City of Chaos #3

THE MARVEL KNIGHTS GROUP
PROUDLY PRESENTS...

ISSUE #3 written by D. Golightly

“Feel the fear. Feel the angst rise up and squash all your hopes!”

A wave of first euphoria, then numbing nervousness, washed over the red-garbed street vigilante known to his enemies as Daredevil. For someone whose vision had been ripped from him years ago, he seldom knew what it was to feel the fear of normal men. In truth, he was dubbed the Man Without Fear, as it was commonplace for him to charge into danger without cause or care. Still, he was calculated, as a trained and disciplined man must be. That intense control over his body and character was probably all that staved off the nearly overwhelming, chemical induced fear that gripped him.

For the first time in years, Daredevil was scared of his enemy.

The Scarecrow, a psychotic criminal of the worst kind, cackled in delight as he watched the emotions of his prey tangle. To him it was like a visual feeding frenzy. The doctors at Arkham Asylum had long ago given up on his recuperation; after all, he was one of them, trained in the same methods of analysis. There was no way for them to break through his psyche that he wouldn’t anticipate.

The straw poking out of his grotesque crumpled mask would have added to Daredevil’s misery, had the hero been about to see. His eyes, if they worked as they were supposed to, would contort the face of the Scarecrow until it nearly drove him mad.

As it was, the aerosol that the Scarecrow had sprayed Daredevil with in all of the tumbling confusion had taken an entirely different effect on the Man Without Fear. Daredevil’s senses had shifted upon his loss of sight. His sense of touch, for instance, could now feel the raised ink on a newspaper. Now that the Scarecrow’s fear toxins had infested his system, the path to their usual target, the eyes, had been diverted to the other working senses. Now, Daredevil was in all altogether different kind of personal Hell than the Scarecrow’s other victims.

“What does it feel like?” the Scarecrow said as he drove his knee into Daredevil’s face where he crouched in agony. “You must tell me. Consider this an…experiment.”

The Scarecrow landed a punch on the upset Daredevil, made an easy target by his incapacitation. Normally Daredevil would have fought back, but as it was the very intense and very real crawling scarabs all over his body had shocked him into submission.

While Daredevil’s mental battleground proved difficult to find a victory in, their physical one was proving almost as difficult to secure a win. Only moments after being divided amongst the portals, the villains had trounced their respective heroes. The element of surprise, coupled with their unease from having performed a ritual guided by the Doctors, had given the villains a leg up on their opponents. Daredevil had been brought to his knees by the Scarecrow in the courtyard of Doctor Strange’s estate, where the portal had spit them out, while the archer Green Arrow was across the grassy lawn with a problem all his own.

“Stand still, you blasted Frenchie!” said Oliver Queen, the masked Green Arrow. Drawing another arrow from his quiver, he quickly latched it onto his bowstring and let it fly, only to miss yet again as his quarry danced in avoidance.

“You Americans…” the bouncing Batroc, his prancing opponent, muttered while dodging. “You think all you have to do is point and shoot, point and shoot. Where is the skill? The style?”

The scruffy Green Arrow declined another comment or verbal retort, instead choosing to let his offense do the talking. His normal opposition was comprised of colorful characters like the one he faced now, but his practical kidnapping into this mess was having an effect on him. He had stood side by side with the world’s greatest heroes, only now he was in a world not his own.

He had been recruited in Gotham City and taken to a house unlike any he had ever seen before. There he and a hodge-podge of heroes attempted to halt the progression of merging dimensions, which he admitted was a little over his head.

Batroc slapped his right foot across Green Arrow’s chin, forcing his teeth to clatter together. “You would do better to keep focused on the fight at hand, Robin Hood,” Batroc said as he ducked underneath Green Arrow’s hastily thrown punch. “You might say your life depends on it.”

Right now, Green Arrow was having trouble thinking of anything other than how fast this Batroc character was. He was on a first name basis with the Fastest Man Alive, but this French guy moved so fluidly for being a normal human. He was uncomfortable the speed in which the fight had changed for a ranged one to a more personal encounter.

A slight breeze washed over the four of them, reminding of how there was no roof over their heads. In the courtyard of the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange’s unusual home, if they were to cease their fighting and look up they would see the inky blackness of a chaotic universe attempting to merge with a world of order. Beyond that a thin pink shield had been erected to halt the progression of the merger, although its strength was now put into question.

