Kapitel 43: Black sky part 1
"Holy fucking shit!" Jessica exclaimed when Clark was tossed like a ragdoll and the immense crane began to fall down.
Matt could agree with that assessment.
The noise, by itself, was gut-wrenching. The steel that supported the crane folded in on itself and practically screamed when everything started to collapse. The Hand's men were yelling in panic, trying to run, and whatever that thing that came out of the coffin was, it wouldn't stop roaring.
Then, it all came down.
The earth shook, shipping containers were folded like soda cans, the ground broke. Several cars parked there were completely destroyed and at least five men were crushed to death, immediately. The dragons were also caught under the steel, some getting stuck, others blowing up like overturned vehicles, adding fire to an already horrible scene.
And the monster who caused all that was buried under tons of metal, disappearing.
The three of them – safe from the crane's destruction path – watched from behind their cover, shocked at what just happened. Shocked at how fast all that happened. One second Superman advanced towards a carefully managed mob operation and the other steel was raining from the sky, crushing everything on its path.
Except for them, a few mobsters, metal dragons and vehicles, Nobu himself… And the shipping container probably keeping Black Sky, loaded on the back of a truck.
"Attack now! Go after Nobu!" Before Matt could even think about advancing, however, Stick grabbed his arm. "Don't approach that thing. It took half an army of The Chaste best warriors and an enchanted sword to kill it last time, and if it could toss Superman like that now, it means that its last incarnation wasn't half as strong as this one. Leave it to the alien."
Matt didn't even pretend to understand what Stick said, but the main idea was clear enough: don't antagonize the monster who could fight Superman.
That was pretty good advice, actually, even if a bit unnecessary, especially given that the monster was stuck under tons of steel.
Leaving the cover of the shipping container in front of them, Matt ran towards the chaos, jumping over the pieces of the fallen crane and the flames. One of the lucky mobsters that escaped death was trying to get up and without even turning in his direction, Matt tossed one of his billy clubs against him. The metal baton hit the mobster in the face, putting him down again, and bounced back to Matt's hand.
By his side, Jessica was also making her way through the fiery battlefield, yelling when she hit a metal dragon with her mace; annoying she might be, but that woman was strong, Matt realized, when her blunt weapon ripped off the dragon's head in a single blow.
Stick, like him and differently from Jessica, was far more graceful and agile, taking the distraction to knock out the few mobsters still standing with the blunt part of his katana; at least he was keeping his promise not to kill anyone, even if the men he hit had several broken bones now.
Matt rolled on the ground to avoid a few gunshots in his direction, kicking the legs of the nearby mobster as he did it; he finished with a single blow of his billy club, putting the man to sleep and already getting up to try and catch up to Nobu.
At the same time his legs tensed to propel him forward, however, Matt heard a weird cacophony of metal, gears and pistons; a second later, he felt the temperature rise quickly when a stream of fire was spat in his direction.
Reacting fast, he jumped out of the way, behind a bent mass of steel nearby. The hot air hit his face almost like a punch and the metal cover between him and a fiery, terrible death, was beginning to melt fast. Crawling, Matt tried to distance himself from the heat, making sure he was still under cover. Little sparks began to pierce the molten metal and he doubled his efforts, realizing his time was running out.
Matt jumped out of the way a second before the steel cover was blown up, hiding behind a destroyed vehicle when the fire made its way to where he'd been a moment ago.
Taking his opportunity, Matt ran, not away from the metal dragon, but towards it. He used the fact that the automaton hadn't seen him yet and made beeline for it, while the dragon burned down the spot it thought he was.
And when he was close, Matt jumped on its back.
The metal dragon stopped the stream of fire immediately, trampling down all over with its big sharp claws, the long tail whipping everything around, as it tried to shake Matt from its back. The big wings opened, composed by tiny individual parts and gears that seemed to move by itself, and what looked like small aircraft thrusters were fired up.
The thing was about to take off and take him with it.
Holding as best as he could on the many moving parts, Matt tossed himself forward, looking for the weak point Stick warned him about; and when the dragon was already a few feet away from the ground, he tossed himself forward and impaled the gear with his billy club, jamming the whole mechanism.
The dragon machine fell like a rock, not even its legs able to support it anymore, as if Matt had just hit its off switch. Which, in a way, he did.
Rolling from the dragon's back, falling on his feet, Matt focused back on the battlefield. The Hand's men were panicked, shooting everywhere. Stick was picking them one by one, moving in and out of cover with such speed that no one could hit him, his sword moving like a silver blur, breaking bones and weapons with extreme precision and technique.
Jessica was the opposite.
Matt actually stopped what he was doing for a second when he saw Jessica using an entire shipping container as both a shield and a huge thing to bash people with. The mobsters were actually running away from her, shooting desperately and uselessly at the shipping container while she dragged and swung it to all sides, tossing people away as if they were toys; it was kinda of impressive, Matt admitted, when he noticed not one of them had been crushed to death. Most of their bones were broken, certainly, but that was some incredible control on her part.
