The ground was still smoking from the smoldering fires in the rubble. There was the smell of burnt meat in the air, not entirely unpleasant, sickening in its implication. Helicopters flew over the sunken hole that was Pittsdown, New Jersey. A camera crew flew in low, trying to get the best footage of the devastation. “Come in low, Connor. I want to get a good shot of this,” said the cameraman. “What do you think happened, Kirk?” the pilot replied. The cameraman grew somber. “I don't know. I don't even want to think about it. I just want to get some pictures. Can you get us any lower?” “It's the smoke from the fires. They're causing all kinds of thermal weirdness. Not to mention messing up the visibility.” “Hey, Connor, did you see that?” “What? Where?” “Guide us in over there.” “Over where?” “I thinks it's a playground. I see swings.” “It used to be a playground.” “Yeah, I guess you're right…” “Connor, Connor! Pull up! Man, for God's sake, pull--” SKREE! ---
The pilot's transmission was being monitored by another aircraft in the vicinity. Like the downed copter, it too was unauthorized. Like the military craft on the way, it too was armed. What made the aircraft special was its contents. Its passengers. Five very special people, whose only tie to each other is because they all owed favors to one man: Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern now known as Sentinel. The destruction of Pittsdown, New Jersey, a still-populous city that had seen better times, was enough for GL to call in his chits and assemble this team of heroes. Sentinel did not accompany them, but he was at least aware of the possibility that what they were witnessing was caused by metahuman activity. Now that the assemblage heard the pilot's transmission, the feeling was reinforced. “Alright ladies." Colonel Bravo growled over the intercom. “It'd time for you to earn yer livin'!” “Hard to say we're earning a living, when we're doing this for nothing," snarled under his breath. “Hey, it's not for nothing. Far as I understand, GL loaned you the use of a government aircraft so you can reach your orbiting satellite, DOCC. That couldn't have come cheap. You some kind of deadbeat doesn't like to repay his debts?” He started to get a rise out of Jon Prophet, but just then Colonel Bravo exited the pilot's cabin and headed back towards them. Like a classroom when the students see the teacher returning, the students slowly recomposed themselves and sat back down in their seats. Bravo looked at Prophet, who was sulking, and at Link, who had a mischievous look on his face. Colonel Bravo pointed at Link. “Don't think I don't know what you've been up to, Link.” He pointed at the intercom. “That was still on. I could hear everything.” Turning to Prophet, he said: “Don't mind Link. He charges up his batteries by feeding off of people's emotions --' “Like some kind of spiritual vampire,” Prophet said, in a voice dripping with venom. Bravo nodded and said sharply “Right on the money.” Addressing the rest of the troops: “Anyway, ladies. It's just about time to saddle up. Get your gear and get it in order. Frenchie is going to bring us down low over where we lost the camera crew. We have GPS coordinates and a good idea of altitude. The good news is, we've run all kinds of preliminary tests, and the area doesn't seem contaminated in any way - nuclear, biological, chemical.” “So what on God's green Earth did cause that thing?” Prophet wondered aloud. “That's your job to find out, isn't it sweetheart?” Commander Bravo said. Iron Fist commented under his breath. "I don't see why he has to continue to be insulting. In K'un Lun, we were taught to speak to each other with respect, even to our enemies. Our leaders most of all. It was a mark of a poor leadership to be rude.” Colonel Bravo rounded on Iron Fist. Speaking through clenched teeth,
he said “Well, I'm rude and worse than rude. Out here, leadership
is earned, not passed along like pretty belts in some kung fu tournament.
Out here in the real world, teamwork is a valued commodity. In order for
a team to work, egos have to be subsumed for the greater good. Now draw
your own conclusions.” Colonel Bravo stood up and addressed the rest of
the motley crew “Any other questions, sweethearts? Good. Now get ready
to jump. Go go go!”
Rusty? Yes, Harleen? Where are we? In the black. What happened? Why can't I see them? And Rusty? Yes, Harleen? What is that noise? You mean the helicopter? Yes. Aiiee! What happened?! There was a bright light. When it touched me, it burned me. Why did it burn me, Rusty, why? Because you are of the darkness now, Harleen. There, I have thrown something at the light to shut it off. Rusty? Yes, Harleen? Something has happened, hasn't it? Something bad. Something terrible. Something big. … Rusty? Yes, Harleen? We're not alone in here, are we? No, Harleen. There are many, many more in here now.