Daredevil screamed as the Scarecrow laughed, and Green Arrow grunted with the success of smacking the tip of his bow into Batroc’s face. A small triumph, but he would take it. With all that was happening, he simply hoped that wherever the others were, they would holding their own.

“You remind me of someone,” Spider-Man said, “but for some reason I just can’t place it.”

“Play your cards right,” Catwoman replied, “and maybe when this is done we’ll have a chance to talk it over.”

Gunfire erupted in front of them, blanketing the stone column they hid behind with ricocheting bullets. The distinctly feminine Catwoman, covered from head to toe in black leather, kneeled at the base of the pillar with her back firmly pressed against it. She held a whip taut between her fingers, ready to pounce when the opportunity came. Tumbling through the portal hadn’t been very comfortable for her, but true to form once she had come out the other side she had landed on her feet.

Spider-Man was also pressed against the pillar, but instead of letting gravity secure him to the floor, he was a foot above Catwoman, sticking to the smooth and rounded surface by the soles of his feet. “I know!” he said. “Eartha Kitt! You’re a dead ringer for Eartha Kitt!”

“Who?”

But before Spider-Man could search his mind for a smart comment, a deafening wall of sound slammed into the other side of the pillar and dislodged the top of it, forcing Spider-Man and Catwoman to vacate their hiding spot.

Spider-Man dropped down beside Catwoman, grabbed her around the waste, and fired a webline to the high ceiling. Yanking down on the tight line, while simultaneously bounding up from the floor with his increased strength, he and Catwoman found themselves launched at an angle nearly twenty feet off the floor. The column crashed in a heap below them as they sailed through the expansive foyer of the Sanctum Santorum.

The trailing gunfire nearly clipped them, but somehow sensing this, Spider-Man released the webline and the pair dropped to a balcony overhanging into the foyer above a set of wide and carpeted stairs. They ducked under the stone ledge of the balcony just in time to avoid being shot.

“Nice moves,” Catwoman purred. “But that won’t put Two-Face off for long. Trust me.”

“Two-Face? Seriously? That’s crazy corny.”

“How could you miss them?” another woman from the floor below scolded. Her voice carried well throughout the huge entrance to the good Doctor’s home, even though her powers ensured her that she needn’t ever worry about being heard. “I knew that you were just as useless as all the other men. I never should have let that magician freak talk me into this.”

“Listen, you whacked out broad.” The replying voice was darker, heavier. It sounded like he had chewed gravel and them washed it down with asphalt. Two-Face’s scarring had apparently been more than just skin deep. “The only reason I haven’t turned this Tommy gun on you is because the coin gave you a free pass. Now shut your mouth before I decide to flip again.”

“I see that Shriek is getting along swimmingly with your Mister Hyde wannabe,” Spider-Man said. “Honestly, I’m surprised that she hasn’t used her sonic powers to make the other side of his face look that messed up. Yuck. Talk about a walking nightmare.”

“Two-Face is dangerous,” Catwoman replied. “Trust me. I know from experience. Any idea where we are?”

Spider-Man cocked his head to look around. “Looks like we never left the mansion. I’d wager that the others are dispersed around the place, too.”

“Along with their crooked looking-glass counterparts.”

“Who you calling a—hold on a sec.”

Spider-Man slid around the side of the banister and stood up just enough to reach his arm over the top of the rail. With practiced precision, he pressed down on the palm button that triggered his webshooter, a device hidden beneath his red and black glove. He fired a gob of webbing, which flew straight through the air until it smacked into Shriek’s lips. The shock of being struck in the face, coupled with the momentum that a ball of webbing is sure to gain, snapped Shriek’s head back and knocked her to the floor. She grasped at her mouth, clawing at the webbing that had covered her mouth completely, although her nose was still exposed to allow her to breath.

Before he could change positions or snap off another webline, Two-Face took full advantage of the now open Spider-Man, and unleashed a hail of bullets that erupted from the fresh clip he had slapped into place. Spidey ducked back behind the banister beside Catwoman, barely saving himself. The feline female stared at him with a perturbed look on her face.

“What?” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“You mean you’re good enough to shut her up whenever you want? And you waited this long?”

