An underground archive.
A few moments later.
The last of the vampire minions fell to Eric’s blade, leaving the rest of the corridor free for him to charge forward. He rushed the last few tens of meters, ascending a stone ramp at a full sprint. At the last moment Eric leaped forward, entering another circular amphitheater with a charging flip.
Deacon Frost waited in the arena, sword ready, and the ringing of the two combatants' blades meeting echoed through the empty room. His denim jacket was open, revealing the bare chest below. His vampiric red eyes glowed and fangs bared, while blood stained the right side of his face, acting as a rather effective hair gel for at least half of his head. The rest of his head would not be outdone, and had the lightly moussed ‘messy’ look popular for the tech-bro types.
Behind Eric, a man wearing flannel pajama pants and flip flops sauntered into the room with a flip phone on his ear.
“Hello Dear,” the young man said as he entered, “Yes, I know it’s late… sorry… but I… no dear, I’m very sorry. Yes dear, I know what you probably expected from a call at this hour while I’m on a mission, but…”
Eric shook his head and shrugged his shoulders while Frost looked on with a disdainful smile at his foe. Eric attacked, and Frost met the strike with a casual parry. What followed was a master class in fencing... for what not to do. Eric began with a flurry of slashes, varying only in the body part targeted, that were parried with ease by Frost. Frost answered with a single slash at Eric's head, which Eric ducked below almost effortlessly, and Eric followed with a vertical slash to Frost's head that Frost sidestepped just as casually.
“Sorry love…” Greg continued while the two men flailed with their blades, “Some very inconsiderate people are banging sharp pieces of metal at each other, you’ll have to speak up.”
An orange haired woman wearing a trenchcoat and a shorter woman in pink spandex strolled into the room afterwards, followed by a rather confused and frightened hematologist.
The two duelists blades were caught in a bind, and Frost grinned manically at his opponent as the two pushed off. Eric backed off to recover, and Frost spun as he reentered engagement range, bringing his sword around in a slash to Eric’s torso. Eric blocked the attack and moved his sword into a reverse grip in his left hand. He sent a telegraphed roundhouse kick at his opponent’s head, which Frost dodged by leaning backwards, and then… moved the sword back into his right hand with a normal grip.
“Wow,” Gwen said while looking on at the two ‘fencers’, “You can really tell Bob is sick of this scene, even the narrative is snarky now.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Bob just went home,” Elsa said while giving her companion a skeptical look. “But I mean, just look at ‘em. No thrusts, no feints… they’re parrying exclusively with the edge of the blade with no attempt at redirecting the attacks or riposting… and all the jumping and spinning… It's like someone gave a bunch of circus performers a sword, said ‘this is the sharp bit you hit the other bloke with’, and set them loose.
Speaking of spinny attacks, Eric slashed at Frost, which the vampire dodged by pirouetting around him, using the momentum to allow the force to enhance his slash… and leaving himself completely open for a quick thrust… which Eric completely failed to capitalize on by joining his opponent in his own spinning dodge/slash. Frost ducked as the two dancers ended their maneuver into another spinning slash at Eric’s legs… because of course he did… and Eric leapt into the air to avoid it without bothering to bring his own blade down on his opponent’s completely exposed head.
“Alright dear,” Greg continued, his voice now sufficiently chastened, “Now that we’ve established that I’m a horribly inconsiderate boyfriend… yes dear… not dear I’m not dismissing your concerns… oh, I see how this is, you’re putting one on… haha dear… yes dear you can stop giggling now, I really have an important question for you.”
What followed was a rapid exchange where the two men held their swords at eye level and smashed them together over and over… with no chance of any of the attacks ever hitting their opponent, parried or not.
“So, about that theory you had about the summoning contract,” Greg shouted over the din while holding his finger against his free ear, “Let’s say, hypothetically, that the contracted target views a certain sentient being as already being dead…”
The series of blows suddenly came to an end as Eric finally aimed for something other than the easily parried torso or head, and Frost’s sword hand was severed. The fight paused for a moment as the limb flew off to the side, crumbling to ash before it hit the ground.
“Right,” Greg nodded as he answered, “Then the whole exercise of killing them is more akin to moderately dangerous corpse disposal than killing a sentient being… exactly dear.”
Eric spun as Frost struggled to register the wound, bringing his blade in a circular slash with the spin, and put enough force into the strike to cleave Frost in two at the waist. The force of the blow was so great, that it not only cut cleanly through skin, muscle and the man’s spine, but sent his torso flying upward from his body.
