Greetings dear readers. An infinite amount of apologies for the delay since the last chapter. However, I've had a great deal of computer problems of late. I finally would up having to have my entire machine wiped and reloaded. It's taken me a while to get everything working again.

I'm sorry if you were hoping for more Dave/Mindy action in this chapter. However, I wanted something a little easier to get back into writing mode again. As well, I wanted something relatively short and easy - I did a Makokam on it - so I could get up in one evening. Thus, I decided to do The Hammer's backstory.

I do hope everyone likes it. And yes, I admit that he's basically Bane mixed with Ivan Drago from Rocky IV.

If you like it, please review it. :-D

And awayyyy we go. :-)


Gigante drove nervously over the Francis Buono Bridge, connecting Riker's Island to the Borough of Queens. He was sweating profusely. In all of the years that he'd been working for the D'Amico organization, this was the furthest he'd ever put his neck on the line.

To be sure, he'd done some risky things in that time. He'd tipped off D'Amico employees about impending raids. He'd steered patrols away from D'Amico drug houses. He'd helped make evidence disappear in time for court cases. Some fifteen years ago, he'd even framed a fellow cop. That, was his first act as a covert D'Amico employee and from that point there was truly no turning back. He'd willingly planted drugs in Damon Macready's apartment when that foolish idealist had turned down Frank D'Amico's offer of employment. To this day, he still recalled the intense look of hatred on Macready's face when he was handcuffed…and the devastated look on his wife's face.

But this…This was another category altogether. He'd just made himself an accessory to murder. Access to Riker's Island was very much controlled and monitored, for security reasons. And he was transporting the killer back to the city.

He stole a quick look at the immense man in his rear view mirror. He was sitting in the back seat, with an absolutely inscrutable expression on his face. Gigante knew that Chris D'Amico had brought the huge man who called himself The Hammer into New York City.

And the young D'Amico himself was proving to be dangerously unstable. He'd been like that since Frank's death over three and half years prior. Those were the good old days, Gigante thought. Back then it was just cops and robbers. It was all going so nicely. He was getting paid by the city to stop crime…and being paid even more by Frank D'Amico to let crime happen. But then, that Kick-Ass guy showed up. Gigante still recalled his first thoughts on seeing the now famous video of the donut shop swarming. He thought the costumed do-gooder was a freak; who was either going to fade away or get himself killed pretty soon. But…he didn't. Instead OTHER people suddenly started doing the same thing. Was New York City so far gone that every other asshole who couldn't score a date on a Saturday night thought that dressing up in a Halloween costume and going out to get into fistfights was a positive expenditure of time?

Yeah, Gigante figured that the so-called "heroes" would fade away soon enough. But then something really weird happened…They started to get things done. Pretty soon, Frank D'Amico's organization was being dismantled by who he thought was Kick-Ass and a big guy who was wearing a costume that looked like Batman's. That was when Chris D'Amico came up with his own idea for a costume to lure the suddenly threatening heroes into a trap. When all was said and done though, it didn't work…on a pretty spectacular scale. Before he knew it Frank D'Amico was dead –blown out of the window of his penthouse by Kick-Ass who shot him with a bazooka (A fucking bazooka!). Kick-Ass faded away for a few months, but then came back partnered up with a young girl who wore purple, apparently had legions of internet fans…and was about the most feared person in the city for all of New York City's criminal underworld. She was called Hit-Girl and from that moment on it all went to hell. Now, the criminals were being dismantled and the cops were often being sidelined. To make it worse, some cops were even working with the costumed nuts. The kooks got information in exchange for allowing the cops to take official credit for the busts.

And Chris D'Amico seemed to have gone off the deep end too. He'd taken to wearing a costume all the time and was genuinely scary to him now. As further proof, he'd brought these two psychos into the city to work for him. Gigante shuddered. He wondered where the hell these two freaks were dug up from.

In the back seat, The Hammer –he had no other name- looked out at the city he'd been brought to. The person who employed him –the thin Italian-American with the irritating voice- thought he was in control of him. The Hammer would allow that fiction to persist. When the time was right though, the true master would assert himself. New York City, he thought, was vast…and decadent. When he became its master, he would show these Americans the error of their ways.

It was a long way from where he'd come…A long, long way.