Shaking his head, Matt willed himself back into focus and looked for Nobu; his breath hitched when he realized that the Yakuza boss was entering the truck loaded with Black Sky, about to run away.
He couldn't allow that to happen.
As he stepped towards the truck, however, the whole place started to shake. And like a nightmare taking form, the huge monstrosity that had tossed Clark away like a fly emerged from under the debris, crawling its way out of the pile of steel beams like it was rising from a grave.
It screamed, so loud that made Matt dizzy, his bones shuddering. And the smell that assaulted his nose was the most disgusting thing he ever encountered in his life, as if a thousand bodies decomposed at the same time inside a swamp. It hit him almost like a physical barrier and he stepped back without even noticing, arms crossed in front of his face.
What the hell was that thing? Could that actually be Black Sky? It certainly qualified as a weapon, if it could bat away Superman like that.
Matt could hear the muscles of the monster tensing. The nails scraped the metal as the thing pulled itself from under it, groaning as it stood. It towered over him, much taller, much broader; he raised his billy clubs, ready to fight for his life.
Before any of them could do anything, however, there was a sonic boom and Superman clashed against the monster, both of them going through a line of shipping containers, leaving a path of utter destruction behind.
He sighed with barely concealed relief, listening his heart beating fast; then he remembered his goal. Nobu was already driving the truck away. Focusing for a moment, Matt found one of the few cars that hadn't been crushed by the crane.
It would have to do.
Running in the opposite direction of Nobu's, Matt jumped over the car and got in, his hand already moving to the keys in the ignition. He accelerated just as the car started, turning left and right to avoid the metal beams of the fallen crane, ignoring the bullets fired against him.
Suddenly, he stopped, but not before hitting away one of the mobsters Jessica was about to attack.
"Get in!" he yelled, opening the door to a very confused Jessica. Stick, unfortunately, was at the other side of the battlefield, still fighting, and Matt couldn't waste the time to get there.
As soon as Jessica entered, Matt floored the gas pedal and went after Nobu and the shipping container.
He hoped Clark could deal with that monster.
Clark broke the sound barrier, his arms locked in a steel grasp around the creature's chest, and crashed against the line of shipping containers. The metal folded like paper when the creature's back was slammed against it and everything inside was obliterated as they went through it, hitting one after the other in quick succession.
Until finally, Clark ended with a punch, creating a huge crater in the ground when the monster collided.
Flying up, the cloud of dust opening a path for him, Clark looked down and studied his adversary for the first time; an adversary that was, shockingly, strong enough to face him, not something easily found on Earth. More importantly, an adversary possessing all that power that was, by all accounts, serving the Hand.
Could that be the Black Sky Stick mentioned? Some kind of biological weapon?
His opponent resembled a man, arguably taller and broader than usual, but a man nonetheless; not as big as the Hulk, but almost there, Clark estimated. And the first thing anyone with working eyes would notice about him was the color of his hair and skin. They were grey, pale, not unlike a corpse in an advanced stage of decomposition.
Which brought forth the other main thing anyone would notice: the smell.
It was, simply put, rotten. Dead flesh, smelling so bad that it burned Clark's nose, even at a distance. He couldn't understand how anything moving could have such a smell, but his adversary did. The man – or whatever that was – was wearing what seemed to be the remains of a black suit, only it looked so old and tattered that it might as well have been buried all this time.
Despite the rotten smell that might've belonged to a corpse, the creature was strong. Tall, muscled and absolutely furious. Once again, Clark couldn't help but to draw comparisons to the Hulk; a grey, foul-smelling and slightly smaller Hulk.
But this one, apparently, didn't have Bruce as conscience.
"I don't want to fight you," Clark spoke, loud enough for even a human hear him from that distance. "Stand down!"
The creature's response was a loud roar; and a shipping container being launched against him, so fast that it blurred.
Clark blasted the shipping container with his heat vision, cutting it in half, staying in place as the two halves passed by his sides. Almost immediately, however, he was forced to fly up when the grey man launched another container, then another and another, tossing up everything he could get his hands on. Shipping containers, pieces of the broken ground, lamp posts…
That portion of the sky was entirely taken by flying debris and Clark zigzagged between them, spinning as he dropped fast, completely ignoring any and all objects when he accelerated; the sonic boom blasted everything around him away and his Kryptonian body cut a path, piercing the debris cloud with ease.
And then he crashed against the grey man.
The hit was incredibly powerful, generating a shockwave that obliterated the remaining shipping containers and cracked the ground, the thunderous noise echoing far and wide.
It felt like Clark had collided against a wall made of Uru.
