This chapter is going to contain quite a few comic book references, and there will be more as the story progresses, so if you don't read many comics, you may want to read the guide at the bottom of the chapter, which is my attempt to tell you who's who.
Yet More Enemies Elektra perched on a thirtieth story window ledge outside of a prominent office building. She thrust her foot through the window, setting off an alarm. The man at the desk stood up hurriedly, and ran for the door. Elektra swiftly drew a knife from holster at her side, and hurled it at the door, pinning it shut. The man tried to open it, and at the same time security tried to break it down.Elektra drew a second knife, held it in one hand and grabbed the man by his shirt collar with the other.
"To be perfectly honest, I just want to get the job done, but my employer was very specific. He wants you to know why you're dying."
"W-why?" Asked the man, who was beginning to tremble.
"You double-crossed my employer
Wilson Fisk, and tried to cut a plea bargain. Minimum sentence, in
exchange for tons of dirt on Fisk's alleged activities as the
Kingpin. Needless to say, my employer was less then pleased."
Like lightning Elektra slid the knife into the man's chest, and
through his ribcage, into his heart.
The door burst open,
and Elektra withdrew her knife from the man's chest, and hurled him
into the crowd of security men that were running through the door.
She dove out the window, caught a flagpole and swung onto a ledge.
Suddenly her cell phone rang. She turned it on and said,
"Hello?"
"Elektra," came a voice from the other end.
"Hammerhead," answered Elektra.
"Kingpin wants a couple of people to disappear, without it being able to be traced back to him.""Understood. Who does he want gone?"
"Two groups, known as the Misfits, and the X-men. They've been poking their noses where they don't belong, and the Kingpin wants that to stop, understand?"
"Perfectly. The usual fee?"
"Sounds good. I'll forward the specifics to your laptop. "
Hammerhead smirked to himself. He had successfully played Elektra. He had no doubt that she would do her job to the best of her ability, but fail to take out all of the targets. He had however marked Xavier and Jean Grey as priority bounties, which, he was certain, would prompt her to take them out first. With the telepaths gone it would be almost too easy to hire a few snipers to take out the remaining targets. He would be collecting quite a tidy award from the Kingpin for this, at a very low cost from himself. He loved being the middleman.
The Misfits were relaxing in their living room."Anybody have any idea what the nut in the red costume was talking about?"
"Chess, I guess," shrugged Lance. Suddenly he sank two his knees, clutching his head in agony. The ground began to shake violently. Pietro rushed towards Lance, but a wall of earth shot up directly in his path. Pietro hit the wall with a sickening thud, bounced off about six feet, and collapsed in a heap on the ground. Suddenly a tower of earth, with Lance on the top, rose through a hole in the ceiling that had previously been filled with a large chunk of plaster, and broke through a skylight.
Toad slung Pietro over his shoulders, and hopped outside. The others followed after him.
As they got out of the house practically the entire thing collapsed, leaving only the tower of earth and stone, still moving upward.
"What do you mean we have no planes?!!!" Shouted Althea, a few minutes later in Hawk's office. "We're a %&$# military base. How can we not have any planes?""First of all I'd appreciate it if you would watch your language," said Hawk, "and in answer to your question approximately three minutes ago, at the same time that Lance had his attack an explosion took out all of our hangars."
"Couldn't you borrow some planes
from another military base?" Asked Lina.
Hawk shook his
head. "Believe me, I tried. But every military base within a
hundred miles of here had their aircraft destroyed simultaneously,
and at the same time as us.
"What about the spaceship?" Asked Althea.
"It's not destroyed, but the systems are completely fried," Replied Hawk. "whoever it was that did this planned it very carefully."
"I know who did it," said Toad, who had been staring out the window at the tower that stood where the Misfit's house used to be. Everyone turned to look at him, and he continued. "Darkshadow."
"Toad, we don't have any proof that it was Darkshadow," said Althea.
"Who else then?" Asked Toad, "Magneto wouldn't have used explosives, he would've used his powers. Cobra doesn't have this kind of finesse. In any case, it doesn't matter, I'm going up the tower."Lina raised her hand, "Um, I could fly up there."
Hawk shook his head. "You don't have enough endurance yet. The same goes for Firestar. Pietro could probably run right up the tower wall but he's still in the infirmary. Toad's right. He's the best choice to go up. Besides, he knows more about Lance's attacks then either of you."
Toad walked to the door. "Then it's settled. I'll go right up. Try and get some sort of safety net set up, I don't think I'll be able to climb down carrying Lance."
Two hours later, Toad pulled himself onto the top of the tower. He had thought about what he might find up here, but it hadn't even entered his mind that it would be this. Darkshadow was standing over Lance's unconscious body, a sword in his hand. As he was about to bring it down into Lance's body, Toad leapt at him, and rammed his shoulder into Darkshadow's chest. Darkshadow skidded to a halt, inches from the edge of the tower. Toad slammed his elbow into Darkshadow's throat, and then threw a flurry of punches at him. Darkshadow's face became bloody, and finally Toad stopped. Then a helicopter, specially designed for stealth, came into view from where it had been hovering in the clouds. A figure appeared in the doorway, and suddenly Toad saw who it was. Darkshadow. Toad glanced in confusion at the unconscious body in front of him, and then looked back at Darkshadow, who was now readying a blowgun. A dart thudded into Toad's chest, and the helicopter flew off.In something of a haze, Toad pitched the Darkshadow look alike off the tower to where it had been prearranged that the safety net would be. Then he slung Lance over one shoulder, and leapt off after him. About halfway down, he lost consciousness.