Frenchie brought the plane in low. Link used his psi-powers to slow his fall as he leapt without a parachute from the aircraft. Colonel Bravo flew down in some sort of machine that looked like a cross between a rocket sled and skis. Iron Fist, Prophet and Spider-man all used parachutes to land amid the smoking rubble that was all that remained of the small New Jersey city of Pittsdown. Spider-man thought it mildly ironic that they were all going through this trouble to help the camera crew, who, coincidentally enough (he was sure), also happened to work for Alan Scott's Sentinel Enterprises, who stood to have some original footage and a hell of a story on their hands as a result of this incident. Still, each of them owed Alan Scott a favor and he had called it in, making mercenaries of the lot of them. Some part of Spidey's mind was titillated. He knew, for instance, that Prophet had had to stand in for Colonel Bravo on a mission that teamed him up with Chapel in the employ of the government *. That begs the question of course, of what Colonel Bravo was doing for Scott that Scott didn't want him disturbed? *: See Prophet/Chapel mini-series. This is why "Agent Bravo" doesn't show up in the miniseries, even though the President calls for him. And what was the deal with Iron Fist? In the past few hours, Peter had decided it was unsafe to revert to his Peter Parker persona with Iron Fist apparently convinced that it was Parker who was snooping around his life and who tried to kill him *. Peter had spent the last few hours trying to get more information from Iron Fist, with little success. Finally, Spider-man went to Danny Rand's ** mentor, Alan Scott, and asked Scott to help him get to the bottom of who was attempting to frame Peter Parker, and why. *: Last issue, and Heroes For Hire #0
Peter snapped out of it when he heard one of his teammates yell “there's something moving under the rubble!” There was something. Something huge. It rose up out of the rubble with skin the color of a corpse, a ravaged face, long hair and wrapped in chains. The creature looked male, but it was so heavily muscled its sex was indeterminate. Its eyes had no whites and its face was noseless. Link was the first to approach the creature, but we could all see immediately that Link was in trouble. The creature from “the Pitts” made as if it was bellowing, but although they could see its neck muscles bulging, none of them could hear its scream, except for Link. Link grabbed his ears, then his head, then fell to his knees and crumbled like the walls of Jericho. Colonel Bravo expressed it best when he said “Holy Sh--” “We've just been attacking it,” Prophet said, as he slowly approached the creature, "...perhaps a more reasoned approach --” The Colonel took his glider airborne again. This time, they could hear the glider's weapons being armed for battle. The Colonel circled the creature, and they could see round after round of the Colonel's high-powered slugs slamming into the creature. The first few rounds seemed to affect the creature badly, and it looked to be no contest, but then an odd transformation began. It almost looked like the creature took some of the raw materials from the rubble and grew a second, harder shell around itself to repel the colonel's bullets. Astounded and caught off-balance by the transformation, the Colonel swung too close to the Pitt. The Pitt-creature swung both overgrown powerful arms in an arc and caught the Colonel between them. The Colonel fell like a clipped pigeon. The sound that the gliders made was like motorboat engine backfiring. The disheartening thud of the Colonel as he fell to Earth was like a sack of bowling balls dropped from the top of a ladder. Spider-man rushed to help Link and Colonel Bravo. Iron Fist and Prophet went forward to meet the beast from the Pitt. IRON FIST: Shall we fight him individually, or as a pair? PROPHET: Who says we should fight him at all? IRON FIST: What do you mean? PROPHET: Let's see what he does first. All we've done from the beginning is attack him. There's no reason to believe it's violent. IRON FIST: Hey-- John, is it? Your name's John, right? PROPHET: Yes? IRON FIST: Hey, John? Duck! PROPHET: Yow! IRON FIST: Hey, John, does trying to club you to death with those huge fists of his qualify as “violent”? PROPHET: Yes, Daniel. It does. (smiling) I could learn to hate you very easily, you know? IRON FIST (smiling) I know. PROPHET: Now let's kick this brute's ass. IRON FIST: Let's. Pitt was huge, about fifteen feet tall, but wide as a tree trunk all around. Prophet was the closest to the Pitt, so he drew his sword and came nearer. Prophet looked into the oily darkness of Pitt's eyes and he felt like he was floating a pool of crude unrefined oil. A staining, sludgy darkness that made him feel dirty. Prophet had a momentary vision. He felt like he was fighting one man, a sickly, old drunkard lost in his cups and disappointed by life. But behind that man, somehow fused together and joined with him, were a thousand dollar souls, whose mass and substance, along with the town's own, somehow combined to make the gestalt which was beginning to coalesce under the identity of “Pitt”. Prophet sensed two greater combatants behind all the others, but then the creature's massive fist was around his neck and he didn't have much time for philosophizing at all. Iron Fist had attempted to flank the