The Marvel Knights Group presents: Silver Sable's Wild Pack #3

“And why should I believe you?” the young silver-haired woman asked.

The man she addressed wanted to sigh, but kept his composure in check. The girl, only eighteen years of age and barely able to be called a woman yet, had been brought to one of the many buildings he owned throughout Europe. After a lengthy conversation via video-phone he had finally convinced her to join the rest of the Wild Pack in coming to him.

“We’ve been over this,” the man, whose identity was one of the best kept secrets on the planet, said with a touch of annoyance. “You’re confused and tired. You aren’t sure who to trust, but I know that you feel a tinge of recognition when you look at me. You and I…it’s complicated, my dear.”

His office was immaculate, housed on the top floor of a thirty-story building. The spotless hardwood floors were polished enough to reflect their images back up at them. She looked around the walls for the umpteenth time, as if still unsure of her surroundings. Had she made the right decision back in Strudguard?

“Explain it to me again.”

“Very well,” the man said, who seldom few were able to refer to as the Foreigner. “I am what some would call a soldier or fortune, or a mercenary. I have accumulated a vast amount of wealth as well as a global network, even though very few know of my existence. I prefer it that way.

“Years ago, during a mission in Southeast Asia, I stumbled across another mercenary who proved to be my equal. She was incredible and artistic in her flair for life. We fell in love, even against her father’s approval. For a time we met in secret, until her father, in a rage befitting the most despicable of monsters, took her from me.”

The girl stared at the floor, contemplating the Foreigner’s story. “He killed her…”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. His rage was unbridled. It took all of my strength to save myself and not a day has passed since then that I don’t wish that it was my life that had been taken instead of hers.

“I went underground, hiding from the madman until I could find a way to exact my revenge. I knew it would not be enough to simply kill him; I had to utterly destroy him. I admit, looking back, that my anger was controlling my actions. In my investigations I discovered a plot that would disgrace the memory of my beloved.”

The girl shifted in her seat, now looking at the back of the man’s head as he repeated his story to her again. He stared out the floor to ceiling window, overlooking the city underneath. “That’s when you found me,” she stated.

“Yes. Ernst Sablinova, in a manner that only he could think righteous, had hired a man named Gaunt to bring back my beloved. They used DNA samples they had retained from their medical facility and began cloning her. When I discovered this I nearly destroyed the entire complex, but when I saw photos of the clones I was shocked. I thought that maybe there was hope that could be pulled from Ernst’s madness. There was a chance that he may not have been as insane as I judged him to be.

“I made Ernst’s Wild Pack a better offer for their services. The almighty dollar still remains a great equalizer. They agreed to sabotage the lab, freeing you. You were only slightly half way through the maturation process when you awoke, which is why you are still confused. If we did not make our move when we did, you would have been programmed to be loyal to no one but them. The cloning process is an imperfect science and I’m afraid that when we liberated you that your memories had not yet been fully integrated into your psyche.”

The Foreigner placed his arms behind his back and turned around to face the young woman. He could see tears forming in her eyes, but he knew that he had finally gotten her to accept what he said as true. He moved around the desk to her, offering her a hand. She accepted and stood up, looking deep into his eyes.

“The rest you know,” he told her. “I do not expect anything from you…I just knew that I had to get you away from that terrible place so that you had a chance to live your own life.”

She let her hand slip out of his and turned her back to him. They stood there in the quiet office for some time, neither one willing to say the next word. The girl, finally accepting that she was the clone of a woman she had never met, a woman named Silver Sable by the entire world, clenched her eyes tightly shut. Her breathing slowed as she sifted through the images in her head of people she had never met or spoken to, recalling intimate details of encounters with men she didn’t know.

When she opened her eyes again the sense of innocence had been removed from them.

“What’s our next move?” she asked.

The Foreigner placed his hands on her shoulders, squeezing gently. “We take back what is rightfully ours, my dear.”

He saw her nod in acknowledgement. The time had come for the endgame, and with her on his side Ernst didn’t stand a chance of survival. Not when she was so young…

…and impressionable.

“Cool it, bucko!” the trained soldier called Paladin ordered.

Venom yanked his black, slithering tendrils out of the storage locker he had just eviscerated in anger. The Wild Pack, after dropping off the young version of Silver Sable, had been ordered to wait in the subbasement of the Foreigner’s building while he met with the girl. The shocktroops had mostly been kept in the dark about the operation but the three heavy hitters that led the team were starting to feel restless.

“Can’t says that I blame him much,” the Sandman responded. “We just backstabbed Ernst Sablinova, and you know he ain’t gonna take too kindly to that.”