The grey man's legs sunk into the ground and he was pushed a few meters, but with sheer strength he held the attack, his powerful muscles a match for Clark's. And with Clark now within reach, he counter-attacked.
It was a feral, wrathful and utterly powerful attack. The grey man simply unleashed a rain of punches, screaming and roaring as he hit with everything he had, no semblance of technique or strategy, just raw fury; not pretty, perhaps, but deadly.
Clark defended himself as best as he could, dodging and punching back, his feet floating a few inches away from the ground. The pale gorilla-like arms never stopped attacking and the grey man's punches clashed against Clark's arms like blows from Mjölnir itself. Clark's fists seemed to cause little damage, if any, as he was unable to really unleash any power while trying to protect himself.
With his guard up, once again, Clark imagined what exactly he was fighting. How something that powerful could exist without anyone's knowledge? Why was it serving the Hand? Was it even a person or some kind of biological weapon, some kind of magical weapon?
He had no idea, but he knew he had to do something fast. And against a powerful, but feral, adversary, Torquasm-Rao would serve him well.
Twisting his body, Clark kicked the grey man's chest with both legs, tossing him back at the same time he flew in the opposite direction, getting some distance between them. His feet slid on the ground before he stopped, his arms and legs adopting the practiced martial stance; he breathed deeply, preparing.
The grey man didn't even slow down. Screaming, he lunged towards Clark, his big feet breaking the ground as he cut the distance between them, more leaping than running, faster than anything that size had any right to be. There was no hesitation, no caution, not one bit of fear, just anger and bloodlust.
Nothing could make a practitioner of Torquasm-Rao happier.
Holding his ground, Clark waited until the grey man arrived, jumping against him like a furious, super-powered rhino; then he moved. It was fast, precise and unbelievably brutal. He danced in front of the grey man, dodging and hitting, quick and accurate; stomach, throat, liver. Stepping to the side, Clark glided around, hitting the grey man's kidneys and then his face when he turned, screaming, his long arms swinging madly.
Clark allowed one of the arms – the left one – to make contact, hardening his body to block the blow and hold it; and then, applying a good deal of his Kryptonian strength, Clark hit the grey man's extended elbow with his open palm.
CRACK!
The thunderous sound of the bone breaking echoed throughout the night. The blow was firm and merciless, and the extended grey man's arm simply couldn't withstand the Kryptonian strength, not when the blow hit the exact weak spot of the elbow. The limb bent in the wrong direction, a sharp piece of bone piercing the grey skin like a knife, and Clark instinctively lowered his guard, knowing that there was no reason to further injure a beaten adversary.
That was a big mistake.
A wound like that would give anyone pause. The sharp pain, the sudden loss of movement, and in this case the bone sticking out of the arm, should be enough to make even the most hardened warrior fall back; most wouldn't be able to continue to fight at all. The grey man, however, didn't flinch. He didn't even blink, scream or even unconsciously pulled back.
There was simply no reaction.
Instead, he took the opening and lunged like a feral animal. And before Clark could do anything, the grey man bit his left hand.
The shock was what kept Clark in place at first; and then, it was too late to escape. The grey man's jaw closed over his hand, the teeth like a bear trap, and the extreme pressure made Clark groan in pain.
"ARGHH!" he yelled, feeling his nerves burn.
And then the grey man unleashed a barrage of attacks, hitting Clark wherever he could like a mad animal, swinging both of his long and muscled arms with all his power – even the broken one, with no concern whatsoever about his injury, using the limp limb like a flail to hit the trapped Kryptonian.
At the same time, the grey man was shaking his head from one side to the other, trying to bite Clark's hand off, pulling and lifting him like a shark, slamming Clark against the ground over and over again; no different than what predatory beasts did to tear apart their prey.
Suddenly, there was blood.
He saw it happening as if time had slowed down. It flowed from his hand, a single, thin red stream that traced his wrist, staining his suit. For a moment, Clark didn't even feel the pain of the bite or the crushing blows against his face and torso, he could only feel the heat of his own blood against his skin. It was such a rare occurrence, something so unexpected, that everything else faded from notice.
Until it all came rushing back, the sounds, the pain and the instinct to fight back.
Ignoring the fact that his hand was hurting really bad, Clark steeled his entire body and pulled, dragging the grey man's head down with it, his teeth still pressing down with all his power. Clark ignored the punches, letting the fists hit him as if he couldn't even feel them.
Then, so fast that the grey man couldn't even think about reacting, he floated and unleashed the most powerful blow he could with his right knee, directly against the grey man's face.
For the second time, the resulting CRACK echoed throughout the night and Clark's hand was suddenly free. Not because the grey man felt the blow, not because the pain somehow made him open his mouth, but because Clark had literally shattered his jaw and most of his teeth, making it impossible for him to keep biting Clark's hand.