The Hammers first memories were of grey. He was born into a world of grey. He was born in the Gulags of Siberia. His parents had been part of a wildly unsuccessful coup against the government…against the State. His father had been killed by the guards. His mother had died giving birth to him. He was born into a grey world and left alone in it.

The Russian government had decreed that since his parents had robbed the state of a lifetime of penal servitude to them, their offspring would pay their debt. The Hammer –although he did not yet have that name. Then, he was only known by his prison number- would serve the life sentences they'd each been given.

He spent his first years in the Gulag's infirmary –it was a horrid place, but tame compared to the rest of the institution. The commandant viewed himself as an enlightened "New Soviet Man" and felt this was showing proper mercy to the child. The boy grew up watching the savagery as the inmates fought one another and killed one another for any number of reasons –for survival, for dominance within the Gulag's confines, over sexual favours, sometimes simply because there wasn't anything better to do. For the boy, this was all he knew and it didn't scare him as he knew nothing else. He thought this was how the entire human race existed. He was an astute student of his world. He watched…and he learned.

When he was seven years old, he was put into the general population. The guards who escorted him in made wagers amongst themselves as to how long the boy would last before one of the other savages had him and made him into a sexual toy, or simply killed him as a way to pass the time on a winter's night.

On his first night, someone whispered to him. It was a revolting looking man who introduced himself Sergei. Sergei looked at him with a leering smile. He said that tomorrow, they would become much better friends. The boy knew what that meant. He'd seen what some of the inmates did together when they thought nobody was watching (or at least, nobody who cared or would interfere). He knew that was what the man wanted from him. He also knew that sometimes one of the men who did that, didn't enjoy it. He was forced into it and was sometimes beaten…sometimes killed. The boy had a feeling that Sergei wouldn't take no for an answer. He then saw, on the floor, a board that was cracked. The idea came to him naturally.

The next day, as they prisoners lined up for their meagre breakfasts Sergei –who was a notoriously brutal rapist within the Gulag- shoved his way through the line to stand behind the boy. He crouched down over him.

"So, my little one, as I said, today we're going to become frie…" Sergei's words were cut off by a strangled gasp as blood came from his mouth. The boy removed the jagged piece of splintered wood from Sergei's jugular vein, unleashing a torrent of blood. Sergei sank to his knees, putting him at eye level with the boy. The boy calmly drew his arm back and rammed the bloodied splinter into Sergei's right eye and drove it in until he'd pierced the brain. Sergei's last words were an unintelligible scream of pain.

"I don't want to be friends with you." The boy said wryly as he began to eat his breakfast as the stunned guards finally made their way over.

Sergei was hated amongst the prisoners but a favourite of the commandant as he was a particularly useful informant. It was that fact that allowed the man to thrive as such a predator. To see his most useful man slain like that upset the commandant greatly. He briefly considered having the boy shot, but the glasnost phenomenon was beginning and there might be questions. Instead he had the boy thrown into solitary, vowing that he would have to shave before he saw the sky again.

The commandant had hoped that the boy would be forgotten then. But he'd underestimated how hated Sergei was…and thus, how popular his killer was. And the fact that it was a boy made him all the more legendary. The solitary cells were not patrolled much. So, prisoners who worked there as orderlies made a point to talk to the boy. A few –taking advantage of the lack of supervision- taught him to read. The boy proved to be highly intelligent and picked it up quickly. From that point on, books were smuggled to him that he devoured –he got to a point where he would read a book a day and retain almost all that he'd read. He built up his body too. He'd watched men exercise –those not worn down by the physical labour they were forced to do- and he emulated them. Every day he disciplined himself to go through his routines. Push-ups, sit-up, pull-ups from a pipe…he did them all. Eventually he worked his way up to a thousand push-ups, a thousand sit-ups and a thousand pull-ups a day.

The commandant –after more than ten years- finally realized the boy (who was no longer a boy, naturally) would not give in and die. So, he had him released back into the general population. His hope was that someone would kill the boy in exchange for some favours from the administration. He didn't realize that ten years in solitary –after killing the hated Sergei- had made the boy a hero amongst the prisoners. Still, there were some who did try to kill him in exchange for a promise of freedom. Thirty-two men in all tried to kill the boy over a fourteen month period. The boy killed all thirty-two of them with either his bare hands or crudely fashioned weapons that he'd taken from his would-be assassin.

