The next evening, upon my arrival at the Hellfire Club I was introduced to a man named "Underworld." Apparently, an old-school Maggia enforcer turned 'freelance powered security consultant,' he'd been working for Fisk on and off since the first Superhero Civil War. And also apparently, he was intimately familiar with The Consultant. Fisk had called him in to be a guide of sorts, to make sure I didn't get tripped up by the Consultant's sales tactics.
Fisk had also said that he was footing the bill, just this once, and that money was no object... There was no way that wasn't a trap. While, if he wanted to kill me, he'd have just tried to do it, I had no doubt that this was an attempt to size me up. Best case scenario, he'd merely make me justify my enhancements after the fact, worst case scenario the Sinister Six would be on my ass if I hurt his wallet too much.
Likewise, I'm pretty sure that what he wasn't telling me was that Underworld was supposed to size me up and put me down if I proved too much of a potential liability. It was hard to get a read on him behind his mirrored shades and his unusually heavy-looking trench coat, but I don't think it was an accident that I got a glimpse of his high-tech pistols when he stood up from his seat and he looked awfully young for someone who has supposedly been in the game for decades.
...I may have pressed Fisk's buttons a little too hard last night.
Anyway, that is how I found myself sitting in the back of one of Fisk's Limos with an organized criminal being driven to the secret hideout of a criminal arms dealer.
"So... What can you tell me about The Consultant?" I asked.
"He's a bastard," was the enforcer's unguarded response. "People like Fisk? They play by the old rules and come down hard on people who don't when they can. The Consultant? He's got enough clout to get away with breaking the rules. My traitor of a brother stiffed him on his bill when I was in the Joint, so the Consultant went out of his way to put me in a position where I was forced to kill him, which, don't get me wrong, he was a snake and I'd have done it anyway, but still. Also forced powers on me, then sent me a bill when it was all said and done."
"Damn."
"Look, don't get me wrong. I'm no hero, I ain't a good guy, and I ain't your dad, but if you want to back out, I'll tell Fisk that you got cold feet. This early in, it won't be worth it for him to come after you. I can tell just looking at you that you aren't cut out for this life."
"I need to be strong enough to use this thing to its full potential," I said while shifting my outfit, currently the same mask and dress I'd infiltrated the Hellfire Club with last night, into my symbiote form. "This is my best bet for that." Also, I was pretty sure that if I said I wanted to back out, he'd try to shoot me for wasting Fisk's time and those guns were probably loaded with something strong enough to punch through symbiote bullet resistance.
Underworld scoffed. "Your funeral. Okay, so The Consultant is gonna wanna try and talk to you about your name and image, blow that off completely, it's not worth it and Fisk tells me you've already got one picked out."
"Massacre," I confirmed. "Let's people know I'm a Carnage legacy and so I can piggyback off that rep but it also makes it clear I'm my own person." Actually, it was so I wouldn't forget how I got this damn thing, but no point in telling the mob enforcer that.
"Seems you got that figured out," he said, somewhat disinterested.
"You don't care for supers, do you?"
"I hate supers," he clarified. "You all busted up a nice thing and made it complicated. I hate that I'm a super now, I hate working with supers, but, you know... Can't beat'em, join'em. Besides, I'm a professional. If nobody makes things personal, I can swallow my bile."
"I can respect that."
"Anyway, he's also got a tendency to pair powers and gadgets and try to upsell you, so it's best to go in knowing what you want."
"Don't really need weapons or gadgets, I'm here just for enhancements," I stated quickly. "Permanent ones, preferably biological or chemical so that they'll work well with the symbiote. I don't need to be the Hulk or anything, just strong enough that I'm not holding the symbiote back. Ideally just an all-around enhancement or two but I'm not completely against the idea of a few extras that compliment symbiote."
"Good. Another thing," Underworld continued, "always ask about side effects and don't let him inject you with anything until you know what's in it. Otherwise, he'll give you one thing, then give you something else for the side effects of that, then something else for the side effects of that."
"Yikes."
"And with Fisk footing the bill on this, he'll probably try to get you loaded down with a lot of stuff. Ain't saying there nothing wrong with taking advantage, but—"
"Make sure that the Kingpin is getting his money's worth, instead of getting bogged down with pointless extras."
"Exactly," he finished.
Not long after that, the limo stopped and we got out outside what looked like an office building of some kind. Going in, Underworld showed a letter to a receptionist who directed us to an elevator. He pushed three different buttons and we went down to an unmarked floor.
Soon after, I was sitting in a chair in the office of The Consultant.
