and took the woman's thumb and cw into his mouth, it didn't take long for Sevastian's eyes to get hazy and cloud over as the woman's venom attacked his immune system.

  Lady Hydra cupped her brother’s cheek muttering. “Good boy, now stand over there.” Seva slowly obeyed. The troopers not seeing him a threat while under their boss’s toxin let him take a position beside them. “Door.” She muttered at her men.

  The one with a vapor gun moved to close the now broken door, it didn’t quite close, but still it would serve as a barrier for their conversation. “Are you going to kill us?” Ava asked in a growl.

  Lady Hydra moved to one of the kitchen table’s chairs, she pulled it out before answering. “That depends…”

  Ava waited for her to sit down before she pressed, asking. “On?”

  “Answers to my next questions.” The woman admitted and then scooted her chair in, before Lady Hydra further expined. “I don’t just have cws and my pheromone toxin. I also have a very keen sense of smell and hearing, so your pns are already id bare to me, but not them.” Thumbing her offhand towards her two escorts.

  Ava finally sighed, before asking. “What do you want to know?”

  Lady Hydra leaned back in the wooden chair before saying. “The science guy with Magneto, describe him to me.”

  She wanted to correct the woman that her request wasn’t a question, but still Ava answered. “Tallish, around two meters. Dark hair, long, almost bck. Skinny but fit. He had to be a mutant, with his eyes like they were.”

  Her partial answer seemed to please the woman, as her cold face quickly smirked. Then she asked. “His eyes, what did they look like?”

  Ava rolled her eyes, but answered. “Top half had a sheen like it was metal, bottom half had ttice work lines, like it was a gemstone. The metal looked green, while the crystal was red, and the oddest part was they glowed.”

  “Glowed?” the feral woman asked for confirmation.

  “Yeah, like a night light. Clearly there, but not overwhelming.” Ava confirmed, causing Lady Hydra’s smirk to become a partial smile.

  Lady Hydra only paused for a second before asking. “Did you get his name?”

  The Starr sister nodded, before muttering. “Nath’aniel.” Saying his name, made the troopers look at each other.

  The feral woman’s smile became toothy. “Did he give you a means of communicating?”

  "A burner phone, no numbers, said he would call me," Ava admitted, and was starting to get confused about who it was that she met.

  “Perfect.” Lady Hydra muttered, before sticking up her thumb that Seva had sucked earlier.

  Ava thought she saw a puff of some gas get released from the finger, before her brother snarled and drew his Quantum Tunneler, a sword that Hydra had developed based around his powers. Once the weapon was powered, he cut one of the troopers in half, shoulder to groin, before decapitating the other one.

  The sudden violence caught the Starr sister off guard, and she jumped back towards the fridge.

  “Oh, do calm down.” Lady Hydra scolded her. “Do you want to wake up your other brother?”

  "What?" Ava asked in a whisper. Then she watched her brother slowly depower the Tunneler, before returning it to the back of his suit.

  “Those men weren’t mine, so if I cwed them up, it would raise questions. Now I can just say in my report that they insulted your younger brother, and your older settled the offense personally. Everyone already knows that he is the reckless one of you three." The woman expined while looking over her nails like she hadn't just mind-controlled her brother to kill two men.

  “But, why?” The Starr sister asked confused.

  Instead of answering that, the other woman confirmed something that she and Seva had suspected. “There are trackers in your suits. Where, don’t know, but they’re there, it would be best that you three find them and remove them before running.’

  “I can tell them that you’re doing something for me, which should buy you enough time to do that. Now, the burner, hand it over.” Lady Hydra held out her hand, as if she knew that she would hand it over.

  Ava's hand slowly drifted to her back pocket, where she put it st, but then she stopped to repeat her question. "Why?"

  The other woman actually answered that question. “So that I can clone it, and keep tabs on you and your communications with the mage.”

  “Again, why are you helping us?” The Starr sister demanded again, loud enough that she heard Levi stir from his pce in the living room.

  “Careful your accent is starting to surface.” They stared at each other for a moment, before Lady Hydra took and released a deep breath before answering. “Are you really that dumb? It’s so that I can get the mage to pull the leash off of my own neck, obviously.’