And as soon as Clark's hand was free, he closed it into a fist and punched the grey man's face with all his might. The blow was so powerful that the grey man flew back against the ground, breaking everything in his path, until the ground itself opened to swallow him whole; and everything else around, from shipping containers to larges pieces of the very ground, all of that pilling up over him, filling the sinkhole.
The grey man was literally buried several dozen feet under the earth.
Jessica hadn't signed up for this shit, she mentally repeated for the thousandth time, holding on for dear life as Matt pursued the truck, stepping on the gas pedal with the same violence he would if it were the face of a Russian mobster.
Matt, the blind vigilante. She really hadn't signed up for this shit.
"TURN LEFT!" Jessica yelled, seeing the shipping container in front of them getting closer and closer.
"There's no need to yell," Matt retorted, skillfully dodging the shipping container at the last second, still in pursuit. "I'm blind, not deaf!"
"The fact that you're blind is enough reason for me to yell!" Jessica barked back. "HOLY SHIT, FIRE BALL!"
Matt turned right at the moment a fire ball exploded in front of them, spat by one of those fucking metal dragons chasing them, like big jets in lizard form. And what the hell was Clark doing while she was riding the blindmobile to an early death? Could that grey monster truly be that much of a challenge for him?
"I'm sure he's fine," Matt said, not even looking at her.
Of course, even if he did look at her, it wouldn't mean shit. He probably picked up some "worried smell" from her, the nosy asshole.
"I know he's fine, I'm worried about me!" she said, almost hitting her head after Matt did yet another reckless turn, taking a path between the shipping containers to try to lose the dragons. "Could you drive any worse?!"
"Sorry, not a lot of practice," he said, and Jessica didn't need enhanced senses to know he was being sarcastic.
He truly was an asshole, Jessica decided. But, liking it or not, he was a skilled asshole. His enhanced senses thing was the only reason those metal dragons hadn't blown them up yet. If they didn't end up crashing, she would even consider letting it slide the money he stole from her during that pool game, with his "blind act".
She almost changed her mind when a fire ball exploded a nearby shipping container, sending pieces of burnt metal everywhere, cracking the windshield.
"Son of a bitch!" Jessica exclaimed.
"We have to do something, otherwise we'll not even get to the truck," Matt said, not looking nearly as alarmed as he should be.
The truck wasn't far off, driving in parallel from them, but on the proper road instead of inside the shipping container's narrow corridor. But to get to it, they would need to leave their cover and if they left their cover, the dragons would probably blow them up before they could reach the truck.
Twisting herself on the seat, Jessica looked back, seeing the three metal dragons flying behind them, their wings spread. The one taking point, closest to them, was the main issue. Thinking fast, Jessica turned to Matt.
"Think you can drive straight for a minute?" she asked and before he could answer, she grabbed her door and pushed it.
With a terrible noise, the door came off and Jessica put half of her body out of the car, looking straight up to the dragon. She breathed, taking aim.
And then she launched the car door, not unlike Captain America liked to do with his shield.
It was, and Jessica could say that without bragging, a perfect throw. The door cut the air, spinning like a frisbee, moving with incredible speed and strength; and it hit the metal dragon straight against its wing.
BANG! Even from inside the noisy car Jessica could hear the crash and she cheered when the flying dragon started to fall, one of its wings too damaged to fly. It spun out of control for a moment and collided against a shipping container, blowing up.
"Nice hit," Matt congratulated, grinning. And then his face became serious. "I have an idea and you're not gonna like it."
Saying this, he turned the car and left the cover provided by the shipping containers, going in the direction of the truck's right side, moving straight against it. Jessica froze for a moment, not sure how exactly this would work.
"When we get close enough, throw your alien mace against the front wheel," Matt said, going even faster. "And be prepared to jump."
Holding her Thanagarian mace, tense as hell, Jessica held herself half-out of the car once again, almost closing her eyes because of the strong wind. The truck was getting closer and closer, growing even bigger than it looked, the shipping container possibly carrying Black Sky loaded on the back.
"Now!" Matt yelled and Jessica threw her mace as strongly as she could.
The alien weapon obliterated the truck's wheel and part of its cabin on the passenger side and at that moment Matt yelled again.
"JUMP!"
They both did it, abandoning the highly accelerated car in route against the truck. Jessica clashed heavily against the ground, her arms held close to her body so she could roll and minimize any injure, glad that her leather jacket could provide her with some protection.
And while they tried to finally stop after jumping out, the car continued, hitting the truck at the exact spot her mace had already damaged.
The car pretty much disappeared under the truck, turning into an immense and moving speed bump, forcing the already damaged truck to turn violently to the other side. And as it did, the driver lost any control he had over it.
With thunderous noise, the truck overturned, sending broken pieces everywhere, sparks glowing in the night as it dragged itself against the ground; the shipping container toppled on its side, gliding alongside the destroyed truck.