Paladin, sans his goggles and headdress, pointed an accusing finger at the growling Venom. “And we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if it wasn’t for this loose cannon here! The old man had this coming, you know it. It was just a matter of time. The problem is that the clock got cut short because of this monster’s bloodlust. We nearly got found out because of him. Ernst wouldn’t have known a thing until it was too late, but now we’re hiding out.”

“This Foreigner guy pays better anyway,” Sandman added.

“We had the chance to rip open her stomach!” Venom cried as he stared down Paladin. “Money doesn’t matter to us, not when the girl has gotten away!”

“For the last time,” Paladin said, “she’s didn’t get away. We weren’t going in to kill her, we never were. Dear lord, this is why we didn’t bring you in on the deal. I knew you would fuck this up somehow.”

“Then why not let us go?” Venom demanded. “Or are you too cowardly to let us roam free?”

“Screw this.” Paladin drew out his signature handgun and aimed for Venom’s head. Just as he pulled the trigger, a gritty and monstrous hand pushed his arm away and the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and lodged itself in the wall. Paladin traced the hand back to its owner, the Sandman, who had converted his body into its alternate form.

“Chill out,” Sandman said, “or you’ll blow this for all of us. You think this foreign fruitcake is gonna want to keep us on board if he catches us fighting amongst ourselves?”

A console suddenly switched to life on the same wall the bullet had impacted in. The screen brightly lit up an image of their new employer, who did not look happy.

“We leave in twenty minutes,” the Foreigner said, ignoring the obvious awkward situation he had caught the Pack in. “Be on the roof before then, ready for an assault. All of you.”

The video communication shut off, leaving the three heavy hitters of the Wild Pack to regain their composure. Paladin reached for his goggles and headdress after trying his hardest not to gag from the disgusting grin that Venom had plastered on his face.

Ernst Sablinova had made many mistakes over the course of his life. Bad business deals had caused him to lose vast sums of money and ignorance of his enemies’ capabilities had led him to lose valuable networks of acquisition. But his most recent mistake was thinking that he could play God.

He sat hunched at his desk with his hands on his head and a half empty bottle of single malt scotch in front of him. Where exactly had he gone wrong? He wondered what had driven him to so recklessly toy with fate, and why he persisted in allowing himself to go on. The amount of sins he had committed were astronomical when compared to most others.

A red light on his desk computer blinked, but he ignored its summons. Painful memories of loss and regret were berating and distracting him. He wasn’t in the mood to handle a client call or some complaint from a lower executive. Not only were his troubles in the past but in the present as well, as earlier that morning the Foreigner’s lawyers had paid him a visit as promised.

He was going to lose everything. The false identity that the Foreigner had assumed during his short-lived marriage to his daughter, his real daughter, was proper enough in the eyes of the law. He had no way to prove the fraud and now he was going to lose it all.

The red light continued to blink silently but Ernst was too caught up in his own misery to acknowledge what was happening on the first floor of his building.

“Take out the monitor array!” Paladin called out as he gunned down two security guards. His twin pistols flashed like lightning as they fired again and again, faster than most people could follow. His aim held true for the majority of his shots, taking down a large number of guards in a short amount of time.

Smoke still clung to the edges of the front entrance where the shaped charges had exploded. Given their intimate knowledge of Silver Sable International’s headquarters, Paladin had marked the front door as their easiest entry point, stating that Ernst wouldn’t think anyone had the guts to do it. The shocktroops with them had been left behind since they couldn’t count on their loyalty until the assault was over.

Venom shot a webline at a fleeing shocktrooper, snagging him in the back and dragging him back into the brawl. His flopping red tongue drooled onto the floor as he anxiously pulled in his prey. His sharp teeth plunged into the trooper’s leg through the padded armor, cutting into the flesh.

“Ease up,” the Sandman said as he slithered by Venom on a mound of sand that had taken the place of his legs. “We need these guys on our side after we take over, got it?”

Venom spat the leg out and yanked back again on the webline that was still connected to the trooper’s back. He grumbled something inaudible over the noise of the fight as he swung the shocktrooper into the wall, knocking him unconscious.

The Sandman shook his head, causing bits of grainy sand to fly off of his face. He hated working with someone like the symbiote, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Not when he was wanted for federal crimes in several countries. He needed the support that the Wild Pack offered.

A series of small explosions in his chest caught his attention. He looked down to see a handful of bullets slide out of his sand body and plop onto the floor. He looked up to see a shaking trooper holding an even shakier assault rifle and smiled. Stretching his arms out he flung one appendage at the trooper, forcing his fist to solidify. He punched the trooper with all the force of a sandstorm compacted into a rock hard boulder, sending him flying into a support pillar in the lobby. The trooper fell to the floor and didn’t get up.

“Take your own advice,” Paladin ordered. “We’re just making a path for the girl, remember? Get your ass in gear, sandbox, and don’t screw this up!”

