Marvel Mayhem - Chapter Two (w/ Commentary Notes from the Author, Sean Livingston)

Chapter Two: Mystery Seventy-Two

(Authorial Note: This chapter was originally connected with the previous first chapter but split in half for the sake of pacing.)

            “Yeah! YEAH! That’s how it’s done, baby! YEAH!”

            Saccheri gave a beastly roar as he sped through the streets of Manhattan, reveling in his masterful escape from the junkyard. With only three functioning tires (sparks flew out from the one shot up in the Quinjet attack), he managed to put as much distance between himself and S.H.I.E.L.D. as possible. He took much pride in having rigged the junkyard with explosives before the meeting. Never trust your buyer – that’s what I always say, he emotionally mused.

            Although he knew that he was free from oppression, he did not slow down his driving; in fact, he increased the speed of the limo, pressing his foot on the gas pedal as hard as he could. Then, out of nowhere, a loud thud from atop the limo resounded, making him nervous. As he tried to figure out what might have possibly created the sound, he was suddenly surprised by a familiar (albeit masked) face that looked right at him through the glass and said, “Bet you didn’t expect this bug on your windshield!”

            “Spider-Man!” Saccheri screamed, firing his gun at the windshield in an attempt at executing the Wall-Crawler.

(Marvel Note: When Marvel Mayhem was written in spring of 2014, the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise had not yet been obtained by Marvel/Disney. In fact, Marvel Mayhem debuted just a month before the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the last Spidey film to be produced solely by Sony before their recent deal with Disney/Marvel earlier this year. Featuring Spider-Man in the story was a personal risk I made, as it was entirely fan service just including him. With the Wall-Crawler joining the MCU next year in Captain America: Civil War, his presence in Marvel Mayhem is now a happy coincidence more than anything else.)

            Spidey ducked away in time, leaving shards of glass to spread all over the car’s interior, from the dashboard to the passenger seat. “Normal people just use the wipers!” Saccheri heard him continue to antagonize him from somewhere atop the limo while he persisted in his escape, speeding through incoming traffic. He fired his gun at the roof, knowing Spider-Man was still there and hoping one of the bullets would fatally kill him. But Spider-Man was resilient, dodging each fired bullet with ease.

            Things only got worse for Saccheri, whose panic increased dramatically when Spider-Man gripped the driver’s side door and ripped it off its hinges, exposing Saccheri to the dangerously rapid atmosphere outside. “Should’ve been wearing a seatbelt if you planned on fighting a guy in a leotard tonight, big man,” he heard the Web-Slinger say to him from somewhere outside.

            In a desperate move, Saccheri made a hard left, heading directly into a vacant district. He drove upon a factory, crashing through the gated entrance and coming to a screeching halt right in the middle of an empty parking lot. Not wasting any time, he quickly wedged his wide frame out of the cramped space between wheel and seat and trained his gun on the roof of the damaged limo, expecting Spider-Man to be there. But Spidey was nowhere to be seen, influencing paranoia in Saccheri, who made haste into the factory without a second thought.

            Arriving in time to see Saccheri retreat into the factory, a barely exhausted Natasha Romanoff appeared right at the broken gates. She was just about to rush in after him until she was surprised by Spider-Man, who swung in and landed right near her without making so much as a peep. She gave a slight shriek, having been completely caught off guard.

            “Sorry ‘bout that.” Spidey said while crouched down just a few feet across from her. “Did you run all the way here? How could you’ve reached here from the junkyard so fast on foot?”

            Romanoff seemed hesitant to give him a response. She turned very stern and gave a hardnosed command to the Wall-Crawler instead: “Never mind about that. I’m going in to catch Saccheri. You alert S.H.I.E.L.D. of this location. Got it?”

            “Yeah. Got it. Sheesh.” Spider-Man sassily acknowledged, swinging away from the scene afterward.

(Authorial Note: Spider-Man's role in Marvel Mayhem was intended to be limited to just this chapter. After the acquisition of the character by Marvel/Disney that included an appearance in Civil War and his own solo film in 2017, I decided to make more use of his now-official presence in the MCU by featuring him in the final battle later in the story.)

            Watching the masked hero depart with such an attitude, Natasha wondered if she was a little too assertive towards him. Unfortunately, she did not have time to focus on that. She rushed through the front entrance of the factory and found it to be so dark inside that she could barely see. She rectified this issue with a trick that she could only pull off when she was as alone as she was right there and then. Her eyes lit up in a ghostly white hue, working as a flashlight to guide her way through the darkness. Out of the pitch blackness, it was the glow from her eyes that only stood out.