Jessica could only watch, astonished, seeing Matt's plan work without a flaw. Suddenly remembering him, she looked for Matt, actually relieved when she found him already up. A bit skinned here and there, his shirt in complete tatters, but alive.
She got up as well, going to him.
"And that is why blind people can't drive," Jessica said, gesturing towards the overturned truck.
Matt chuckled, trying to clean the blood flowing from his wounds.
"Yeah, you may be right about that," he said. Then he suddenly looked up. "We've got incoming."
The two metal dragons, Jessica cursed, quickly looking at the overturned truck when she heard glass being broken; two dragons and an asshole driver. Well, the odds were fair.
"I'll deal with them," Jessica said, pointing up, "you deal with that Nobu guy."
Before Matt could even say anything, Jessica tapped the "S" insignia in her pocket and shuddered when she felt the cold Liquid Geo spreading over her body, hand first, assembling the Kryptonian skinsuit under her own clothes. Suddenly, the skull-like helmet closed over her head.
"I hope you're ready, because I'm going to fuck you up!" Jessica yelled, using all her strength to jump and meet them head on in the sky.
Clark took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving his opponent, even when he was buried so deep underground, stuck under tons of collapsed earth and shipping containers. When it was clear that he finally had a moment of peace, he turned his eyes to his left hand.
His still bleeding hand, with the marks of the grey man's teeth still torn open.
It hurt, badly, but not because of the cut or because of the pressure of the grey man's jaw. It was a different kind of pain, deep and pulsating, burning; he used his enhanced vision, scanning his hand, trying to find what was wrong with it.
Clark's breath hitched when he finally saw it.
There were tiny black tendrils inside his wound, impossible to see without a pair of enhanced eyes, growing, twisting and multiplying, taking more and more of the injury by the second. But it wasn't their mere presence that it was causing him pain, it was what they were doing. They were secreting some substance as they grew, something clearly harmful. It took him a second to understand.
They were eating his hand, from the inside out. His skin, flesh and blood were being digested in front of his eyes.
Without thinking twice, Clark unleashed his heat vision against his own hand, ignoring the sharp pain and the smell of burnt flesh as he destroyed every single black tendril inside his wound, obliterating them without leaving any trace.
When he finally got rid of the last one, he stopped, breathing fast. The wound looked worse than ever, red and inflamed, but the pain was actually much better now that his tissues weren't being digested. One, two, three seconds passed; then he began to heal, his skin going back to its usual color and the wound stitching itself back together until there was no trace of the injury.
What the hell was that?! Some kind of parasite? Some kind of animal present in the grey man's saliva? No, Clark knew that wasn't the case as soon as the thought crossed his mind. The black tendrils eating away his hand were not animals or plants.
It looked a lot more like some kind of fungus.
Sensing the earth tremble, Clark turned his eyes back to where the grey man had been buried, looking through the ground to find him digging his way out. Surprisingly, he was digging with both arms, the left one he had just broken already back together; curious, he used his x-ray vision to see it better.
The broken bone was surrounded by the same black tendrils he had just found in the wound in his hand, except they were growing much quicker there; instead of digesting the grey man's body, however, the black tendrils were repairing the broken bone, filling the cracks and reinforcing the whole thing, as if his body and the fungus were one and the same.
The same thing was happening in the bones of the grey man's jaw, also cracked by Clark. It was happening so fast, that if not for the different color and composition, it would seem that there wasn't anything broken at all. The black fungus had, somehow, fixed the grey man's wounds and made the broken parts even denser.
Shocked, still not understanding what he was seeing, Clark boosted his x-ray vison and really studied his opponent for the first time, trying to see what made him tick.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Matt stared for a moment, dumbfounded, shocked not only to discover Jessica was wearing what seemed to be a Superman suit, but also with her incredible jump; it was almost like she could fly.
His wonder was quickly forgotten when Nobu finally managed to get out the truck, looking as bloody as Matt was.
He took a moment to look at the toppled shipping container, the one supposedly carrying Black Sky, though Matt wasn't even sure if it was. Perhaps the real Black Sky was being fought at the moment by Clark and the container was carrying something else.
But that didn't matter. Nobu, the leader of the Yakuza in Hell's Kitchen, was standing right in front of him. And he wouldn't miss that opportunity for anything in the world.
"You!" Nobu snarled, spitting blood. His face was covered in cuts, some with pieces of glass still stuck to the wounds; one of his eyes was a bloody mess, completely blind. "You are the Masked Vigilante causing all these problems."
Matt, forcing himself to ignore the pain of his own injuries, raised his billy clubs.
"You bet I am," he answered.
"You have no idea what you are dealing with," Nobu threatened. "You would be wise to beg for a quick death, now, while you still have the chance."