Some time later in the infirmary, Lance awoke. "What happened?" He asked, "And why am I still in my uniform?.
"Darkshadow gave you a drug to manipulate your attacks," said Lifeline, "Look out the window."Lance did so, and saw the tower.
"Did I do that?" He
asked.
Lifeline nodded, "And your uniform, well every time
I touched you, the ground shook. I think your subconscious jumped
back in time, and was trying to protect you."
"Geez,"
winced Lance. "Alright, what happened after that."
"From what we put together, Toad fought one of Darkshadow's body doubles on top of the tower. Then someone, presumably the real Darkshadow, shot him some sort of dart. At first we thought it was a simple tranquilizer, but we've begun to suspect that it was far more."
"You're right," said Lance "It is confusing. What did he shoot Toad with?"
"Some sort of chemical, but heavily diluted. We've got Airtight and the triplets working on it, and we sent a copy of the readout to Beast and Xavier at the Institute."
"How long was I out?" Asked
Lance.
"About twenty hours after Toad got you down from the
tower."
Lifeline smiled and handed him a tray of food. Lance eagerly dug in. Then the door banged open. Scott staggered in, bearing Xavier over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Beast came in through the door after him, carrying Jean in his arms. Scott had a gash on his forehead, and one of Jean's arms was hanging at a crooked angle. Several patches of Hank's fur had been blackened by flame.
Lifeline rushed instantly to them, and took Jean from Hank's arms. He placed her on one of the beds, and turned to Scott, who had just finished laying Xavier on another bed.
"What happened?" Asked Lifeline.
"We were flying here to give you the results from that readout you sent us." said Scott shakily, as Lifeline bandaged the gash on his head, "When I tried to activate the landing protocols, the fuel tank exploded."
"Sabotage," said Lance,
sitting up.
"Looks that way," Scott agreed.
"The question that remains to us is, who?" Mused Beast.
"Me," came a voice from the doorway.
There was a woman in a tight red outfit standing in the doorway. In each hand was a knife.
"The name's Elektra, not that it will matter much in a couple of seconds," she said, and threw the first knife at Scott who, recognizing the danger leapt out of the way. The knife missed his heart, and instead hit him in the arm.
Elektra kicked Lance in the chest, knocking him back on the bed. She plunged her second knife into his chest. Hank tackled her and pinned her to the ground. She kicked him in the stomach with both feet, and winded him. Scott put his hand to his visor, and blasted her through a wall.
She lay on the ground unconscious. Althea ran in. "I've got bad news. Darkshadow's double just committed suicide.," she stopped suddenly, viewing the destruction.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Assassin named Elektra." Said Scott.
Althea suddenly noticed Lance, with the knife still in his chest.
"Oh my god," she ran over to him. He slowly opened his eyes and grinned weakly."Why do you think they make us wear Kevlar in our uniforms?" He asked, jokingly, "So we don't get pneumonia?""So, what did Darkshadow inject me with?" asked Toad when he awoke the next day. Lifeline had just finished explaining the same events he had explained to Lance the day before."It's actually an energy drink, poisonous to mutants, known as Power 8."
"I remember that stuff. The X-geeks said it made Evan's powers go out of control."
"That's right. Fortunately this was heavily diluted with water, and a powerful sedative, so it hasn't fully begun to affect you, yet."
"How long?""We estimate about three days, if we can't come up with an antidote before that."
"Then what?"
"To begin with you're likely to lose control of your powers. Besides that I'd rather not dwell on."
"I understand," said Toad, "Am I going to be confined to the infirmary for those three days?"
"No, but stay away from anything that's likely to draw blood. We don't want to risk transmitting the substance."
"Got it, doc, nothing pointy. But there's one thing bothering me. Supposedly Spears destroyed all the Power 8. He even let Xavier supervise. So where did Darkshadow get a sample of it?"
Lifeline sighed. "Some of it must have survived. But in order to obtain a sample Darkshadow would have to have powerful friends."
Destro looked over the base he was commanding, and smiled. His suggestion to build a missile silo here in Antarctica was nothing short of genius. Genius furthermore, that Cobra Commander had actually agreed to. And the best part of all was that there was no way that his relentless pursuer; that man in the silver armor, could possible find him here. Or so he thought."Sir!" Said one of his lackeys running up to him, "we just lost contact with squad seven. They were supposed to be setting perimeter defenses, but they never reported in."
"Sir!" Yelled another lackey, "squad ten just got cut off in the middle of communication! Something must have gotten them.""Sir! Squad four just reported seeing something that looked like a man on top of one of the ridges."
"Squad five's homing signal just cut out!"Destro sank into his chair and hung his head. His underlings rushed about frantically. Then he stood up and ran to his private plane.