“Well, to be honest, that whole Eartha Kitt line took up most of my concentration.”

Catwoman changed her look from irritated to smug. “Spider, you’re my kind of night-crawler. I hope the others are this lucky.”

“Given what I made of the dude in the bad Moon Knight getup, I doubt they’re all having this much fun.”

Frank Castle felt a disc slip out of place in his back. The pain was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the scarring he had endured years ago. Physical pain was, to the Punisher, a state of mind. It was something he had been taught early on in his Special Forces training. Disassociate the pain from the physical affects, and it’s nothing more than an irritation.

However, Frank was finding it difficult to ignore the wall his spine was being bashed against.

“I’ll make a nice stew out of your bones after you’re dead,” a putrid, green, scaly monster whispered into Frank’s ear just before he slammed the Punisher into the wall again.

Woozy and losing blood, Frank Castle fought to stay awake. This man-monster, this Killer Croc, as he had been called by the guy in the black cape, was an abomination. There was nothing human about him, except that he walked on two legs and could talk. Other than that, this Killer Croc had apparently relished in whatever act he had to partake in to earn his name.

“How much punishment can you take?” Killer Croc said with saliva dribbling out of his lips. “What say we find out?”

Before the Punisher was crushed into a flat and immovable wall once more, something round and black sliced into Killer Croc’s head. The shimmering half-circle wedged into Croc’s forehead, but Frank knew it wouldn’t kill him. He doubted it had even really hurt him.

“Ahhh!” Croc screamed. “Bats, if you can’t wait your turn, that’s fine with me!”

Killer Croc ripped the batarang out of his head and black blood poured out. Batman, also aware, mainly from experience, that the blow would barely do anything but annoy Killer Croc, lunged at the reptilian criminal. The monster’s abilities stretched passed deformity and into near imperviousness. His healing powers were quite impressive, as Batman had witnessed firsthand. The Dark Knight knew that he couldn’t hold back when it came to Killer Croc, and even though he wouldn’t use totally lethal force, there was still a greater allowance for dirty fighting here.

The Punisher slumped to the floor as Killer Croc dropped him and caught Batman mid-flight. While Killer Croc had the obvious weight advantage, Batman’s momentum was still great enough to knock the brute monster down. The pair tumbled to the wooden floor on the third floor of Doctor Strange’s mansion, wrestling for leverage.

Batman silently tangled with the monster. It was not his forte to use quips or quotes, haikus or limericks. While some of his peers found banter distracting and beneficial during a fight, Batman more closely associated those things with his enemies, who were eccentric enough to mush such childish antics into their deadly crimes.

While Killer Croc’s strength far surpassed that of Batman’s, the Dark Knight still had the edge when it came to grappling. He had trained extensively and knew how to make an opponent’s size work against him, as Killer Croc quickly realized when Batman slipped out of his grasp and placed him in a choke hold.

“Some use you are,” Killer Croc gargled between choking noises. “Owl! I’m talking to you! A little help?”

A slightly pudgy man wearing a green cloak looked over his shoulder at the downed Punisher, the aggravated Batman, and the rasping Killer Croc. His red and brown hair, feathered out like the animal of his namesake, was pressed down on the sides by the strap of his thick goggles.

“I only came to see what I might gain from entering a place like this,” the Owl said as he tucked a thick tome into his cloak. “Now that I have my prize, I think I’ll be going.”

“Owl!” Croc screamed in anger, but it was not enough to stop the criminal planner and mastermind from using the silver claw around his right wrist to smash the glass in the study. Levitating off the ground, the Owl mock saluted Killer Croc as he whisked himself away out of the manor, stealing a mysterious and ancient book.

The Owl had only accepted the proposition to come against the gathered heroes because of where their destination had lain. Leland Owsley wasn’t stupid; like his namesake he was wise and cunning. His plan all along had been to dislodge himself of the other ‘villains’ as soon as possible once inside the Sanctum Sanctorum and then find something of value.

What he had stumbled upon, there in the third floor study of Doctor Strange, was a tome that would help him change the world forever in his favor. With the collection of heroes stuck inside Strange’s house, he would have plenty of time to research the book and learn its secrets for his own benefit.

