Post by HoM on Apr 9, 2018 10:18:19 GMT -5
Previousy, in Secret Six..
One night in Gotham City, a sextet of criminals were abducted by the mysterious crime lord known only as 'the Voice' and blackmailed into acting as his agents in the field! The Six’s first mission was to rob Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. the Penguin, a mission they barely succeeded in, but not without injury. They have since earned the Penguin’s ire, and he’s dedicated his resources to hunting them down and bringing them in by any means necessary!
Mister Toad (Real name unknown) - Amphibious member of the Circus of the Strange. Drives cars. Eats flies. Croaks.
Double Down (Jeremy Tell) - Rogue gambler from Central City. Can turn his skin into razor-sharp playing cards. Still needs to grow a spine.
Mist III (Nash Nimbus) - Opal City criminal. Able to become a cloud of living vapor. Knows how to hold a grudge.
Sickle (Timur Abramovichi) - Hulking Siberian ex-pat. Criminal enforcer. Southpaw.
Copperhead (Larissa Diaz) - Assassin for the Penitente Cartel. Master contortionist. Expert in poisons. The only real professional here.
He was awake now; at least, he thought he was. His mind snapped to attention and immediately his body was hit with pain. He felt bruises around his midsection and at least one-- no, two cracked ribs. He tasted blood in his mouth. Then he remembered the fight: him against two kids, teenagers who were stronger than they looked. They brawled, wrecked his apartment, and while he had at least a hundred pounds on the both of them put together, he ended up down and out.
Shit, Semyon Abramovichi thought, realizing the state of his apartment. I’m not getting my security deposit back.
Semyon opened his eyes and took in his surroundings but found he couldn’t. He was blindfolded, with a gag stuffed into his mouth as well. He tried to move, but found that his arm and legs were immobile, wrapped in duct tape and chains from the sound and feel of it. Despite his mighty efforts, he couldn’t free himself. Whoever had captured him had the good sense to use proper restraints.
Semyon didn’t know he was strapped to a metal chair, bolted to the ground, in a warehouse near the Gotham docks. He didn’t know the warehouse was discretely owned by shell companies that linked back to Oswald Cobblepot, nor that his captors were hired help working for the same: the super-strong teenage criminals known as the Terror Twins and Gotham’s most unscrupulous private investigator, Jack Forbes. He didn’t know they were in a room overlooking his current position, waiting for the fourth member of their group to join them.
“Jesus, that fella could put up a fight,” said Tommy Terror, rubbing the sore spot on his head where Abramovichi’s sledgehammer had struck him. “We sure he ain’t superpowered?”
“He’s Russian, right? Maybe he’s radioactive,” Tuppence Terror chipped in.
“He’s Siberian,” Forbes corrected her. “And whatever he is, he feels pain. That’s all that matters.”
At that moment, a fourth person joined them; a slim man, dressed in a grey jumpsuit and wearing two belts over his shoulders, lined with throwing knives. He held a mask in one hand.
“Mister Barrera,” said Forbes. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
Guillermo Barrera, also known as the interrogator Brutale, gave only the slightest indication that he heard Forbes. He walked past the PI, keeping his attention focused on Abramovichi. “The prisoner is awake,” said Brutale.
“Only for a few seconds,” said Forbes. “Mister Barrera, can I just say, I’ve heard a lot about your talents, and I’m looking forward to seeing you work. Sincerely.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t keep our guest waiting then,” he answered.
Brutale pulled the mask over his head and left the office. He crossed the open warehouse room to where Semyon Abramovichi was bound. The prisoner sat up straight and alert when he heard him coming and said something through his gag that Brutale didn’t understand.
Brutale approached Abramovichi carefully and gently removed the blindfold from his eyes and the gag from his mouth. Abramovichi’s eyes blinked open as he adjusted to the light and focused on the man standing over him.
Calmly, Brutale pulled one of the knives from his belt, holding it in his right hand and gently tapping the tip of it with his left forefinger. “Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.
“Two blond-haired shits broke down my door and dragged me out of home,” Abramovichi spat. “Why are you here?”
“You were asked very simple questions,” said Brutale, ignoring his question. “Where is your brother? Who is he working with? What are their plans? You chose not to answer, and my associates had to take more drastic tactics.”
“I do not know where my brother is,” he answered. “And if I did, I would not tell some little man trying to scare me with knife.”
“I will find the truth, Mister Abramovichi,” said Brutale. “I always find the truth.” He grabbed his prisoner’s chin and forced the man to face him. “Know this: You have the power to end this. Give us the truth and you return to your life. Refuse, and you will be kept here, and I will start going to work.”
Semyon appeared to contemplate this for a moment. He mulled over the offer, weighing his options and the outcomes of each choice, then finished by spitting in Brutale’s face. If the interrogator flinched under his mask, he didn’t show it.
“Show me your work, little man,” said Semyon, a wicked smile on his face.
Brutale sighed. Without saying another word, he put the knife back in its sheath on his belt, and put the gag and blindfold back on his prisoner. “This ends when you want it to end. Give us the truth, and you can return to your life.” With that, he left the prisoner alone and returned to the others of his cadre in the office.
“What the hell was that?!” said Forbes. “Where was the knife work I heard so much about?”
“You Americans,” Barrera said, taking off his mask. “You think you can cut or shock or drown the truth out of a man.” He looked at Forbes. “Pain is not a solution, it is a tool; one that must be applied the right way to the right situation.” Barrera looked back at Abramovichi, who was struggling against his bonds with all his considerable strength. “That man knows pain; he doesn’t fear it. To break him, we’ll need something stronger. We need desperation.”
“Oh, yeah? And what do you suggest?” asked Forbes.
“We keep him bound and gagged at all times when we aren’t questioning him. We give him food and water; not enough to nourish, but enough to survive. We do not let him sleep. We let him sit in his own filth. And after four days of this, if he still won’t tell the truth, I’ll stat removing pieces from him.”
“And exactly how long do we expect this to take?” asked Forbes.
“A week,” Barrera answered. “Likely more.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Forbes rubbed his eyes in exasperation. “A week? You want us to look after this guy for a week? You can’t take care of this any faster?”
Barrera turned to face Forbes. “You brought me in to get the truth. If you want to try your hand at it, be my guest; see how far you get with this man in just one evening. However, if you want to know what Mister Abramovichi knows, trust my methods and trust me to do my work.”
“…Fine,” Forbes answered, resigned. “Guess I’m getting paid either way.”
“Good,” Barrera said. “One more thing: be sure to remind him that his actions put him in this situation, and only his actions can get him out. He has to want to confess; otherwise he’ll just say anything to get out of this situation.”
Forbes looked at Abramovichi; the man was beaten, taken, trapped, threatened, and was still struggling for his freedom with every ounce of strength he had. “What if he’s telling the truth? What if he really doesn’t know where his brother is?”
Barrera answered him as if the answer was the simplest thing in the world: “Then we’ll know.”
Timur Abramovichi had worked protection details before when he was with the Russian mob. Most of it was just keeping an eye on drug or weapon shipments as they made their way through Gotham, and even then, nothing happened.
Occasionally a rival gang or an opportunistic loner with some heavy artillery would try to take the cargo, but Timur and his brother would put a stop to them. They worked with their employers to make the operations small and quiet - nothing that would attract the attention of the police, or worse, the Batman. There was rarely trouble, and if there was, the Abramovichis could handle it.
The Russians said that the work made Timur paranoid - or at least more paranoid. Timur regarded this as an asset: his head on a swivel, his eyes sharp, his ears perked for anything out of the ordinary. It made him good at his job and made him bitter and uncomfortable now.
The Secret Six had been hired to protect Rumaan Harjavti, the president of Bialya, who was currently standing on a balcony of the presidential palace giving a speech to his people in his native tongue. Timur hated the set-up; it was too open, too visible, impossible to provide an assurance of coverage.
Harjavti had waved away his concerns; in addition to the Six, he had his own team of security guards at every point of entry around the palace and by his side, to say nothing of the sheets of bulletproof glass surrounding him. The rest of the Six didn’t worry about it, but Timur still had his concerns.
When he saw something, some far away black speck that rose up into the clear blue sky, the hairs on the back of Timur’s neck stood up. It moved shakily, like a helicopter, and stopped and hovered high above them.
Then he saw a glint of light come from it, something like the sun reflecting off of glass, and he moved into action. Timur reached out with his one right arm, grabbing Harjavti by the back of his coat and yanking him away from the podium he was speaking into.
The security guards reached for their guns instinctively. Harjavti looked confused and angry, and he was about to say something when the sound of something small whizzed past them, followed by the sound of marble cracking. They looked down to see a ring of cracks in the floor of the balcony, in the center of which was a bent sniper’s bullet.
“Inside! Now!” Timur shouted as he bolted inside. His hand was on the back of Harjavti’s head, keeping it down as the president struggled to keep up with his protector.
Onboard the chopper looking down on the palace, David Cain cursed as his target escaped from the view of his sniper rifle. He reached towards his waist for a radio and spoke into it.
“Target is on the move,” he said. “Prepare Plan Bravo.”
“Copy,” came a voice back, thick with the local accent.
Cain turned his head to the pilot and said, “Yusuf, take us in.”
The chopper turned and started his descent. Cain began to methodically disassemble his rifle, placing each piece carefully into its case before snapping it shut. He briefly checked to make sure his sidearm was loaded, then prepared himself to finish this off up close.
President Harjavti may have been insufficiently scared for his own life the previous night, but he did at least give the Six something to work with: he had installed a panic room in his bedroom that could hide him and protect him from any attackers. The only problem was it was on the other side of the palace.
Nevertheless, the Six and their charge made their way down the hallways of Harjavti’s lavish home, with the plan to wait out the attack until the president’s security team gave the all-clear.