One day, the commandant was giving a tour of the facility to an official from Moscow. They happened upon the boy as he was finishing off the thirty-third would-be assassin. This one, the boy finished off with a punch that came down and smashed the man's head against a table, breaking the neck.

"Him!" The official screamed. "We can use him!" The official, as it turned out, was part of a committee scouting talent for the next Olympic boxing team. The commandant had no way to refuse the order…and truth be told was glad to be rid of the boy, as his body count was starting to become untenable.

At the training camp he was removed to, he was free of the Gulag for the first time in his life. It was still a restricted place as that was how athletes were trained there in that nation -segregated and under guard. On his first day, he sparred with someone and devastated his opponent. It was then that someone yelled from the sidelines "He hits like a hammer!" And thus he was finally given a name.

It was there that he met The Sickle. The latter was a chemist brought in to chemically ensure victory. His nickname came from his reaper-like appearance, as well as the fact he would willingly test lethal concoctions on subjects. It was said he cut people down like a sickle going through grass. He took a look at The Hammer –his name was now official- and decided that he was the perfect subject. He'd concocted a super-steroid, more elaborate and potent than anything else anywhere in the world. Other subjects had been unable to handle it. The Hammer would prove perfect though. It boosted his strength to amazing lengths. The trainers were pleased. He would be set for an exhibition bout with a former American professional champion in a month's time.

The next month, The Hammer took regular injections and trained relentlessly –even hitting at speed bags placed around a running track at regular intervals. He was deemed ready.

On the day of the fight, The Hammer felt the actual match would be little more than a formality. He towered over the American –a much shorter, but very tough Italian-American from Philadelphia who wore ridiculous shorts patterned after the American flag. Then the fight began…and something went wrong. No matter how hard The Hammer hit him, the American refused to stay down when hit…and hit back hard on his own. In the later rounds, something even more alarming took place: the steroid began to wear off. The Hammer felt his strength drain down to regular levels. In addition, the American had the momentum –even the Russian crowd was chanting his name. The Hammer was beaten by a knock-out in the final round.

Afterwards, The Sickle determined that his steroid had a weakness –it was burned off by adrenalin and lactic acid; two things that a body would produce in a fight. He came up with a device that fed the steroid right into The Hammer's neck through some tubes attached to a small pump on his belt. By that time though, the secret police arrived to arrest them for humiliating the state. The Hammer decided it was time to test his new steroid delivery system. He easily snapped the agents' necks and he and The Sickle disappeared into the Moscow underground.

The next ten years found the two rising to the top of the Moscow underground. The Sickle's genius with developing narcotics and The Hammer's strength and strategic genius made them a formidable combination.

One business travel found them in the Russian Far East, when a very muscular woman approached them. She said that her employer –a man known as The Master wished to retain their services. They were brought to an old monastery where a thin, inscrutable looking man sat on a raised chair. He had several book around him that was printed in what The Hammer recognized as Chinese and the man himself appeared to be from that country as well.

"Greetings. I am known as The Master. We have been following your exploits." He said in flawless Russian. "We feel you would be a great addition to our society?"

"Society?" Rumbled The Hammer. (In the years they'd worked together, he'd segued into doing the talking for the two of them as his deep voice was more imposing.)

"Yes, our little society. We are The League of Killers. It is a most ancient group and our exploits are known even if we are not. Why, in the seventeenth century, we burned London to the ground!" The Master declared proudly. "Our hands are in almost all criminal enterprises in the world and I can assure you that your work would be well rewarded."

From that point on, The Hammer and The Sickle became the most respected and feared members of The League of Killers. Their work took them around the world many times. The Hammer mastered at least five languages in that period

The two of them were in South America, engaged in a more hostile than usual takeover of the cocaine operations when they received a summons. The woman who recruited them –who was now working as a bodyguard for an American mobster in New York City and known as Mother Russia- contacted them and said their services were needed. They were to deal that most interesting phenomenon that had emerged in the last few years –the advent of costumed crimefighters. Apparently they were needed against a most resourceful and successful duo known as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. But, to start with, the man who revealed information to them had to be dealt with…which The Hammer did. Now, this American policeman was driving them back to their current employer.

Yes, The Hammer thought as he looked out on the city, he would enjoy running this place. But first, he would have to deal with these bothersome heroes in the strange clothing. He would study them as he studied the men in the Gulags He would study their strengths and discern their weaknesses…Then he would destroy Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl for this madman D'Amico.