Of course, that left Killer Croc alone to fight Batman, which typically wouldn’t have worried the monster. “Piece of…doesn’t matter.”

Killer Croc took in a deep breath and enlarged his chest, holding the air in. This gave him enough leverage to loosen Batman’s grip, which he took full advantage of. Grabbing the Dark Knight’s wrists, he flung the vigilante off his back and into a book case on the far wall. He followed the move up with a vicious and snarling roar, baring his teeth for the hero to see.

“The bigger they are…” the forgotten Frank Castle muttered.

Killer Croc looked down beside him where the Punisher sat, just in time to see his leg kick out and slam into his own knee. Croc buckled under the hit; no amount of strength would refrain his knee joint from giving out. It was a cheap hit, but one that the Punisher was not above taking.

“Son of a—”

“Uh-uh,” Frank said as drying blood flecked off of his lips. He leveled the barrel of his Magnum, which had up until this point been resting in his shoulder holster, at Killer Croc’s face and squeezed the trigger. The resulting bang kicked Croc to the floor in a slumped heap as the monster’s black and putrid blood mixed with the crimson on the Punisher’s face.

Another batarang flew across the room, this time striking Frank Castle’s hand. He lost his grip and dropped the weapon, a straight reflection of his first encounter with the Dark Knight earlier that evening.

Batman was on top of his before he could move to retaliate. “No guns,” Batman stated coldly as he gripped the Punisher by the collar of his black t-shirt. “Croc is down. Enough. Next time I won’t bother warning you.”

“You go easy on these guys like this all the time?” Frank asked with a curt smile. “I bet they come back over and over again, huh? Yeah, I bet.”

Batman, disgusted, dropped Frank and let him fall to his knees, having been too weak to stand on his own. The disfigured Killer Croc was bleeding profusely, his black blood creating a pool under his own head. The Dark Knight checked for a pulse, found one, and placed a pair of small, gray adhesives on both sides of Croc’s head.

“What are you doing?” the Punisher inquired through heavy breathing. “Does a guy like that even have a pulse?”

“I’m not resuscitating him,” Batman answered. “His head wound will thread itself back together in the next half hour and it will be like nothing happened. These amplifiers I designed will keep his brainwaves at a constant alpha level. He won’t wake up until I want him to.”

“Oh, control freak then? That’s your angle? I can relate to that one.” The Punisher tried to stand up and ended up falling back against the wall. “Shit. No wonder you keep them alive. You probably get off on crazy assholes like this fruit.”

Batman continued to set the amplifiers on Croc’s temples, adjusting the settings on the controller on his utility belt. When he was finished he stood up and exited the study into the hallway, ignoring the bloody Punisher on the floor. He knew he was on the third floor, and he knew that the heart of the city’s problems lay in the basement. Given what he had seen already, he couldn’t be sure of what to expect in the mansion.

He took off down the hallway toward what he hoped would be a staircase, his black cape flapping behind him. The fight with Killer Croc had taken a little energy out of him, but he couldn’t pause now. Not when high overhead the sky was darker than the blackest night was ever meant to be.

The Ja’ti Prism pulsated as random bits of stray magical energy flowed around it. The amalgamated villain, comprised of two of the darkest sorcerers that the multiverse had ever seen, readied another bolt of darkened green magic in the palm of his hand. His power doubled from the merging of souls, this man was possibly the most dangerous man on this or any other planet.

“Coward!” he screamed, his voice having an odd echo effect, as if two men were speaking as one. “Do not hide behind such primitive barriers!”

The golden helmet of Nabu, firmly set over the head of the one called Doctor Fate, slunk behind one of the pillars lining the rounded basement chamber. “Perhaps he is not aware of the mystical fortitude of these structures,” Fate remarked to his colleague.

Doctor Strange, who was similarly hidden behind another pillar, replied, “It seems this abomination relishes in brute force as opposed to finesse. I endowed these pillars to disperse rampant energies that would fall off of my rituals. It’s possible he doesn’t detect the magic.”

“Or it could be that he is concentrating so much on locking our own abilities down that he is blinded. That is something we can use to our advantage.”

While the two masters of the magical arts would typically be casting spell after spell to deflect the advance of their foe, they found it impossible to do now do so. Upon barging into the chamber, the intertwined Mordo and Mordu had somehow been able to seal away the sources of the magicians’ power.

