Chapter 7: Black Talon's Tale, Part Two
Model Patsy Walker hands her assistant the plaid flannel shirt that she was wearing, and she strides into the shadows of the semi trailer. Hellcat says, "I think I'll slip out of this T-shirt and jeans, Jubilee. It's time for a quick change into costume."
Over her shoulder, Jubilee replies, "Once you change, Patsy, we heroines hit Black Talon's current lair. I go ground floor, and you go high." The X-Man assesses the abandoned storehouse.
"Sounds like a plan," Patsy replies back from the trailer's front. She dons her famous, feared, feline face.
Sans mask, Jubilee applies a thick foundation to her face. However, neither vanity nor disguise is the cover-girl's concern. Rather, practicality makes Lee cake-on the cosmetic, for Jubilation Lee is a vampire these days. And, Sol's afternoon rays could ravage her skin even more than her redheaded cohort's. Fortunately, another cohort Hank McCoy, the Beast, has provided the creature of the night with specialized sunblockers spreadable over one's exterior on occasions such as this. Conveniently, Jubilee can join daytime missions with her allies, whether X-Men or Avengers.
The young heroine still has worries though. As a vampire, Jubilee is undead. As a voodoo priest, Black Talon commands the undead easily and often. In theory, he could control and exploit her. Although, vampires generally have too much will (many can even mesmerize others) for such malevolent machinations. However, powerful priests have enthralled bloodsuckers before. The legendary houngan W'Sulli notably did it and caused trouble for the Thing, Black Panther, Brother Voodoo, and the affected fiend (see Marvel Two-in-One #40-41). Vampires know their lore.
However, Patsy's gal Friday should not focus upon fears. Her friend and employer needs someone reliable, not irresolute. Jubilee hefts a heavy satchel from the trailer floor. She drops down her rose-colored sunglasses and tries to look cool.
Abruptly, Hellcat startles Jubilee. The feline Marvel brushes past as the Avenger bounds toward Black Talon's bastion. Jubes jumps a little. The Cat beckons her compatriot to follow her.
Within the warehouse, Black Talon chants and screams, shimmies and sways. Samuel Barone seeks to wake the dead lying at his feet. Shrieking skyward, Samuel spins in a spiral, sprinkling animal blood from a rooster claw. Eyes back and tongue forward, the houngan howls to Baron Samedi—loa of death—to resurrect these sinners as Black Talon's sordid slaves. And so, deceased scamps Cajun Creed and Black Billy, Littlehawk and Vandenberger, and Bobo the Clown stir and spasm shake as though in a simultaneous seizure. They scream awfully in reawakening. Slowly, the shaking five fiends stand up and step forward, scowling and shambling.
From the rafters above, Hellcat watches the wicked rising. After hewing through the wooden roof, the Happy-Go-Lucky heroine has witnessed the unnerving necromancy below. Soon, the Cat will pounce from her position upon Black Talon, master of this macabre puppet show. She need only await the brilliant distraction that Jubilee will provide. Of course, "brilliant" is another word for "bright" and "light".
Like lightning, Lee streaks toward the warehouse's open entrance. At the entrance, she throws a flurry of flash grenades through the aperture, in emulation of past powers. Jubilee lost her natural abilities on M-Day, so the fireworks cheer her, stir her dormant heart, and remind her of past glory. She smiles and beams.
Black Talon, on the other hand, grimaces in the blazing glamor suddenly surrounding him. He grits and grinds his teeth as the grenades pop, pop, pop in proximity. Tears flush his eyes as flashes fill the forum. Flummoxed, he flails his arms and flees forward, but he but foolishly falls over Bobo's oversized foot—but not before his flailing glove talon fillets Bobo's cheek flesh, which flops flaccidly loose.
"F***!" Hellcat cringes at the unexpected carving. The Defender decides to drop into the den of dreadful denizens. She must address this unholy scene. The dead, even damned criminals, deserve some dignity, and a devilish dude, such as Black Talon, must face justice for his despicable, degenerate deeds. Hero Hellcat gracefully drops the sixteen feet to the floor as Black Talon clumsily rises.
Forthwith, tall Cajun Creed conks Hellcat heavily atop the head. It would seem that the wide-eyed zombies are not the blind dead one bit. Numb optic nerves and an inactive brain can aid an unliving lout so that, seemingly, nothing shocks a returned wretch. Immediately, Black Billy seizes Red by the tresses and flips her to Bobo who bops her in the nose. Reflexively, the Avenger backhands Bobo hard across his unopened cheek. Brain wobbles like jello in his previously split skull.
