Ah, the North Atlantic. There's nothing like it. And good times are nothing like it...especially not in the winter.
Even so, the North Atlantic is stormy all year. At least nowadays, it harbors a sensitive secret...and I DON'T mean the Titanic.
Just beneath the rain-absorbing and wave-generating surface, which occasionally takes on too much electricity for a shark each time a stray lightning bolt hits a very big wave, a floating island treads water. It's raft-shaped, and man-made. For that reason, it's called the Raft.
All around it, the ocean pounds with the storms. Inside, some of the most dangerous people in the world, who're mostly mutants, Inhumans, and human mutates, are kept under lock and key...figuratively speaking.
Inside, the guards patrol their regular routes within the raft's corridors. There are a lot of corridors in here. Thankfully, they're not all lined with full cells...or even cells. Even so, the world would be up a creek without a paddle...or even outside, in that very ocean without a compass...without the security of the Raft.
Many who live here deserve to be here. Once such inmate is Trish Walker...as Jessica Jones has reluctantly deemed her.
She sits in her cell, alone. Mostly, she's in a catatonic state these days. Sometimes the guards joke about throwing her off one of the balconies, to see if the Hellcat still lands on her feet. But then, the Raft would hate for humanity to think that the guards here aren't humane to the inmates...as much as the inmates probably don't deserve humane treatment.
Some of the inmates aren't even human. A few are powered aliens, who can't seem to leave this blue marble alone.
In here, Trish couldn't be more upset with how under-stocked the Raft is. She's pretty certain that there are more villains out there than what global security seems to think...or even what the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Illuminati seem to think...
This is another reality of the Marvel multiverse. It's a neighbor of Earth-199999. Here, Walker is a blonde. And she goes by Trish.
In the halls, with gloved hands, a guard makes his rounds, checking all of the doorknobs to see if they're locked. He passes one, after he's seen that it's locked.
He slows, and looks around. He's got an eerie feeling...that he's not sure how to describe... And yet, somehow, shedding seems to be out of the...
He turns, and looks around. Sure enough, the door he just checked is open. He's not sure how; he couldn't have hesitated for THAT long. Even so, whoever did open the door was very noiseless when they did so.
He should call for backup...but doesn't. It's just as well. Backup won't come; his opponent has made sure of that.
He flicks on a flashlight, and creeps into the open room. Inside, there's a slash, and a cry of agony...and a bunch of blood splatters through the open doorway, leaving its mark all over the floor of the hall.
From a trap door in the deck of Trish's cell, a package is delivered to her. Trish blinks, looks around, gets on her knees, and rips the package apart, with hellish feline ferocity. She even manages to make cat noises, while doing so.
Inside, she finds a black robe. It's Japanese...and it's a ronin's robe.
In the control room of the prison, guards stay on duty. They monitor everything, with a hawk's eye. They're about to have some competition...whether they can afford it or not.
One of them gets a message on their comms. They go into another room to check...and never come back. Another does, and leaves. He never comes back either.
Before long, there's only one guard left in the control room. He keeps working...as if undisturbed by the fact that he's been rendered alone by what only looks like pure chance, on the surface.
Moments later, there's a slashing noise, and his blood is splattered all over the glass wall before him. His head hits the deck, and rolls over it.
With a gloved hand, a hooded ronin surfs the Raft's intranet for the location of Walker's prison cell, finds it, hacks into its security, and disables it.
Moments later, Trish's cell is empty. The empty package, in which the ronin's robe came in, is the only trace she's left...other than her DNA in the toilet and in the bedding.
From a foggy height, a hooded figure wearing the same ronin's robe falls. Onto one of the lower decks, she lands on all fours. Beneath the hood, a pair of sinister eyes shine. The Hellcat is back...as the Ronin.
From below the surface, the Raft surfaces. Portals open between the topside flight decks and the bad weather aloft.
Without much regard for this bad weather, a twin-rotor aircraft starts up its engines. It rises, and flies away. Behind them, the Raft re-submerges.
In the cockpit, the two pilots sit next to one another. They're both dressed as ronins. They both still have their hoods up.
Trish takes off hers, and breathes relief. "That was fun," she admits. "So...do I get a pair of swords, too?"
The other ronin removes his hood, revealing the face of Clint Barton. In this reality, Clint is a brunet. (He's a blond, on Earth-616.) "It's in the cargo hold," she tells her. "Sorry I couldn't custom-make it, but...ronins aren't really supposed to pride themselves in their senses of identity."
Trish nods, comprehendingly. "I can see that." She stands, and moves towards the hold. "Not sure if I can adapt to that, but... I like my chances a whole lot better than if I was still stuck in the Raft." She hesitates, and turns around. "Thanks for this, BTW. This has been like hell for me...and for once, I don't mean that as a compliment."
Clint only nods, and keeps flying.
In the cargo hold, Trish finds her treasure: a pair of authentic katanas...complete with crossed scabbards. They're not sharpened...but Trish's not worried about that.
They aren't custom-made...but one does have a design on its blade. It's of a crouching cat. The design on the other katana's blade is that of a bident; like Pluto's and Hades's.
She handles them...and feels their power channel through her Hellcat flesh. With the power of the Ronin in her paws...she could make one Hell of a difference, everywhere where the world's military forces are too wussy to make the same difference...