The group rounded a corner and continued their rush down the next hallway. The sound of gunfire sounded from somewhere near them and they stopped suddenly, with Sickle instinctively wrapping his body around Harjavti. They looked behind them and saw a small platoon, all holding assault rifles and all of them trained on the Six.
“Get on the ground!” one of them, evidently the leader, shouted. “Now!”
The Six didn’t move, save for Sickle stepping in front of Harjavti, blocking him with his huge frame. The soldiers steeled themselves.
“Now!” repeated the leader, leveling his gun at the undaunted Abramovichi.
“You fellas sure do like to make a ruckus, don’t ya?” Mister Toad asked. None of the soldiers responded. “Listen mate, I don’t know what this dickhead did to you and yours, and frankly I don’t give a toss. He ain’t goin’ wif ya.”
The leader turned his gun towards Toad. “Then you will die with him!”
At that, Toad’s tone changed to one of indignation. “Die wif ‘em? Like some nobody?! Do you know who I am, son? I’m Mister! Bloody! Toad! Roustabout for the Circus of the Strange! Esteemed criminal mastermind! Master of the motorcars! Survivor of the--”
“We’re ready,” Cluemaster interjected.
Mister Toad relaxed. “Oh, thank god, I was runnin’ outta titles.” He ducked, covering his ears and closing his eyes. The rest of the Six followed suit before the bombs went off.
During their time in the House of Strangers, Cluemaster had insisted on creating contingency plans and tactics in case of emergencies. Considering at least one of the Six was recovering from serious injuries at the time, they didn’t argue.
So, when Toad had slipped the word ‘ruckus’ into his impromptu tirade, that was the signal for Cluemaster to subtly withdraw a pair of small spheres from one of the pouches on his flak jacket and, when the soldiers were distracted, hurl them forward.
His modified flashbang grenades had less impact, but they did the job just fine at a close range. The light was blinding, the sound was deafening, and the soldiers got the full blast. As soon as the sound went off, Toad stood back up, swelled his throat, and released a supersonic croak that knocked most of them on their backs.
Cluemaster turned to Sickle and Harjavti. “Keep going, we’ll hold them off. Mist will be your backup.”
“The hell I will!” Mist spoke up. “I’m not going anywhere with him!”
“This isn’t up for debate!” Cluemaster said. The soldiers were now beginning to stir. “Go!”
Sickle was already continuing down the hallway with Harjavti. Mist grunted, then shifted her form into a gaseous green cloud and followed after them.
In the week since their first encounter, the team had, to some extent, bonded over with one another over their shared captivity. This did not extend to Mist and Sickle. The two had tried to kill each other upon their first meeting, and while Sickle appeared to no longer be perturbed by this fact, Mist was far less forgiving. Nevertheless, she followed her orders and went down the hallway after her teammate.
Sickle and Harjavti turned a corner and stopped dead in their tracks. Another soldier was waiting for them - younger than the rest, somewhere around seventeen, but armed and armored just the same. When he saw Sickle, he started, and the rifle slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the floor.
Sickle didn’t waste the opportunity, drawing his namesake weapon and charging forward. The soldier, panicking, fumbled for something, anything, that might save him. He hand landed on a grenade and, without stopping to think, drew it, pulled the pin, and hurled it.
The grenade landed at Sickle’s feet. He stopped, turned around, and ran from the bomb. He was fast, but not fast enough. It went off, and he felt the heat on his back and the air get pushed out of his lungs as it sent him flying forward, past the cowering Harjavti and out of a window. He turned around and grabbed onto the sill, barely stopping himself from falling out of the side of the palace.
Sickle had the wind knocked out of him and could barely breath. He likely had second degree burns and could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears. He could feel where the broken glass had sliced up his torso, as well as the shards that were digging through the calluses on his fingers. And the first thing on his mind was getting back to Harjavti - was protecting the primary.
He heard something that may have been gunfire. He tried to pull himself up but could barely move his arm without causing a horrendous pain. He looked up and saw a head looking down at him from out of the window.
It was Mist, holding her Colt .45 and staring down at Sickle through a pair of dark sunglasses. Sickle tried to speak, to say “Help”, but all that came out was a wheeze as he struggled to breathe.
Mist calmly put away her gun, adjusted her glasses, and turned around to escort the president the rest of the way to his panic room, leaving Timur Abramovichi to hang there, waiting to die from his wounds or from falling out of the palace.
Alone.
The Abramovichi Twins had been living in America for some time now, and they had found their place there. Their friend Dmitri Pavlovich had helped them find a place to live, steady work as hired muscle for the Russian mob, but most importantly, he had kept his promise to find a way to separate them.
A surgeon he called ‘the Crime Doctor’, who was willing to perform any operation on anyone for a price, found the prospect of separating a pair of conjoined twins an interesting challenge, and though nervous, Timur and Semyon went through with it. The result was an unqualified success, allowing the brothers to live their own lives distinct from one another. They stayed together, though; they didn’t have anyone else to turn to in this strange, foreign land.
After getting used to living as individuals and working in Gotham City, the brothers asked Dmitri for better work; they figured that even with only one arm each, they had strength enough to handle whatever this city could throw at them. Dmitri’s suggestion was to ‘get a gimmick’ - evidently, the people of Gotham loved those.
Timur and Semyon decided to adopt the symbol of their homeland, thus beginning the career of the Hammer and Sickle twins. The work mostly involved scaring or hurting people into cooperating with their superiors, and it was work that suited them just fine, work they were celebrated for by their comrades. It seemed like, after so many years of living without one, the two had finally found a place and a purpose in this world.
One day, Timur was coming home from buying groceries. He came into the apartment they shared in the Narrows to find a suitcase in the middle of the living room, with Semyon frantically packing clothes into it.
<“What is this?”> Timur asked his brother in their native tongue.
Semyon looked up at him. <“Good. You’re home. Help me pack, we don’t have much time.”>
<“Much time for what?>” said Timur.
<“Do you remember Iosef Gavrilovich from back home? He called me today,”> his brother answered. <“Our father, he…>” Semyon took a breath. <“He died yesterday. From a heart attack. His funeral is in two days in Karskatan. Dmitri’s flying back to Siberia and he said we could go with him, but he’s leaving tonight. If we want to make it there, we have to leave in…”> He looked up at the old clock that was hanging on the wall. <“One hour? Shit.”>
Timur didn’t say anything. He was going over the information in his head, everything he had just learned, but didn’t say anything. Semyon noticed this, and allowed himself a moment to slow down and talk to his brother. <“I know this is a lot to take in, and I’m sorry to tell you like this, but we have a very long flight ahead of us. We can talk about it then--”>
Timur interrupted him. <“I’m not going on any flight.”>
<“What?”> Semyon asked.
His expression was grave. “<I’m not going on any flight, I’m not going back to Siberia, and I’m not going to that old bastard’s funeral.”>
Semyon didn’t know what to say. <“But…but how can you--”>
<“Because he hated us!”> said Timur. <“Because our entire lives, he spat on us! Treated us like filth! And now you want to honor him? To forgive him?”>
<“I’m not forgiving him,>” his brother responded. <“You think I don’t remember what he did to us? I do. But he was still our father. He brought us into this world, raised us. We should at least see him off.”>
<“He isn’t worth your time, Semyon. And he certainly isn’t worth mine. Leave him to rot and don’t look back.”>
Timur walked to the kitchen and put down the bag of groceries he was carrying. He pulled out a bottle of vodka, took a glass from a cupboard, and poured himself a drink, half of which he downed in a single gulp. Semyon gaped as his brother’s nonchalance. <“How can you say that about our father?”>
<“Because we never had a father,”> Timur finished his drink. <“We had a warden. And he was dead to me long before his heart stopped beating.>”
Semyon looked ready to burst, to say something that he hoped would shock his brother, but instead he turned back towards the suitcase, shoved the last of the clothes into it, and zipped it shut. <“I’m going to say goodbye to our father. I’ll ask Dmitri to delay his flight as long as he can, should you decide to act like an adult and join us.”>
<“Don’t bother,>” Timur poured himself another drink. <“And if you do decide to honor the old man and betray everything we left Siberia for, then don’t bother coming back here.”>
Semyon stopped in his tracks. <“You can’t be serious.”>
Timur took another drink. <“Do I look like I’m joking? If you go to Andrei’s funeral, you will not be welcomed in this home any more. Do you understand?”>
There was silence in their apartment. The only sound was the faint rumble of a passing train and the ticking of the old clock. Semyon scratched at the scar on his right shoulder, where his brother was once attached to him. Finally, he said, <“You are a child, Timur. You are petty and vindictive and--”>
<“Why don’t you complain about it to your father?”> Whatever veneer of calm Timur had was beginning to slip. “<Get out of my sight, traitor.”>
At that moment, Semyon wanted to say so much to his brother - things that were sad, sympathetic, angry, spiteful, hurtful, all at once - but he knew if he did, Timur would be lost to him forever. So, he said nothing, and he left, closing the door behind him.
Timur calmly finished his drink, then hurled his glass at the wall and watched it shatter. He raged and he swore and he punched holes into the wall with his bare fist. There was a voice inside him, one that told him to follow his brother, to apologize to him. A part of Timur knew it was right and knew Semyon was right. He knew what he had to do, for his own sake as much as his brother’s.
But he ignored it.
The hallway in the royal palace was a grizzly sight to behold. The polished marble floors, intricately-painted walls, the portrait of the Biyalan landscape that had hung there for decades; it was all stained with blood that pooled in the grooves between the tiles on the floor.
The source of it was the bodies of the insurgents, who were left where they had been killed, their faces alternating looks of shock and anguish and fury. The bodies were peppered with spent shell casings from whatever rounds they managed to fire off, and the stench of the gun smoke mingled with the sweat and blood of the fallen to make a stagnant, repugnant odor that would drive most who smelled it to sickness.