"I'm dealing with petty criminals," Matt retorted. "You were petty criminals in K'un-Lun and you're petty criminals here."
The surprise on Nobu's face – followed by blinding rage – was worth it. Furious, Nobu removed his blood-stained jacket and tossed it away, grabbing a weapon hidden on his waist. A kyoketsu-shoge, Matt immediately recognized; a double-edged short blade, with another curved blade near the hilt, attached to a chain. Pretty much the mix of a knife with a sickle that could be used at a distance by swinging the long chain, or on close combat, as a fast and deadly blade.
A dangerous weapon, but so was Matt.
For a long minute, they assessed one another. Matt focused all his senses, absorbing every single detail of the battlefield. The toppled shipping container Nobu was trying to protect, every single broken piece of glass, plastic and metal littering the ground, the overturned truck dripping a bit of fuel… Not far, he could hear Jessica punching the dragons in the sky and at a distance he could hear the terrible sounds of the battle between Clark and that rotten creature.
He also focused on Nobu. The man was injured, Matt could taste the copper in the air of his many open cuts, and his entire body was bruised. There was glass piercing his skin in several different points and his left eye was gone, completely destroyed by a particularly long glass shard.
And yet, the man was breathing as if there was nothing wrong. A warrior, without a doubt.
As if both of them were given a signal, Matt and Nobu started to move, slowly at first, until finally both were running towards each other. Before they could meet in the middle, both of them threw their weapons; Matt rolled to avoid the blade passing above his head and Nobu used his chain to deflect Matt's billy club.
And a second later, they clashed in a flurry of punches and kicks, with little regard to defense or dodging, both trusting their discipline – and rage – to allow them to ignore the pain and to push even harder to cause maximum damage.
Nobu, Matt realized right away, was not like any of the dozens of mobsters and criminals he'd faced before. If he had to compare him to anyone, it would be to Stick. Both were highly trained, incredibly experienced and completely merciless. There was the fact that Nobu was, clearly, relying on chi to fight as well; not on the same level Stick did to counter his blindness, but enough to make him stronger and faster than a regular man.
Matt groaned in agony when Nobu managed to hit him with the "sickle" part of the kyoketsu-shoge, the blade acting like a fishing-hook; he was pulled by the hook buried in his shoulder towards Nobu, but instead of trying to push him away, Matt went with the motion.
And headbutted the Yakuza boss right in the damaged eye, sinking the glass shard even deeper.
That one he didn't learn from his father, Battlin' Jack Murdock; that was all Stick.
Jessica didn't have any important plans for that day. Attend Union Allied's assets auction, something Clark paid her handsomely to do, maybe have lunch someplace nice and then go to Clark's apartment and watch something on his humongous TV. The idea to meet the Masked Man was something that popped on her mind spontaneously and she was actually shocked that the opportunity presented itself at that very day.
It was good luck, she thought; well, Jessica should've fucking known better by now.
Her quiet day had somehow turned into a battle against a secret criminal organization of immortal ninjas to stop a magical bomb that could destroy the planet. She was forced to get in a car driven by a blind man, jump out from said car so she wouldn't die when it collided against a truck.
And now she was riding a dragon.
A freaking metal dragon, made of gears and pistons, something out of a steampunk fanatic's wet dream. A dragon that was doing its best to throw her away, twisting midair, breathing fire, trying to cut her with its claws.
Unluckily for the dragon, Jessica was wearing something sturdier under her leather jacket and no amount of trying would pierce Kryptonian gear.
To demonstrate that, Jessica punched it right in the mouth, her fist blocking its fire breathing throat.
And with nowhere to go, the fire found another way; unfortunately for the dragon, that "other way" was its metal stomach. It blew up, gushing a weird green fluid that was probably the dragon's fuel, because the thing caught fire immediately.
Not waiting for it to blow up, Jessica prepared herself and jumped, hoping to grab the second dragon bastard before she could fall down.
"ARGHHH!" Nobu screamed when the glass shard sunk deeper and Matt took the chance to use his own billy club to unhook himself from the kyoketsu-shoge.
Nobu, despite the absurd pain he was feeling, attacked again, even faster, swinging the chain around him like a tornado of blades. Matt used every bit of his abilities to be able to predict the path of his weapon, twisting and turning his body to dodge and deflect, ignoring every cut he suffered when he wasn't quick enough. He needed a way to stop that weapon, a way to at least slow it down so he could get closer to Nobu.
Maybe it was the blood loss, maybe it was how close Matt was from dying, maybe it was even Divine Providence, but for some reason he remembered his father.
"The guys he went up against liked to say that fighting him was like hitting oak. Nights when he was outmatched, my dad's strategy was to let them hit him until they broke their hands."
Suddenly, Matt knew what he had to do.