"Jack," the man said to Underworld while ignoring me, "I haven't seen you since you paid off your debt. How have you been?"
"This ain't a pleasure visit," Underworld choked out bitterly. "Take care of the girl, then we'll talk."
"Fair enough," The Consultant said as he turned to me. "Now, let's talk codenames."
"No need already got one," I explained, "and I'm a legacy so I don't need to work on an image. I'm here for enhancements, nothing else."
"I can't tempt you with a refurbished alien weapon?" The Consultant quipped. I glared through my symbiote's eyes in response. "Fine, fine, I get the hint."
He walked back toward a shelf and started rummaging around, looking for something. "How do you feel about cybernetics? I know someone who recently cracked the code on Lady Deathstrike's modifications and I just got in a shipment of Secondary Adamantium. I could put you under now and in 12 hours you'd wake up with a massively reinforced muscular-skeletal structure and retractable blades in your fingers."
"I'm not really interested in going under the knife and I don't think that would play well with the symbiote. Also, it's a Carnage strain so the blades are a bit redundant. What do you have that's more... biochemical?"
"Hmmm..." The Consultant rushed over to a wall safe and twisted it open, drawing out a container full of small plastic bags. "This has been a bit hard to get one's hands on since Pusherman was murdered," he said while getting it down before me, "but I think I've managed to recreate the formula. I give you... Darkforce!"
"...I don't know what that is."
"Oh. my apologies. It's a blended strain of synthesized mutant growth hormone cut with just the tiniest hit of D-Lite, allowing the user to temporarily access the energies of the Darkforce dimension. One Dimebag is enough to last a few weeks, rationed carefully... And since I want to maintain good relations with Fisk's operation, I'll give you a bulk discount if you buy six month's worth."
"Sir, with all due respect Mister Fisk is being very kind to me by arranging this and the last thing I want to do is disrespect him by pissing away his money on a bulk purchase of a temporary enhancement," I replied back. "Something permanent, and... I don't really care for flash right now. I'm looking for enhancement enhancements. Just enough that my weak human body isn't holding back the symbiote."
"Picky, picky," the consultant muttered, "but I see where you're coming from. To be honest it's a nice change of pace to have a discerning customer who knows what she wants... I have a sample of Spider-Flu, but that has physical side effects, and looking at you you've probably got all the Spider-Powers you'd need... But, symbiote..."
He ran back to his safe and drew out a vial of an acidic green liquid. "You know, a lot of Spider-Man's villains have secret lairs in the sewers that just get abandoned after a while. Every so often a hood or hobo stumbles across one and tries to sell off what they looted from it and I was able to get quite a bit of the Green Goblin's equipment," he shook the bottle. "How do you feel about the goblin formula? Osborn used it to enhance a portion of the Carnage symbiote, not only would it make you stronger but it would make the symbiote stronger."
That was very tempting but almost too good to be true. "Side effects?"
"Increased emotional instability for several months, plus an exaggeration of pre-existing mental illness or personality disorders for the same period, particularly psychoses and schizoid disorders."
"Hard pass."
"Alright then, how about..." He was looking around now, muttering to himself and... He was making a show of this. He was bullshitting me. Finally, he pulled a small case out of a drawer, declared 'Aha!' and showed me a syringe. "Hard to get my hands on these, but for the discerning customer... Do you know who Eric Killmonger is?"
"Yeah, isn't he like, the Black Panther's arch-enemy?"
"Close enough. Apparently, a while back he did a chemical analysis of the sacred herbs that gave the Panther his powers and made a synthetic version. One shot and anyone can get the power of the Black Panther."
"Side effects?"
"None. No chance of allergic reaction or rejection, and stripping out the mystical mumbo jumbo means that the so-called Panther Gods can't decide you're unworthy and take the powers away. One shot and you get peak human condition, improved neural healing, perfect coordination, superhuman sight, smell, spatial awareness, and perfect equilibrium. It won't make you as strong as the Goblin formula will, but it should play very well with the spider-like powers of your symbiote."
There was something off about his expression... It took me a second for everything to click, but I played it cool. "that's very, very tempting... But you're holding out on me, aren't you? You've got something just a little better, don't you? I'd like to see the big prize, just so that I know that I'm making an informed decision."
He laughed. "Keep an eye on this one Jack, she's a smart kid," he looked back at me. "Would you believe he never thought to ask why a random arms dealer had guns synched to the corrective sunglasses he got from a back alley doctor? Anyway... What do you know about Project Rebirth?"
"It made Captain America and not much else good," I replied. Pretty much everyone knew that.
"Did you know that there were a few... Leaks, during the war? The Germans got their hands on an incomplete version of the formula and... Experimented. In the 1950s a last remnant of the Nazis attempted to create a perfected version by combining it with elements of an alchemical concoction called the infinity formula, succeeding in creating an Imposter Captain America as well as an allegedly even stronger variant before being stopped by a SHIELD Black ops team. They then seized the research and sat on it until their collapse where some of their stuff ended up on the black market and I paid quite handsomely for those notes."
He walked back to his wall safe and tapped a brick next to it, revealing a much smaller wall safe hidden behind the masonry. He pulled out an inhaler. "Now, the notes, unfortunately, did not have an exact recipe, but it did have the incomplete SSS variant they were using and the actual recipe for the Infinity Formula. From there I was able to experiment. Jack could tell you all about SSS.2, a gaseous drug based on The Super Soldier serum that's maybe... 95% accurate, with some side effects."
He placed the inhaler down on the table in front of me. "I give you SSS.3. While obviously, it's not the same formulation that the late Professor Erskine used, I believe that this recreates the original serum's effects with 100% accuracy. Peak human physical and mental attributes, including photographic memory and rapid learning. Perfect metabolism, perfect immunity, epigenetic manipulation affecting gene expression for optimal biological functions, genetic rewrites removing all flawed code from your DNA, any heavy metals, microplastics, or other nonmetabolizable toxins built up in your body will be flushed, and your cellular processes will be so perfect and efficient that you'll become for all intents and purposes eternally youthful." He was smiling at me now. "Very expensive to make, only for the most valued and discerning of customers, but I like you so... Oh before I forget, preliminary testing suggests that it combines readily with other enhancements if you decide to be a repeat customer. What do you say?"
"Side effects," I repeated.
"None."
"...I don't know," I began, playing a bit hard to get, "Mister Fisk is being awfully generous in paying for this. I wouldn't want to take advantage... You said this was expensive, could you ballpark that compared to the other stuff?"
"Tell you what," he said, "I'll bundle it with the same regeneration formula and coordination serum I gave Jack way back when. Under that alien costume, you'll be Underworld 2.0, and I'll put a sizable discount on the whole package."
I looked to the Underworld, and he got my meaning. "The regeneration formula is the good stuff, but the coordination serum fucks with your vision."
I nodded, then turned back to the Consultant. "Swap out the coordination serum with a hit of that panther shot and you've got a deal."
"You drive a hard bargain, kid," he said. We shook on it and then... The next bit was weird. He loaded the needles for the panther serum and the regeneration formula into a needle gun and shot them both into my arm at the same time as I took a deep puff from the inhaler that the SSS.3 was in...
It felt... I don't have the words to describe it. It was pleasant, but it was also weird... Like my whole body was being rebuilt from scratch. I should have been in pain, but I wasn't... And my symbiote? It was having one hell of a reaction to the drugs.
The whole process maybe took 20 seconds, but it felt longer while it was happening. You'd think that the sharper senses, the fact that every neuron in my brain was firing at triple time, that I was taller, that I was fitter, would take time to get used to but... No. It was weird, but by the time it was over I felt like a million bucks... Which honestly probably wasn't even a fraction of what that going to cost Fisk.
Speak of the devil, as The Consultant was disposing of the needles he said "I'll be sending Mister Fisk an itemized bill... But while you're here, Jack, it's been over a decade, Those guns probably need a tune-up."
"Nah," Underworld said as he pulled one of them out, "had The Tinkerer take a look at them a while back. He even jailbroke them for me."
The Consultant was gobsmacked. "...What?"
Underworld pulled the trigger and the bullet flew out, changing direction in mid-air to ram through the Consultant's chest. As he fell to the floor, Underworld double-tapped, spreading his brains across the ground.
Then he spat on the corpse.
"I want to thank you, kid. I've been wanting to do that for years. When Fisk decided to use you as an excuse to finally take this bastard down I jumped at the chance."
"So, when he said that money was no object..."
"He never intended to pay him in the first place. Sorry about the deception, but someone as green as you would have given it away if you knew."
I felt like I was going to be sick, which Underworld seemed to recognize.
"Don't look at me like that," he said, "I gave you a chance to back out. Now you're an accomplice. If you want anything else he showed you, take it now. Some of Fisk's people will be here to take over in an hour. Oh, and before I forget," he reached into his coat and pulled out a smartphone which he handed to me. "Fisk will be in touch."