It was the proudest moment the Six ever had.
Cluemaster had regarded it as a small miracle none of them had been hurt worse than they had. Copperhead came out virtually untouched; she was able to dodge and weave between the platoon with speed, dexterity, and efficiency that none of them had been able to stop, cutting and slashing her way through the soldiers. Mister Toad, meanwhile, had used his sonic croak to separate the soldiers, the power of the sound flinging them back like a slingshot. The worst he suffered were some cuts and bruises from disarmed soldiers attempting to stop him hand-to-hand.
For his part, Double Down stayed back, flinging his razor-sharp playing cards at the insurgents with deadly precision, occasionally controlling them mid-flight if he had to. He did suffer a bullet-wound to his left arm, but upon inspecting it, Copperhead found it to be nothing more than a graze, one that could be fixed with some stitches, disinfectant, and the instructions to “Suck it up and stop acting like a little bitch.”
Cluemaster had, paradoxically, contributed the least to the fight and been hurt the worst. He wasn’t in the habit of carrying conventional weapons and his arsenal was limited to tools of subterfuge - flashbangs, smoke bombs, and a few other sundry tools and tricks that would likely do more harm than good in a brawl like this.
Still, he hanged back and helped where he could, and for his troubles was rewarded with four bullets to his chest. His flak jacket kept him alive, but the bruises would last for some time, and he was almost positive a rib had been cracked.
As Cluemaster surveyed the scene, making certain the bodies weren’t moving, Toad wiped the sweat from his brow and said, “Any’a you chaps wanna go for a pint after this?”
“Alcohol’s been illegal in Bialya since the revolution,” Cluemaster said.
“Really?” Double Down asked. “Because the president had, like, three glasses of wine with dinner.”
Cluemaster was about to say something but was cut off by the sound of a gunshot. He was knocked off his feet and landed roughly on the ground. The bullet was crumpled in the center of his jacket, the wind was knocked out of him, and he was certain that something in his chest had been broken.
Toad, Double Down, and Copperhead turned and saw that the shooter was a man in his fifties, marked by greying hair and small wrinkles on his face, but still appeared to be physically in his prime, with a fit, athletic figure beneath an all-black ensemble. He regarded the trio with disgust.
“Where’s the president?” David Cain growled at them.
The trio’s postures all shifted as they stood on guard. Toad asked, “And who the hell are you?”
“I’m John Wilkes Booth,” he said. “And unless you want to go the way of Mister Lincoln, tell me where the president is hiding.”
“Why don’t you make me, old man?” Toad said. Apparently unbothered by the gun, he pulled out a pair of brass knuckles from his jacket pockets, put them on, and stood ready to fight.
Cain narrowed his eyes, then holstered his gun and drew a combat knife from a sheath on his belt. “Fine. Come over here so I can teach you some manners.”
Mister Toad charged in, surprisingly quick on fist, and started throwing punches at the assassin. Cain dodged each one with seemingly little effort; he could read every attack Toad threw at him as if they were telegraphed in glowing neon. He had some skill, Cain thought, but he was impulsive, overconfident, clearly high on the victory he just achieved. On another day, he might be a challenge. Now, he was just an obstacle.
Cain moved like lightning, dodging between Toad’s punches to stab, slice, and cut his weakest points. Toad grew more frustrated, gritting his yellowed teeth and tightening his fists. He punched hard, which only meant that every punch missed harder.
Finally, Cain had had enough of the game. He closed the gap and backhanded Toad in the windpipe. He stumbled back, unable to catch his breath, and Cain punched him between his eyes. Stunned, Toad fell back and lay still.
Cain took a moment to catch his breath. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and even with everything he did to maintain his physique, fights like that winded him. It was then that a foot made violent contact with his face. He was thrown off for an instant, but only an instant.
He snapped back in time to dodge a scratch across the face from the metal claws on the ends of Copperhead’s fingers. In the moments after the attack, Cain smelled something on them, a sickly-sweet stench that mingled with the blood that was already hanging in the air. Poison, he thought. He couldn’t recognize it, but he didn’t need to in order to know to avoid it.
He went on the defensive again, but this time he was getting hit more. Besides his disorientation, Cain was having difficulty reading his new opponent’s moves: her movements bordered on the unnatural, bending and moving her body in ways that humans weren’t meant to. Cain had fought enemies with all different styles of fighting, but this level of contortion combined with skill was unfamiliar to him.
However, David Cain was nothing if not adaptable. With his free hand, he reached towards his belt and discretely drew a can of pepper spray. He dodged and weaved, taking the occasional hit from Copperhead but shrugging them off. Finally, when the opportunity presented itself, he Cain got in close to her and unloaded the can directly into her face.
Copperhead screamed and stumbled back, cursing him in Spanish, just before Cain delivered a well-aimed punch to her solar plexus, picked her up, raised her over his head, and threw her to the ground. She groaned and continued to curse but didn’t get up.
Finally, the only one left standing was Double Down, who shook where he stood. Cain said nothing as he approached him; his expression was enough to show how utterly uninterested in continuing the brawl.
Panicked, Double Down began peeling off pieces of his skin that turned into razor-sharp cards and hurling them at Cain. He was unperturbed, deflecting them away with his combat knife at blinding speed. He closed the gap with Double Down, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against the wall behind him. Cain aimed his knife beneath Double Down’s right eye.
“No no no, don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” Tell pleaded.
Cain wanted desperately to kill him - to kill all of them. These people had turned a simple job into such a hassle. They didn’t deserve to share breath with him. However, Cain stopped killing people for free years ago, even losers like these. It was bad for business. So instead, he asked with ice in his voice, “Where’s the president?”
“I-I-in his room,” Tell stuttered. “In the panic room. It’s down that way.” He gestured a trembling hand in the direction of the bedroom.
And then, Cain actually cracked a smile. “‘Preciate it.” He slammed Double Down’s head against the wall and let his unconscious form slump to the floor. Calmly, he reloaded his sidearm and walked away from the Six towards his target.
The Mist and Rumaan Harjavti had, to their mild amazement and tremendous appreciation, made it to the president’s opulent bedroom. Mist slammed the door behind them while Harjavti darted towards the nightstand on the right side of the bed, his trembling hand gliding along the bottom surface, searching, until he found what he was looking for. He pushed something, and they heard a click. The bookcase next to them swung forward, revealing a heavy steel door with a large handle and a keypad in the center.
Harjavti exclaimed something in his native tongue in a happy tone. As he began punching in a code in the keypad, he said to Mist, “What is the English expression? We are house free?”
“Home free,” she corrected him.
“Yes, that’s it.” He pushed the last button on the keypad, which beeped an affirmation. They heard the tumblers inside the wall turn and lock into place. Smiling, Harjavti grabbed the handle, turned it, and opened the door. “We are home…”
His smile faded as he realized his sentiment wasn’t accurate. Inside the panic room, between the wall lined with monitors showing the rest of the palace and the wall covered in shelves that had preserved food, fresh water, and a few books, there were two men, dressed in military uniforms.
One, a bald man with a scarred face and a messy beard, was holding a rifle and quickly took aim at the president while the other, his beard expertly trimmed and his head topped with a red beret, stood up straight and confident. He allowed himself a grin when he saw the terrified look on Harjavti’s face.
Mist was already aiming her Colt .45 at him when he said to her, “Not so fast, girl. If I die, so does my brother, then you, then your friends. But Bialya will survive us all.”
“How could you, Sumaan?” the president said. Mist heard genuine hurt in his voice; the only time she ever heard him express any emotion besides confidence or fear. “How could you do this to--”
“How could you do this to your country?!” Sumaan Harjavti roared. “You would betray everything our father believed in, everything he sacrificed for, just to placate your own cowardice!”
“A god came into our home and brought with him the most powerful weapon this country has ever seen,” Rumaan said. “He would have destroyed us, but who stopped him? The American heroes. The same ones father despised. Maybe he was wrong to hate them. Maybe we were wrong to listen to him.”
Sumaan glowered at his brother. “You were always weak. I ignored it, forgave it, because we were blood, but now your weakness imperils our country. It’s time Bialya had a real leader; someone who won’t bow down to imperialist Western powers.”
“You want Bialya? It’s yours,” Rumaan said. “I’ll resign as president, then you can-”
“My sentimentality ran out long ago,” Sumaan drew his sidearm and aimed at his brother. “Goodbye, Rumaan. Give my regards to father.”
There was a sound before the gun fired - a strange sort of whooshing, before an awkward thump. Rumaan cried out in pain and clutched at the bullet wound in his arm; besides that, he appeared unharmed. Sumaan, conversely, looked stunned and horrified, as there was something sticking out of his chest. Just before he slumped over on the ground and stopped moving, the Mist recognized what it was.
It was a sickle.
Before anything else happened, Mist pointed her gun at the other soldier and unloaded the cylinder into him. Once he was on the ground and not moving, she and Rumaan turned and saw Sickle, his breathing heavy and his steps uneven, walk into the bedroom. “You are welcome,” he said to them, staring daggers at Mist. “Now get in room.”
Mist wanted to argue - the notion of this man barking orders at her was infuriating - but now wasn’t the time. They had to protect the primary. Mist and the visibly shaken Rumaan Harjavti made their way to the panic room, with Sickle limping behind them.
The trio were inside when Sickle grabbed his weapon and removed it from the corpse of Sumaan. It let out a slight convulsion when it was pulled out, and Rumaan let out a gasp at the sight of it. He may have ebbed teared up at the sight of it if he wasn’t too stricken with shock. Sickle put a hand on the handle on the panic room door and was about to pull it close when there was a gunshot that made him stop.
There was someone else in the bedroom, a man in his fifties with greying hair and small wrinkles on his face. More importantly, he was holding a handgun and aiming it at them with absolute calm and stillness.