“Whatever about the swordplay,” Gwen said to her bored companion, “but you have to admit that was pretty cool. I mean, he cut right through the guy.”
“I mean, it was reasonably impressive,” Elsa answered with a nod, “You would have to be bloody strong, and your blade impossibly sharp, to pull off a stunt like that. Not sure how he managed it with all of the edge-on parrying they were doing… but I suppose the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak.”
Eric turned his back on his opponent as thick blood trailed between the two parts, rather than the entrails that would normally be expected. The blood moved more like an elastic than liquid, and quickly pulled the two pieces back together.
“Oh gross,” Gwen gagged slightly as she responded to her friend, “Did you have to mention pudding? I already felt a little revulsion for the stuff because of Cosby… but now?”
“Wait, what the bloody hell is wrong with Bill Cosby? He’s America’s dad, isn’t he?”
“Oh, honey,” Gwen’s voice grew conciliatory, “I forgot what year this fic was set in. Enjoy the blissful ignorance while you can. The next decade is going to kill your childhood.”
Frost grunted as the two pieces of his body stitched themselves back together in a shower of gore. Eric’s eyes were covered by his narrow sunglasses, but his eyebrows rose up as he watched his opponent heal from a wound that should have turned him into a pile of ash.
“What the fuck,” said Eric.
“Thank you dear,” said Gregory.
“Bloody brilliant,” said Elsa.
“Nailed it,” said Gwen.
“Mrowgl,” said Jeff (though he was back at the apartment with Jean, so he likely said that in response to Jean tickling his adorable white belly rather than for anything that was happening in this location).
“You’re too late Blade,” Frost rasped with a grin as his hand reconstituted itself from a pulsating glob of blood that extended from his severed forearm.
Eric turned back and moved into a single-handed cartwheel kick that struck the recovering Frost on the head, and followed up with a flurry of quick slashes with his blade. Frost dodged most of the attacks, with those he allowed through healing nearly instantly. The vampire reached in to grab Eric, but pulled his hand back before it was severed, allowing the hunter to put some distance between them.
“My turn,” Frost said with undisguised glee as his body moved with such speed that he became a blur to the onlookers, signifying without a doubt that he had been toying with his opponent the whole time… which, honestly, makes a lot more sense than him having decades or possibly centuries of time to learn how to fence and then being incredibly bad at it.
“Good night, dear,” Greg said into his phone with a hint of finality, “I love you… no, I love you more. Ok, dear, I really have to go now. Thank you, love.”
The blurred form zig zagged back and forth around the circular arena, making it difficult, if not impossible to track the vampire’s movements. In an instant, Frost’s form appeared in front of Eric, and the man thrust his palm into the vampire hunter’s chest, sending him flying backward.
“Right,” Elsa said with a nod, took a step forward and pulled a shotgun out of its harness on her back, “Looks like this is going to take a bit of teamwork.”
“Sweet,” yelled Gwen as she pulled her fist into a victory pose, “Boss fight time!”
“Goodbye dear,” said Greg as he snapped his phone closed and looked at Frost before continuing, “Oh, you’re still here? Boring.”
Greg snapped his fingers and two rune ringed circles appeared, one after the other in rapid succession. The first conjured four blades of force that intersected with the vampire, causing a rather gory scene reminiscent of the first time Frost was bisected, but with more pieces this time. The second did nothing visually, but the gory mess attempting to stitch Frost back together began to rapidly turn to a sickly greenish brown color.
The pulsing blood pulling the body back together rapidly solidified, and streams of gore turned into brown crusty scabs over the course of a few seconds. Frost struggled as the streams coagulated, his eyes resting firmly on Gregory as the young man put his phone back into his pocket. When all of the visible blood scabbed over, the brown tint rapidly spread over his visible skin until the vampire was a singular, messy, crusty scab with several vague features that could be said to resemble a surprised tech-bro.
“Gross,” Gregory said as he rifled through the ripped up remains of Frost’s open shirt, and pulled Elsa’s bloodstone necklace out of one of the pockets.
Eric Brooks stood up, dusted himself off, looked at Frost’s remains, and turned to Gregory before speaking.
“Some motherfuckers always tryin’ to ice skate uphill.”
The silence and flat stares that followed lasted for a good thirty seconds.
“What,” said Eric, “I always wanted to use that line. You just killed him before I could say it. It’s good, right?”
“Anyway,” Greg said as he tossed the choker to Elsa, “That contract is fulfilled. Elsa, how do you feel about signing another?”
“Wait,” Gwen interrupted, breaking free from the shock caused by the anticlimactic defeat, “Like, I was sure we were gearing up for an epic boss fight. Like, no way the author would pull that kind of bait and switch. What the hell did you do Greg?”