  ”You have trackers and remote deactivators in your suits, cyborgs have wireless overrides. I have a bomb in the back of my head. Satisfied?”

  Ave pulled out the burner and slid it to the other woman. "They don't trust anyone in this organization do they?"

  “Of course not, we’re Hydra.” The other woman confirmed, while pulling out a thick cell phone.

  Not just a cell phone, Ava realized, but a device that would copy the settings and numbers from hers onto a linked phone.

  “How are you going to convince him to trust you?” The Starr sister asked concerned.

  “I’m not, you are. That’s my price for letting you three go and buying you any time from the organization. There done.” Lady Hydra watched as her device copied the burner, and once it was she got up and started moving towards the door. “Well I wish you the best, but I think you will need more than my well-wishes. Your brother will be back to normal in an hour or two, but I figure you will be busy already while he is indisposed. So toodles.”

  Unknown, hospital bed- (Unknown date) (Unknown time)

  Man-in-pain

  He groans as the anti-pain meds kick in, and a moment ter his eyes start to open.

  “Ah, he stirs. Only took about seven months of treatment.” An unknown man mutters happily towards the man-in-pain.

  “So he does, sir.” Another unknown man agrees.

  The man looked around trying to locate both speakers, but the pain and the dryness of his mouth made him give up and request. “Wat…er… water.”

  A stern-looking man came into his view a little after his request. He wore a simple bck sweatshirt and cargo pants. In his left hand was a kid's sized paper cup, it looked to hold water, but for some reason it burned when the man-in-pain drank it. Still he drank more of it, and the second drink tasted more like water and was much less painful to drink.

  The man-in-pain let the water settle, especially since the stern man backed away with the cup once it was empty. He followed the man, but then he regretted it from the additional pain moving his head caused.

  “He can move even, I would call this a great success.” The happy man observed. The man-in-pain could see him now, the happy man was indeed smiling, and wore a bck suit and white business shirt. Yet for some reason, a red Christian cross pin in his pel drew the man-in-pain’s attention.

  “Where…” He started to ask.

  But the happy man interrupted. “Where you are right now isn’t important Mr. Stane. Getting you better is what’s most important.”

  The man tried to put the name to his memory, yet all he could recall was the pain right now. So instead he asked. “Who are you?”

  “Who we are is also not important.” The stern answered.

  "He is partially correct. Our names are meaningless at this point. Just know that we are friends of humanity. And soon, soon you will be too." The happy man added.

  “Why… do you think…?” The man-in-pain started to ask.

  The happy man interrupted him again, but now didn’t sound as happy as he said. “Because you have nothing else you can do Obadiah. Don’t you remember the explosion?”

  The man-in-pain breathed hard as he tried to remember anything. The beeping of the heart monitor went rabid as he tried to recall anything. Nurses rushed into the room, followed soon by a doctor. The three did what they needed to, to stabilize him. He watched as the two men did nothing but watch as the medical team worked.

  And while they worked glimpses came to him. The scraped prototype Tony built in the cave. He and his team making improvements on it, and then building his own Iron Monger. Tony showing up, their battle, him chasing into the air after Tony in his newer deadlier model.

  The two men stayed silent until the doctors and nurses left, and then the stern one started to speak. "If he can't remember…”

  “I remember.” Obadiah interrupted him. “What do you want?”

  “We want you to arm our fellow Friends.” When the happy man said ‘friends’ this time he understood that it was an organization, and not real friends. “Something simpler though, not as much statement and size as your st one.”

  “What do I get?” The man-in-pain asked.

  The stern man moved like he was about to strike him, but the happy man stopped him with a gesture. “We will see you compensated, but you must understand that the medicine we are using to treat you is something only we can make, and its effects are only temporary so if you want to stay, functional, you will need more from us.”

  Obadiah leaned back to rex, the pain lessened now that he was working his neck muscles. "Fine, but when your friends are armed, you're adding another name to your list."

  “Your former adopted son?” The Stern man guessed.

  “No. His woman, I want him to suffer.” The man-in-pain answered before letting the pain numb the world away.