“You move an inch and I put one through your heart,” said Cain. He spoke in a measured tone that left little doubt that he was lying. “You understand?”
Sickle nodded. He didn’t make any action to get out of the way of the gun, but he nodded.
“Good,” said Cain. He looked beyond Sickle’s massive frame at the inside of the panic room, where he saw Mist trying to stealthily reload her revolver and failing, the president cowering in the corner, his face flush with sweat and his pants likely soiled, and finally the motionless corpse of Sumaan Harjavti, his expression of shock and pain now permanently etched onto his face.
“That’s my payday,” he said. There was curiosity in his voice at first, but then he repeated it with a growling anger. “That’s my payday and you damn near cut his heart out! He still owes me the other half of my fee, you stupid little-” he stopped himself talking, because if he kept going, he would start yelling. “This was supposed to be an easy job. Come to the anus of the world, kill some shitheel dictator, be home by ten. But then you and your freaks come in and screw it all up! I should kill you just for being a pain in the ass!”
Cain seemed ready to do it. There wasn’t anything stopping him from pulling the trigger but his own convictions, which were rapidly dwindling with every second he thought about the time he wasted on this operation. But then he heard four magic little words that made him hesitate:
“I can pay you.”
The speaker was President Harjavti himself, who was trembling as he stepped forward. “Whatever my brother promised you, I can pay it for you to spare me.”
Cain didn’t move. He almost appeared not to hear them, but the president was too terrified to repeat himself. Cain narrowed his eyes, and none of them could sort out what was going on his head. Then, finally, Cain cursed under his breath and lowered his gun. “You’re paying double what he owed me.”
“I-I can do that,” said Harjavti.
“You better,” said Cain. He glanced again at Sumaan’s corpse. “Sorry about your brother.”
The trio allowed themselves to take a breath. It appeared that, for now, they were out of the woods. President Harjavti leaned against the wall for support, breathing heavily as he tried to recollect himself. Then, when he was finished, he straightened himself, re-adopted a manner befitting a leader, and said to Sickle and Mist, “Bialya thanks you for your service. Now please gather the rest of your party and get out of my country.”
“Are you serious?” said Mist. “After everything that’s happened, we’re just supposed to--”
“You’ve saved my life, and for that you have my gratitude,” Harjavti’s tone was wavering. “But you also murdered a member of the royal family, and for that crime you are hereby banished from Bialya forever. Now leave here before I have you executed.”
Mist was ready to argue more - how dare this ungrateful, spoiled coward banish them when they’d saved his life? - but Sickle cut her off by saying simply, “Very well.” He approached Sumaan, pulled his weapon out of the body’s chest with one powerful pull (an action which made the president gag and turn away), and headed towards the bedroom door. Mist looked ready to say something else, but then thought better of it and quietly followed her teammate.
As they passed Cain, Mist staring daggers at him, the assassin spoke: “Word of advice, big guy.” Sickle and Mist both stopped but didn’t turn to face him. “You and your friends aren’t cut out for this line of work. Best quit before you get killed.”
Sickle tightened his grip on his weapon, then relaxed. “If only that were option,” he said. Then he continued out of the bedroom and into the hallway, with Mist trailing behind him.
When the Six reached the Mirahd International Airport, a doctor was waiting to treat the injured. Apparently, the Voice had anticipated she would be necessary. She dealt with them once they were airborne, and by the time they landed in Gotham City, everyone was as helped as they could be. They were taken back to the House of Strangers promptly, where they treated themselves to a hard-earned rest.
Nash Nimbus slept as hard as the rest of them, despite having suffered the least amount of injury during the mission. After seeing what happened between the Harjavti brothers, she dreamt of her own brother - how he took the serum that gave their father powers, how he swore to uphold the Mist legacy and terrorize Opal City, how he came home one day with a stylized-SS tattooed on his forearm…
Something’s wrong. She shot awake, grabbing the Colt .45 from under her pillow and aiming it at a shape in the darkness in her room. With her other hand and without taking her eyes of her target, Nash fumbled and felt through the darkness until she found the lamp that sat on her nightstand and flicked it on, illuminating the room.
Timur Abramovichi was sitting in an armchair in the corner, staring at her, completely unconcerned by the pistol aimed at his chest. “We need to talk,” he said plainly, “Alone.”
Nash narrowed her eyes. “Not interested. Leave now.”
“You left me to die out there,” Abramovichi went on, unconcerned by her statement. “Why?”
“…I had to,” she said. “I needed to get the president to safety-”
“Don’t lie to me,” he interrupted her.
“…Fine,” Nash spat. “I left you hanging out of that window because I don’t like you. You’re dumb, you’re full of yourself, and you tried to kill me when we first met. I left you hanging out of that window because I hoped you would fall and die and I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.”
There was a pause, where she didn’t know how Abramovichi would react. He didn’t seem to show any emotion one way or another. Nash began to fear what he would do, until broke the silence and said, “You are very stupid girl.”
Her resolve returned with a vengeance. “What did you just call me?”
“We are surrounded on all sides by enemies,” said Abramovichi. “We go into field and people try to kill us, Voice has his boot on our necks, and you would have us look over shoulders, distrusting each other? I call you very stupid girl, and I am right to.”
Nash could feel her blood begin to boil. “Listen to me, you self-righteous-”
“Grudges are luxury we cannot afford!” Abramovichi snapped. “You want to survive this, yes? Then we must trust each other, work together, watch each other’s backs without stabbing them!” He took a breath. “I have been like you before: stubborn, pigheaded, selfish. It cost me too much, things I might never get back. You want to hate me so much? Then don’t be like me.”
Nash wasn’t sure she trusted him, but she did believe him. “So, what are you proposing?”
“We set aside grudge. As long as were slaves for Voice, we work together; tolerate each other, protect each other, act like civilized people. When we are free, we can kill each other, but until then, we are like family.”
She considered his words, until finally she lowered her gun. “Fine. But we’ll act like teammates. I can’t stand my family.”
At that, Abramovichi chuckled. “Neither can I.” He stood up and headed towards the door, then stopped. “Nearly forgot,” he said. Abramovichi reached into the pocket of his pants, pulled out six bullets, and placed them on a desk next to him. Nash looked at her pistol and found the cylinder completely empty. She was at a loss for words.
“How…why…” she stammered.
“Because I am not as dumb as you think, little girl,” he said. With that, Timur Abramovichi left Nash alone in her room, politely shutting the door behind him.
It had been five days since the abduction of Semyon Abramovichi, and he was feeling its effects. He was sore and uncomfortable from having been strapped to his chair and not allowed to get up. He was sickened by his own stench, as his captors had neither granted him any sort of bathing nor allowed him to get up to micturate. They gave him food and water, but never enough to satisfy his needs. Perhaps the worst part, however, were the wounds Brutale had given him; cuts and fillets that had been allowed to fester and putrefy. They stung, they burnt, and their rotting scent mingled with his own to make them both that much worse.
Semyon had lost track of how long he had been there. Brutale kept a bag over his head most of the time, only removing it when he wanted to ask questions. Brutale liked to remind him that this was his way out, that his torture could end any time he wanted it to, so long as Semyon told him where his brother was, who he was working for, and what were their plans. At first, Semyon’s answers were simply defiant curses - he would have spit in Brutale’s face again if he wasn’t so dehydrated - but as time passed, his responses became less spirited, less angry, and more just passively panting at any question he was asked.
On the morning of the sixth day, Brutale was back in the room overlooking the warehouse, staring down at Abramovichi’s body. The prisoner’s breathing was ragged and heavy, his head slumped. He was no longer shrugging off the flies that landed on him. He’d be ready to break soon, and Brutale knew it.
As he donned his mask and was about to go back to work, Jack Forbes came into the room, accompanied by a stranger: a gaunt, bald man with thick glasses, who regarded him curiously.
Before Brutale could ask what was happening, Forbes pulled out a tablet and said to him, “You’ll want to see this.”
He clicked on the tablet and it played news footage of what was described as an attempted coup in the nation of Bialya, shortly before President Rumaan Harjavti announced somberly that the country would be joining the United Nations, defying the expectations of the world. Brutale didn’t understand its significance until he saw the actual attempt; among the president’s security, there was the unmistakable figure of Timur Abramovichi.
“Whatever’s going on with these six,” said Forbes. “It’s bigger than we thought. They aren’t just some nobodies trying to get rich off of Penguin’s merchandise. Whoever or whatever is backing them has deep connections across the world.”
Brutale looked over at Abramovichi again. “Which means that they likely have nothing to do with a freelance enforcer in Gotham City.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Forbes.
Brutale looked over at the stranger Forbes had brought with him. “And who’s this?”
“Oh, right,” said Forbes. “Well, since you were taking your sweet time with Brother Russia here, I figured I might call in some backup.” He patted the stranger on the shoulder, who jerked away at the touch. “May I present Doctor Benito Falsario, master of hypnotism, indoctrination, and brainwashing. He’ll be able to confirm our suspicions in half the time. Doctor F, why don’t you show my friend here what you can do?”
Doctor Falsario nodded and, without saying a word, left the room, went into the warehouse, and approached Abramovichi.
“He was about to break,” said Brutale, watching as the doctor removed the hood from Abramovichi’s head. “I was about to get the truth from him.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Forbes. “But if the six really are this well-connected, we’ll need some powerful friends ourselves if we want to take them down. Doctor F specializes in turning his enemies into friends.”
It took some time and more than a little effort, but by the end of his sixth day in bondage, Semyon Abramovichi was free from his restraints, and willingly saluting his captors.
One night in Gotham City, a sextet of criminals were abducted by the mysterious crime lord known only as 'the Voice' and blackmailed into acting as his agents in the field! The Six’s first mission was to rob Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. the Penguin, a mission they barely succeeded in, but not without injury. They have since earned the Penguin’s ire, and he’s dedicated his resources to hunting them down and bringing them in by any means necessary!