“What? Sorry, I thought it was obvious, I just used magic to replicate the natural Thrombin supply that was already in his blood, causing a cascading blood clot effect,” Greg answered, then turned to Elsa, “I need you to ask me to help you wipe out the vampires on the east coast.”
“I mean, sounds like a bloody good time,” Elsa said, “But what’s in it for you?”
“Good point,” Greg answered and pulled his hand to his chin in thought, “It’ll need to be something that you value about as equally as the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands, of vampires. That shiny pebble over there should do.”
An Underground Facility in an Undisclosed Location
About a week afterwards.
A tall woman with model perfect features, wearing a perfectly laundered pencil skirt suit, sipped coffee from her pink ‘Girlboss’ mug as she stared at a large plasma screen in an empty situation room.
The screen showed a map of the eastern seaboard of the United States. Each of the ten major cities was depicted, and each had a blood-red dot somewhere near the city. There were several additional red dots located in areas that would not otherwise be identified as ‘major,’ but had a significant population nonetheless.
Approximately 75% of those red dots had been crossed off by a black whiteboard marker in the woman’s hand. The woman looked at a report on a nearby desk, shook her head, and crossed off another dot.
“Hill,” yelled an annoyed male voice from the hallway. A stern-looking African American man with an eyepatch stepped into view. “Who the hell archived all of the info we had on the vampire covens on the east coast? Do we have a data breach?”
“That was the Seere heir, Director,” Hill responded quietly, “Our agents confirmed seeing him and an unknown woman at the scene of at least two locations. The rest were found to be empty well after the fact, with nothing but corpse ash and burned clothing from hundreds of vampires.”
“The kid,” Fury snapped. “I thought Agent Morse had the little billionaire spawn under control? What the hell are my agents doing out there, Hill?”
“That’s not all, sir,” Hill responded, shaking her head. She turned to another desk and picked up a file before handing it to the director, “This was a report from our financial analysts. Those vampire covens were sitting on some serious real estate holdings… and all of them were leveraged. This could cause a cascade effect over the next few months. We’re looking at a possible housing market collapse.”
“We’ve been predicting that for years,” Fury scoffed, “I guess all it took was one swift kick in the ass. Still, our agents need to be able to manage our assets better…”
“It’s not all bad, sir,” Hill interrupted, using a remote control to show a series of disturbing pictures on the screen. Rows of plastic bags with vague human figures were shown in picture after picture, each with a series of tubes connected to them. “Quite a few of these covens were keeping ‘blood farms’. It’s something we suspected, but every time we tried to set up a raid, the vampires would close up shop and move on. Our agents suspect the bloodsuckers had connections with local authorities.”
“Well gott damn,” Fury said, shocked at the sheer callousness of the vampires. “Still, the Kid should have cleared this with us before acting. This is the kind of shit that causes mass panic if it gets out.”
“Right sir, we have agents doing damage control now. There were a few leaked photos, but we were able to intercept them before they became public.”
“Fine,” Fury said, mollified, “but the principle stands. If Agent Morse can’t keep this kid under control, I’m going to need to talk to the idiot myself.”
Without waiting for a reply, Fury stomped off out of the office. He walked through a long, windowless corridor lit only by fluorescent bulbs before stopping at a wooden door with the words 'Nicholas J Fury, Director' stenciled at eye level. Fury looked at the label with pride, as he pushed open the door into his unlit office. Darkness met Fury as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.
“Gottdammit,” said Fury as he fumbled for the lightswitch, “I thought I left these motherfuckin’ lights on. Why the hell we don’t install motion sensors in an underground bunker is beyond me.”
Nick finally found the light and turned to his desk. He was met with the sight of the back of his chair, which quickly swung around to face him. Sitting in the chair was a handsome young man with dark brown hair and steel grey eyes, with a well built form apparent from the tank top he was wearing.
“Director Fury,” the man said as he stood, revealing the flannel pajamas below his waist, “I’d like to talk to you about the Revenger initiative.”
“Gott-dammit.”
A familiar apartment.
The next morning.
Gregory sat at the breakfast bar in his apartment in his standard pajamas and white tank top. The door slammed open, and a petite young woman wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket stormed into the room. She ripped her coat off, tossed it carelessly onto the couch, and then slammed the apartment door behind her.
By the time the door was shut, Spot, her therapy cat (though that description is more redundant than most), was already attempting to crawl up her leg. The girl picked up the animal, buried her face in its fur, and plopped heavily onto the beanbag chair in the corner.
“Good morning Jess,” Greg called out when the storm had ended, “I’m guessing the visit with your adoptive family went well?”
“Don’t even get me started,” answered Jess in the way that nearly always indicates that the person is, in fact, about to get started. “I spent the first three days of the visit explaining to my ‘mother’ that my job was being your bodyguard, not your personal assistant, and that I couldn’t schedule a date with her daughter.”
Jess growled in frustration as she buried her face in the fuzzy white fur of the otherwise black cat’s belly. Greg wisely sipped his coffee instead of speaking.
“The next two days,” Jess continued once she’d released her frustration into the bundle of fuzz in her arms, “were spent keeping Dorothy from trying to unlock my phone so that she could find your number. If you get a call at your office from someone pretending to work for People magazine or something, don’t give them your cell number.
“God, I should have never told that… person,” Jess spat out the word as if she had originally meant to use another word in its place, “that I was working for a rich guy. I just… she was so dismissive when I showed up, asked me if I was ‘off having an affair’. When I told her I was literally kidnapped, she scoffed at me… asked me if I led the guy on somehow.”
Jess sighed heavily and squeezed her cat to her chest.
“I just wanted to tell her off,” she continued. “Show her that I was better than her. That I had my shit together, unlike her, and that I didn’t need her ‘charity’ anymore. Well that was a fucking mistake. She immediately changed from ‘dismissive bitch’ to ‘circling hawk’. I don’t even know why I went back there.”
Greg sipped his coffee until he was sure Jess had said her piece.
“Well,” Greg said, putting his mug down, “You don’t have to go back there ever again if you don’t want to. Toxic people like that should be purged from your life. Was your visit with your adoptive sister worth the trouble at least?”
“Trish was… fine, I suppose,” Jess responded unenthusiastically, “She’s at least stopped drinking Dorothy’s Kool-Aid, so there’s that. I love her dearly, but… she kept poking me… like, not physically, but like… she kept making not so subtle references to my powers, trying to get me to do stuff. At one point she dropped a heavy pan near me… like she was trying to see if I could catch it. I did, of course, and she just stared at me. She didn't even say sorry.”
Jess set Spot up on her lap and started petting the ungrateful animal. Her face shifted as thoughts played through her mind, and after a few moments she continued.
“There were other things too,” Jess said, “She asked me weird questions, a few about some strange drugs that are going around, a few about the doctor that saved me after the accident. You might think it sounds crazy, but I think she’s jealous or something. I don’t know what happened to her while I was gone, but she’s… scared, I think.”
“It’s strange,” Jess shook her head in confusion, “I think she has a new boyfriend or something, and I think it might be him that she’s afraid of. It doesn’t make sense though, because she talks about him like he’s perfect. I met the guy, Daimon or something trendy like that, he seemed… fine, but I just get a weird feeling, you know?”
Jess shook her head and stood up in a rush, dumping Spot to the ground in her haste. She walked slowly over to the breakfast bar on the other side of the Studio.
“I don’t want to talk about that,”Jess started as she approached, “That’s not why I’m here. I came to say thank you. It’s been like, nearly a year and I’ve been avoiding anything deeper than a casual conversation with you. I hope you realize why, and that it wasn’t because of you.”
“Jess,” Greg sighed and turned on his stool to face the girl, “You don’t have to say anything. I barely helped. You summoned me, everything afterward was just me scrambling to help in a situation where I was deeply out of my league, or following the instructions of my amazing telepathic girlfriend. We’re good.”
“No, that’s not good enough,” Jess shook her head and moved in to take the sitting man into an awkward hug, “I was in the worst kind of dark place imaginable. You not only took me out of that place when I couldn’t even ask for help, you helped me get closure, and you and Jean made sure the asshole would never hurt anyone again.”
Greg sighed and allowed Jess to pull him in close, though his body remained tense and awkward.
“You gave me a place to live,” Jess continued, “Gave me a job, a place to feel at home. Sure, a lot of that was Jean, but you helped just as much. I told Jean how grateful I was months ago, I just… you’re a guy, it was really hard for me to be alone around you after… him, you know?”
Greg sighed once again, and stood to make the hug a little less awkward, pulling the small girl into his arms.
“It’s fine Jess, I already knew how you felt. It’s nice to hear you finally say it though.”
The two stood there for a while, just basking in the warmth of their friendship.
“I’m still not going to sleep with you,” said Jess.
“Oh thank the Old Man,” sighed Greg, as the tension drained from his face, “I thought Jean had put you up to this.”