Calculating the exact moment, Matt deflected Nobu's kyoketsu-shoge one last time: right into his abdomen. Matt was expecting the pain, but even so he winced when the blade pierced him, ripping skin and muscle as easily as a hot knife cutting butter. It was painful and incredibly dangerous; one misstep and the blade would've pierced an organ and that would be the end.
But Matt was prepared for it; Nobu was not.
Faster than Nobu could react, Matt grabbed the chain of the kyoketsu-shoge and pulled Nobu closer, using the Hand's lieutenant surprise to immediately wrap that same chain around Nobu's neck, so he couldn't move away.
And then Matt unleashed the Devil.
His fists blurred, hitting again and again, heavy like bricks against Nobu's face. He struggled, he tried to run, he tried to fight, to pierce his weapon even deeper in Matt's stomach, but nothing worked.
Matt had him cornered against the ropes and nothing would save Nobu now.
Jaw, side of the head, stomach, chest, nose, neck… Matt punched and punched, feeling Nobu's bones crack under his fists, his skin open, his blood fly. The shards of glass piercing Nobu's body were pushed deeper and his face was already swollen, black and blue, broken. Several teeth shattered and every single one of his ribs were cracked; Nobu's feet faltered.
And after one final uppercut, the Yakuza boss fell, defeated.
Victory for The Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
"He's… Dead," Clark whispered, stunned, his x-ray vision fixed on the grey man.
Despite the fact that he could hear the grey man groaning and digging his way out of the ground, his heart wasn't beating. The lungs were filled with air – that explained the roars and groans –, but there was no blood in the respiratory system; there wasn't blood flow anywhere, Clark realized. Not the kidneys, not the liver, not the stomach, not the intestines, not the brain… Instead of it, there were black fungal tendrils growing inside his body, as if his body was part rotten flesh, part fungus.
Like a dead body left to decompose in a swamp. Except this one had, somehow, got back up.
The broken bones had been fixed and strengthened by the fungus. The cracks disappeared and the muscles forced the limbs to the right position, giving the grey man a functional arm and jaw again.
And the brain… It shouldn't look like that in any living creature. It was a mass of scarred tissue, decomposed flesh and black tendrils and there wasn't any chance whatsoever of that being a working organ.
"You only noticed now?" Stick said, surprising the distracted Clark, as he approached holding his sword; which probably meant he had defeated all the mobsters still standing. He turned to Clark. "What, the putrefied smell and the corpse-looking grey skin weren't enough? That thing has been dead for centuries now."
Clark turned to look at Stick, his expression astonished. The old man continued:
"Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday,
That was the end,
Of Solomon Grundy."
Stick sheathed his katana.
"Except this is bullshit, of course, because the thing is clearly not 'ended', is it?" was the rhetorical question.
"That's his name? Solomon Grundy?" Clark questioned. He'd heard the rhyme before, but he never thought it actually had anything to do with a real person.
Matt's teacher simply rolled his blind eyes.
"No, that's just what they've been calling it ever since it came back and started to kill people. I don't think it has a real name."
"The Hand did this? They revived him?"
Stick tilted his head.
"While the Hand does like to play with corpses, this wasn't their doing. This thing was raised by some other power, some kind of magic force that decided this body served as good avatar. The Hand just picked him up and pointed him in the direction of their enemies, but this thing has been killing people for centuries now." He paused. "And revived is a strong word. This thing is not alive, it's just reanimated. And unfortunately will keep coming back, no matter what. Believe, I know."
"You've met him before?" Clark asked, glancing at the increasingly bigger cracks forming on the ground as the grey man dug his way out, slowly but surely.
The blow to the head probably had been more damaging than he imagined, impairing the grey man's movements, because otherwise he would've been attacking again immediately. It wouldn't last, though, Clark knew; the speed, strength and aggressiveness were coming back by the second.
He looked back at Stick.
"Hmm, once. Took some of our best men to put that thing down. It doesn't matter how, it always gets back up. Solomon Grundy has been burned to ashes, quartered, drowned, buried, hanged and even devoured by many different animals before. Somehow, its body always reconstructs itself, out of nothing if it has to. I had no idea it was already back up or that the Hand had recovered him, but here we are."
Saying this, Stick turned and started walking away.
"I'm going to give the kid a hand. Finish him off, will you?"
"How?" Clark couldn't help but to ask after Stick basically told him that Grundy could take anything and come back.
"You can always toss him into the sun," Stick shrugged. "I don't think he ever died that way. I wonder if his next incarnation will be able to remember it."
And with that, Stick started to run in the direction Matt and Jessica headed to, quite fast for a man his age – then again, chi seemed to work wonders on that account.
Clark turned back to look at Solomon Grundy, seeing as his body got quicker and stronger, digging his way out getting easier by the second. He wondered if Grundy was still "waking up", coming back from whatever state the Hand put him under to transport him, because that would explain why he was getting stronger.