WHO ARE THE...
? ? ? ? ? ?
Cluemaster (Arthur Brown) - Genius inventor. Expert at subterfuge. Not as smart as he thinks. ? ? ? ? ? ?
Mister Toad (Real name unknown) - Amphibious member of the Circus of the Strange. Drives cars. Eats flies. Croaks.
Double Down (Jeremy Tell) - Rogue gambler from Central City. Can turn his skin into razor-sharp playing cards. Still needs to grow a spine.
Mist III (Nash Nimbus) - Opal City criminal. Able to become a cloud of living vapor. Knows how to hold a grudge.
Sickle (Timur Abramovichi) - Hulking Siberian ex-pat. Criminal enforcer. Southpaw.
Copperhead (Larissa Diaz) - Assassin for the Penitente Cartel. Master contortionist. Expert in poisons. The only real professional here.
? ? ? ? ? ?
Issue Six: "How To Overcome Sibling Rivalry, Pt 2"
Written by Ultimate DCU
Cover by Joey Jarin
Edited by House Of Mystery
THE PRESENT; GOTHAM CITY:
He was awake now; at least, he thought he was. His mind snapped to attention and immediately his body was hit with pain. He felt bruises around his midsection and at least one-- no, two cracked ribs. He tasted blood in his mouth. Then he remembered the fight: him against two kids, teenagers who were stronger than they looked. They brawled, wrecked his apartment, and while he had at least a hundred pounds on the both of them put together, he ended up down and out.
Shit, Semyon Abramovichi thought, realizing the state of his apartment. I’m not getting my security deposit back.
Semyon opened his eyes and took in his surroundings but found he couldn’t. He was blindfolded, with a gag stuffed into his mouth as well. He tried to move, but found that his arm and legs were immobile, wrapped in duct tape and chains from the sound and feel of it. Despite his mighty efforts, he couldn’t free himself. Whoever had captured him had the good sense to use proper restraints.
Semyon didn’t know he was strapped to a metal chair, bolted to the ground, in a warehouse near the Gotham docks. He didn’t know the warehouse was discretely owned by shell companies that linked back to Oswald Cobblepot, nor that his captors were hired help working for the same: the super-strong teenage criminals known as the Terror Twins and Gotham’s most unscrupulous private investigator, Jack Forbes. He didn’t know they were in a room overlooking his current position, waiting for the fourth member of their group to join them.
“Jesus, that fella could put up a fight,” said Tommy Terror, rubbing the sore spot on his head where Abramovichi’s sledgehammer had struck him. “We sure he ain’t superpowered?”
“He’s Russian, right? Maybe he’s radioactive,” Tuppence Terror chipped in.
“He’s Siberian,” Forbes corrected her. “And whatever he is, he feels pain. That’s all that matters.”
At that moment, a fourth person joined them; a slim man, dressed in a grey jumpsuit and wearing two belts over his shoulders, lined with throwing knives. He held a mask in one hand.
“Mister Barrera,” said Forbes. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
Guillermo Barrera, also known as the interrogator Brutale, gave only the slightest indication that he heard Forbes. He walked past the PI, keeping his attention focused on Abramovichi. “The prisoner is awake,” said Brutale.
“Only for a few seconds,” said Forbes. “Mister Barrera, can I just say, I’ve heard a lot about your talents, and I’m looking forward to seeing you work. Sincerely.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t keep our guest waiting then,” he answered.
Brutale pulled the mask over his head and left the office. He crossed the open warehouse room to where Semyon Abramovichi was bound. The prisoner sat up straight and alert when he heard him coming and said something through his gag that Brutale didn’t understand.
Brutale approached Abramovichi carefully and gently removed the blindfold from his eyes and the gag from his mouth. Abramovichi’s eyes blinked open as he adjusted to the light and focused on the man standing over him.
Calmly, Brutale pulled one of the knives from his belt, holding it in his right hand and gently tapping the tip of it with his left forefinger. “Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.
“Two blond-haired shits broke down my door and dragged me out of home,” Abramovichi spat. “Why are you here?”
“You were asked very simple questions,” said Brutale, ignoring his question. “Where is your brother? Who is he working with? What are their plans? You chose not to answer, and my associates had to take more drastic tactics.”
“I do not know where my brother is,” he answered. “And if I did, I would not tell some little man trying to scare me with knife.”
“I will find the truth, Mister Abramovichi,” said Brutale. “I always find the truth.” He grabbed his prisoner’s chin and forced the man to face him. “Know this: You have the power to end this. Give us the truth and you return to your life. Refuse, and you will be kept here, and I will start going to work.”
Semyon appeared to contemplate this for a moment. He mulled over the offer, weighing his options and the outcomes of each choice, then finished by spitting in Brutale’s face. If the interrogator flinched under his mask, he didn’t show it.
“Show me your work, little man,” said Semyon, a wicked smile on his face.
Brutale sighed. Without saying another word, he put the knife back in its sheath on his belt, and put the gag and blindfold back on his prisoner. “This ends when you want it to end. Give us the truth, and you can return to your life.” With that, he left the prisoner alone and returned to the others of his cadre in the office.
“What the hell was that?!” said Forbes. “Where was the knife work I heard so much about?”
“You Americans,” Barrera said, taking off his mask. “You think you can cut or shock or drown the truth out of a man.” He looked at Forbes. “Pain is not a solution, it is a tool; one that must be applied the right way to the right situation.” Barrera looked back at Abramovichi, who was struggling against his bonds with all his considerable strength. “That man knows pain; he doesn’t fear it. To break him, we’ll need something stronger. We need desperation.”
“Oh, yeah? And what do you suggest?” asked Forbes.
“We keep him bound and gagged at all times when we aren’t questioning him. We give him food and water; not enough to nourish, but enough to survive. We do not let him sleep. We let him sit in his own filth. And after four days of this, if he still won’t tell the truth, I’ll stat removing pieces from him.”
“And exactly how long do we expect this to take?” asked Forbes.
“A week,” Barrera answered. “Likely more.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Forbes rubbed his eyes in exasperation. “A week? You want us to look after this guy for a week? You can’t take care of this any faster?”
Barrera turned to face Forbes. “You brought me in to get the truth. If you want to try your hand at it, be my guest; see how far you get with this man in just one evening. However, if you want to know what Mister Abramovichi knows, trust my methods and trust me to do my work.”
“…Fine,” Forbes answered, resigned. “Guess I’m getting paid either way.”
“Good,” Barrera said. “One more thing: be sure to remind him that his actions put him in this situation, and only his actions can get him out. He has to want to confess; otherwise he’ll just say anything to get out of this situation.”
Forbes looked at Abramovichi; the man was beaten, taken, trapped, threatened, and was still struggling for his freedom with every ounce of strength he had. “What if he’s telling the truth? What if he really doesn’t know where his brother is?”
Barrera answered him as if the answer was the simplest thing in the world: “Then we’ll know.”
MIRAHD, BIALYA:
Timur Abramovichi had worked protection details before when he was with the Russian mob. Most of it was just keeping an eye on drug or weapon shipments as they made their way through Gotham, and even then, nothing happened.
Occasionally a rival gang or an opportunistic loner with some heavy artillery would try to take the cargo, but Timur and his brother would put a stop to them. They worked with their employers to make the operations small and quiet - nothing that would attract the attention of the police, or worse, the Batman. There was rarely trouble, and if there was, the Abramovichis could handle it.
The Russians said that the work made Timur paranoid - or at least more paranoid. Timur regarded this as an asset: his head on a swivel, his eyes sharp, his ears perked for anything out of the ordinary. It made him good at his job and made him bitter and uncomfortable now.
The Secret Six had been hired to protect Rumaan Harjavti, the president of Bialya, who was currently standing on a balcony of the presidential palace giving a speech to his people in his native tongue. Timur hated the set-up; it was too open, too visible, impossible to provide an assurance of coverage.
Harjavti had waved away his concerns; in addition to the Six, he had his own team of security guards at every point of entry around the palace and by his side, to say nothing of the sheets of bulletproof glass surrounding him. The rest of the Six didn’t worry about it, but Timur still had his concerns.
When he saw something, some far away black speck that rose up into the clear blue sky, the hairs on the back of Timur’s neck stood up. It moved shakily, like a helicopter, and stopped and hovered high above them.
Then he saw a glint of light come from it, something like the sun reflecting off of glass, and he moved into action. Timur reached out with his one right arm, grabbing Harjavti by the back of his coat and yanking him away from the podium he was speaking into.
The security guards reached for their guns instinctively. Harjavti looked confused and angry, and he was about to say something when the sound of something small whizzed past them, followed by the sound of marble cracking. They looked down to see a ring of cracks in the floor of the balcony, in the center of which was a bent sniper’s bullet.
“Inside! Now!” Timur shouted as he bolted inside. His hand was on the back of Harjavti’s head, keeping it down as the president struggled to keep up with his protector.
Onboard the chopper looking down on the palace, David Cain cursed as his target escaped from the view of his sniper rifle. He reached towards his waist for a radio and spoke into it.
“Target is on the move,” he said. “Prepare Plan Bravo.”
“Copy,” came a voice back, thick with the local accent.
Cain turned his head to the pilot and said, “Yusuf, take us in.”
The chopper turned and started his descent. Cain began to methodically disassemble his rifle, placing each piece carefully into its case before snapping it shut. He briefly checked to make sure his sidearm was loaded, then prepared himself to finish this off up close.
MEANWHILE…
President Harjavti may have been insufficiently scared for his own life the previous night, but he did at least give the Six something to work with: he had installed a panic room in his bedroom that could hide him and protect him from any attackers. The only problem was it was on the other side of the palace.
Nevertheless, the Six and their charge made their way down the hallways of Harjavti’s lavish home, with the plan to wait out the attack until the president’s security team gave the all-clear.
