u/BravePomegranate9775

Little India. Date: 21/4/2026. Time: 1:15 PM.

The man was running before he realised he had already been found. Singapore moved around him in its usual rhythms: traffic lights cycling, office crowds spilling into lunch, and vehicles resonating to the low hum of a city that believed itself orderly. He clung to that order as he moved through it, smartphone pressed to his ear, voice low and controlled in a way that suggested practice. “It’s in place,” he reported. “Tonight.” A pause on the other end. He listened and nodded once, though the person could not see him. “Yes. Understood.” He ended the call; he did not see her until she was already there.

Maya Singh stepped out of the blind spot between two parked vehicles, her presence not sudden but inevitable. It was the kind of arrival that made the space around her feel like it had always been hers. The staffer stopped mid-stride, the words forming in his mouth only to die before they reached air. “You just called someone,” she scowled, her tone matter-of-factly. He swallowed and looked past her, as if the street might intervene.

“It’s not what you think.”

She tilted her head slightly, studying him not with anger or even curiosity, but with ice-cold assessment. “It never is.” He made it five steps before she closed the distance without visible effort, her hand catching his collar as momentum folded him into the side of a parked car hard enough to knock the air out of him. The city continued around them — cars passing and footsteps moving — because the alley meant nobody saw what was actually happening. “Who did you call?” she asked.

“I don’t—”

Her grip tightened, not enough to injure but to communicate exactly how far this could go. “I heard you, so we’re not doing this part.” A beat. “Who. Did. You. Call?”

His breath came uneven: “Tsunami.” The name sat between them.

She nodded once. “What’s in place?”. A beat later, her other hand came up; not fast or dramatic, but precise. Two fingers pressed into a nerve cluster at his neck. His body reacted before his mind could catch up, pain sharp and immediate.

“Don’t,” he managed, the neural shock forcing him on a knee.

“I’m not,” she retorted. “You are.” She eased the pressure. “The question’s still standing.”

His voice broke on the exhale. “Batam. Warehouse. It’s a setup.”

“For who?”

“For—” He hesitated. Her fingers shifted slightly. “For them,” he sputtered quickly.
“The unit from Myanmar. They know you exist — no, they don’t know you, you’re not with them — they know something’s interfering, so they built—” He swallowed. “They built a kill box. All eight of them. They’ll be there.”

She held him there for a moment longer. “Tonight?”

He nodded. “I’m just the middle man—“ She moved so fast, he never even realised she’d snapped his neck until everything went dark. He collapsed against the car; she left him there.

Batam. Friday evening. Time: 2257 hrs.

The island shook under the force of impact. Batam was supposed to be quiet: industrial edges, low structures, a faint chemical scent, and the hum of something hidden just out of sight. The warehouse had stood exactly where the intel said it would, its exterior mundane in the way that real operations often were. The inside had been perfect..too perfect. The moment it broke, it did so completely. Shelving dissolved into smoke, crates into nothing. The illusion peeled away not like something collapsing, but like something had been withdrawn, revealing what had always been there beneath it: open space, cleared ground, and the architecture of a trap.

The Straits Guard stepped forward as one. Bomoh stood at the centre, fingers still, the last threads of illusion dissipating around him. HardKore moved to his right, constructs already forming in the air like sharpened glass catching light that wasn’t there. Hellfire behind them, flames coiling low.

White Noise shifted slightly, the air around him humming at a frequency that pressed against the skull more than the ear. He was nervous to be here, but also excited in the way a kid was at an army visit. Rakshasa rolled her shoulders once, already moving. Stratos hovered just above ground level, the air tightening in anticipation. Vishkanya said nothing. And then…Tsunami led the charge.

Faz moved first, adrenal overload pushing him past hesitation and into motion. He went straight for Hellfire, whose flames met him head-on, the collision sending heat and force across the open space in a shockwave that rattled bone.

Ismail anchored as Stratos’ wind slammed into them, his footing holding where everything else shifted. The ground beneath him cracked without giving way. Stratos chuckled, but said nothing.

Muthu intercepted Rakshasa mid-strike, her enhanced force meeting his perfect efficiency. The redirection snapped her trajectory just enough to break her follow-through. Rakshasa recuperated and shifted her foot’s density just slightly, then kicked him square in the chest.

Lobang King reached, caught, released, and adjusted, his neuro-persuasion flickering across targets that held for only a minute at most. Bomoh was laughing hysterically, casting illusions of Lobang King’s friends and family to overwhelm him. “Eh, bro…got something wrong?” he taunted with a wild cackle before driving a fist through Lobang King’s cheek.

IP Man moved through it all with that same unsettling calm. He read and adapted, striking where it mattered before pausing, just for a fraction, because something felt wrong. Aloysius saw it too; not in the movement, but in the pattern. Hellfire pressed forward, her attacks aggressively overwhelming. Flames surged in controlled bursts that forced space and dictated positioning. But beneath it, beneath the precision, there was something else: hesitation. Not in the action, but in the intent.

“Aloysius—” Ken started.

“I see it,” he assured quietly. Hellfire drove forward again, flames flaring, and for just a moment she overcommitted. Aloysius adjusted instantly. “Left,” he instructed.

Ken moved. The opening appeared…and vanished. The sky broke. Tsunami did not raise his voice; the need was rarely there. The air shifted, pressure dropping sharply as something vast answered him. The sound came first: water where none should have been, the consuming force of something too large to belong to a single man.

The tidal surge hit the island like a verdict. Water tore through the warehouse remains, through the battlefield, through everything; force and volume obliterating formation, scattering bodies, ripping control away from both sides indiscriminately. Ken felt himself lifted — weightless for a second that stretched too long — before impact, the world becoming water and motion and the violent absence of ground. “This—Alex—” Alex shouted, the comms crackling…and then nothing. The connection was gone.

The shoreline came hard. Sand, debris, scrap metal, and bodies thrown out of the surge like wreckage. The team hit ground in fragments. They were disoriented, the fight stripped down to whatever they could recover in the seconds they had left; they were given none. The Straits Guard emerged from the waterline like they had never lost control. Stratos touched down first, wind stabilising around her. HardKore sheltered Bomoh, White Noise, Hellfire, and Vishkanya with a construct which dissolved at her silent command. “Okay,” White Noise excitedly said, “that was fucking awesome.”

“You find everything awesome, Adrian,” Hellfire grumbled. “You’d see a plane crash and think it was the funniest thing you ever saw.”

“You mean like what we had planned for that journalist who was talking about ‘Myanmar conspiracies’?” Adrian retorted.

“White Noise!” Stratos cried out in exasperation. “That was just a ‘suggested tactic’.”

“Come on, ma’am, you literally said it would be too easy. I heard it.”

“Everyone, just…shut up.” Tsunami stood behind them, untouched. The distance between the two groups closed. “Don’t you dolts realise what happened? The Myanmar footage came from our esteemed guests here.” His open palm pointed to all of them in a swift motion. “They probably have little cameras which recorded the whole thing. Isn’t that right, gentlemen?”

Ken tried to stand and realised, distantly, that they would never make it like this. “Can I say something off record, sir?”

Sir.

That one word hit Tsunami like a freight train; nobody had called him that since his jail term. He softened, just a little bit. “Go on,” he sneered. “I have a blowout at six and a blowjob at seven.”

Ken stood up. “I thought you were a hero, sir,” he pretended to confess. “I thought you were meant to protect us, to look after the people that really mattered.”

“We doing that already, ah boy.” Bomoh chuckled at the insult. “We’re protecting the people that really matter: ourselves. This world sibei kill or be killed one, and we’re going to fucking kill that pebble of a damn country.” He turned to Hellfire. “End it.” Not loud or dramatic, but final.

She approached…only for gunshots to pierce the air. Alex had made his way to the beach and was now opening fire. HardKore leapt in front of Alex and held up a shield. “It’s…one guy,” she realised, then turned to Stratos. “You’re telling me…that you and Rakshasa fled…because of one fucking guy?”

“How were we supposed to know who was firing?” Rakshasa interrupted. “We had just failed that diamond deal with those fucks from the Tatmadaw; of course they’d want payback. It was a strategic guess.”

“I swear to god, Rajisha, I’m going to take that ‘strategic guess’ and shove it up—“ the words never escaped HardKore’s mouth; a rocket blast from the west caught her attention, and she attempted to shield it. “Simi sai, ah?” she cursed underneath her breath.

Maya Singh, in her black and grey outfit, entered the fight like it had already been hers. She marched slowly but surely, gun aimed at the shield. Her first strike took the Straits Guard member off balance not with strength, but with timing so exact it broke the sequence before it could complete. Her Uzi redirected Stratos mid-motion, wind scattering as control slipped for just a fraction. Alex, already on solid ground, circled the eastern flank and pressed the attack as he regrouped with the men.

Maya barely turned to the battered soldiers, but it was clear who she was helping. “Move.” The boat was already there, several metres away from where Maya had engaged. She hauled Ken up first, then Faz, then whoever was closest. Efficiency took priority over everything else.

Tsunami watched but did not move to stop her, not in the second it took for the last of them to be dragged onto the boat. She tugged sharply, and the engine roared. The boat tore away from the shoreline, cutting across the water before anything could close the distance again. Behind them, Batam burned and broke under the ruins of the storm. Ahead of them, open water. “Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered, too shocked at his team’s incompetence to use his powers. “We kena fuck already.”

They fell into slumber one by one, Aloysius first, all the way until Ken. Alex kept himself awake with a lighter. They had no command, comms, or plan; just the woman at the helm, eyes forward, already calculating the next move. None of them knew who she was, only that she had just saved their lives. And that whatever came next, she was in it with them now.

END OF ISSUE NINETEEN

Explosions rocked the forest as Bucky was thrown back, his chest reeling from John Walker’s foot. He had led the initial defence line the minute AIM forces breached the perimeter; he was the last of the wave to survive. John whipped out his pistol and aimed at Bucky…until a blur tackled him to the ground.

Steve, covered in dirt and bruises from fighting the numerous US Agents sent to destroy the bunker, threw a punch which connected with John’s jaw, sending him flying into a nearby tree as Sam arrived. He used a stolen AIM rifle and stunned John, then turned to make sure Steven and Bucky were alright.

Peggy stepped forward, using her assault rifle to burst rounds at the trio before Steven stepped forward. As if by magic, the watch Sam had given him exploded into an orb of red, white, and blue. A star marked the point where Steven had deployed the force field. He pressed forward, keeping Sam and Bucky inside as Peggy continued to unload. Then, when they were close enough, he turned the watch off.

Bucky and Sam tackled Peggy to the ground before she could react, barely noticing the AIM soldiers approaching. Steve did; he leapt forward and activated the shield once again. Except it did not form a dome, but a disc. He swung; it spun wildly, slamming into bodies and trees before flying back onto the watch. Once he was certain the bunker and its surroundings were clear, he grabbed Peggy by the collar and gave her a warning: stay away from him and his friends. She agreed reluctantly and wandered off.

An hour later, Steven had found his way back to the room. Sam and Bucky let themselves in, praising him on a job well done and reminding him the offer still stood. This time, Steve needed no time to think; he said yes on the spot. Sam nodded to a junior soldier, who presented a duffel bag. Inside: Flag Smasher gear, including a uniform and mask. Steve smiled, taking Sam’s hand as he officially joined the good guys.

AIM HQ

They had come tonight to bear witness to his words, the words of the esteemed father to their corporation. The “Scientist Supreme” was here, and he would speak to the whole of AIM. Arnim Zola gave a keynote speech, inflaming the egos of those present as he sang praises to their founder. The clock struck eight, and he led waves of cheers as a portion of the floor above him began to appear.

The man was a beast, pure muscle decorated in tattoos. On each of his arms were five rings, humming a mysterious blue as electricity seemed to course in his blood. The cheers exploded the minute his visage appeared on the screen, and he rose to his feet with a battle cry. Now, here, he was not just the “Scientist Supreme”.

Here…he was their Kingpin.

“The Facility”. Date: 21/4/2026. Time: 0958 hrs.

The news reached them before the briefing did. It was playing on a muted television in the mess area when the first of them noticed it: a scrolling headline, clinical in tone and unremarkable in presentation. The blue text stood out against a gold frame:

Two remand prisoners found unresponsive in Changi Prison Complex.

Ken saw it first, but initially said nothing. He just watched the ticker loop once, then twice, as the rest of the room carried on in the low, half-awake rhythm of a Tuesday morning. Faz followed his gaze, then Ismail. Then, one by one, the others. Nobody spoke until Alex walked in, his face same as they recognised. “Sergeant,” Ken alerted him softly, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Alex looked and read, but did not react. Not outwardly at least. “Turn on the volume,” he instructed Muthu. The audio came in mid-sentence: a presenter reiterating the same facts with the same careful language. No speculation, no escalation, just what was on the script: two men, dead before trial. They were Darren Yeo Zhi Hao and Nguyen Thanh Binh, taken before justice could be served by cardiac-related causes.

The room sat with it. Aloysius spoke first, quiet and precise. “This one too convenient.”

Lobang King leaned back in his chair. “Convenient for who?” No one answered; they knew.

Muthu exhaled slowly. “They were the only link.”

“To the supply chain,” Ismail added.

“To Vought,” IP Man finished.

A beat. Faz looked at Alex. “Sergeant.” Alex was still watching the screen, the way the words on the ticker repeated with a news institution’s confidence.

“Say it,” he said.

Faz complied almost immediately. “Vought cleaned it up.” Silence; nobody pushed back.

Ken’s gaze had dropped to the table. “Two operations,” he said. “First Changi, then Myanmar. Both involving the Straits Guard, both unrelated.”

Aloysius nodded. “Both events had parallel revenue streams…except this one had a link back to them.”

Ken looked at Alex. “So this is what they do.”

Alex finally looked away from the screen. “Yes,” he confirmed. “This is what they do.” The room settled into that. Not shock, but calibration.

Time: 1432 hrs.

The briefing room felt colder than usual. LTC Tham stood at the front, the screen behind him already loaded. Encik Sng sat at the side. Alex stood at the back this time, arms folded. “The two remand prisoners have been confirmed to be dead,” LTC Tham announced. “Official cause: cardiac failure. Unofficially—”

“They were silenced,” Muthu interrupted.

LTC Tham neither confirmed nor denied it. “We proceed on the assumption that any loose end connected to Vought operations will be handled, which means we are no longer dealing with isolated incidents. We are dealing with a system.” He tapped the screen, and a satellite image came up: Batam. One of the Riau Isnalds owned by Indonesian nautical space. Closer than any of them expected…uncomfortably close.

“A new development,” LTC Tan continued. “Signals intelligence flagged irregular freight movement through a warehouse complex on the northern coast of Batam. The pattern matches Compound V precursor logistics.” The image zoomed onto a large, aged facility overlooking the water. Singapore was visible across the strait, distant but strikingly unmistakable.

“They’re manufacturing here?” Faz asked.

“Not confirmed,” LTC Tham told him. “But the indicators are consistent.”

Encik Sng stepped forward slightly. “Distance matters,” he explained. “Batam is close enough to stage, but far enough to deny. If anything goes wrong, it’s not Singapore’s problem.”

Lobang King let out a quiet breath. “This one sibei convenient.”

Aloysius was already studying the layout. “Minimal perimeter security,” he murmured. “Too minimal.”

Ken glanced at him. “You think it’s a setup.”

“I think,” Aloysius predicted, “that after two compromised operations, they would not leave something this exposed without reason.”

LTC Tham let that sit. “Which is why we go in controlled; recon first, engagement only if necessary.”

Alex spoke from the back. “We confirm the facility; we don’t chase ghosts.”

LTC Tham nodded once. “Deployment is this evening.”

Indonesian waters. Time: 2231 hrs.

Batam at night felt different from Singapore: darker and less structured. The water between them carried that difference, a thin stretch of black that separated Singaporean order from something looser and harder to define. The boat cut across it fast and low; orders were no lights and no conversation. The facility came into view gradually. It was a silhouette first, then shape, then detail. A warehouse complex sat too quietly against the shoreline without any visible guards, movement, defences, or danger.

Ken felt it before he could articulate it, but only said it when they got onto Indonesian shore and started walking. “This is wrong,” he said under his breath. Aloysius silently agreed; he could calculate variables and angles, but only for things he knew were certain, at least for now. This was too uncertain.

The approach was too clean; there were no patrols or cameras, and so they reached the warehouse entrance without a single incident. Alex gave the signal, and Ismail silently broke the lock on the door. They were in. Inside, it looked exactly like what they expected: crates, equipment, rows of storage units, and the faint chemical tang of something industrial in the air. A Compound V production operation, or something very close to it.

Ismail moved to one of the crates and opened it: vials, blue and familiar. Faz let out a low whistle. “Jackpot.”

Muthu was hardly convinced. “Too easy sia.”

Aloysius was already moving through the space, eyes scanning, mind running ahead. “Spacing is off,” he documented. “This isn’t how you’d organise a live production floor.”

Ken frowned. “What do you mean—”

The crate in Ismail’s hands flickered. Not visibly, not in a way the eye could fully catch. But something was wrong. IP Man stepped forward slowly, his senses only now stretching past what the eye could see. “Wait,” he said, but it was too late; the air shifted as the vials in the crate lost their colour, the blue drained out of them like it had never been there.

The metal edges of the crates softened, then sharpened, then snapped. The entire warehouse folded in on itself not physically, but perceptually. The rows of equipment dissolved into bare concrete. The stacked crates collapsed into empty space. The chemical smell vanished, replaced by damp air and dust. The room was completely empty. There was no production line, no storage, and absolutely no Compound V. The site was just a hollow shell.

Faz stared. “What the hell—”

A voice cut through the space, calm and almost amused. “Wah…you lot ah, made it damn far leh.” They turned; he was standing on the upper level, where there had been no upper level a second ago. Ahmad Fikri, AKA Bomoh, snickered as his eyes moved across them, taking in each of the seven. “Seven,” he said softly. The shadows shifted; they were not alone. “Don’t mind ah, we copy you.”

Rakshasa stepped into view from the far end of the warehouse, her presence heavy and grounded. She recognised Ken and stared daggers.

Stratos descended from above, landing lightly beside her, the air around her bending with the motion. Ismail saw her and got chills; she could sense his fear, and licked her lips in delight.

HardKore emerged next, constructs forming instantly in her hands with absolute control. Faz caught her attention; she instinctively winked like she was flirting, which, she was.

Hellfire stepped forward, heat rippling faintly around her. She was just there but was clearly out of it, almost like she wanted to be anywhere else.

Vishkanya remained just behind them, still and contained, her presence quieter but no less dangerous. She was clearly the woman responsible for the Changi prison deaths, and she was neither proud nor ashamed of it.

White Noise appeared last among them, silently, almost unnoticeable until he was already there. The faint suggestion of sound distortion trailed his presence rather than announcing it. He saw these boys and got excited, waving until Bomoh hissed for him to “act professional”.

Seven of the Straits Guard, all positioned and waiting. Aloysius exhaled once, heart racing. “Ambush,” he realised.

“No,” Bomoh corrected gently after landing safely, drawing out the “oh” sound like he was a playful teacher. “Containment.” The space tightened. Ken felt it; the shift from uncertainty to inevitability. They had not found the operation; it had found them.

Rakshasa’s gaze locked onto them. “You’ve been interfering,” she hissed. “First Changi, then Myanmar.”

Stratos tilted her head slightly, studying them. “You adapt quickly…for something that wasn’t supposed to exist.”

Faz shifted his stance. “We get that a lot.”

The air thickened. Bomoh’s illusions flickered at the edges of perception, not hiding anything now, just…distorting, closing like cage without walls. Alex’s voice came through comms, sharp; he had canvassed the perimeter and found a side entrance. “Hold positions. Do not break formation.”

Ken steadied his breathing. There were eight members of the Straits Guard. Seven in front…until the air changed. It was subtle but immediate, the kind of shift that did not announce itself, but was felt by everyone in the room at once.

Bomoh did not move. Rakshasa did slightly, not from fear but from respect...and tension. From behind the gap between her and Hellfire…he stepped through, breaking the illusion with hands forming orbs made of pure water. Everyone on his side stepped back like he was a king; in his mind, he was. The soldiers froze in terror, a single word escaping Aloysius’ lips:

“Tsunami.”

Tsunami stepped into the light, water swirling violently in midair. There was no rush or spectacle now, just the arrival of something far greater than the soldiers had prepared for. The air itself seemed to settle around him, as though accommodating something larger than the space had been designed to hold. He looked down on the seven of them with the same calm composure he carried everywhere. Except here, stripped of performance, it felt deliberate. “That’s all of them,” he said almost playfully.

Aloysius’ eyes did not leave him. “Yes,” he shot back.

Tsunami, taken aback by Aloysius’ sudden answer, chuckled. “Seriously? You’re the people Rakshasa had trouble with in Myanmar?” He could feel her glare at him; he cared not for her feelings. “You’re all just scared little ‘ah boys’. Let me guess: haven’t ORD yet, right?” He laughed harder this time. “I don’t think you ever will.”

Ken stepped forward, fists clenched. “Changi. Myanmar. Now this. You playing very dangerous game, you know.” A pause. “What’s wrong? Become famous not enough, ah?”

“Myanmar was just a ‘get rich quick’ gamble which, thanks to you—“ his finger, aimed at all seven of them, trembled, “we lost…badly. Changi? Now, that’s the one that really pissed me off.” A beat. “You know about Compound V, right, boys?”

“Abuden?” Lobang King whispered to Muthu, attempting to lighten the mood; it failed.

“Well, V is a liquid. Cocaine is a powder. Think of it as…Milo. The most Singaporean drink known to our pathetic little rock.” His finger aimed towards Singapore behind them. “Vought wanted us to use the coke and mix it with V before peddling it as an ‘energy drink’ to the little kiddies. They become superheroes for a while, the government goes to shit, and every Singaporean son is begging for more.”

“Walao eh,” IP Man teased, “this one sibei lame.”

“I know, bro,” Faz joined in. “Makes me glad we ruined those plans.”

“Oh, you did ruin our plans. Matter of fact, Vishkanya — oh, there you are —“ he turned to her. “She actually helped take down the only links between the coke shipment and Vought. Meaning, she’s up for a promotion. In fact…” he turned around to face his colleagues. “Each one of their bodies is a promotion in the ranks.”

END OF ISSUE EIGHTEEN

White. The sensation of cold metal against his naked back. A blinding light. Steve Rogers stirred in this environment as men dressed like beekeepers surrounded him. A needle positioned above his left arm; a laser inscribed a number as he screamed in agony. Steve’s vision flashed white and red as he fought back…only for the shadow to darken his vision. The beekeepers gave only one name: Zola.

Steve rocketed up in a sweat, the smell of musk immediately hitting him. The room, if this tiny space could even be considered one, was dark and filthy, with water running down paths marked by rust. There was a sink and a stained mirror; Steve wiped the mold off, washed his hands, and looked in the mirror. Then he turned back to the bed, slipped into a pre-folded set of clothes, and walked out the door.

Waiting outside were two men, both clearly
exhausted after a night of keeping watch. They asked who he was, and he answered truthfully. The man on the left introduced himself as Sam Wilson, leader of the Flag Smashers rebellion against Advanced Idea Mechanics. His second-in-command was James “Bucky” Barnes. Both had been locked in this war for far too long; Steve, being one of AIM’s latest runaways, gave them an advantage.

Steve was shown around the bunker, one of many built across the United States. They explained AIM’s history: a biotechnology company with money in the pockets of nearly every politician and defence contractor in the country, maybe even the world. Everyone in the Flag Smashers had their own reasons of joining the fight; Steven had his own, too, although he did not remember now. They gave Steve a choice: join the cause now as an active soldier, or go on his own and come back at anytime.

Sam personally escorted Steve out; he had chosen to find his own path first. He watched the man leave with nothing but his clothes and a duffel bag, then stopped him and gave something new: a watch, one he had taken from an AIM facility up north. Steve nodded and disappeared beyond the clearing; he did not notice the drone that Sam had programmed to follow him.

Elsewhere

Los Angeles, California. The building sat on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, modern and sleek in design. A sharp-cornered hexagon was visible on every wall, the word AIM in bright yellow.

Armin Zola walked down the hall and made a right, acknowledging two US Agents as their eyes met. He made another left, then walked straight ahead and scanned his key at the farthest door. This was his office, the place where he approved every business decision and lab test. All for his king, the true leader of this place. But that was for another time.

Zola checked the file he had been sent: the runaway, Steve Rogers. The asset who, mere hours after being awoken and marked, had beaten his way out of their underground testing site and run off to God-knew-where. He was not worried; he simply activated a tracker and watched as the target escaped the woods, hitchhiking with a random stranger and heading east. He smiled, closed the tab, and made the call.

Changi Prison Complex. Date: 20/4/2026. Time: 8:41 AM.

The facility ran on a schedule that was not known to bend. Meals, counts, exercise, medical…all of it was timed, logged, and repeated. The rhythm was that of a place designed to make time legible, to make it something that could be portioned and contained. The medical wing was quieter and cleaner than the rest, defined by the particular antiseptic calm of a space that treated the body as an administrative matter; something to be maintained, the idea of an error out of the question.

A Vought medical consultant badge. A clipboard. A name that was not her name, printed cleanly on a lanyard that would pass any check it needed to pass. Vishkanya walked through the checkpoint. The guard checked the badge, then the system, and nodded. She walked through.

The two men were in separate rooms. Standard procedure: remand prisoners, file narcotics charges, capital weight…everything was handled in isolation. Separate schedules. Separate counsel. Separate files. The system preferred clean lines. She had forty-five minutes. She had reviewed both files.

The first: Darren Yeo Zhi Hao, a thirty-four Singaporean living in Bukit Batok. Third of five — two brothers and three sisters, with one sister dying of stillbirth. Father drove a lorry for twenty years; Darren drove one, too. He navigated the Tuas port corridor for a logistics company too small to remember. His record was clean until three years ago. Nothing the system would flag, because the system did not track debt the way it tracked crime. He had a failed hawker stall. Savings gone from gambling. A loan taken. Three children. A salary that did not stretch.

Someone offered him a delivery: $500k in cash, no questions. He asked one anyway: “What am I carrying?” The answer: “Don’t”. He made four deliveries, earning a total of two million which he invested in life insurance plans and his kids’ futures. The fifth was the Changi warehouse. Remand without possibility of bail. Two visits from his wife, but none from his children; they did not know why he was not home.

The second file: Nguyen Thanh Binh, forty-three and Vietnamese. More specifically, a Hai Phong native. He ran container logistics out of Da Nang in his twenties. Freight forwarding across ASEAN after that; Thailand, then Malaysia, then Singapore. It was the routes that moved too much for anyone to look too closely.

He had spent nine years in the network. Not a driver, but a coordinator. Manifests. Timings. Port agents. Which container moved where, which one were to be adjustment, and which one passed through without inspection because the system was too busy to question everything. He had been good at it long enough that the distinction stopped existing. Legitimate documentation and illegitimate cargo…all of it had the same workflow to him.

He had been in Singapore for a routine meeting. He had not planned to be in the warehouse. He had been there anyway. Remand without bail possibility. No request for consular assistance; he knew what any consular assistance would surface.

Vishkanya opened the door; Darren Yeo sat on the edge of his bunk. He had learned, in the last few weeks, how to receive things without expecting them. He wore the face of someone who waited and adjusted to whatever arrived. She started by introducing herself by the badge, then began with the standard pre-trial medical assessment. She moved through the routine: blood pressure, pulse, and neurological checks. All of it was precise and controlled.

Near the end, he asked one thing. “My family; they’ll be okay, no matter what happens tomorrow. Right?”

She looked at him. “I’m sure they will be.” Measured and even; nothing beyond the words. He nodded, and she left. She walked to the second room, clipboard under her arm. The documentation had already formed: routine, standard, and with no concerns. She opened the door.

Nguyen Thanh Binh stood when she entered with the posture of someone who had once managed rooms and now managed nothing. He looked at the badge, then at her. Something shifted; not recognition or suspicion, but assessment. She introduced herself. He sat and complied. She began the checks; he watched her hands. “You’re not from the infirmary.”

She did not look up immediately. “I’m a Vought consultant. We have an arrangement with the prison.”

“Vought.” The word landed differently. Recognition, from a different context. He looked at her gloves, then her hands. Nine years in supply chains meant that he knew systems; he sure as hell knew this one. “I haven’t said anything,” he told her quietly. “I wasn’t going to say anything.” She looked at him, and said nothing. “I have a daughter. In Da Nang. She’s eleven.” Silence held as she completed the assessment and left.

She walked with the same pace and the same expression. The nurse’s station; a nod was exchanged, nothing more. At the end of the corridor, she turned and walked back. She did not look at the doors. She logged out at the checkpoint.

Time: 9:21 AM.

Forty minutes inside. Outside, the morning had settled into itself: overcast, humid, and undecided. The car, an inconspicuous red Honda Civic, was parked right near the vehicle entry gate. She got in, sat, then looked at her hands. The toxin was not introduced; it was expressed. A function of her physiology that was controlled, highly effective, and precise. Any examination would find acute, stress-related cardiac events. She had known that before she walked in. She sat for three minutes, then reached for her phone.

Vought Tower. Time: 9:24 AM.

Tsunami’s private office. His phone buzzed with a single message. No name, no words. Just a green circle. Tsunami was busy; he was using a private Instagram handle to stalk a Taoist society group still critical of Bomoh’s little trick at the Choa Chu Kang cemetery. He found their senior leadership, tracked the addresses, and hit “send” to an anonymous chat group. He got off the computer and looked at the phone, saw the message, smiled, then set it down.

Changi Prison Complex. Time: 9:41 AM.

The corridor was quiet now. The nurse worked through her files. Everything was recorded and clean. Darren Yeo Zhi Hao, thirty-four. Nguyen Thanh Binh, forty-three. The trial was scheduled for tomorrow; it would not proceed. The paperwork would explain why. The paperwork would be wrong. It would be very, very wrong.

END OF ISSUE SEVENTEEN

Rain. Thunder. The trembling of the ground itself. That was what Steve Rogers felt as he sprinted across the woods, vision dark and blurry. He had woken mere hours ago in an underground facility, kept in a state of cryostasis which disoriented his senses and left him a violent, impossibly quick mass.

Steve found shelter soon enough: a pile of sticks and loose leaves behind a log. He acted with pure instinct, covering his body just as another round of thunder erupted. Then they came. The flashlights. The dogs. The shouting. Steve held his breath as he rubbed dirt all over himself, doing anything possible to lose their scent. The soldiers spread out and came close to finding the runaway…until she ordered them to stop.

Margaret “Peggy” Carter, former SAS and currently a gun for hire, had been given her own contingent of “US Agents” to command. These were the rank-and-file soldiers of the renowned Advanced Idea Mechanics, a biotechnology company whose lab reported a missing asset three hours prior. She examined the forest, then turned to the storm; no way an enhanced individual, naked and afraid, would be able to last the night without being found. She gave the order: retreat. Let the fugitive show himself.

Captain John Walker heard this and protested immediately, making grand claims that he could find their target in a matter of minutes. His promises were received with a swift kick to the face as his superior officer put him in his place. She repeated the order, voice low and dangerous; he felt his very spirit running, tail between the legs. The Agents turned around and retreated, leaving Steve to run the other way.

He continued to run, to dodge the immovable trees as lightning struck randomly. He hid behind a boulder, then another log, each time waiting longer and longer than he would have liked. His eyes grew heavier by the second, limbs weak and mind blurry. He saw a light in the clear ing, and heard men shouting. Then he collapsed.

Later

It had been five years since Sam Wilson had started the “Flag Smasher” resistance, a rebel group with the sole aim of ending AIM’s tyranny once and for all. The soulless corporation, like all others, had bought politicians and sold the nation’s dignity. In fact, most of the world bent the knee to AIM and their mysterious founder, known only for his fists and not his words. Sam had spent five years fighting; he had spent as much time mourning his comrades.

James Barnes, also known as “Bucky”, walked into Sam’s office in a flustered state, his training as a Ranger vanishing in his state. He took several deep breaths, then reported the reason he had abandoned a forest patrol: there was a man, blond and tall, with blue eyes and a number written into his arm. The number was 70412011.

Raven Kroft Institute was a modern facility up the Hudson River, north of the city and surrounded by a massive treeline. Which meant nothing for a man with tensile webbing who swung from tree to tree and landed on the roof. The door was no issue; he simply fired a wire at the lock, and it shattered.

The lobby was empty at this time of day, but Spider-Man still inspected it. He found what he was looking for: the elevator. He opened the car door and got in, breaking open the maintenance panel and working with night vision to hijack the system. It worked; the doors slid shut and descended all the way down, even when the main screen showed nothing.

What Spider-Man found shocked him: a long hallway filled with glass cages, each of them containing a different “patient”, as the labelling system called them. But they weren’t patients; they were monstrosities. A bald, half-deformed man with wings sprouting from his arms. A woman who looked less like a human and more like some tiger hybrid. A man whose body was growing rock-like lumps. And eventually…Alex, his forehead growing an ivory horn as his skin thickened.

Spider-Man approached Alex’s box before he felt the air turn cold. He turned; the man in front of him was a scientist, perfectly fine apart from the strange metal arm he wore. The doctor was unafraid; in fact, he smiled almost eerily as he spoke to the intruder, treating him as yet another patient to care for. Spider-Man charged…and with a single punch from the metal arm, was pushed back. Then the doctor revealed his truth.

His skin turned scaly and green as limbs grew beyond what his clothes could hide. The metal arm groaned and shattered, a fragment hitting Spider-Man’s leg. His eyes turned a sickly yellow-green as his pupils turned to vertical slits. His teeth sharpened into fangs as his jaw unhinged without fully breaking. And his tail…it was protruding bones creating out of thin air.

Spider-Man tried to move; the injury was too great. He could only groan as a massive claw pinned down on his body, fracturing ribs by a hairline. He groaned out a single question: who was the beast overpowering him? The answer was simple: he was…The Lizard.

Peter woke up in the apartment, Felicia and Aaron watching over him. They helped him up and got him up to speed: Herman was at the police station filing a missing persons report for Alex, while Otto was out looking for more medical supplies. Peter regained full consciousness and noticed him: the older man in the corner, his right hand holding a silenced pistol.

Aaron and Felicia had to hold Peter back as he tried to attack, but the man stopped the conflict with a hand. He introduced himself once Herman and Otto came back: his name was Norman Osborn, a CIA officer assigned to monitor the “Spider-Man”. However, he had another mission he intended to complete, and called for a mutual alliance. The reason: the people who kidnapped Alex Horne were the same people he was following.

Peter paused, then stepped aside to give Norman access to their laptop. He plugged a thumb drive in and began typing, then showed several documents on the screen. They all had the same name: “Raven Kroft”. Not a person, but an institution…and a clue. Peter got up and tried to leave, but Felicia stood between him and the door. She forced him to look in the closet; there was a new and improved suit.

Improved tensile webbing shooters, visors equipped with thermal and night vision imaging, and modified boots to ensure maximum silence. Otto had followed the blueprint; Norman provided it. Peter turned to the spy, a mutual understanding between them, then agreed to wait until nightfall.

Elsewhere

Maya Hansen walked down the corridor, heels clicking against cold metal and folder in hand. The screams of Raven Kroft’s many patients echoed around her; she paid no attention to them. Her sole focus was at the end of the hallway, behind a black door with a keypad which required both a card and a PIN. She provided both and listened for the door to unlock, then walked through.

He sat below a machine with needles positioned like a claw, monitors reading vitals while a separate table ran diagnostics on a metal arm. Maya had a report: the man that had been abducted as bait for the Spider had successfully passed testing for the latest iteration of something called “Extremis” and was ready for deployment. The man raised his right hand with a sneer; the weapon was for the city. He wanted the Spider.

Alex was exhausted; he’d spent the night breaking up fights, standing his ground with obnoxious teenagers and drunks trying to get in, and even had to help clean up hangover vomit once or twice. He was ready to go home and drop into his bed. He said his goodbyes and left the club, making a left and continuing three blocks down. Then he cut through an alleyway; he was about fifteen minutes out from that point.

They were watching. They were listening. Everything he had said and done was on their radar. When he turned around instinctively to check for any stalkers, they backed away. When he continued in his journey, they advanced, keeping the sedatives hidden in their sleeves at all times. Secrecy was a core component of the job; a single peep about it, and their heads would be on a pike.

Alex crossed the street ten minutes later, stopped at a nearby bodega, and ordered a late supper, waiting by the window so as not to disturb the patrons already inside. That was when he saw them through the reflection: four to five men, all roughly his build and size, approaching fast. He didn’t think; he just ran. The pursuers silently gave chase, weaving between people and leaping over obstacles effortlessly. Alex charged like a rhinoceros gone wild, making wild turns and yelling for people to get out of the way.

He ducked into another alleyway and checked himself for any lost possessions or injuries; there were none. Relieved, Alex turned and started heading home…only to be met with a dead end. As if on cue, the stalkers appeared, ready to beat him into submission for the wild goose chase. But Alex wasn’t scared; he simply pointed up to the rooftop with a smirk.

And there he was.

Spider-Man shot two tensile wiring onto the asphalt and closed the gap, his knee slamming into one of the thugs’ faces as the others backed away. Another two charged, only to get caught by the back of their heads. Their foreheads slammed against each other with a sickening crunch, and they crumpled in agony. The fourth thug tried to go in for a punch, but his arm was caught and broken with a single grip. Spider-Man threw the henchman towards their only healthy colleague; he dodged swiftly.

They danced in that alley for several minutes, each swung met with a leap back. Eventually Spider-Man connected his foot with the enemy’s stomach, and sent him flying onto the sidewalk. He then turned to Alex, checking if he was alright. Big mistake; the assailant leapt onto his back, pulled his mask up, and stabbed the sedative into his neck. Spider-Man’s eyes grew heavy, his knees weak as he struggled to stay alive. The second and third henchmen stuck their needles into him, then grabbed the first and fourth thugs’ paraphernalia and injected the contents into Alex. Both men struggled; the last thing they saw before everything went black was each other.

A van rolled up and six more men appeared, dragging Alex into the vehicle. They were about to grab the vigilante when a gunshot pierced the air; there was a man, barely into his mid-sixties, wearing a suit and tie. He didn’t say anything before they piled on him, only to fail miserably as he deftly avoided each attack and repaid them with a gun handle to the throat. Their foreheads slammed van driver, seeing the commotion, drove away, but not before the attacker fired a shot into his sideview mirror.

Norman turned and stared at the Spider-Man, rolled him over, and pulled his mask up to get a clear look. What he saw shocked him: the “Spider-Man” was a boy, or at least someone in his mid-twenties. Definitely the same age as his son, Harry…wherever he was. He found a phone in Spider-Man’s back pocket and slipped a glove onto his hand, pressing a thumb against the screen. It unlocked almost instantly, and he made a call.

Hwa Chong Institution. Date: 18/4/2026. Time: 5:47 PM.

The rain arrived the way Singapore rain always arrived: without negotiation. The sky simply decided that enough time had passed since the last one. By six o’clock it was coming down hard enough to drive the Hwa Chong alumni reunion entirely indoors. The events team, having planned the night for months, adapted quickly; the marquee on the field came down, the five-star catering shifted under cover, and the alumni compressed into a tighter space than intended. They adjusted the way people from the Lion City always adjusted: seamlessly and without complaint, resuming conversations as if this had always been the plan.

The hall was warm, brightly lit, and loud with the hum of overlapping voices against the orchestra classics. Name tags, buffet lines, laughter that sometimes carried just a little too far. Teachers had aged in ways their former students quietly found to be deeply unsettling, at least for the most part. Former students had aged in ways they themselves were still catching up to.

Valeria Chan Hui Shan, CEO of Vought Singapore moved through the room without drawing attention while never escaping it. People noticed her without knowing when they had started noticing her; in many ways, she was the true star of the night, not the teachers or the faculty who were somehow still alive. She remembered names and laughed at the right moments as she accepted a glass of wine which would be left untouched. She was warm; the warmth was real. It was also not the whole picture.

Across the room, Daniel stood near the windows. He had come because not coming would have said something, but because he understood that absence communicated just as clearly as presence, sometimes more so. He wore civilian clothes that respected the occasion, holding a drink that he was actually drinking. He spoke to a former chemistry teacher with the ease of someone who could maintain a conversation while allocating most of his attention elsewhere.

He saw Valeria mid-conversation. Someone stood beside her, clearly trying to fawn one of Singapore’s most prolific businesswomen, laughing a bit too hard at a comment. She had not looked at him; she had known he was there for at least ten minutes. He soon returned his attention to the teacher and said something appropriate.

The rain intensified. For a brief moment, the sound of it on the roof rose above the room, drawing a collective glance upward as they acknowledged the presence of shelter, of dryness, of comfort. Then the moment passed. Valeria set her untouched glass down near the corridor entrance. She said something brief to the woman beside her — an exit that did not look like one — and stepped away. She did not look back; there was no need for her to.

The Heritage Corridor was quiet; glass cases, photographs, trophies, and names preserved in institutional order. This wasn’t some hall of fame; this was the memory of a school that understood its own continuity. Valeria stood at the first display when Daniel entered. She did not turn immediately. “I wondered if you’d come.”

“You knew I would,” Daniel replied.

She looked at him, smiling. Unlike with that woman, this wasn’t performative…at least, not entirely. “Yes,” she admitted, “I did.” She gestured lightly down the corridor. “Walk with me?” The first photograph was from 1999. Thirty-four students were arranged in rows, attempting seriousness with varying success. Daniel found himself: second row, left of centre, wearing the most ridiculous smile. Valeria stood in the front row, right side, unsmiling and mature. They were not beside each other, but present in the same frame. “You had a different haircut,” she observed.

“Everyone had a different haircut.”

“Yours was particularly committed.”

He studied his younger self; what she said was accurate. He changed the point of focus. “You look exactly the same.”

“I’ve been told that before. I’ve never decided if it’s a compliment.”

“It’s an observation.”

She let that sit. “We were very certain of things back then,” she reflected. “So sure of what mattered, what didn’t, and what came next.”

“Some of us were.”

She glanced at him. “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “Some of us were.”

They moved on to the leadership boards; names arranged by year with authority recorded in neat rows. Valeria’s appeared twice; Daniel’s, just once. Neither pointed it out. “You gave a speech,” Daniel said with a smile. “Prefects’ installation.”

Valeria didn’t turn. “I gave several speeches.”

“That specific one. Authority versus influence.”

She paused, faintly surprised. “I’m impressed you remember.”

“It was a good speech.”

“I believed it then.”

“And now?”

She studied the board. “Now I think they’re less distinct. Authority without influence is ceremonial. Influence without authority is exhausting.” Her gaze flicked briefly to his name. “You always preferred authority.”

“I preferred clarity.”

“That’s the same thing, Daniel.” He did not respond; they walked on.

The debating trophies. Polished silver to showcase institutional pride. Daniel stopped. “The 2001 nationals.”

“We won,” she stated immediately.

“Your side won.” A beat. “One of the adjudicators,” he continued, “was a Hwa Chong parent. You knew him.”

“I knew many parents.”

“This one specifically. His daughter was on your team.” Silence.

“The debate was won on its merits,” she said.

“I’m sure it was.”

She turned to him. “You never said anything.”

“There was nothing to say.”

“Then why bring it up?”

“I’m not,” he denied. “I’m remembering it.”

She studied him, then smiled. It was quieter this time. “You always did remember everything.”

“Occupational habit.”

They stood there a moment longer than necessary. Then her voice shifted, subtle and controlled. “The important work,” she said. “That’s what I think about, when I think about those years. Not the wins or the losses. No…I think about whether the work mattered.” She glanced at him. “You were always suited to that work, the kind that required discipline, intellect, precision, commitment, and a willingness to carry something that wouldn’t necessarily be made public.”

“And what does that mean, exactly?” Daniel asked, not condescendingly but clearly uninterested in beating around the bush.

“You’re doing important work,” she finally answered softly. “I know that.” The line landed cleanly; no specifics or names, but still enough for him to hold it. She continued, almost lightly. “I always did give you the important work, didn’t I?”

He looked at the trophy, at the reflection in its surface. “You have a good memory,” he remarked. Not agreement, nor denial. She accepted it anyway, and they walked on.

“The thing about important work,” Valeria cautioned, “is that it has consequences. Not just the intended ones, but also the lateral ones.” Her voice was quiet now, thoughtful. “The men and women you put in difficult positions. The variables you didn’t, or couldn’t, account for. Outcomes that are technically correct and still not what you built them to be.” Daniel listened; she had not said a thing about ORDINAL, nor did she say anything undeniable. But the shape of it was there. He chose not to react.

At the end of the corridor: the honours board. Her name was on it, but his wasn’t. “You didn’t come for the reunion,” he stated. She didn’t answer immediately. “You said something you wanted me to carry,” he continued. “I haven’t worked out what it’s for yet.” He met her eyes. “But you said it deliberately.” A beat. “And you rigged a debate in 2001 and waited for twenty-five years to see if I’d bring it up.” Silence. “So I will work it out,” he vowed. “I just haven’t yet.”

She held his gaze and smiled. “It’s good to see you, Daniel.” She turned and walked back toward the hall; he stayed where he was.

Later, under the covered walkway, the rain easing to a steady fall, Daniel stood for a moment before heading to his car.

You’re doing important work. I know that.

The variables you didn’t, or couldn’t, account for.

The gap between design and reality.

“The Facility”. Time: 2247 hrs.

LTC Tham drove back to The Facility, having changed in the carpark. The files were the same, but the reading was different. Seven recruits, each profile accompanied by an abundance of numbers, risk assessments, field notes, and compound data. Alex’s notes caught his eye; he read the last line again.

They held.

He sat with it, then closed the file and sat with the words for a moment. Then he reached for his phone. The contact he dialed had no name, just a number. He stared at it briefly, then pressed “call”. It rang once. Twice. Someone picked up on the third without a greeting. He did not give one either. His voice, when he spoke, had changed. No longer Daniel — never “Daniel” when he was in uniform — but LTC Tham.

“It’s time.”

A pause on the other end. Then came a single word: “Understood.” The line went dead. LTC Tham placed the phone back on the table and looked once more at the file.

The corridor at Hwa Chong stood empty. The photographs lit in quiet rows. 1999. Two students. Not side by side, but present in the same frame. Valeria had not named the work; she hadn’t needed to.

END OF ISSUE FIFTEEN

Peter was woken up by a knock on the glass; it was his boss, Roderick Kingsley. It had been three months since he started working for Kingsley’s construction firm, building the very skyscraper whose tensile wiring was now a part of his “night hobby”. Apart from his friends in the Streetside Six, Roderick was the only one who knew that Peter Parker was the fabled Spider-Man, the night vigilante who was beating down on criminals left, right, and centre. He wanted to keep it that way.

Last night had been tough for him; he’d spent three hours following Detective Gwen Stacy as she tracked down the last of the Maggia crime family. The informant, one Flint Marco, dashed the minute he saw her; by the time she caught up twenty minutes later, his arm had been pinned to the ground by tensile wiring fired at insane speed, and his face was 25% as damaged as Joseph Martello’s. Spider-Man had long vanished, heading somewhere only God knew.

Peter was happy here, happier than he was running accounts for the Maggia crime family. He was running accounts for Kingsley Incorporated, and helped the laymen with whatever work needed to be done, whether it was cement mixing, vehicle operation, or bricklaying. He did so with a smile and finished with as little as a drop of sweat on his shirt. At noon sharp, Peter met up with the Six and grabbed lunch at a nearby deli, discussing their workdays and night plans.

Otto was on the breakthrough of developing mechanical tentacle arms which would replace damaged or missing limbs. Herman was on the cusp of a promotion. The nightclub Alex worked at was making him head of security. Aaron was set to appear on a martial artist’s YouTube channel. And Felicia…she had some “shopping” to do. Of course, this meant pickpocketing and helping them get by another few months. Peter was never a point of question; they were already helping him, and that’s was good enough.

An hour rolled by and Peter said his goodbyes, returning to work and jumping straight into cement-mixing with his buddies. But there was something wrong; Peter could sense it. Almost as if someone was watching, waiting. It didn’t matter; Maggia’s loyalists had watched him before. He’d find the man soon enough.

Elsewhere

General M’Baku sat across the small office from President T’Challa, animosity rife in the air. The nation of Wakanda had been in a civil war for three decades over their speciality resource, the mineral known as “vibranium”. The war had cost M’Baku his son, N’Jobu, and his grandson N’Jadaka. T’Challa had lost his parents in two separate attacks. They carried badges representing their factions: a gorilla for M’Baku, and a panther for T’Challa.

Their demands were simple: equal ownership of Wakanda’s state mines and all profits, in exchange for cessation of hostilities. Prisoners would be repatriated with no harm, and a new capital would be established from the small central village of Birnin Zana to represent healing the divide. They were fair, and would stop further bloodshed once and for all.

The deal wouldn’t last. An explosion ripped through the room, sending both warlords flying across the room. They looked up to see a guerilla army: the North Klaw, run by South African terrorist Ulysses Klaue. Ulysses was here…as was a strange man with scientist’s clothes and a metal arm. He surveyed the damaged room and made a simple statement: he wanted to know who initiated the peace deal.

When M’Baku pointed to T’Challa, the response was immediate. Ulysses fired a single shot into the president’s head, and he dropped to the floor in a puddle of blood. Then the man with the metal arm placed M’Baku in a chokehold and made a new announcement: the Panther faction’s new president, Shuri, was being paid handsomely by his and Ulysses’ investor to prolong the war. M’Baku could come to a similar agreement, were he willing.

The man with the metal arm walked out of the burning hotel, followed closely behind by Ulysses, who was now in charge of overseeing the civil war and amplifying the violence. He nodded and hopped into a jeep, speeding away as the stranger picked up a phone call. He listened, and smiled; there was a new patient in New York City.

Norman Osborn hated New York City, and for good reason: terrible sewage, overpriced everything, and a criminal culture which made the Big Apple a nightmare for anyone associated with law enforcement. Which Norman wasn’t, not on a legal basis. But in the Langley perspective, their word was law. And it was their word which had assigned their most valuable employee here, of all places.

The Central Intelligence Agency wasn’t even supposed to keep tabs on home turf, but a tipoff from Director Maria Hill of the Strategic Homeland Intelligence & Enforcement Logistics Division changed everything. There was a shift in the city: Joseph Martello, the longtime criminal lord of the Big Apple, was in prison. And his empire had been taken down by an unknown vigilante. SHIELD didn’t like unknowns; their fluke of an operation in New Mexico was proof of that, if anything. But that fluke had also cost a lot of resources, most of which were being divested into monitoring and planning a war on some mage with thunder powers.

Which was where Norman came in. He was approaching sixty-five and on his way to becoming a relic in Langley’s ever-changing organism. And to deal with this underworld-busting vigilante, the CIA needed someone expendable, someone whose employment they could easily deny in a heartbeat. Someone who, if imprisoned, would spend the rest of his life behind bars, instead of ever seeing the possibility of parole. And Norman “Goblin” Osborn fit the bill perfectly.

And so it was: Norman was to abandon a mission cultivated over twenty years and take up babysitting duties in the Big Apple. He arrived at LaGuardia Airport at midnight and hailed a cab, driving straight to a bar named “Josie’s”. It was here that he began to gather intelligence, thanks to a fellow patron by the name of Miles Morales.

Miles was a social worker, someone who did the right things through the soft path. The kind of guy who wouldn’t even survive an hour of CIA training. Miles’ dad, Jefferson Davies, wasn’t in his life; his mother was working two jobs: high school janitor and fast food joint manager. Miles had a 4.0 GPA but had no intention of leaving the city he called home. And he couldn’t…not when everything was going to shit.

He told Norman everything, from Joseph “Hammerhead” Martello’s criminal monopoly, to the masked man who beat up two of his goons during a racketeering shift. This “Spider-Man”, as people were calling him, was the reason New York City now had half the police force in jail, and the other half overstretched; he had beaten Martello to a pulp and was now in a Cold War with the Queens’ Tigers. Norman listened and said nothing, then finished his beer and left a fake business card with Miles. He said to call the number if he ever felt unsafe, and walked out the door.

And that was when he looked up to the full moon, and saw him: six feet and fight to eight inches of muscle leaping from one rooftop to another, using some sort of tensile wiring to grapple across the buildings. A wire struck the support beam of a water tower, and he swung towards Lower Manhattan. Norman didn’t need anyone to say it to know who he was: he was the vigilante Langley wanted monitored.

He was Spider-Man.

Roderick Kingsley had spent hours playing the storeroom footage back and forth, trying to get a clear look on the thief’s face. It was this same “thief” who had helped to rid New York of Joseph “Hammerhead” Martello, leaving him with a permanently damaged face. The least Roderick could do was find the boy and give him something, anything, to get by.

The next day, a boy named Peter Parker walked into Roderick’s office looking for a job. He had been Joseph’s accountant for two years, but the Maggia’s downfall had forced him out of a job. They spoke about his experience doing manual labour, of his childhood and his friends. Telling the whole story took several hours, by which time the office air had grown stale and the sun had set. Then came the immediate hiring and handshake, along with an “employment package deal” only Peter would get.

Roderick turned his monitor to show a crystal-clear recording of Peter without his mask, fitting tensile wiring from his construction site into high-velocity wrist shooters. Then he deleted the video on the spot, acknowledging that Joseph had been a thorn in New York’s side for years and was long overdue for an eviction notice. He swore to advocate for Peter every step of the way, and covering his finances with a day job seemed like a good place to start.

Peter was about to leave for the night, ready to return to work at 7 in the morning, when Roderick asked for his vigilante name. Peter only pulled out a rolled-up newspaper and tossed it at his new boss with a humble smile, then closed the door. He unfolded the paper to find a Daily Bugle headline calling him “Juggernaut”; the word had been scribbled out in red ink and replaced with “Spider-Man”.

“The Facility”. Date: 17/4/2026. Time: 1342 hrs.

The debrief room held the same shape it always had: same table, same chairs, same strip lighting that flattened everything into something clinical and manageable, no matter what had just happened outside its walls. Seven recruits sat at the table. Alex stood. Encik Sng leaned at the side. LTC Tham remained at the front. All of them were silent for a good ten minutes, although it felt like years.

The ground team had been through absolute hell for four days, stealing a Myanmar army vehicle and driving it towards the Thai border. Fortunately, LTC Tham had called in some favours; the Thai armed forces gave them safe passage, as did the Malaysians. They only knew these men were elite assets in the Singapore Armed Forces and had assumed that these were legendary “Frogmen”, on a covert mission nobody had the right to know of. Their reason for being in a foreign country was partially true; their identities as Frogmen were not.

At the front of the room was a screen. LTC Tham’s laptop was open and showcased body cam feeds, all of them securely loaded and timestamped. “We recovered all body cam footage starting from deployment, and ending at extraction. We’re reviewing key sequences. Observations only.” He pressed play.

The first footage filled the screen: crates, metal and clean, manufactured edges under low light. Serial numbers captured clearly enough to read, clearly enough to matter. Myanmar military uniforms. Insignia. A man at the edge of the frame — Major Htun Shwe — gesturing toward an open case. The contents catching the ridge light. Diamonds.

No one spoke for a moment. Then Aloysius, quiet and precise. “This isn’t connected to Changi.” The room shifted slightly. Aloysius continued, eyes still on the screen. “They had different structure and intent. There was no overlap in logistics or signalling. This isn’t a continuation.” LTC Tham didn’t interrupt. “It’s separate,” Aloysius analysed. “Parallel activity.”

Lobang King exhaled softly. “Two side hustles.”

IP Man leaned back slightly. “Different people, ah?”

LTC Tham nodded once. “That’s our current assessment…except for Stratos. She’s the constant here.” Silence. “Changi was a controlled, larger operation,” he said. “Small volume, low exposure. Likely personal profit or internal leverage.” He gestured toward the screen. “This—” a beat “—is something else entirely.”

Muthu muttered, slow. “Scale.”

“Yes.”

“Risk,” Muthu added.

“Yes.”

Ken’s voice came low. “And not coordinated.”

“No,” Alex said. “Not coordinated.” The room absorbed that. Two operations by same organisation, but with no alignment. LTC Tham advanced the footage to scenes from the ridge. Eight feeds now, fractured across the screen. No clean narrative. Just movement and impact. Then…wind. Stratos dropped into frame. The air shifted across every camera.

Rakshasa’s voice cut through. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Tsunami sent me,” Stratos replied. “So if you don’t like it, take it up with him.” On screen, Rakshasa stilled; not confusion, but recognition and understanding.

Ismail frowned. “She confirm don’t know.”

“No,” LTC Tham said. “She didn’t.”

Muthu’s gaze didn’t leave the screen. “That one not backup.”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Encik Sng answered. “Control.” The word stayed there. LTC Tham let the footage run. They watched as Ken ran the numbers, only for Stratos to laugh in their faces. LTC Tham paused the video. “Two operators,” he told the group. “Same unit, same field, but zero shared command in the moment.”

Faz shifted slightly. “They weren’t working together.”

“No,” he confirmed, “they weren’t.”

Ken leaned forward. “They nearly turned on each other.”

“They would have,” Encik Sng replied, “if the situation allowed it.” A beat. “But the moment pressure increased, they aligned.”

“Survival,” Ismail said.

“Yes.”

LTC Tham advanced again; ORDINAL’s feeds now. Seven perspectives, unpolished and untrained. And somehow…they held together. Ken and Faz moved in tandem without speaking. Aloysius redirected IP Man with calls that landed before the situation caught up. Ismail anchored against the wind, his frame stabilising while everything else shifted. Ismail absorbed a punch, which Ken redirected back to Rakshasa. IP Man broke formation.

LTC Tham froze the frame; IP Man’s camera, was angled upward. And for one point four seconds, a presence. Black and grey, masked and still. A voice:

“Stay out of my way.”

Then…gone. No one spoke immediately. His voice was quiet. “Same presence as Changi.”

Encik Sng stepped forward and studied the posture. “The movement,” he whispered. “The distance control.” A pause. “I’ve seen it before.” The room turned. “Maya Singh.” Silence followed the name. “Her brother died in a Vought-related incident three years ago,” Encik Sng continued. “The case didn’t hold.”

Alex’s voice came steady. “You’re certain?”

“I trained with their father,” Encik Sng affirmed. “That’s family work.”

Faz swallowed slightly. “She’s targeting Vought.”

“She’s targeting anything connected to Vought,” Encik Sng replied.

LTC Tham closed the frame. “We treat her as an independent,” he firmly decided. “Not an ally, not an enemy.”

Ken nodded slowly. “She warned us.”

“Yes.”

IP Man didn’t speak, but he remembered.

Stay out of my way.

Then…gunfire from behind. Stratos turned first, sharp and immediate. Rakshasa followed. Neither saw Alex; they only saw uncertainty, new vectors, unknown shooters, and a shift they couldn’t account for. They noted Stratos’ voice; it came tight as panic settled into something sharper. “That’s Tatmadaw. They think we set this up. We’re outnumbered.”

Rakshasa’s words came next. “And they believe that? Fucking brilliant sia.”

They watched as Stratos scooped Rakshasa up. “We need to cross the border. Now.”

“Put me down,” Rakshasa ordered next. “This isn’t your call!”

“It’s not a discussion. The diamonds aren’t important; surviving this is.”

A beat. Then, “Fine. But if we die, you better believe I’m holding you responsible.” They disengaged fast and clean. In a matter of seconds, they went over the ridge.

LTC Tham let the footage end, and the screen went dark. “The Straits Guard sent two,” he reminded the table. “We sent seven.” No one moved. “They had more experience, better control, enhanced abilities, and clearer operational history.” A pause. “They fractured; you didn’t.” Faz stared at the table. Ken looked at his hands. LTC Tham continued. “You held under pressure, against variables you weren’t prepared for.” He picked up his folder. “That matters.” He turned. “1650 hours. Tactical breakdown.” Then he left.

Alex closed his notebook. “Get some rest. He followed. Encik Sng paused at the door, looked at all seven of them, then left too. The door closed; silence stayed. Faz spoke first. “We held.” Nobody answered. Nobody disagreed.

The corridor was dim. Ken walked alone, passing the mess area. The tables were clean, empty and spotless. He stopped. He remembered the quiet. The wrong kind of quiet. He had passed out there, only to wake up in the sky. He looked at his hand and opened it. Still wrong, but it was starting to feel right.

The debrief room sat empty. On the table, Alex’s notebook remained, six pages filled. At the bottom of the last page:

They held.

Not analysis, nor strategy. Just fact. Something written down so it couldn’t be rewritten later.

END OF ISSUE 14

Myanmar. Date: 13/4/2026. Time: 0004 hrs.

The ridge rose from the jungle like a darkened spine. Moonlight filtered through broken clouds, pale and scattered, touching the mist clinging to every tree and slope. Alex hit the ground with a muffled thump, rolling on damp leaves as his boots sank slightly into the soft soil. The backup drop box had delivered him precisely where the strategy required: barely a klick from the point of engagement.

He raised his comms. “Backdoor? Aegis? Status?” His voice was sharp, carrying in the damp night. Only static answered. “Wildcard, come in!” The forest swallowed his words, and his gut tightened. He let out a quiet “fuck” and advanced, pistol in hand as he brushed the greenery aside. What he saw surprised him, but he kept moving forward.

The heroes were in the fight, and Alex was alone until he could reach them. Below, Faz and Ken wove through the darkness in deadly combat with the Myanmar army. Rifle shots cracked intermittently, knives glinting faintly under the weak moonlight. Rakshasa moved among the soldiers, a blur of lethal motion, her strikes precise and merciless.

Alex advanced, scanning the ridge. “Surge! Wildcard! Cover me!” Muthu called. The words cut through gunfire and the rustle of foliage. Faz pivoted, launching into the fray as adrenaline sharpened every motion. Ken followed, his combat knife flashing in tandem, forcing gaps in the almost ill-disciplined formations of the Myanmar soldiers.

Rakshasa struck with uncanny speed, forcing Faz to fall back momentarily as Ismail absorbing a strike of such enhanced density that sent him skidding across the dirt. Ken lunged, blades intersecting her momentum, and together they finally knocked her to the ground. For a heartbeat, the ridge seemed to hold its breath. A tense silence filled the slope as soldiers hesitated, caught between the threat from these strange superhumans and the infamously unpredictable Rakshasa. Faz pressed his advantage, cornering her against a fallen tree, combat knife at the ready. Then backup arrived.

Stratos dropped from the canopy above, wind gusting violently through the ridge. Soldiers stumbled and ripped their rifles at the last minute, shots missing by inches. Faz and Ken froze, their advantage evaporating. The heroes had been cornered, their rhythm shattered by this new presence. Rakshasa staggered to her feet, her eyes narrowing. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Her voice was low, almost angry at the humiliation.

Stratos’ expression remained calm and almost unreadable, as though the question was barely worth acknowledgment, no less an answer. “Tsunami sent me,” the Strait Guard member finally shot back. “So if you don’t like it, take it up with him.” She moved precisely and deliberately, scattering the intruders with a gust of air pressure. They fell back and regrouped, thinking of a new strategy, all except IP Man.

IP Man froze, muscles tensing. The sensation hit him instantly: the same, overwhelming aura he had felt at Changi. He turned to see a figure clad in all black with a grey overcoat, their face covered by a mask. The only visible hint of colour was a red dot, surrounded by white markings resembling a sniper’s scope. Breaking formation, he quietly charged into the forest while his friends took on the Straits Guard.

The shadow noticed him, and a brief clash passed between them. IP Man adjusted into a defensive position, ready for motion he could barely track. She swung in a roundhouse kick; he flipped and countered. The attrition continued until the stranger had their back to a tree, and IP Man was a safe distance away. They whispered in a low, yet clearly female voice: “Stay out of my way.” He didn’t argue, but his eyes locked on her as she pivoted toward Major Htun Shwe.

On the battlefield, Stratos lifted Rakshasa by her arm and soared into the air. Once she reached her peak, Rakshasa released and changed her density, punching the ground with enough impact to cause a minor quake. They toppled like dominoes as IP Man returned to their side, engaged in a battle stance. “Got strategy, bro?” he asked as Ken stumbled to his feet.

“We keep pressing; it’s seven against two,” Ken answered between pants. “They can’t overpower us.”

Stratos laughed with the attitude of an uptight monarch over her courtesans. “It really is cute, how you think that’s a fact.” Rakshasa didn’t laugh; she just pointed at the boys and opened a middle finger. Faz lunged at Rakshasa again, combat knife slicing through the humid night air, but Stratos moved like a shadow behind her, a pulse of wind throwing him off balance. Rakshasa spun, fists cracking toward Ken and forcing him back against a jagged root. He threw a punch which missed by an inch, but forced Stratos to move out of the way.

Aloysius, calculating trajectories, directed IP Man to match Rakshasa’s fighting style, but Stratos swooped in and cut his adaptation off mid-fight. Rakshasa targeted Ismail again, dealing a second blow which he absorbed as the ground took him. What Rakshasa had not noticed was Ken, tucked behind his comrade and absorbing the impact through vibrations, taking in enough force to knock her back. He spun around from the left as Rakshasa’s arm pulled back, returning her force back as she spun towards Stratos.

Then a sharp staccato rang out from the ridge above. Both parties paused; the Straits Guard from uncertainty, their opponents from the opposite. Rounds hit trunks and earth. Alex had arrived, crouched behind a fallen log, firing controlled bursts toward the enemy’s flank. “Whole lot, stay on guard,” Alex ordered through the comms as he reloaded. “I’ll be down soon.”

Stratos froze mid-sweep, eyes narrowing. “That’s Tatmadaw,” she hissed. “They think we set this up. We’re outnumbered.”

Rakshasa’s brow furrowed. “And they believe that? Fucking brilliant, sia.”

Without a word, Stratos swooped low, lifting Rakshasa effortlessly into the air. “We need to cross the border. Now.”

Rakshasa’s arms tensed, legs jabbing sharply. “Put me down. This isn’t your call!”

Stratos didn’t flinch. “It’s not a discussion. The diamonds aren’t important; surviving this is.”

Rakshasa gritted her teeth, eyes flicking to the boys they had been fighting moments ago. Controlled indignation replaced panic. “Fine. But if we die, you better believe I’m holding you responsible.”

Alex waited for the two to disappear over the hill, then made his way down the ridge. “Got anything to sound off?” he asked. Not as a field leader, but as a brother figure. They nodded, but were evidently shaken.

“Vought was behind this deal,” Ismail said to nobody in particular. “They would have used those weapons on—“

“Don’t think about it,” Alex interrupted, turning to the crates. He approached them and opened the covers: Vought had guns, but the Myanmar army had diamonds. “We pulled the mission off, and that counts. Even better; we have a smoking gun.”

Htun Shwe had been running down the river for what felt like hours. The soles on his suedes — terrible choice for a military officer — were beginning to tear, his beer belly dragging him down. He cried out for help, for anyone to take him in. There was nobody here…except the shadow with a gun.

They fired once and pierced Major Shwe’s leg, listening to him scream as he collapsed on the pebbles of the riverbank. The shadow advanced slow and certain, like the Grim Reaper coming for their prey. “I’ve read up on you, Major,” the shadow hissed. “Ten years in the army. Six on the field, standing idle while your brothers and sisters died.” A pause. “And you laughed.”

Major Shwe wasn’t screaming now; he was sobbing. “Please…” he begged in a mix of Burmese and broken English. “Whatever you want, I give. Diamonds, weapons…you name. I give.”

The shadow raised their pistol. The barrel was positioned at his head, blocking the red dot on their face. “What I want…” they slowly answered, “…you can’t give me.”

END OF ISSUE THIRTEEN

Are you a bodybuilder? Perhaps you want to test your might and build some muscle? Well, look no further than Roswell, New Mexico! This desert town has become central talk in the weightlifting community after their outskirts were rocked by a crater. Inside: a hammer made of metal, seemingly immovable yet calling for someone worthy to pick it up, lift it to the sky, and be crowned the God of Weights!

So, what are you “weighting” for? Book your ticket to Roswell, New Mexico, and stand a chance to prove yourself as the strongest man (or woman) on Planet Earth!

[This advertisement has been approved by the Roswell tourism committee. Members urgently needed and welcome]