In succession, the superheroine swiftly strikes the circle of festering foes. Her foot forcefully back-kicks Vandenberger. Her right hand claws Bobo's face while her left hand jabs Jimmy Littlehawk. Leaping, she roundhouse-kicks Cajun Creed—CRACK!—before flipping him atop Black Billy. SNAP!
To Hellcat's relief, Jubilee enters the fray. The lithe Lilith tackles Rudy like a lineman. The knifes in his hands drive into his chest when Jubilee drives him downward. On the floor, Vandenberger expressionlessly ogles them stuck there. Jubilee jumps to her feet. She slugs Bobo's mug, mashing his bulbous nose. The vamp belts arisen Black Billy across the wide room. Toward Jubilee, Littlehawk charges—his entrails trailing him (there was no time to sew him shut).
"Gross" thinks Hellcat gaping at the gruesome sight.
Suddenly, stumbling blinded Black Talon stomps the squishy intestines stopping Littlehawk abruptly—until the guts tear. Automatically, Patsy's guts feel a little upset too. She hesitates an instant and forcefully swallows. Behind her, Cajun Creed stands back up. The brute resets his neck and arm with sickening sounds. From behind, Creed grabs Hellcat's neck and slams an eight-inch icepick into her arm. Walker unfreezes and screams.
Around the combatants, something happens unnoticed, for now. The flash grenades accomplish what Boomerang's earlier explosive shatterang could not. The hot objects have overheated the pine composing this fight's site. The warehouse's floorboards have burning embers upon them. And, those burning embers have ignited those old planks a little, and that wood smolders. It spreads flames toward the sylvan supports in the brick building. Increasingly, it puts smoke into the air.
Oblivious to the coming conflagration, the two heroines burn through thugs. Indeed, Jubilee and Hellcat light into ghoulish goons like a dynamic duo. BIFF! Lee lambastes Bobo. STAB! An icepick pins Creed's boot to the ground soundly. He is defeated. POW! Super-strength sprawls Littlehawk over the floor. WHACK! Walker wallops Black Billy with a flying sidekick into the wall. Billy hits the bricks and stays down. All zombies are finally going down.
By the battle, Black Talon wanders around like a chicken with its head cut off. Spots before his peepers, the rooster-themed rogue roams blindly. Until, his boot finds some floor-fire, and his foot fries briefly like poultry. Chanticleer crows. Teary-eyed, Talon squints at the smoldering tinder, and he decides to throw a hex upon it. With dark magic, Black Talon induces disaster. His hex heightens the fire's flames tenfold. And, the burgeoning blaze surges speedily over the slash pine. Instantly, a rolling wall of heat hits Hellcat and everyone else. Smoke spreads swiftly everywhere. An inferno instantly incinerates Cajun Creed to ash, eats-up Littlehawk, cremates the Clown, cooks Vandenberger, and burns Black Billy to char. Hellcat fires her cable-claws into the rafters, and the four-clawed grappling hooks hastily raise her above the active blaze. Below, a glow incredibly incandesces, and a crackle echoes tempestuously.
Patsy yells into the tumult, "Jubilee! Federigo Ravina is useless now! He mind-controls bugs! We could have swarmed Talon with cockroaches! But now, we women won't call him!"
Walker's assistant does not appear about to phone Federigo anyway. Jubilee just stands stark still amidst the inferno. Hellcat wonders what the hell is going on. Why would a vampire freeze when facing a conflagration? Fire can destroy her kind, and flames threaten stagnant Jubilee on all sides. They lick her garments, lash her bare legs, and blister her face. But, Jubilee stays silent and stony.
To Jubilee's side, Black Talon slinks through the flames like a salamander—somehow unharmed. A necklace of ensorcelled animal bones bends the hot tongues from his person. Like a rooster, Black Talon struts to his hypnotized hen, held in his potent power.
The houngan howls, "Samuel says 'Don't move'! Samuel says 'Die in a fire!'"
Hellcat observes overhead. She assesses that some voodoo priests can possess vampires. The Avenger alights on an unlit section of floor. She must rescue her aide.
Abruptly, flames ignite Walker's friend before her eyes. Hellcat shrieks in the stifling smoke. Jubilee does not scream at all. The fire scorches her hair, melts her raincoat over her, and withers her. But, she combusts completely quietly, creeping-out her companion utterly. Lee's shoes sear from her feet. Her skin splits as she sizzles and roasts. But, the dying vamp remains reticent.
Hellcat prays that she can somehow haul her helper to the Mighty Mississippi or otherwise get water upon her. However, the heroine has her doubts. She is unsure how fast that a Defender can defeat Black Talon, wrap a burning body, and deliver one of the damned from a horrible fate.