The group rounded a corner and continued their rush down the next hallway. The sound of gunfire sounded from somewhere near them and they stopped suddenly, with Sickle instinctively wrapping his body around Harjavti. They looked behind them and saw a small platoon, all holding assault rifles and all of them trained on the Six.
“Get on the ground!” one of them, evidently the leader, shouted. “Now!”
The Six didn’t move, save for Sickle stepping in front of Harjavti, blocking him with his huge frame. The soldiers steeled themselves.
“Now!” repeated the leader, leveling his gun at the undaunted Abramovichi.
“You fellas sure do like to make a ruckus, don’t ya?” Mister Toad asked. None of the soldiers responded. “Listen mate, I don’t know what this dickhead did to you and yours, and frankly I don’t give a toss. He ain’t goin’ wif ya.”
The leader turned his gun towards Toad. “Then you will die with him!”
At that, Toad’s tone changed to one of indignation. “Die wif ‘em? Like some nobody?! Do you know who I am, son? I’m Mister! Bloody! Toad! Roustabout for the Circus of the Strange! Esteemed criminal mastermind! Master of the motorcars! Survivor of the--”
“We’re ready,” Cluemaster interjected.
Mister Toad relaxed. “Oh, thank god, I was runnin’ outta titles.” He ducked, covering his ears and closing his eyes. The rest of the Six followed suit before the bombs went off.
During their time in the House of Strangers, Cluemaster had insisted on creating contingency plans and tactics in case of emergencies. Considering at least one of the Six was recovering from serious injuries at the time, they didn’t argue.
So, when Toad had slipped the word ‘ruckus’ into his impromptu tirade, that was the signal for Cluemaster to subtly withdraw a pair of small spheres from one of the pouches on his flak jacket and, when the soldiers were distracted, hurl them forward.
His modified flashbang grenades had less impact, but they did the job just fine at a close range. The light was blinding, the sound was deafening, and the soldiers got the full blast. As soon as the sound went off, Toad stood back up, swelled his throat, and released a supersonic croak that knocked most of them on their backs.
Cluemaster turned to Sickle and Harjavti. “Keep going, we’ll hold them off. Mist will be your backup.”
“The hell I will!” Mist spoke up. “I’m not going anywhere with him!”
“This isn’t up for debate!” Cluemaster said. The soldiers were now beginning to stir. “Go!”
Sickle was already continuing down the hallway with Harjavti. Mist grunted, then shifted her form into a gaseous green cloud and followed after them.
In the week since their first encounter, the team had, to some extent, bonded over with one another over their shared captivity. This did not extend to Mist and Sickle. The two had tried to kill each other upon their first meeting, and while Sickle appeared to no longer be perturbed by this fact, Mist was far less forgiving. Nevertheless, she followed her orders and went down the hallway after her teammate.
Sickle and Harjavti turned a corner and stopped dead in their tracks. Another soldier was waiting for them - younger than the rest, somewhere around seventeen, but armed and armored just the same. When he saw Sickle, he started, and the rifle slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the floor.
Sickle didn’t waste the opportunity, drawing his namesake weapon and charging forward. The soldier, panicking, fumbled for something, anything, that might save him. He hand landed on a grenade and, without stopping to think, drew it, pulled the pin, and hurled it.
The grenade landed at Sickle’s feet. He stopped, turned around, and ran from the bomb. He was fast, but not fast enough. It went off, and he felt the heat on his back and the air get pushed out of his lungs as it sent him flying forward, past the cowering Harjavti and out of a window. He turned around and grabbed onto the sill, barely stopping himself from falling out of the side of the palace.
Sickle had the wind knocked out of him and could barely breath. He likely had second degree burns and could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears. He could feel where the broken glass had sliced up his torso, as well as the shards that were digging through the calluses on his fingers. And the first thing on his mind was getting back to Harjavti - was protecting the primary.
He heard something that may have been gunfire. He tried to pull himself up but could barely move his arm without causing a horrendous pain. He looked up and saw a head looking down at him from out of the window.
It was Mist, holding her Colt .45 and staring down at Sickle through a pair of dark sunglasses. Sickle tried to speak, to say “Help”, but all that came out was a wheeze as he struggled to breathe.
Mist calmly put away her gun, adjusted her glasses, and turned around to escort the president the rest of the way to his panic room, leaving Timur Abramovichi to hang there, waiting to die from his wounds or from falling out of the palace.
Alone.
THE PAST; GOTHAM CITY:
The Abramovichi Twins had been living in America for some time now, and they had found their place there. Their friend Dmitri Pavlovich had helped them find a place to live, steady work as hired muscle for the Russian mob, but most importantly, he had kept his promise to find a way to separate them.
A surgeon he called ‘the Crime Doctor’, who was willing to perform any operation on anyone for a price, found the prospect of separating a pair of conjoined twins an interesting challenge, and though nervous, Timur and Semyon went through with it. The result was an unqualified success, allowing the brothers to live their own lives distinct from one another. They stayed together, though; they didn’t have anyone else to turn to in this strange, foreign land.
After getting used to living as individuals and working in Gotham City, the brothers asked Dmitri for better work; they figured that even with only one arm each, they had strength enough to handle whatever this city could throw at them. Dmitri’s suggestion was to ‘get a gimmick’ - evidently, the people of Gotham loved those.
Timur and Semyon decided to adopt the symbol of their homeland, thus beginning the career of the Hammer and Sickle twins. The work mostly involved scaring or hurting people into cooperating with their superiors, and it was work that suited them just fine, work they were celebrated for by their comrades. It seemed like, after so many years of living without one, the two had finally found a place and a purpose in this world.
One day, Timur was coming home from buying groceries. He came into the apartment they shared in the Narrows to find a suitcase in the middle of the living room, with Semyon frantically packing clothes into it.
<“What is this?”> Timur asked his brother in their native tongue.
Semyon looked up at him. <“Good. You’re home. Help me pack, we don’t have much time.”>
<“Much time for what?>” said Timur.
<“Do you remember Iosef Gavrilovich from back home? He called me today,”> his brother answered. <“Our father, he…>” Semyon took a breath. <“He died yesterday. From a heart attack. His funeral is in two days in Karskatan. Dmitri’s flying back to Siberia and he said we could go with him, but he’s leaving tonight. If we want to make it there, we have to leave in…”> He looked up at the old clock that was hanging on the wall. <“One hour? Shit.”>
Timur didn’t say anything. He was going over the information in his head, everything he had just learned, but didn’t say anything. Semyon noticed this, and allowed himself a moment to slow down and talk to his brother. <“I know this is a lot to take in, and I’m sorry to tell you like this, but we have a very long flight ahead of us. We can talk about it then--”>
Timur interrupted him. <“I’m not going on any flight.”>
<“What?”> Semyon asked.
His expression was grave. “<I’m not going on any flight, I’m not going back to Siberia, and I’m not going to that old bastard’s funeral.”>
Semyon didn’t know what to say. <“But…but how can you--”>
<“Because he hated us!”> said Timur. <“Because our entire lives, he spat on us! Treated us like filth! And now you want to honor him? To forgive him?”>
<“I’m not forgiving him,>” his brother responded. <“You think I don’t remember what he did to us? I do. But he was still our father. He brought us into this world, raised us. We should at least see him off.”>
<“He isn’t worth your time, Semyon. And he certainly isn’t worth mine. Leave him to rot and don’t look back.”>
Timur walked to the kitchen and put down the bag of groceries he was carrying. He pulled out a bottle of vodka, took a glass from a cupboard, and poured himself a drink, half of which he downed in a single gulp. Semyon gaped as his brother’s nonchalance. <“How can you say that about our father?”>
<“Because we never had a father,”> Timur finished his drink. <“We had a warden. And he was dead to me long before his heart stopped beating.>”
Semyon looked ready to burst, to say something that he hoped would shock his brother, but instead he turned back towards the suitcase, shoved the last of the clothes into it, and zipped it shut. <“I’m going to say goodbye to our father. I’ll ask Dmitri to delay his flight as long as he can, should you decide to act like an adult and join us.”>
<“Don’t bother,>” Timur poured himself another drink. <“And if you do decide to honor the old man and betray everything we left Siberia for, then don’t bother coming back here.”>
Semyon stopped in his tracks. <“You can’t be serious.”>
Timur took another drink. <“Do I look like I’m joking? If you go to Andrei’s funeral, you will not be welcomed in this home any more. Do you understand?”>
There was silence in their apartment. The only sound was the faint rumble of a passing train and the ticking of the old clock. Semyon scratched at the scar on his right shoulder, where his brother was once attached to him. Finally, he said, <“You are a child, Timur. You are petty and vindictive and--”>
<“Why don’t you complain about it to your father?”> Whatever veneer of calm Timur had was beginning to slip. “<Get out of my sight, traitor.”>
At that moment, Semyon wanted to say so much to his brother - things that were sad, sympathetic, angry, spiteful, hurtful, all at once - but he knew if he did, Timur would be lost to him forever. So, he said nothing, and he left, closing the door behind him.
Timur calmly finished his drink, then hurled his glass at the wall and watched it shatter. He raged and he swore and he punched holes into the wall with his bare fist. There was a voice inside him, one that told him to follow his brother, to apologize to him. A part of Timur knew it was right and knew Semyon was right. He knew what he had to do, for his own sake as much as his brother’s.
But he ignored it.
THE PRESENT; MIRAHD, BIYALA:
The hallway in the royal palace was a grizzly sight to behold. The polished marble floors, intricately-painted walls, the portrait of the Biyalan landscape that had hung there for decades; it was all stained with blood that pooled in the grooves between the tiles on the floor.