The former villain called the Sandman swore under his breath as he changed tactics, recalling his elongated arm back into his body. He let his head fall forward and stuck his arms both out, widening them as the pliability of his body allowed. He propelled himself faster than a normal man could ran, sliding along the smooth floor atop a mound of rolling sand. His outstretched and interlocked fingers formed a wedge, which he drove between several more troopers and through a freestanding counter.

Behind him Paladin motioned for the second team to come through, which consisted of the Foreigner’s own men that were adorned in solid black body armor. They swept in to secure the lobby, taking up positions around the room to cover all possible angles.

The young clone stepped through the secured entryway, looking over the wreckage of the foyer and the lobby beyond. Her silver spandex bodysuit remained unscathed in juxtaposition to the chaos around her. A few of the still conscious shocktroops caught sight of her and were visibly shaken.

“We have to keep moving,” the Foreigner said from behind her. He had traded in his custom tailored suit for a finely cut black bodysuit, similar in design to the girl’s. He approached her side and kept moving, motioning for her to do the same. “It won’t be long until reinforcements arrive, plus I’m sure the local authorities will be curious as to the explosion.”

The Foreigner ordered his soldiers to stay on the sides while the rest of them moved forward. “Paladin,” he said as he moved through the room. “Secure the rest of the building except for the top floor.”

“Aye, aye,” Paladin replied.

“Are you coming, my dear?”

The young woman looked at the now quieted lobby, matching the impressions with those that still flooded her mind. She locked her eyes onto the Foreigner’s outstretched hand, which bid her to come to him.

Instead of replying she quickly closed the gap between them and kept going, leaving her supposed savior behind her. The conviction in her soul, the only emotion she was sure was real, burned with a desire to see an end to this madness.

Ernst found himself leaning against the window behind his desk when his door was kicked in. He whirled around, half expecting to see one of the Foreigner’s assassins aiming a gun at him. In a sense he was right.

The girl that had escaped from his facility, someone that looked exactly as his daughter had years ago, stood in the doorway with a black Russian Stechkin APS machine pistol. He knew that the weapon, regardless of its size, had enough fire power to punch a hole right through him. The look in his pseudo-daughter’s eyes told him that she did indeed possess the conviction needed to pull the trigger.

She glared at him and stepped into the room. Her breathing became heavier but her hand held the gun steady, pointed directly at his head.

“Please,” he said. “Please, just listen to me. I can explain everything.”

“Explain what?” she shot back. “Explain how you practically abandoned your own daughter because you couldn’t handle her in control of her own life? Explain how you desecrated her memory by cloning her? How you created me?” A single tear began to form in the corner of her eye as she spoke. “I’m just a weapon you made. I’m not even a real person.”

“That’s not true!” Ernst replied eagerly. “You don’t know—”

He paused when he saw a tall, dark-haired man enter his office. A few days ago the Foreigner had entered his office unwelcome, informing him that in the near future he would be taking everything from him. Ernst wondered what the international criminal would say now that his forecast had come true.

“Isn’t it true?” the Foreigner responded. “You seized complete control of Silver Sable International’s operations after your daughter’s death. You brokered backwater deals that led to a more lethal Wild Pack, all the while providing the funding you needed to run your cloning process. Tell me I’m lying. Tell her I’m lying.”

A tear slid down her face as she waited for Ernst to reply. Instead he just let out the breath he had been holding and seemed to slump in his posture. He looked defeated. Staring at the floor he let the bottle of scotch slip out of his fingers. He shook his head slightly but remained silent.

A rapid succession of gunshots rung out and the window behind Ernst shattered. A hollow wind swept into the room, nearly knocking Ernst over. A small strand of smoke came out of the woman’s machine pistol, but it was obvious that she had intentionally missed Ernst, wanting to simply hear something from his mouth. He stayed quiet.

“That’s what I thought,” the Foreigner said. “Come, my dear. It’s time to end this.”

She quickly stalked forward, causing Ernst to hold his hands up as if to surrender. She spun him around and placed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head. Her foot flashed out into the back of his knee and he was forced to kneel. Ernst looked through the shattered window, watching the clouds roll by as if nothing had changed. He supposed that the world moved on, regardless of his actions.

“Finish it,” the Foreigner commanded.

Ernst heard the slick gloves wrapped around her hands tighten. He knew she was pulling back on the trigger slowly, preparing to fire the final shot. Was she hesitating?

The words bubbled up from his gut before he could even think about it. He hadn’t expected them to be his last words, but he thought it fitting to say it now to his daughter, even if it wasn’t actually her. He had rarely said them to her in life and realized that he instantly regretted saying it as soon as his lips closed again.

“I love you.”

“What?” she said. “What did you say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Foreigner said behind her, irritated. “Kill him!”

“What did you say?” she repeated, her voice louder.

“I…I said that I love you. You’re my daughter, no matter what form you take. I know that now.”

She let the barrel of the machine pistol pull away slightly from his head. The memories that she could never claim as her own suddenly washed over her. Images of a man that looked like a younger version of Ernst telling her that everything would be alright, telling her to train hard and always be cautious, and also telling her to always be careful of who she trusted.

Her vision became blurred as her head started to pound. The amount of information swirling in her head was clashing with what she knew to be real. She wobbled back and gripped her forward, straining to resist screaming from the pain.

“Kill him!” the Foreigner screamed.

She spun around, raising the gun in her hand. The room was spinning, leaving her disoriented. She turned back to Ernst and aimed the machine pistol at him again. The pain stabbing at her brain made her drop the gun to the floor as she stumbled back again.

“Stupid bitch!” she heard her supposed savior yell. He ran forward and went to scoop up the dropped weapon, but she swung her knee up into his midsection. He doubled over, surprised by the hit.

She followed the move up with a punch to his face, but by the time her fist reached where his head was he had moved back out of the way. He returned the blow with one of his own, catching her on the temple with a quick jab. She screamed from the added pain and jumped into the air, aiming a spinning kick from the Foreigner’s chest.

“This is pathetic,” he said as he batted the foot away with ease. “I’m one of the most highly skilled hand-to-hand combatants on the planet. I beat the real Silver Sable enough to know all your moves, and you aren’t even fully developed.”

He stepped into her stance and shot his elbow out into her throat, forcing her to gag. With the same motion he slammed the back of his balled fist into her face and broke her nose. Blood gushed out of her nostrils and instantly stained her silver attire.

“You’re nothing but a mistake,” he said. “I let my ego get the better of me by awakening you. I figured a clone that hadn’t yet matured would be easily to manipulate. I thought having Ernst’s own daughter kill him for me would be poetic somehow, but I never should have freed a worthless runt like you when I could have just done it myself.”

He stabbed his extended fingers out, intending to snap her neck with one precise hit. Instead he was shocked to see that she had blocked the attack and had somehow caught his hand. How fast was she? No normal human could move like that.

“I am not a mistake!” she yelled.

She bent his fingers back and snapped several bones. The Foreigner yelled from the pain but his cries were short-lived. The young woman held tightly onto his fingers and flipped him over, tossing him out of the open window. He sailed a few feet out into the air before dropping down, slamming into the pavement thirty stories below with a sickening thud.

She stood in the window and watched him fall. The blood from her nose still dripped slowly onto her chest, but she didn’t think anything of it. She stared at the broken form of the Foreigner, her mind focusing on the moment at hand.

“Silver,” Ernst said.

She finally turned to see him standing behind her. He took her in his arms and held her tightly. “My daughter,” he said. “You’ve come back to me.”

The wind continued to blow over them but it had died in strength. In the distance a number of sirens could be heard coming closer, but the woman, a reborn Silver Sable, paid them no mind.

For the first time since her awakening she knew who she was.

EPILOGUE

“Do you think they’ll believe it?” Silver Sable asked her father as they stepped back into their waiting limousine.

Ernst Sablinova waited for the door to close before he answered her. “Why would they not? As far as they know you are living proof of your own story. The media will eat up whatever we feed them, my daughter.”

The limo started to move, taking them away from the reporters that had gathered for their announced press conference. It had been two days since the Foreigner’s death, two days since Ernst had regained control of Silver Sable International.

Silver had told the eagerly waiting cameras and microphones how she was Ernst’s granddaughter, kept hidden from the world for fear of retaliation by his many enemies. Named after her mother, the first Silver Sable, she had chosen to come out of hiding now that her mother’s killer was dead.

She told them how her father was the one who had killed her mother, who was also the international criminal known as the Foreigner. She wove lie after lie and they all took their notes and hollered their questions, but overall it seemed to be believable. After all, as Ernst had pointed out, who would doubt her?

“I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to pose as my own daughter,” Silver said. “And what about the Pack?”

“I’ll handle them. Their loyalty may be questionable at best, but in the end they will respond to me. Gaunt has disappeared completely since the Foreigner’s attack. Perhaps it is best if the Wild Pack is disbanded after all is said and done.”

“No.”

Ernst raised an eyebrow. “No?” he asked.

“I’m going to need more of a purpose in my life now that I’ve reclaimed it,” Silver Sable answered. “We’ll need to restructure of course—”

“We?” Ernst leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of his chin. “Do you intend to join the Pack?”

“No,” Silver Sable replied as she looked through the window of the limo, admiring the Symkarian landscape. “I intend to lead them.”