(Authorial Note: At this point, it was a given that this version of Black Widow was not as she seemed. Open-minded World of Disney readers know of only one series character who is capable of possessing "glowing white eyes.")

            There was enough brightness to allow Saccheri, who hid behind one of the brick columns within the building’s first floor, to see exactly where he needed to go: a nearby service elevator. Yet the businessman was curious to know what kind of flashlight Romanoff used to illuminate the entire floor as she did. Glimpsing around the corner of the column, he was spooked to see the light come directly from her eyes, as if she were some kind of demon. The eeriness was enough to force Saccheri away from the column and make a mad dash for the elevator. The claps his five-thousand dollar pair of shoes made on the concrete floor drew attention from Romanoff.

            Her eyes still lit in the darkness and on him, she chased after Saccheri but was too late; he had already stepped inside and frantically pressed the button that brought the doors together, separating them. She looked to the old-fashioned elevator dial indicator above to see that Saccheri headed for the sub-level of the factory. Her eyes turned from ghostly white to dark purple upon switching her vision to an “x-ray mode,” in order to see where Saccheri was headed. What she saw was his skeletal form traveling down the elevator and arriving in an area filled with things that looked far more “alien” than they were even in her “x-ray vision.” Desiring to find out what was in that room, she performed another special trick that would have seemed uncharacteristic of her to anyone who bore witness to it: her body turned invisible and teleported away from the first floor, moving into the lowest floor.

(Pop Culture Note: The "x-ray mode" was inspired from the detective mode used by the DC Comics superhero Batman in his Arkham video game series. The dark purple tint of the eyes mimic the color scheme of the environment when using that mode in-game.)

            What she arrived in was a black-lighted room filled with an incredibly wild assortment of artifacts that were factually alien in origin. To Romanoff, it was a museum of weirdness. There were body parts of creatures she could not begin to identify strung up on the walls and hung from the ceiling, dangling all around her; it was evident from the usage of the tools for this décor that this factory was once used for meat. There were also devices either situated on a workbench or propped against a wall – some of which looked like weapons, akin to a staff or a gun. But what frightened her most out of this room was the appearance of a full-bodied alien corpse of some type that had been given the taxidermy treatment, stuffed and mounted in the corner.

            Right beside the alien corpse was a six-foot steel chamber, housing a living redheaded woman who – as Romanoff noticed through the small, rectangular window lined up perfectly with the woman’s head – wore her long hair in a 1940s Victory Rolls style, glamoured up with makeup suitable for a common female in that era. She was asleep inside the chamber, which was filled with a bright blue light that illuminated her docile face. Written crudely on the rusted hull of the chamber was the word “Mystery,” followed by the number “72.”

            Mystery Seventy-Two? What’s so mysterious about her?

            Romanoff decided not to ponder too much on it as Saccheri was her only focus of attention at the moment. She realized he was nowhere to be seen in the room; because of this, she opted to drop her invisibility. As she had done so, she heard what could only be a baby cooing close nearby. Rounding a corner, she stumbled into a room that looked to be once used for slaughtering animals. It was currently reserved for an infant boy lying in a crib similar to one found in a hospital nursery. The crib was situated on a worktable stained with the blood of the dead animals that were cut open on it. A light shined directly over the baby, making him stand out in the dark room.

            “What the…?” Natasha whispered in confusion and shock, approaching the infant as he continued to coo, not a bit bothered from his abandonment – not that he would have noticed. She discovered a duct-tape label that read “Karter – Mystery 29” on the end of crib. “Karter, huh? Well, at least he named you.” The child looked right at her, seeming to be really happy to see her from the way he giggled. She smiled at him, tickling his belly. “Aww. You’re just the cutest little fella, aren’t ya? Bless your heart. Why does that man have you in here?”

(Character Note: "Karter" is a character that was inspired by the real-life nephew of Ciciley Valdez, the inspiration for "Ciciley Livingston." The character - one of the first infants to be written into the World of Disney series - was integrated in the story to humanize Ciciley's character, who I felt was written too much as a hard-nosed woman who punched first and asked questions later in The Marvelous World.)

