Elektra – Armacham Technology Corporation
"Hello, Elektra. I was hoping we'd finally meet."
She froze.
The voice echoed across the room—not just heard but felt, like a ripple against her skin. Her supernatural senses flared, pupils narrowing. There was something wrong with those words—something inhuman.
Had he known? Her mind worked double-time, every calculation a survival gambit.
Then, without a sound, the once-sealed door split open seamlessly.
A woman stepped through first, clad in an immaculately tailored tuxedo, unsettling in how wrong it looked on her frame. Behind her came two operatives Elektra had scouted earlier—hulking, predator-fast, and disciplined—beasts in human skin.
Goosebumps chased across Elektra's exposed forearms.
But it was the woman who held her attention. Something primal in her energy. Dangerous. Off.
"Elektra," the woman said flatly. "Come with us peacefully, or—"
She never finished.
The moment her voice rang out, Elektra's gift detonated—a kaleidoscope of precognitive visions overlapping violently.
FLASH-BANGS.
She moved.
A fluid, explosive slide across the slick marble floor, her coat flaring out behind her to catch the incoming flare light. She didn't need to hear more. Her instincts screamed trap.
"Mr. York would prefer you remain behind, I'm afraid," crackled a voice through the intercom, calm amid the chaos.
Her precognition screamed again—this time closer. She pivoted, just in time. A ripple in the air—a strike, almost invisible.
The figure lunged, sleek and silent. One of the armored troopers she'd taken down before. But this one was enhanced.
Upgraded? And he wasn't alone.
Sometime later another door exploded inward, a shockwave of smoke and sparks. From within staggered Elektra, tattered, blood-soaked, one arm clutching her ribs. Her eyes were wide, feral.
Chaos erupted.
Elsewhere – Juárez, Mexico
Ka'l the Red, former master of the mystic arts. Now: Avatar of Rage.
He hovered above the skyline, arms folded like a wrathful demigod. Crimson light pulsed around him like a living heartbeat, a halo of fury radiating outward in the shape of the Red Lantern insignia.
Below him, the city churned in chaos. Civilians saw nothing. The battle was buried in the shadows—covert, quiet, and deliberately hidden.
But Ka'l saw everything.
It wasn't just Armacham. That was the mask, the shell. Behind it were old gods and new kings maneuvering for power, puppeteering narratives, and dressing their greed in the clothes of heroism.
He snarled—but held his expression neutral. It wasn't the time to feel.
Not yet.
There was a hole in his psyche, a silence in the back of his mind where once there had been a constant presence.
Jeremy.
No—Cole. The boy who had saved him. The one who had given him purpose, vengeance, and identity. And now he was distant, muted by the Mandate's safeguards. It kept Ka'l sane… but alone.
Still, he would repay that salvation. With fire, if needed.
"Satellite is in position," came the voice in his ear. "Thirty minutes until micro-thrust engagement. Geosynchronous lock confirmed."
Ka'l didn't blink—a shimmer in the shadows below, and with a casual flick of his finger, incineration. A scout-Brood vaporized mid-step.
They knew he was here.
Good.
Let them fear what came next.
The red light intensified.
Hell's Kitchen – Ground Zero
Conflict.
It fed the system. The more layered, volatile, and violent, the greater the yield.
Jeremy York stirred inside him, memories bleeding together. But Cole didn't flinch. He embraced the contradictions. The man. The mask. The monster.
He wasn't hiding anymore.
He was holding back.
Let them confuse restraint for weakness.
Nagami lunged again, a final, desperate strike.
Cole met it head-on—blade locked to gauntlet, muscles taut, strength swelling.
Every clash, every strike—his Persona surged:
Baran Flanders-Mammoth: 51% → 61%.
With each blow, his Mandate flared hotter. It boiled inside him, a controlled furnace. Rage sharpened into discipline, instinct into form. He turned every strike into data—every breath into analysis.
The street cracked beneath their fury. Ash fell like snow. Buildings burned—but never fully collapsed—controlled chaos. Measured destruction.
Nagami's Muramasa blade screamed through the air, too fast for most eyes.
But Cole was faster.
Always faster.
Black Sky or not, Nagami knew he was being dismantled. He signaled for assistance but any approach, anytime a ninja attempted to interfere they were met by the boy constructs.
His style broke down—relentless offense giving way to brute unpredictability. Cole's Force-enhanced perception left no blind spots. Every particle of motion registered. Nothing escaped him.
His kinetic hammer shimmered and dissolved, replaced by bare, gloved fists, his hands glowing red with coalesced rage.
"You question my pedigree," Cole said in a voice layered with distortion. The Red Ring warped it and gave it weight.
"You mock my mother. You insult my father."
He stepped forward, each movement slow, deliberate, like tectonic plates grinding.
"My father was thrice the man you'll ever be."
CRACK!
His fist shattered the oni mask—blood exploding in a violent arc.
Nagami staggered.
Didn't fall.
Still, driven by cursed fury, he roared, his blade aimed straight for Cole's heart.
Then—
BOOM.
The ground split.
LUKE CAGE landed like a meteor.
The asphalt buckled, and dust roared up in a thick plume. The shockwave knocked cars onto their sides.
Cole's cowled head turned slowly, his Red Hood armor scarred but holding, the once electric blue slits that hid his steel grey irises now the haloed in the red light his red lantern power.
His suit's H.U.D system synced with the seismic signature, and Luke's biometrics flashed across his head-up display.
"You shouldn't have come," Cole muttered, voice rough, distorted by the cowl and rage barely held in check.
He drove a knee into Nagami's ribs. The chunin gasped, lungs empty.
"But since you did…"
Red energy surged. His gauntlet ignited.
"You'll leave broken."
"Stand down!" The large man ordered.
"You still playing at this game." Cole muttered his back still turned.