Fortunately, Jubilee surprisingly delivers herself, for the bewitched wench becomes water itself. As many vamps can, the poor kindled creature becomes mist, and the vamp's vapor swirls into the smoke surrounding it. Jubilee seems to make her escape. The innocuous outside air awaits if she does.
Hellcat faces fiendish Black Talon alone. Unholy heat distorts the dastard's cocky features, making him appear even more diabolic. The horrendous heat saps Patsy's strength much like the hemorrhage from her arm. Sooty smoke stings her eyes and throat. Oddly enough, Hellcat might not be able to take this inferno, and she must laugh a little at circumstance, tortured lungs allowing.
Black Talon lunges like a raptor. Clawed glove rips costume and skin. But, the strike does not kill the Cat, for Hellcat dexterously dodges away from the swipe. She swipes back, and her clawed glove rips cape and skin. The ornithic adversary squawks. Immediately, Hellcat hacks again. The rooster's bare breast bleeds bountifully.
Hellcat's own bosom burns too, however. Smoke inhalation makes her hack hard, and she must flee the fierce fires soon. Hellcat determines to drop Black Talon posthaste. The feline fighter springs, and her tornado kick fells Black Talon to the fuming floor.
Like a crafty coward, Black Talon crawls quickly away. He scrambles into the thick smoke obscuring him from Hellcat's view. With irritated eyes, she wonders where the hell he went. Whooping, Black Talon throws a Vandenberger blade from the murk. The superhero simply sidesteps. But, she still mugs as though stricken. Heat and smoke bake and suffocate Walker such that Hellcat embarrassingly swoons while struggling to stay semi-conscious. Sweat slops down her visage, and each sharp breath strains her.
"Screw this!" Patsy decides. Hellcat has to get outside. Black Talon can be taken another day.
Flames singe her costume and the flesh beneath. Gasping and grimacing, Hellcat aims a cable-claw at the rafters. She will shoot at the beams above and then swing toward where the building's one exit might be in the pother. But, before Patsy departs, another thrown knife arrives. It misses. But, the dagger is only a decoy. Distracted and half-delirious, Hellcat does not see the bone club coming to clobber her. Black Talon cracks the solid femur along cranium before Hellcat can react. The avian opponent has again snuck-up on her. On all fours, Hellcat wrathfully resolves to retaliate. But, before she does, Black Talon whacks bone across her back again and again and again. He kicks kitty hard in the stomach. His boot spikes bloody middle. Patsy slumps prone. Like a rooster, the cocky criminal raises his cape, flaps his "wings", and dances in victory. Nigh crazed, he crows his "dominance".
Disgusted, the Cat finds another life. Hissing, Hellcat arches her back. Vexed, she nimbly handstands and locks her upraised legs soundly around the rooster's neck as though she would break the braggart bird. The cocky crowing stops. She squeezes tight on the gasping goon's airway. His eyes bulge; and his tongue protrudes; and his head nearly pops. Releasing, Walker rights herself. She backhands him with a contemptuous bitchslap. Hopping high, Hellcat snapkicks Black Talon backward. Woozy, she collapses to the flaming floor.
Wheezing, Hellcat looks at supine Black Talon. Amidst the smoke, the rascal rolls over and rises still ready to fight. In the dancing flames, Samuel Barone draws a big, long machete that gleams and glows ominously. The houngan resembles Death ready to harvest a Hellcat. Black Talon raises the weapon. . . .
But, sans warning, a four-foot blade slices off Talon's sword arm. The detached appendage drops away. Samuel's starboard stump squirts and sprays sangria while he squalls and screams unreservedly.
"You are disarmed!" roars a voice above the roaring inferno.
Swinging his scythe overhead, Grim Reaper's steel shimmers in the blinding blaze surrounding him. The keen blade captivates bleeding Samuel Barone's attention as he contemplates his seemingly imminent beheading.
Black Talon addresses his attacker, "Eric, I would give my f***ing right arm for you. But, this is ridiculous."
"You tried to kill me!" shouts the enraged revenant.
Barone points his remaining index finger, "M'Baku plotted to kill you. I simply did not say anything about his treacherous designs."
"Burn, Black Talon!" the Lethal leader lets fall the big blade.
Adeptly, Grim Reaper slices the fire-repelling gris-gris from Talon without slashing his throat. In response, Barone brandishes his six-inch ceremonial dagger. In a most uneven sword fight, Grim Reaper's long scythe knocks the silly shiv aside. Wobbly with blood loss, Black Talon produces another weapon. The bone club wags in his weakening hand, waning in color. Black Talon bops Grim Reaper ineffectually about the head. In response, Grim Reaper's scythe whirs like a saw in a speedy circular motion, and it wrecks Samuel's weapon down to Barone's wrist. Bone chips painfully pelt the profligate's puss.
Abruptly , Barone's back burns awfully too. As Reaper casually points-out, "Hey pal, your back is on fire."
No longer charmed, Talon's cowl has combusted, causing quick carnage over his posterior. Frenetically, the aflame felon flings the fiery fabric from him. Feebly, Black Talon tries to fly from the Grim Reaper, but the returned Eric Williams will not be denied his black pudding. Again, Eric raises his armament. He aims it for the warehouse's rafters yet untouched by fire. From deadly device, a projectile shoots at the ceiling. Like a napalm bomb, the object explodes in an incendiary cloud that consumes the beams above, and the roof collapses atop the cocky criminal below. With silvery cyber-arm, Grim Reaper (facetiously) salutes his (likely) crushed colleague. Pivoting, the quintessential Lethal Legionnaire marches from the burning burial site.
Apparently, reports of the Grim Reaper's death have been greatly exaggerated.
A little ways from the collapsed building, Hellcat has temporarily collapsed on some steamy asphalt under the crimson setting sun. Coughing violently, the Cat spits sooty sputum, and she shivers as she controls her various hurts. Grim Reaper strolls past her. Weepy eyes watch him nonchalantly escape. Head spinning, Walker pushes to her knees, aspiring to pursue. Temples pounding, Patsy attempts standing. Ears aching, she endures arriving emergency sirens. Brakes shrilling, an ambulance bumper stops but short of cracking Hellcat's head.
Heedless Hellcat focuses on her prey. She see lawmen confront departing Grim Reaper. They would like to arrest the noted public enemy, and the police officers' drawn guns promise that they might. The supervillain points his sidearm too. In succession, bright static blasts drop security forces right and left. The cops shoot back, but their bullets bounce off the offender. He is either undead or wearing a bulletproof outfit.
Victorious Grim Reaper strolls eastward toward the Mississippi. Around him lie unconscious patrolmen. Around them, dock workers give Grim Reaper plenty of space. Away from them, a paramedic tries aiding an ailing Avenger. He approaches with a concerned look and an oxygen mask. But, the comely fighter rejects the kind fellow, to his surprise.
Unbelievably, the Cat bounces to her feet and bounds after her quarry. The preternatural Cat costume supplies Patsy with the superhuman stamina for one last desperate sprint. Sucking air, exhausted Walker runs after Williams. Somehow, he notices her closing in. Reaper runs too. Like an Olympian, he dashes over the port's wide expanses. Like a bat out of hell, he hurdles equipment and freight in his way. Like a ghost, he flits through a maze of shipping containers. Hellcat tries keeping up, but she never recalls Eric Williams being this fleet. Eventually, she thinks "to hell with it" and casts a cable-claw to a crane. She swings to the river shore that her foe has reached.
With a huge grin on her face, Happy-Go-Lucky Hellcat drops before Grim Reaper like she hasn't a care in the world. She is as amused to catch him as he is to see her catch-up. She peers at him, and he her. Panting, Patsy Walker wonders why Grim Reaper does not quite look like Eric Williams. For instance, studying the masked face, the chin and cheekbones are a bit off and. . . . .
OOPH! Reaper's sidekick strikes Hellcat's middle. Scythe ready, he states, "If you quit chasing, I won't have to halve you."
"If just quit, I won't have to humble you, you imposter," Hellcat's hand chops at the blade-bearer. He blocks her incoming arm with his steel one.
"I am the Reaper," the duelist hisses into her face.
In close quarters, the detective Defender can plainly see that someone else wears Eric Williams' costume. "You are not the Grim Reaper," she declares, "Your tactics aren't his. And, your looks are off too."
"Am I uglier than the undead?" asks the present opponent.
"Now, now, I did not say that," Patsy Walker is sensitive about appearance insults, "I was only saying . . . AACK!"
The phony's free fist slugs Patsy in the mouth. Reflexively, her free hand seizes his ferrous arm and flips him over her hip. He flops hard on cement. Sans pause, he curls his form and kicks himself into an upright position.
"Hold it," Grim Reaper holds up a hand.
"Stop? Why?" Hellcat asks puzzled.
"I have a question," the Lethal leader lilts.
"Oh?" the Avenger inquires.
"Cats like fish, right?" asks the villain.
"Actual ones do," replies the human hero.
"Have some catfish then," Grim Reaper aims his artificial appendage at Old Man River.
