Lester wakes...and looks down. He's in freefall...over K'un-Zi.
Below him, a forest looms. It's still a long way down...but getting closer by the second.
Lester rolls over, and looks around in the sky, for any trace of who's dumped him out here. Alas, if they were here before, they're gone now.
Lester sees a lake. Using his talents as a mantis kung fu master, he glides through the air, towards the lake shores. Below him, the forest passes.
Soon, he's in freefall over a MUCH softer landing. It's getting closer. Lester semi-anticipates the splashdown...
It hurts a bit...but not too much. Beneath the surface, the lakes waters slow his fall. This is a very deep lake; like Crater Lake in Oregon...only deeper.
Down there, giant catfish slither along the lake bottom. Their dorsal fins are like sails.
Around Lester, carps and minnows swim. They're very fleshy, here in K'un-Zi.
Around him, a school of river dolphins pass. Their sonar gives Lester a splitting headache. All around him, they partake in the carps. Lester's tempted to, himself. Alas, if only he didn't risk starting a fight with a hungry bull dolphin...
They swim past, and leave Lester alone. Beneath the surface, Lester struggles to maintain his sanity, and treads water...
He turns...and looks right into the snorkel-shaped nose of a soft-shelled river turtle. It's huge. Lester had no idea soft-shelled turtles could grow so big...
They stare at one another. Lester's not sure why he's doing this, but... He's sure it matters...
The turtle's eyes light up bright yellow. So do Lester's. Around them, time slows. They can't stop staring at one another.
The turtle blinks, and swims away. Lester feels dizzy. His lungs ache. So, he swims to the surface, and takes a breath.
Focusing on a part of the shore, Lester loses control, and swims there. Once there, he climbs ashore, and perches on a log. He looks around. He hasn't alerted the cavalry yet...but he expects to...
Around him, a strange feeling overcomes him...as everything, all around him, grows ten thousand times bigger than it was before. Around him, the top of the log is now like a plain. Before him, a knob atop the log is like a mountain. And a limb, that still sticks out of it, is like a tree...with a flag-sized leaf hanging from it.
Lester coughs up a lot of water...after having hesitated for a prolonged moment, to take this all in. And it is still, to this moment, a VERY lot to take in...
From up the log, a new danger creeps. She's yellow...and she's in heat.
As soon as Lester can breathe again, he starts to stand...and beholds something he's dreamt of for a long time...and yet, never, at the same time.
It's a yellow mantis. To her, Lester is like a fly. In front of her, she holds her pointed forelegs. She's a master of precision...as Lester would know. Not only does Lester know marksmanship (i.e. when he's big enough to handle a pistol), but he knows mantis kung fu. This shouldn't be too hard. But then, it'd be a hell of a lot easier, if Lester were about the mantis's size...or hell, even his normal one.
Gradually, Lester backs away. The mantis follows him, of course.
He sees a speck of gravel. In a flash, he grabs it, and hurls it. With precision, she swipes her forearm, and dodges Lester's blow. Ugh; this is going to be harder than Lester thought.
Lester keeps backing...until he passes a sword-shaped pebble. He takes it up, speeds, leaps, and charges the she-mantis. Super-fast and super-precise, she tries to deflect him...
Alas, Lester knows his craft, and deflects her blow. Not only this, but he's arranged his spring to where if she tried to deflect it (and he KNEW she would), she'd inadvertently send him right towards her heart.
Into the mantis's thorax, Lester plunges the sharp piece of gravel. Via gravity, he inadvertently builds a furrow on the underside of her thorax...which is more the fore side, considering her anatomy. From here, he struggles to hang on, as she thrashes around, struggling to think of a way to get shed of him...
Having made a slit, Lester grins, crawls into the slit, and tunnels his way into her, to her heart. Once he's in, she's doomed. All he's gotta do is follow the distant drums to her heart, and...
He's found it. With the same piece of gravel, he improvises a knife, and cuts every single vessel of blood that connects her ticker to the rest of her body.
Lester hates to do this. He never tells anyone this, but...he has sex fantasies, of being dominated by less-murderous she-mantises, BDSM-style. Alas, the reality of she-mantises is that they decapitate all of their mates, no matter how much she likes them. Lester isn't even sure she saw him as a potential mate. She probably just saw him as food...
It's messy in here...but Lester's faced worse. Soon, all of her heartstrings will be cut...
On the log, she fatigues...and falls off of it. She lies on her side, dying...
From the slit in her chest, her heart is ejected...clean-cut. Covered in mantis blood, Lester emerges, victorious. He sits around, and watches the heart beat its last. And then he vamooses...before a bird comes along and eats who he's just disheartened. Depending on the bird's size, it just might mistake Lester for a bug.
And now, Lester's new life begins...as a bug in the forests of K'un-Zi. With luck, he'll find a dog's fur, to be a flea in. Without it, he'll join an ant colony...or get eaten by a pangolin.
Daredevil back in Hell's Kitchen, at least, probably wouldn't mind that. Even so, anyone else would expect Lester to have a sense of self-preservation...even if, as a warrior and merc, he's doomed to die by the designated marksman's bullet...or, more likely, the sniper's bullet.
Lester should be a sniper. He's got the marksmanship skills for it... He's also always dreamt of taking on Agent Zero, the mutant, in a shooting contest.