"Sir! Inner perimeter has been breached by unknown hostile or hostiles!" Destro activated the plane, and as he took off, looked at the carnage below. The same man in the silver armor that had been hunting him for a month now, was making mincemeat out of his troops.
The jet flew off.
Xavier was in his office when the phone rang. He picked it up. "Yes. I see. Yes, I understand. All right officer, my students and I will be right there."
He sent a mental broadcast to Scott. Scott, please come to my office immediately.
A few minutes later Scott walked in and asked, "What is it Professor? Is something wrong?"
"That's one way to put it. The mayor decided that he was going to try and tax the Morlocks for the Alley."
"That closed minded idiot!" Said Scott outraged.
"It gets worse. The Morlocks sent the three officers that were sent down, back.""That's a relief."
"Only two of them were alive."
"They killed him?"
"Yes. His arm was torn off. He bled to death."
"What do you want me to do?"
"We need to head down to the police station. The chief of police has requested our assistance.
"You can't ask Thornn and Ray to fight the Morlocks!"
"I'm not. Bring Jean, Kurt, and Rogue. Some of the Misfits will be there as well.""The thing is Professor, I'm not so sure that the Morlocks have the wrong idea. We're going to attack them because the stood up that bigoted idiot the mayor? Something just doesn't seem right about that."
"There's no guarantee we're going to attack them. We're meeting to discuss possibilities for action."
"Still,"
"Scott, if we don't go then there's a large chance are that the police will go after the Morlocks. Then we'll have a full-blown war between the police and the Morlocks. I don't think that you want that, do you?"
"No Professor, I'll get the others."
"Good."
Wolverine walked through the woods without a sound, following the scent of a deer. Suddenly he heard a low growling sound. Turning, he saw a coyote, crouching, preparing to leap. Wolverine unsheathed his claws, and the coyote stalked away, its tail between its legs.
What Wolverine didn't know is that he was being watched. High in a tree a man crouched, shielding his eyes against the sun with a hand.
"It seems I have found a worthy adversary at last. You will be my next quarry. Wolverine, it is a fitting name for my prey. But first I must defeat my current foe."
He leapt to the next tree, and then the tree after that. Soon he had exited the forest.
Uh oh. Things don't look good for our merry band of mutants (and humans). Enemies abound, the Morlocks are becoming more aggressive, and several members of both teams are injured. Now, as promised a guide to the comic characters I've adapted for Rise of Cobra. (Note, this only contains the major characters, smaller characters such as J. J. Jameson will not be included.)
Daredevil AKA Matt Murdock: Come on; tell me you didn't see this one coming. He's the guy in the red costume with the double d on his chest. Briefly, he was in an accident as a kid that left him blind but enhanced his other senses, including a radar like sense of sound. His father, a boxer, was killed by a crooked manager called the Fixer, when he refused to take a fall. Since then Daredevil has trained himself extensively in the martial arts and now fights crime.
Punisher AKA Frank Castle: He has a purple or black costume, varying, with a white skull on the chest. He was an ex-marine, on a picnic with a family, when they stumbled upon a gang hanging. The gang killed his family, but for a reason I have been unable to put my finger on, the Punisher survived. Since then he's been marked as an antihero, that is, he fights crime, but kills in the doing so. However he has always refused to fight the police, even when they try and bring him in. He first appeared fighting Spiderman (see below) and being manipulated by a villain called the Jackal. He is very good with guns, to the point that he even hit Spiderman in spite of his dodging.
Spider-Man AKA Peter Parker: He has not actually shown up yet, in my story, but he is set to make an appearance soon. Although I hope this is not strictly necessary, his costume is red and blue with a spider on the chest, and webbing designs all over. His powers were given to him by a (snicker) radioactive spider bite. At first he appeared as a celebrity, using his powers to bring himself fame and moderate fortune. Then when his Uncle Ben, who had raised him because of the deaths of his parents, was murdered by a thief that Peter Parker had not stopped when he had the chance, Peter took his uncle's motto, with great power there must also come great responsibility, to heart, and began fighting crime. He's appeared in Misfit stories before, but mostly as the MTV version. In my story, mostly because I know more about the comics, he is the comic version, only Evo.
Kingpin: Crime overlord in New York City. Controls huge amounts of crimes, and has a double life as Wilson Fisk, a respectable businessman. Has fought both Spiderman and Daredevil, and probably others.
Hammerhead: Crime, er under lord? It is a little confusing. He controls some crime, but is not as powerful as the Kingpin. Hence my casting him as the middleman.
Elektra: Assassin, once an item with Daredevil, now bitter enemies. She is very skilled in the martial arts, and uses three pronged knives as her weapons of choice.
Silver Samurai: He is both a samurai and a mutant. He where's silver armor and carries a sword. His power is to charge the sword so that it can cut through any substance, including, he claims, Adamantium. I had to fiddle a bit with his origins, but that's Evo or you.
Morlocks: The Morlocks are actually in Evo, so I won't go into their origins, but I included them because they might stay exactly the same as in Evo in my story. I try to keep their powers as close to the comics as possible though.
That's all for the moment, but there will probably be others as the story progresses. Just review and find out.