Or Clark had managed to really piss him off and that increase in power was due to anger alone.
Regardless of the reason, Clark knew he had to end this, fast. He needed to quickly end a fight against a super-zombie strong enough to fight him, able to regenerate his rotten body from even the most terrible wounds in seconds and incapable of feeling any kind of pain.
This could mean a very, very tough battle, one that Clark honestly didn't know if he could win fast enough or at all; or a chance to take a page out of Matt's book.
And let his Devil out.
Grundy burst from the ground like the undead he was, roaring, running towards Clark with all his bloodlust. The ground shook as he approached, incredibly fast, his big muscles body creating craters when he touched the ground.
Without hesitation, Clark flew against him, breaking the sound barrier.
Grundy's eyes followed the blue and red blur that Clark became, his fist closing in anticipation for the clash; Clark, however, didn't meet him head on. Dropping fast, Clark collided against Grundy's leg, toppling him.
Before he could fall, however, Clark grabbed his leg and tossed him up; and then he took off, breaking the ground as he did it, flying so fast that Grundy didn't even have the chance to see what was happening before he was grabbed by Clark's Kryptonian arms and pushed up to the sky.
Clark grabbed Grundy from the back, his arms locking around the grey man's chest, and he flew up with all his power. Grundy tried to fight, to release himself, but the sheer pressure Clark's flight put against his body wouldn't let him; he could just struggle, screaming and roaring, trying to resist the wind pressure against his face and chest as Clark forced him up, not unlike a rocket ship.
Clouds opened to grant them passage, the moon grew larger by the second, the temperature dropped fast. Soon, Clark could see the Earth's curve as they left the atmosphere.
And then, he twisted and turned back, starting his descent.
As they came down, Clark's eyes scanned the planet, looking for an uninhabited place; when he found one, he adjusted their route and increased his speed. They reentered the atmosphere, the air glowing around them. Grundy could barely hold his head straight, his limbs flapping around as Clark pushed him down, flying faster and faster, looking through the grey man's body to see the ground approaching by the second.
When they were about to crash, Clark released Grundy and flew away, turning his body up to narrowly avoid the desert sand; Grundy had no way to do anything of the sort.
BOOOOOOM!
Solomon Grundy collided against the ground like a meteor, his superpowered body opening a crater so big that the sand of the desert Clark tossed him into was thrown away in all directions, like several sand-tsunamis. A sandstorm was triggered immediately, the powerful winds blowing in all directions, completely out of control.
Clark managed to avoid hitting the ground, flying up just at the last second. Unbothered by the sand waves and the storm, he turned and made his way back to the immense crater, flying over it.
There wasn't anyone around, he knew that when looked from outside the atmosphere; like he saw from all the way up, the desert was empty of life – unlike the docks at New York – the perfect place for a stunt like this.
The perfect place for him to deal a blow against Grundy from which he wouldn't recover so soon.
Landing inside the crater, ignoring the loud winds and the sand flying everywhere, Clark used his x-ray vision to quickly find Grundy, buried once again; he couldn't help but to wince when he finally did. Grundy was, simply put, broken. Every single bone in his body was shattered, unable to resist the impact even with all his power. The limbs were pointing at weird angles, the back was twisted, and his head was actually turned the wrong way.
And despite all that, Grundy was still trying to move and still screaming and roaring, trying to attack him.
It was unbelievable. There wasn't any sign of pain, fear or surrender, just raw fury as he tried to drag his broken body in Clark's direction. And soon, Clark noticed, he would, because the black fungal tendrils that inhabited Grundy's body were already at work, repairing the broken bones, making them even denser and stronger than they were before.
Sooner, rather than later, Grundy would get up again and attack.
Clark stepped closer. For a moment, he truly considered doing what Stick told him to do and get rid of Grundy. It would be simpler, a fast way to end this battle with a decisive victory and to stop a very sizable threat.
Except that killing Grundy wouldn't actually solve anything.
In the short term, sure, Grundy would be dead and Clark would be free to fly immediately to help Jessica and Matt. In the long term? According to Stick – and Clark could tell he was telling the truth – this wouldn't be the first time Grundy died. Burned to ashes, quartered, drowned, buried… He died before, several times.
And then he came back, even when there wasn't anything left of his body to regenerate.
Whatever magical force that reanimated Grundy was, it couldn't be defeated by simply killing him. He wouldn't be ending a threat, just postponing it. Postponing to an unknown time and unknown place when Grundy would come back to kill again and Clark couldn't guarantee that he would be there to stop him.
No, killing Grundy wouldn't solve anything. Clark had another idea; he looked at Grundy's hateful eyes for a moment.
"I'm sorry for this," Clark apologized, steeling his nerves. He sighed. "Even though I think this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you."
His eyes glowed red.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein