chapter 270
Chapter 270:
–Layla–
I hovered above Hell's Kitchen, searching for my target. Finding him wasn't hard. All I had to do was listen for gunshots and screams.
A few minutes later, I spotted him on a rooftop, taking potshots at some gang members below. They were trying their best to return fire, but they were up against one of the best former soldiers in the world.
"Hi, Frank. It's been a while," I said as I touched down on the roof. My wings vanished from sight a second later.
"What are you doing here, Layla?" Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher, asked without looking up from his scope. He pulled the trigger a few more times, dropping three more gang members.
I didn't make any moves to intervene in the bloodshed. The souls of every man Frank was firing at were stained with Sin. Some of them were almost pitch black, indicating they routinely committed some of the worst crimes imaginable. Not only that, but they reveled in committing them as well.
"I came to make you a proposition. I was thinking about putting together a team," I started to explain.
"I'm going to stop you there, Layla." Frank said as he fired his weapon a few more times. The last of the gang members dropped dead. With the area clear, he turned around to face me. "I already tried to make nice with SHIELD as a favor to you. It didn't go well. They had far too many rules and regulations. Too much red tape, and they wouldn't let me put down the scum of the Earth when it had to be done!" he said bitterly. "I won't let the scum go free. I can't let what happened to my family happen to anyone else. Not when I have the power to stop it."
Even a full year later, I could tell he was still reeling from the death of his wife. After the mass revival following Thanos’s invasion, Frank had called me up, begging me to revive his wife. He pleaded that his children needed their mother. I felt for Frank. I could hear the pain in his voice. I had wanted to revive her, but I simply couldn't. It had been too long since her death, and Frank's deceased wife had already made peace in the afterlife. There had been some friction between us since then, and I was hoping to ease that tension today.
"This team isn't like the Avengers," I continued my explanation. "This is a team that will answer to me only. I want to create a force to protect people not just from global threats but local ones as well."
"Aren’t Spiderman and Daredevil already handling that for you?" he asked. “They seem to have things covered.”
“They’re only two people, one of which is still a teenager with a very naive outlook on the world,” I said. Spiderman had been doing a pretty good job in the city, but he was still mostly dealt with low level street crimes. He mostly handled robberies or burglaries. I don’t know if he’s faced a real supervillain yet. I’d have to ask Natasha when she got back from her latest mission. SHIELD had been keeping a hands off approach with him due to his age, but they still monitored him to make sure he didn’t bite off more than he could chew and get himself bumped off accidentally or otherwise.
Frank still didn’t seem interested in my proposal. I needed to work better on my sales pitch. “That’s too bad,” I said wistfully while turning my head. “I’ve got a whole bunch of super awesome alien guns just sitting around. Too bad I never learned how to shoot them. I wonder if I should just throw them all away? Or I could trade them in the City’s cash for guns program, I suppose.” I said while glancing at him from the corner of my eye.
Frank’s right eye twitched when I mentioned throwing all the weapons away. “Alien guns?” he asked, trying to hide his interest. “...How powerful are we talking here?”
I smirked, I knew I had his interest now. In hindsight, I should have just started by mentioning the cool weapons. “Some of these guns are powerful enough to injure even me,” I said. Not a lot, but they could still take a couple HP off of me with every shot.
Frank let out a whistle. “Ok, you have my attention…”
This was a good start, now I just had a few more people to convince before things started to really kick off. My own ‘League’ could very well become a real possibility soon.
…
–Norman Osborn–
“You look like shit, Dad,” his son told him bluntly.
Norman scowled beneath his respirator. He didn’t just look like shit, he felt like it as well. He was in his 40s, yet he looked like a 90-year-old man. Some days, he couldn’t even muster enough energy to speak. He doubted he would last another few months. Ever since his health had gone critical, Norman had been completely bedridden. Feeding tubes and respirators were all that kept him alive at this point. Losing his own company had been the shock that pushed him over the edge.
“Why are you here, Harry?” he asked. Norman could easily count the number of times his teenage son had visited him in this private hospital. It was zero…
“I heard you were getting worse, so I came to say goodbye, I guess,” Harry said with a shrug. There had never been any love lost between father and son.
‘How touching…’ Norman thought sarcastically while rolling his eyes. “How’s my company?” Norman asked.
Harry scoffed. “Really? The doctors told me you have a month left to live and all you care about is your stupid company!? It’s gone, Dad… You need to get over it. Oscorp is gone, Fallcorp has taken its place. I’ve been to a few board meetings, and honestly, the company has never been in better hands. I didn’t like her at first, but Penemue is an amazing CEO, and all the old employees who weren’t fired love her. You know she pretty much tripled everyone’s wages? It turns out happy employees actually do better work. Who could have imagined such a thing?” Harry said sarcastically.
Norman scowled in annoyance. Fallcorp!? Those inhuman monsters had not only stolen his legacy but also changed its glorious name!
He would not stand for it!
If only he could actually muster the energy to properly stand...
“Son... listen closely. You need to find a way to avenge me. You need to take our legacy back. Take back Oscorp, no matter what! Promise me,” Norman said with raspy breaths.
Harry looked at his father for a moment before shaking his head in pity. “Yeah... no thanks,” he said bluntly. “Since you’ve been deemed incompetent, the courts signed over all your assets to me. Three percent might not seem like much, but with how much money Fallcorp is raking in, it's more than enough to support me for the rest of my life. You should have seen the awesome party I was able to throw with all that money!” Harry laughed.
“You’re a disgrace, Harry! How can you have so little ambition?” Norman’s rasps grew louder. He was so angry that he struggled to breathe. “Are you planning on doing nothing with your life?”
Harry shrugged noncommittally. “I don't know what you want me to say, Dad. I'm only 15. One thing I do know is that I definitely don’t want to get on Layla of the Fallen’s bad side. You have a TV in your room. Did you see the footage of her cutting off the Devil’s head? Why would I ever pick a fight with someone like that? Plus, she kinda has a whole budding religion springing up around the world, and I don’t want to piss off any of her followers. I’m pretty sure my girlfriend MJ has started praying to her now.”
Norman had seen that footage. It was grainy and filmed on some idiot’s cell phone, but it painted the picture well enough. The woman who had taken everything from him was going to be incredibly difficult to defeat. If only he had a healthier body and a little more time on his side, he would have been able to get his revenge.
“J-just get out of here, Harry,” Norman said in defeat. “Do whatever you want with your life. I don’t care anymore. I don’t have a son.”
“Well, fuck you too, Dad,” Harry said, standing up. “See you never, I guess. Try not to croak the second I walk out the door.”
Harry marched out of the hospital room. Norman figured that was the last time he’d ever see his son. '...Good,' he thought to himself. Harry had turned out to be a complete disgrace to the Osborn name.
“If only I wasn’t plagued with this disease… I could have handled everything myself,” Norman muttered bitterly.
“Disease… It’s always been a strange concept for me. They say the Lord created humans in his own image. If so, why did he bestow them with such weak and fragile bodies? Bodies that seem to fail them all the time?”
Norman’s eyes widened when he realized someone had entered his private hospital room without him knowing. How was that possible? The door was directly across from his bed. He would have seen it if someone had entered after his son left. He turned his head to the side and beheld a handsome man he had never seen before—a man with green hair. Natural green hair was impossible for regular humans. ‘Was this a mutant?’ Norman wondered. One with some kind of teleportation power?
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
The green-haired man temporarily ignored him and walked over to the window. He stared up at the sky. “Interesting, how did I never notice that my world’s sun wasn’t real? The energy radiating off of this star is so much more intense,” he muttered to himself before shaking his head. He turned back to Norman. “Apologies… I’ve recently become aware of some truths that I would never have believed if I didn’t see them for myself. I came here to confirm them.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Norman said in annoyance. His finger slowly moved toward the emergency button on his bedside. It would only take security 30 seconds to get here after he pressed it.
“My apologies, human. I’m not here to hurt you. In fact, I’m here to help you,” the man said, and Norman moved his hand away from the button.
“Why would you help me?” Norman rasped. “We’ve obviously never met. I would definitely remember someone with your… unique traits. What do you want with me?” He doubted this man could really help him, but what did a dying man have to lose at this point?
The green-haired man smirked and began a strange explanation. “When all the Fallen Angels vanished from the underworld, it set off a lot of panic amongst my people. How did an entire race vanish? Where did they go? These were questions I asked myself. It took me months of dedicated research, but I’m not known as the smartest man in the underworld for nothing…”
‘Clearly not the most humble either,’ Norman thought to himself. When the man mentioned the underworld, Norman started to get the idea that this man wasn’t a mutant after all. No, this being was something much worse. Something darker.
The being continued his speech, barely addressing Norman as he arrogantly monologued out loud. “...I discovered a secret that had been hidden from the entire supernatural world! Our entire world was fake! We live in an artificial pocket dimension, one that is in the process of slowly breaking down. Azazel, that bastard, clearly discovered this information ahead of me somehow. The Fallen Angels got a jump on us and managed to escape to this place—the real world! A world that has barely been influenced by the supernatural and yet has developed almost identically to its separated counterpart—that’s quite interesting, but I’ll get into that discussion another time. The important thing is what I found here in this world… Or rather who I found!” The being finally got to the point.
“Layla of the Fallen,” Norman said out loud. “You discovered HER…” It was obvious WHO the being was talking about. If Norman really was talking to some kind of demon from a “parallel world,” then it would obviously be terrified upon discovering something like her.
The being snapped its fingers and nodded at him. “You are correct, human. I discovered the Fallen Angel’s secret weapon. They had been hiding her here, allowing her to grow in secret! A Fallen Angel of such unimaginable POWER! The entire Devil race combined won’t be able to defeat her, and it’s only a matter of time before she purges us from existence!” He exclaimed.
“As my now disowned son would say, sucks to be you,” Norman said dryly, rolling his eyes. “I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.” He was on his deathbed and didn’t know what a ‘Devil’ would even want with him. He certainly wasn’t giving up his soul, especially when the being just admitted it still wouldn’t be able to defeat Layla. Or maybe he would…
The Devil waved his hand flippantly. “Of course not, your puny mortal mind can’t comprehend my plans. Not unless I explain them to you. I was getting there, of course. Layla of the Fallen is powerful, but she has gained quite a few enemies. Enemies like you. She took everything from you, didn’t she? Your company, your legacy, the respect and love of your own son? Don’t you want revenge?” the Devil asked him.
“Obviously,” Norman said, doing his best to ignore the “puny mortal mind” insult. “But I'm not going to give you my soul as payment. If that’s what you're after, then you might as well go back to this Underworld and wait for your inevitable demise with some dignity,” he snided back.
The Devil scoffed. “Oh please, a soul as worn and rotten as yours would taste horrible to my refined palate. No Noble Devil would want to feast on it. No, I'm not after your soul. I want your help taking down our mutual enemy. I’m gathering as many of her enemies as I can find. I have a gift for them, something to even the odds a bit.”
The Devil reached into its pocket and pulled out… a chess piece? Specifically the King.
Norman glanced at it in confusion. “What will that do?”
The Devil smirked. “This was an old invention of mine. It used to grant incredible power to weaker devils. I’ve since modified it to do something a little different. This improved King Piece not only grants incredible power but it can also change the race of whoever absorbs it into a Devil as well. It’s basically a souped-up version of another invention of mine known as the Evil Pieces. Becoming a Devil will not only grant you an extended lifespan, but it will also completely purge the genetic disease from your body. What do you say, human? Are you willing to give up your race for revenge against Layla?”
“…Who are you?” Norman asked.
The Devil grinned. “My name is Ajuka Beelzebub, and you haven't answered my question. I’m on a bit of a schedule here. I have a few more people to visit after you. Layla has certainly made no shortage of enemies in this world. So, I offer one last time. Do you accept?”
Norman ripped the respirator off of his face and grinned madly. “Will I give up my humanity for a chance at revenge? For a chance to take everything back? …Yes!”
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