“My magic may be cut off,” Doctor Strange added, “but my other tricks aren’t so easily discounted.”

Waiting for a time when the sorcerer would pause between devastating blasts, Strange swung out from behind his pillar and clasped the golden amulet at his throat that held his flowing red cape in place.

“The Eye of Agamotto will gaze upon you,” Strange said. “Prepare yourself…if you can.”

The sorcerer hurled another green bolt of lightning, but the Eye opened too quickly. A steady beam of white light, as pure as if it had been untouched by the universe altogether, cascaded over both the dark wizard and the magic missile. The green energy burnt away once the white light touched it, and the man the Eye was leering at took his first step back.

Mordo/Mordru flinched as his face became distorted. The scarred and pale expression wavered and for a moment a second face was superimposed over top of the first, baring separate and distinguishable facial features.

Fate stepped out from behind his pillar. “You presume much,” the enchanter said as he raised his hands to helmet. “Your first mistake was thinking you had a chance of success.”

A second burning light flared from the eyes of Fate’s helmet and caught the dark wizard in much the same way that Strange’s amulet did. Now that his magic had been released, he was able to tap into the vast power that the helmet afforded him. Whereas Strange’s light forced the sorcerer to hesitate, Fate’s light held him completely captive.

“The crossing has begun! There is no turning back! My master will ascend!”

“And what master would that be?” Strange inquired as he stepped closer after closing the Eye. “Mordo…I expect as much foolishness from you. Who is pulling your strings now?”

“My god will ascend, Strange. Your arrogance will not go unpunished.”

“Dormammu is a fool,” Strange replied.

Fate scoffed. “Most would-be gods are. But Mordru…I sense Chaos Magic mixed into this. What does this ‘crossing’ have to do with an ascension?”

“And more importantly,” Strange added, “what is Dormammu trying to ascend to?”

A distinct rumbling erupted around them, silencing any answer that the dark pair of wizards might have given. The thin pink ray emitting from the Ja’ti Prism, barely visible as it maintained the bubble that ceased the progression of the black vortexes that sought to merge this world with another, fluttered.

The two dark wizards merged back together, returning to their pale form now that the Eye had shut. “In each of our universes there is a counterpart,” he said. “The dark lord Dormammu is here what the Lords of Chaos are there. Their function is different, but their purpose is the same.”

“Are you saying that your master is trying to ascend to a Lord of Chaos?” Fate questioned. “Impossible. The power that would take—”

“Has already been gathered.”

“By the Vishanti!” Strange uttered with a gasp.

The Ja’ti Prism shook again, and with it, the entire city of New York. The dark vortexes of energy raging outside the pink bubble created by the Ja’ti Prism condensed, focusing their energy inward. High above the city, the black inklings of trans-dimensional clouds molded into one form that was much wider at the top than at the bottom, much like a funnel.

The tip of this funnel was aimed directly over top of the Sanctum Sanctorum, spinning furiously. The energy of the mystical shield created by the Ja’ti Prism began to filter down through the funnel and back into its point of origin.

“You had a purpose in coming here,” Fate said.

Strange added, “You never intended to stop us.”

“No.” The dark wizard raised his hands, shattering the light of Fate’s helmet into fragments that scattered about the room. “I merely had to be near the Prism after you completed your spell work. I am no longer Mordru or Mordo…you may call me Herald, for I am the forerunner to the new Lord of Chaos, Dormammu!”

A burning face suddenly appeared inside the Ja’ti Prism, sneering at the pair of Doctors. His mouth was distorted amongst the flames that seemed unending, and which burned darker than could be conceivable.

“I must thank you, Strange,” the fiery face of Dormammu said from inside the Prism. “You and your lackeys did my work for me. To think after all these years the simplest way to make you useful to me was to hide right under your nose. All I had to do was open the doorway, and you ushered me through.”

Doctor Strange peered into the Prism with discontent, realizing that he had been played by the creature that could be called his greatest enemy. The answer as to just how it had all happened was not yet before him, but that was not important.

“Now I take my place between these two universes,” Dormammu continued, “and ascend to my throne as a true Lord of Chaos!”

TO BE CONCLUDED…

Make sure you check out the City of Chaos one-shots that help to further expand on this story!