Like a missile, the metal limb launches from Reaper's right wing into the Mississippi. Like a depth charge, it deafeningly detonates beneath the brown water. A high plume of silt and debris erupts upward and outward. And, flopping, dying fish fly into the air and fall onto Hellcat. "Eric Williams" athletically dives under the crashing wave. He escapes. Muddy water plasters burnt, battered Patsy. It overwhelms her.
Underwater, Grim Reaper remotely summons a small submersible stowed in the river. He rides away in it. It propels toward nearby Lake Pontchartrain, an area large enough for a man to get lost in. With one hand, the supervillain steers the sub. With the other, Reaper unmasks. You see, Louis Dawson has both hands—unlike Eric Williams and, well, Samuel Barone.
Hours later, Patsy Walker scans the ceiling panels and tube lighting in a trauma center. She is doing alright. Doctors have given her some stuff for her skin, and they have patched this and that. She can breathe a bit easier than earlier. Around her, the curtain separators are teal to a somewhat calming effect. The ER is even somewhat quiet after ambulance crew and nursing staff just rushed someone past. The Cat's ears did not quite catch who that was. Patsy stiffly re-dons her costume.
"What a day," Hellcat croaks.
"I hear you," Jubilee stands in the shadows.
"You got to love it," Hellcat holds her head, checked recently for concussion.
"Oh? How's that?" Jubilee sighs a wee.
Jubilation Lee deals with her own injuries. Her body has suffered great damage. Although, as an animated dead person, the living dead girl will not be seeing hospital staff. Although, someone could take a weakened vampire to the blood bank if someone wishes. Jubilation's confidence is also dinged. And, Lee's clothes were destroyed. After escaping incineration, she had to purloin Patsy's flannel shirt and denim jeans from the truck trailer. Jubilation has also had quite a day.
Hellcat returns to her thought. "You got to love it," she rasps, "You have got to really love being a superhero if you are basically only a brave human with no powers. If you are Jen or Jessica, She-Hulk or Spider-Woman, you are some kind of invincible. You can have an Abomination buffet you badly, or you can have a Super-Skrull barrage you with everything that he has. And, you will be almost okay and recover almost instantly. But, if you are Hellcat, Black Widow, Colleen Wing, or someone like that, you take your lumps, and you take them again-and-again throughout a crimefighting career."
Fangs out, sore Jubilee is about to retort. But, Bailey walks suddenly through the curtain. Bailey, a.k.a. Attache, is another employee of Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat.
Attache announces, "They have Black Talon down the hall. Firefighters recovered him from the razed canehouse. He is alive but in very bad shape."
"Well, that's worth a look to see the burn and crush injuries," vamp Jubes leads the way.
Down the hall, there are several private rooms for major traumas, and the three ladies enter the only occupied one. They find befuddled doctors and nurses within. Black Talon has disappeared before their eyes! The severely-injured sorcerer has even left a shiny pair of handcuffs hanging from the gurney stained with his blood and char. Atop the gurney, a photo somehow now sits. Hellcat picks it up. She is amazed to see younger versions of old friends Bruce Banner and Jen Walters. The curious Cat flips it over. It reads—in magic marker—"The Lethal Legion lasts".
Patsy is surprised. Hellcat is actually a little shocked at what happens next.
Attache says, "Oh, I almost forgot. I helped the first responders pull Black Talon from beneath the rubble. My Bag of Infinite Capacity provided a portal though which to pull our critically-hurt criminal. The enchanted bag saved rescuers from digging. It also allowed me to yank another item from beneath the rubble. Voile!" Attache plucks a detached human arm from her big purse and plunks it on a sanitary counter. It should be iced should Samuel Barone return.
Between the hospital and the port, a fine hotel stands in New Orleans. In a seventh-story room, Fred Myers' cigar sits smoldering in an ashtray as he suffers on the floor. Gasping for breath, Boomerang beholds his hands swollen like balloons. The shocked assassin needs his hands to kill people. He would love to have them presently to kill snakes. Louisiana water moccasins are crawling all over him and the entire damn suite. Close-by, the Talisman of Damballah the snake spirit, Black Talon's gift, lies glowing like a beacon to every beastly ophidian in the bayou. Cotton-mouthed, Myers can neither scream in pain (of which there is plenty) nor frustration. But, Boomerang quietly swears that Black Talon will burn if the hitman survives!
Boots barely fit over Fred's feet, also bitten. However, boot jets rocket Boomerang through the room's glass window, and he escapes. Fred's fat, festering fingers can barely text James on his smartphone. Out east, James is James Sanders the Speed Demon. Sinner Myers prays that his Sinister Syndicate associate comes quickly.
If Speed Demon does, a second supervillain might be rushed down a certain hospital's hallway this eve.