The source of it was the bodies of the insurgents, who were left where they had been killed, their faces alternating looks of shock and anguish and fury. The bodies were peppered with spent shell casings from whatever rounds they managed to fire off, and the stench of the gun smoke mingled with the sweat and blood of the fallen to make a stagnant, repugnant odor that would drive most who smelled it to sickness.
It was the proudest moment the Six ever had.
Cluemaster had regarded it as a small miracle none of them had been hurt worse than they had. Copperhead came out virtually untouched; she was able to dodge and weave between the platoon with speed, dexterity, and efficiency that none of them had been able to stop, cutting and slashing her way through the soldiers. Mister Toad, meanwhile, had used his sonic croak to separate the soldiers, the power of the sound flinging them back like a slingshot. The worst he suffered were some cuts and bruises from disarmed soldiers attempting to stop him hand-to-hand.
For his part, Double Down stayed back, flinging his razor-sharp playing cards at the insurgents with deadly precision, occasionally controlling them mid-flight if he had to. He did suffer a bullet-wound to his left arm, but upon inspecting it, Copperhead found it to be nothing more than a graze, one that could be fixed with some stitches, disinfectant, and the instructions to “Suck it up and stop acting like a little bitch.”
Cluemaster had, paradoxically, contributed the least to the fight and been hurt the worst. He wasn’t in the habit of carrying conventional weapons and his arsenal was limited to tools of subterfuge - flashbangs, smoke bombs, and a few other sundry tools and tricks that would likely do more harm than good in a brawl like this.
Still, he hanged back and helped where he could, and for his troubles was rewarded with four bullets to his chest. His flak jacket kept him alive, but the bruises would last for some time, and he was almost positive a rib had been cracked.
As Cluemaster surveyed the scene, making certain the bodies weren’t moving, Toad wiped the sweat from his brow and said, “Any’a you chaps wanna go for a pint after this?”
“Alcohol’s been illegal in Bialya since the revolution,” Cluemaster said.
“Really?” Double Down asked. “Because the president had, like, three glasses of wine with dinner.”
Cluemaster was about to say something but was cut off by the sound of a gunshot. He was knocked off his feet and landed roughly on the ground. The bullet was crumpled in the center of his jacket, the wind was knocked out of him, and he was certain that something in his chest had been broken.
Toad, Double Down, and Copperhead turned and saw that the shooter was a man in his fifties, marked by greying hair and small wrinkles on his face, but still appeared to be physically in his prime, with a fit, athletic figure beneath an all-black ensemble. He regarded the trio with disgust.
“Where’s the president?” David Cain growled at them.
The trio’s postures all shifted as they stood on guard. Toad asked, “And who the hell are you?”
“I’m John Wilkes Booth,” he said. “And unless you want to go the way of Mister Lincoln, tell me where the president is hiding.”
“Why don’t you make me, old man?” Toad said. Apparently unbothered by the gun, he pulled out a pair of brass knuckles from his jacket pockets, put them on, and stood ready to fight.
Cain narrowed his eyes, then holstered his gun and drew a combat knife from a sheath on his belt. “Fine. Come over here so I can teach you some manners.”
Mister Toad charged in, surprisingly quick on fist, and started throwing punches at the assassin. Cain dodged each one with seemingly little effort; he could read every attack Toad threw at him as if they were telegraphed in glowing neon. He had some skill, Cain thought, but he was impulsive, overconfident, clearly high on the victory he just achieved. On another day, he might be a challenge. Now, he was just an obstacle.
Cain moved like lightning, dodging between Toad’s punches to stab, slice, and cut his weakest points. Toad grew more frustrated, gritting his yellowed teeth and tightening his fists. He punched hard, which only meant that every punch missed harder.
Finally, Cain had had enough of the game. He closed the gap and backhanded Toad in the windpipe. He stumbled back, unable to catch his breath, and Cain punched him between his eyes. Stunned, Toad fell back and lay still.
Cain took a moment to catch his breath. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and even with everything he did to maintain his physique, fights like that winded him. It was then that a foot made violent contact with his face. He was thrown off for an instant, but only an instant.
He snapped back in time to dodge a scratch across the face from the metal claws on the ends of Copperhead’s fingers. In the moments after the attack, Cain smelled something on them, a sickly-sweet stench that mingled with the blood that was already hanging in the air. Poison, he thought. He couldn’t recognize it, but he didn’t need to in order to know to avoid it.
He went on the defensive again, but this time he was getting hit more. Besides his disorientation, Cain was having difficulty reading his new opponent’s moves: her movements bordered on the unnatural, bending and moving her body in ways that humans weren’t meant to. Cain had fought enemies with all different styles of fighting, but this level of contortion combined with skill was unfamiliar to him.
However, David Cain was nothing if not adaptable. With his free hand, he reached towards his belt and discretely drew a can of pepper spray. He dodged and weaved, taking the occasional hit from Copperhead but shrugging them off. Finally, when the opportunity presented itself, he Cain got in close to her and unloaded the can directly into her face.
Copperhead screamed and stumbled back, cursing him in Spanish, just before Cain delivered a well-aimed punch to her solar plexus, picked her up, raised her over his head, and threw her to the ground. She groaned and continued to curse but didn’t get up.
Finally, the only one left standing was Double Down, who shook where he stood. Cain said nothing as he approached him; his expression was enough to show how utterly uninterested in continuing the brawl.
Panicked, Double Down began peeling off pieces of his skin that turned into razor-sharp cards and hurling them at Cain. He was unperturbed, deflecting them away with his combat knife at blinding speed. He closed the gap with Double Down, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against the wall behind him. Cain aimed his knife beneath Double Down’s right eye.
“No no no, don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” Tell pleaded.
Cain wanted desperately to kill him - to kill all of them. These people had turned a simple job into such a hassle. They didn’t deserve to share breath with him. However, Cain stopped killing people for free years ago, even losers like these. It was bad for business. So instead, he asked with ice in his voice, “Where’s the president?”
“I-I-in his room,” Tell stuttered. “In the panic room. It’s down that way.” He gestured a trembling hand in the direction of the bedroom.
And then, Cain actually cracked a smile. “‘Preciate it.” He slammed Double Down’s head against the wall and let his unconscious form slump to the floor. Calmly, he reloaded his sidearm and walked away from the Six towards his target.
MEANWHILE…
The Mist and Rumaan Harjavti had, to their mild amazement and tremendous appreciation, made it to the president’s opulent bedroom. Mist slammed the door behind them while Harjavti darted towards the nightstand on the right side of the bed, his trembling hand gliding along the bottom surface, searching, until he found what he was looking for. He pushed something, and they heard a click. The bookcase next to them swung forward, revealing a heavy steel door with a large handle and a keypad in the center.
Harjavti exclaimed something in his native tongue in a happy tone. As he began punching in a code in the keypad, he said to Mist, “What is the English expression? We are house free?”
“Home free,” she corrected him.
“Yes, that’s it.” He pushed the last button on the keypad, which beeped an affirmation. They heard the tumblers inside the wall turn and lock into place. Smiling, Harjavti grabbed the handle, turned it, and opened the door. “We are home…”
His smile faded as he realized his sentiment wasn’t accurate. Inside the panic room, between the wall lined with monitors showing the rest of the palace and the wall covered in shelves that had preserved food, fresh water, and a few books, there were two men, dressed in military uniforms.
One, a bald man with a scarred face and a messy beard, was holding a rifle and quickly took aim at the president while the other, his beard expertly trimmed and his head topped with a red beret, stood up straight and confident. He allowed himself a grin when he saw the terrified look on Harjavti’s face.
Mist was already aiming her Colt .45 at him when he said to her, “Not so fast, girl. If I die, so does my brother, then you, then your friends. But Bialya will survive us all.”
“How could you, Sumaan?” the president said. Mist heard genuine hurt in his voice; the only time she ever heard him express any emotion besides confidence or fear. “How could you do this to--”
“How could you do this to your country?!” Sumaan Harjavti roared. “You would betray everything our father believed in, everything he sacrificed for, just to placate your own cowardice!”
“A god came into our home and brought with him the most powerful weapon this country has ever seen,” Rumaan said. “He would have destroyed us, but who stopped him? The American heroes. The same ones father despised. Maybe he was wrong to hate them. Maybe we were wrong to listen to him.”
Sumaan glowered at his brother. “You were always weak. I ignored it, forgave it, because we were blood, but now your weakness imperils our country. It’s time Bialya had a real leader; someone who won’t bow down to imperialist Western powers.”
“You want Bialya? It’s yours,” Rumaan said. “I’ll resign as president, then you can-”
“My sentimentality ran out long ago,” Sumaan drew his sidearm and aimed at his brother. “Goodbye, Rumaan. Give my regards to father.”
There was a sound before the gun fired - a strange sort of whooshing, before an awkward thump. Rumaan cried out in pain and clutched at the bullet wound in his arm; besides that, he appeared unharmed. Sumaan, conversely, looked stunned and horrified, as there was something sticking out of his chest. Just before he slumped over on the ground and stopped moving, the Mist recognized what it was.
It was a sickle.
Before anything else happened, Mist pointed her gun at the other soldier and unloaded the cylinder into him. Once he was on the ground and not moving, she and Rumaan turned and saw Sickle, his breathing heavy and his steps uneven, walk into the bedroom. “You are welcome,” he said to them, staring daggers at Mist. “Now get in room.”
Mist wanted to argue - the notion of this man barking orders at her was infuriating - but now wasn’t the time. They had to protect the primary. Mist and the visibly shaken Rumaan Harjavti made their way to the panic room, with Sickle limping behind them.
The trio were inside when Sickle grabbed his weapon and removed it from the corpse of Sumaan. It let out a slight convulsion when it was pulled out, and Rumaan let out a gasp at the sight of it. He may have ebbed teared up at the sight of it if he wasn’t too stricken with shock. Sickle put a hand on the handle on the panic room door and was about to pull it close when there was a gunshot that made him stop.
There was someone else in the bedroom, a man in his fifties with greying hair and small wrinkles on his face. More importantly, he was holding a handgun and aiming it at them with absolute calm and stillness.
“You move an inch and I put one through your heart,” said Cain. He spoke in a measured tone that left little doubt that he was lying. “You understand?”
Sickle nodded. He didn’t make any action to get out of the way of the gun, but he nodded.
“Good,” said Cain. He looked beyond Sickle’s massive frame at the inside of the panic room, where he saw Mist trying to stealthily reload her revolver and failing, the president cowering in the corner, his face flush with sweat and his pants likely soiled, and finally the motionless corpse of Sumaan Harjavti, his expression of shock and pain now permanently etched onto his face.
“That’s my payday,” he said. There was curiosity in his voice at first, but then he repeated it with a growling anger. “That’s my payday and you damn near cut his heart out! He still owes me the other half of my fee, you stupid little-” he stopped himself talking, because if he kept going, he would start yelling. “This was supposed to be an easy job. Come to the anus of the world, kill some shitheel dictator, be home by ten. But then you and your freaks come in and screw it all up! I should kill you just for being a pain in the ass!”
Cain seemed ready to do it. There wasn’t anything stopping him from pulling the trigger but his own convictions, which were rapidly dwindling with every second he thought about the time he wasted on this operation. But then he heard four magic little words that made him hesitate:
“I can pay you.”
The speaker was President Harjavti himself, who was trembling as he stepped forward. “Whatever my brother promised you, I can pay it for you to spare me.”
Cain didn’t move. He almost appeared not to hear them, but the president was too terrified to repeat himself. Cain narrowed his eyes, and none of them could sort out what was going on his head. Then, finally, Cain cursed under his breath and lowered his gun. “You’re paying double what he owed me.”
“I-I can do that,” said Harjavti.
“You better,” said Cain. He glanced again at Sumaan’s corpse. “Sorry about your brother.”
The trio allowed themselves to take a breath. It appeared that, for now, they were out of the woods. President Harjavti leaned against the wall for support, breathing heavily as he tried to recollect himself. Then, when he was finished, he straightened himself, re-adopted a manner befitting a leader, and said to Sickle and Mist, “Bialya thanks you for your service. Now please gather the rest of your party and get out of my country.”
“Are you serious?” said Mist. “After everything that’s happened, we’re just supposed to--”
“You’ve saved my life, and for that you have my gratitude,” Harjavti’s tone was wavering. “But you also murdered a member of the royal family, and for that crime you are hereby banished from Bialya forever. Now leave here before I have you executed.”
Mist was ready to argue more - how dare this ungrateful, spoiled coward banish them when they’d saved his life? - but Sickle cut her off by saying simply, “Very well.” He approached Sumaan, pulled his weapon out of the body’s chest with one powerful pull (an action which made the president gag and turn away), and headed towards the bedroom door. Mist looked ready to say something else, but then thought better of it and quietly followed her teammate.
As they passed Cain, Mist staring daggers at him, the assassin spoke: “Word of advice, big guy.” Sickle and Mist both stopped but didn’t turn to face him. “You and your friends aren’t cut out for this line of work. Best quit before you get killed.”
Sickle tightened his grip on his weapon, then relaxed. “If only that were option,” he said. Then he continued out of the bedroom and into the hallway, with Mist trailing behind him.
EPILOGUE 1:
When the Six reached the Mirahd International Airport, a doctor was waiting to treat the injured. Apparently, the Voice had anticipated she would be necessary. She dealt with them once they were airborne, and by the time they landed in Gotham City, everyone was as helped as they could be. They were taken back to the House of Strangers promptly, where they treated themselves to a hard-earned rest.
Nash Nimbus slept as hard as the rest of them, despite having suffered the least amount of injury during the mission. After seeing what happened between the Harjavti brothers, she dreamt of her own brother - how he took the serum that gave their father powers, how he swore to uphold the Mist legacy and terrorize Opal City, how he came home one day with a stylized-SS tattooed on his forearm…
Something’s wrong. She shot awake, grabbing the Colt .45 from under her pillow and aiming it at a shape in the darkness in her room. With her other hand and without taking her eyes of her target, Nash fumbled and felt through the darkness until she found the lamp that sat on her nightstand and flicked it on, illuminating the room.
Timur Abramovichi was sitting in an armchair in the corner, staring at her, completely unconcerned by the pistol aimed at his chest. “We need to talk,” he said plainly, “Alone.”
Nash narrowed her eyes. “Not interested. Leave now.”
“You left me to die out there,” Abramovichi went on, unconcerned by her statement. “Why?”
“…I had to,” she said. “I needed to get the president to safety-”
“Don’t lie to me,” he interrupted her.
“…Fine,” Nash spat. “I left you hanging out of that window because I don’t like you. You’re dumb, you’re full of yourself, and you tried to kill me when we first met. I left you hanging out of that window because I hoped you would fall and die and I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.”
There was a pause, where she didn’t know how Abramovichi would react. He didn’t seem to show any emotion one way or another. Nash began to fear what he would do, until broke the silence and said, “You are very stupid girl.”
Her resolve returned with a vengeance. “What did you just call me?”
“We are surrounded on all sides by enemies,” said Abramovichi. “We go into field and people try to kill us, Voice has his boot on our necks, and you would have us look over shoulders, distrusting each other? I call you very stupid girl, and I am right to.”
Nash could feel her blood begin to boil. “Listen to me, you self-righteous-”
“Grudges are luxury we cannot afford!” Abramovichi snapped. “You want to survive this, yes? Then we must trust each other, work together, watch each other’s backs without stabbing them!” He took a breath. “I have been like you before: stubborn, pigheaded, selfish. It cost me too much, things I might never get back. You want to hate me so much? Then don’t be like me.”
Nash wasn’t sure she trusted him, but she did believe him. “So, what are you proposing?”
“We set aside grudge. As long as were slaves for Voice, we work together; tolerate each other, protect each other, act like civilized people. When we are free, we can kill each other, but until then, we are like family.”
She considered his words, until finally she lowered her gun. “Fine. But we’ll act like teammates. I can’t stand my family.”
At that, Abramovichi chuckled. “Neither can I.” He stood up and headed towards the door, then stopped. “Nearly forgot,” he said. Abramovichi reached into the pocket of his pants, pulled out six bullets, and placed them on a desk next to him. Nash looked at her pistol and found the cylinder completely empty. She was at a loss for words.
“How…why…” she stammered.
“Because I am not as dumb as you think, little girl,” he said. With that, Timur Abramovichi left Nash alone in her room, politely shutting the door behind him.
EPILOGUE 2:
It had been five days since the abduction of Semyon Abramovichi, and he was feeling its effects. He was sore and uncomfortable from having been strapped to his chair and not allowed to get up. He was sickened by his own stench, as his captors had neither granted him any sort of bathing nor allowed him to get up to micturate. They gave him food and water, but never enough to satisfy his needs. Perhaps the worst part, however, were the wounds Brutale had given him; cuts and fillets that had been allowed to fester and putrefy. They stung, they burnt, and their rotting scent mingled with his own to make them both that much worse.
Semyon had lost track of how long he had been there. Brutale kept a bag over his head most of the time, only removing it when he wanted to ask questions. Brutale liked to remind him that this was his way out, that his torture could end any time he wanted it to, so long as Semyon told him where his brother was, who he was working for, and what were their plans. At first, Semyon’s answers were simply defiant curses - he would have spit in Brutale’s face again if he wasn’t so dehydrated - but as time passed, his responses became less spirited, less angry, and more just passively panting at any question he was asked.
On the morning of the sixth day, Brutale was back in the room overlooking the warehouse, staring down at Abramovichi’s body. The prisoner’s breathing was ragged and heavy, his head slumped. He was no longer shrugging off the flies that landed on him. He’d be ready to break soon, and Brutale knew it.
As he donned his mask and was about to go back to work, Jack Forbes came into the room, accompanied by a stranger: a gaunt, bald man with thick glasses, who regarded him curiously.
Before Brutale could ask what was happening, Forbes pulled out a tablet and said to him, “You’ll want to see this.”
He clicked on the tablet and it played news footage of what was described as an attempted coup in the nation of Bialya, shortly before President Rumaan Harjavti announced somberly that the country would be joining the United Nations, defying the expectations of the world. Brutale didn’t understand its significance until he saw the actual attempt; among the president’s security, there was the unmistakable figure of Timur Abramovichi.
“Whatever’s going on with these six,” said Forbes. “It’s bigger than we thought. They aren’t just some nobodies trying to get rich off of Penguin’s merchandise. Whoever or whatever is backing them has deep connections across the world.”
Brutale looked over at Abramovichi again. “Which means that they likely have nothing to do with a freelance enforcer in Gotham City.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Forbes.
Brutale looked over at the stranger Forbes had brought with him. “And who’s this?”
“Oh, right,” said Forbes. “Well, since you were taking your sweet time with Brother Russia here, I figured I might call in some backup.” He patted the stranger on the shoulder, who jerked away at the touch. “May I present Doctor Benito Falsario, master of hypnotism, indoctrination, and brainwashing. He’ll be able to confirm our suspicions in half the time. Doctor F, why don’t you show my friend here what you can do?”
Doctor Falsario nodded and, without saying a word, left the room, went into the warehouse, and approached Abramovichi.
“He was about to break,” said Brutale, watching as the doctor removed the hood from Abramovichi’s head. “I was about to get the truth from him.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Forbes. “But if the six really are this well-connected, we’ll need some powerful friends ourselves if we want to take them down. Doctor F specializes in turning his enemies into friends.”
It took some time and more than a little effort, but by the end of his sixth day in bondage, Semyon Abramovichi was free from his restraints, and willingly saluting his captors.