creature and attack from its unprotected side, but the creature grabbed Iron Fist with his other freehand and shook him continuously, and viciously. Peter Parker moved the bodies of Link and Colonel Bravo aside. They were for the most part okay, but his other two teammates looked to be getting into worse shape if he didn't do something soon. He stepped onto the glider and made for the Pitt. Peter was lighter and far more agile than Colonel Bravo, so he was able to bring the glider into the monster up close and fire without harming Prophet or Iron Fist. John Prophet managed to free one arm and was hacking at the creature's arm, while Iron Fist looked to have lapsed into near-catatonia. Spider-man turned around and made a sharp turn into Pitt's exposed face. Pitt roared with the combined voice of a thousand dead Pittsdown residents and dropped his two captives. Prophet leapt back agilely, while Iron Fist stayed where he was, looking at the creature intently, and mumbling to himself. Colonel Bravo recovered himself enough to lob a couple of grenades at the right side of Pitt, which seemed to distract him from Iron Fist, but Danny Rand himself made no attempt to get to safety. Spider-man swung the glider around “Hey Danny! Beat I, man, we got the creature on the ropes --” But just as Spider-man said that, he swwung too close to an elbow and he came crashing down. Luckily, Danny Rand chose that moment to snap out of his camera and position himself so as to catch Peter falling. “Well, it's about time you snapped out of your coma,” your friendly neighborhood Peter Parker said. “I wasn't in a coma” “You were certainly distracted,” “I wasn't distracted,” Iron Fist/Danny Rand corrected. Well, let me put it this way,” Spider-man said, huddling conspiratorially closer to iron Fist. “You soitanly wasn't da BEST conversationalist I evah hoid for a moment dere, you knows what I mean?” “I was calling up the power of the iron fist as a precursor to summoning up the dragon,” Iron Fist brushed Spider-man off. “'Summoning up the dragon' -- is that like 'spanking the monkey'? or 'choking the chicken'? Or more like 'pulling the potato', or perhaps 'stretching the bacon'? Just wondering, you know?” Spider-man said to Iron Fist's retreating back. Peter saw Iron Fist approach Pitt -- then just stood there. The two of them looked at each other for a minute -- then Pitt advanced. Iron Fist was still outside of the creature's immediate reach, but not by much. Spider-man saw his teammate assume a martial arts stance, his body perpendicular to his opponent, to present a smaller target, left arm up in an L shape to protect his body, right fist drawn back and ready to propel forward at the most opportune moment. As Spider-man looked, he could see another odd transformation taking place. Danny Rand's right fist began to change color. It looked like it was catching fire, like it was a piece of metal growing red-hot in some unseen forge. Was this what Danny meant when he talked about 'calling up the power of the iron fist'? If so, Spidey couldn't wait to see what 'summoning up the dragon' might mean. Danny Rand's fist shot forward in a devastating punch delivered in an arc underneath the monster's descending fists. Using his smaller size to his advantage, the K'un Lun Kid shot upwards like a green and yellow rocket to deliver another powerful punch, this time to Pitt's chin. The creature staggered back, then delivered another one of those psychic scream-hollers. Iron Fist didn't lose his focus, however. Spider-man saw him rolling along the floor, avoiding the giant's pummeling fists, then run up Pitt's arm and let out a scream of his own -- right in Pitt's left ear, while he delivered another one of those glowing clips to Pitt's jaw. Pitt reared back, and threw Danny Rand off him. Iron Fist's ceremonial garb was in tatters. As Spider-man rushed forward to try and help him somehow, he could see that Danny Rand had a dragon symbol on his chest. Part of it looked like a tattoo, but the tattoo couldn't disguise the fact that there was a massive sear mark on Danny's chest. The scar tissue was swollen and ugly in the exposed daylight and Spidey felt his first rush of pity for his proud -- and powerful -- little friend. Peter was powerless now, the result of an antidote to his latest transformation which seemed to have worked too well, so he wasn't sure what he would be able to do against the creature, but if these were his last moments on Earth, he still intended on acting no less the hero than he ever was. Even with normal human power, there is always normal human responsibility. The responsibility to act well towards your fellow being. Luckily, it didn't come down to it being his last moments on Earth, as, just then, a pink ray shot out and red bands encircled the creature. “Never fear, the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak should be enough to hold this loathsome beast.” Pitt struggled for a moment, but then a green set of bands encircled him as well. “Here's a little insurance, just in case.” Finally, a golden light bathed the creature from the Pitt, and a moment later, he was unconscious. Spider-man turned around to witness a motley collection of beings, each more powerful than the last. He thought, but didn't say: wow! What he did say was: “So, I take it you guys are the cavalry?”
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