            Her motherly moment was abruptly cut short by something she felt pressed hard against the back of her head. Knowing that she didn’t back into it, she realized that it had to be Saccheri and the barrel of his gun. “Don’t move, unless you want your brains to splatter all over the kid.” She looked down at Karter, who remained in his happy state, totally unaware of the dangerous situation happening close by him. She kept herself completely still with her hands held high, fearing one mistakable move will end her life. “How do you like my Man Cave of Horrors? I’ve kept this room as a treasure trove for all the weirdness that me and my company have come across since the Battle of New York, a few years back. We’ve collected what much of the Chitauri we could, dissecting them and their tech to discover their special little secrets.”

            Saccheri pointed to an alien-looking gun on one of the workbenches and the mounted Chitauri corpse as examples. He pressed the gun barrel harder against Romanoff’s skull as he continued in his address: “I knew who you were the moment I saw you, Natasha Romanoff. You were all over the news as one of the Avengers in that battle.”

            “That’d explain the personal body search,” she mockingly remarked.

            Her snide comment got her a hard knock on the head, courtesy of Saccheri and his gun barrel. She reacted in slight pain, which he took notice of with amusement. “Is an LMD so advanced these days it can feel pain?”

            “LMD?”

(Marvel Note: "LMD" is the acronym for "Life Model Decoy," a S.H.I.E.L.D.-designed robot that duplicates all aspects of a living person - i.e. fingerprints, hair, all details of the skin, speech patterns, scent, iris and retina patterns, body language, thought patterns, and any other biological indicators. The owner can see through, speak through, and control everything the Life Model Decoy does. As of 2015, there's only one instance in which an LMD has been reference in Marvel's cinematic universe, and it is by Tony Stark, who attempted to avoid a phone call from Agent Phil Coulson in The Avengers by claiming in an answering machine/voicemail fashion to be "Tony Stark's Life Model Decoy" instead.)

            “Do not play dumb with me again!” His loud, furious voice shook Karter out of his happy mood and left the child crying. “I know you’re not the real Natasha Romanoff. The real Black Widow doesn’t teleport, turn invisible, or has glowing eyes.” He then leaned close to her right ear, practically sniffing her hair, and whispered, “I know you’re not human. You’re gonna make a wonderful addition to my collection.”

            Something in Natasha instantly snapped in reaction to his statement. She took advantage of his close proximity and elbowed him in the stomach. As he recoiled in pain, she twirled and faced him, grabbing at his wrist with an intense grip and forcing him to let go of his gun.

            Falling to his knees with an agonized face, he was quick to beg for mercy. “P-Please let me go. Please. I…I wasn’t serious. Honest. Please.”

            She saw the tears welling up in his eyes from the excruciating hold she had on him. Seeing what she had done surprised even her; with all the violence she witnessed that evening, she had finally let it get to her of all people. The beseeching look Saccheri had given her brought some sympathy back into her heart for him, as odd as it was for her to admit. “You know…I once knew you… as a different person in a different world. Seeing you like this…what I’m doing to you now…it breaks my heart…because I’m reminded of that good friend I lost…and I think of him when I see your face.”

            Confusion replaced fear as Saccheri saw the out-pour of her emotions to him, mentioning things that had no bearing to him whatsoever. Seeing real tears come out of her eyes made him even more baffled. He felt the unbearable grip she had on his wrist loosen up, cluing him on the fact that she had let her guard down. Using this as an advantage, Saccheri reached into his back pocket to retrieve a switchblade, which he activated the second it was out of his pocket and in his hand.

            He waited for the right moment, watching Romanoff slightly turn away from him in her questionable bout of depression. And then, with swiftness he hardly even knew he had, he dug the sharp blade right in the left side of her abdomen. The fierce grip over his wrist came back as she reacted to the attack; he yelped in pain just as she did. However, her pain did not appear to last for long. The switchblade was kept there in her abdomen with blood seeping out through the hole it made in both her jacket and flesh, but her body remained stiff as a board while she stood over Saccheri.

            That glow from her eyes that he witnessed earlier had returned, only it was more aggressive this time. Scared out of his wits, Saccheri pleaded to her, “Don’t kill me, Romanoff. Please don’t kill me!”

            “You were right, Mister Saccheri,” she spoke in a hollowed voice. “I’m not Natasha Romanoff.”

            “Then who…what are you?”

            “I am the Guardian.”

            The glow grew brighter and brighter in the black-lighted room, which shook in answer to the unearthly force of nature she had apparently summoned into it. All Saccheri could have done in reaction to it all was scream in horror, the glow finally engulfing him and the rest of his “Man Cave of Horrors.”

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