Marvel Monkey King: CH 11 (Patreon)

The short summer night of New York City did little to soothe the fever beneath its skin, cloaking the bruised underbelly of the five boroughs in heavy, humid shadows.

High above the streetlights of the West Side, a blur of red and black cut across the rooftops.

Jack bounded across the tar and gravel with effortless, liquid grace. His sneakers barely kissed the coping stones before he launched himself across four-story gaps between pre-war walkups. Behind him, three feet of thick golden fur whipped through the warm air like a living counterweight, adjusting his center of gravity with razor precision.

His eyes burned with molten ember, pupils dilating and darting in sharp, twitching sweeps, drinking in every fire escape, every idling car, every alley cat that froze in the dark below.

He cleared the final industrial rooftop overlooking the Hudson River, dropped twenty feet through the salt air, and landed in a tight, silent crouch upon the weathered timbers of Pier 45.

Jack stood upright, shaking the grit from his palms, his golden tail curling lazily against his calf.

"Kekekeke," he whispered to the dark water. "I have become more and more monkey by the day."

Patience had never been a word written into Jack's vocabulary. In his past life, surviving Chinatown had required perpetual motion, aggressive violence, and seizing control before anyone else could blink. Standing still meant getting carved up.

Yet seven months under Luke's heavy hand had carved a quiet, necessary discipline into him. That, and a healthy dose of cosmic paranoia.

This was a world where gods, mutants, and shadows with unknown agendas moved behind the curtains. A reality where higher beings could crush him between their fingertips if they grew bored enough. In a pond that deep, charging in half-cocked was a death sentence. Taking a measured dose of patience could be tolerated once in a while.

So Jack waited.

Perched thirty feet above the pier on the crossbeam of a rusted loading gantry, he tucked himself into the shadows of corrugated iron. The salty river breeze carried the stench of diesel fuel, rotting pier pilings, and dead fish.

This was a gamble. All he had to go on was Turk's frantic scribble: Cornell Stokes buying up military surplus off the water. The tip was paper-thin, barely qualifying as intelligence.

Jack exhaled slowly through his teeth, adjusting the collar of his varsity jacket.

"It is what it is," he muttered.

Ten minutes later, the low, throaty rumble of a heavy diesel engine rolled across the water.

An unmarked flatbed truck crept out onto the wooden expanse of the pier, its yellow headlights dimmed to parking lamps. It came to a halt twenty yards from the pier's edge, water lapping quietly against the mossy pylons below.

Jack leaned forward, his amber eyes sharpening.

From the opposite end of the access road, a blacked-out Lincoln Town Car purred through the gloom. It rolled up with quiet, menacing elegance, swinging around to park bumper-to-bumper across from the truck.

The sedan's doors swung open. Two tall Black men stepped out into the humid air, their posture loose yet disciplined, suits tailored sharp enough to hide heavy leather shoulder holsters.

The man in front had a scarred brow, cold dead eyes, and the quiet swagger of a veteran lieutenant.

Taz. Cornell Stokes' personal hound dog.

Across from the Lincoln, the passenger door of the flatbed creaked open.

The man who stepped down into the sodium glare looked out of place among Harlem street soldiers. He wore a faded olive-drab field coat over black tactical trousers, his face partially obscured by the shadow of a dark ballcap and the collar of a high-neck sweater. He moved without wasted motion, his hands empty, but his eyes scanning the pier with the chilling calm of an ex-mercenary who had traded bullets across several continents.

Two silent, heavily armed guards flanked the seller, their fingers resting along the foregrips of suppressed submachine guns.

"You're late, friend," Taz said, his deep voice cutting through the humid silence.

"Customs was eager tonight," the seller replied. His accent was faint, dry, and impossible to pin to a single flag. "The hardware is pristine. Exactly as your employer requested."

The seller gestured with a flick of two fingers. One of his guards stepped to the bed of the truck, unlatched the heavy tailgate, and hauled open a long wooden crate packed in heavy cosmoline grease.

Taz stepped forward, peered inside, and picked up a black assault rifle. He ran a practiced thumb over the bolt carrier, checked the serial numbers, and gave a slow, approving nod.

"Clean," Taz murmured.

Taz glanced back toward the Lincoln. The second Black man stepped to the rear of the sedan, popped the trunk, and hauled out two reinforced black Pelican hard cases. He laid them flat on the Lincoln's hood and popped the heavy plastic latches.

Inside, banded bricks of clean, crisp hundred-dollar bills sat under the amber dock lamps, smelling of fresh ink and raw paper.

The seller's eyes dipped down to the cash, his lips parting in a cold, professional smirk.

"Pleasure doing business with Harlem," the seller said, extending his gloved right hand.

"Likewise," Taz said, reaching out to seal the transaction.

Before their palms could touch, a violent, shrieking crack split the night air.

Crack!

From the high rafters of the gantry, a dark projectile plummeted like an artillery shell.

It struck the arms dealer dead center in the skull.

Splat.

There was no scream, only the wet, explosive rupture of bone and gray matter. The terrifying mass of the black iron rod punched straight through the seller's head, caught the falling corpse by the collar, and carried the dead weight fifteen feet across the pier, pinning the body directly into the front steel quarter-panel of the Lincoln.

The heavy staff embedded six inches deep into the sedan's engine block with a concussive boom that rocked the vehicle on its axles.

Steam and coolant hissed into the night air.

Taz leaped backward, his face spattered with red droplets, his eyes wide with utter shock.

The armed guards frantically raised their submachine guns, looking wildly around the empty pier.

Above them, under the flickering yellow glow of a rusted lamppost, a dark silhouette swung lazily through the air.

Dangling upside down thirty feet overhead, suspended entirely by the curled tip of a long, golden-furred tail wrapped around an iron beam, was a young man.

His arms were crossed casually behind his head, a feral, jagged grin splitting his face.

"Evening, fellas," Jack said, his voice dripping with venomous amusement. "Mind if I join the party?"

Before their sluggish minds could comprehend the sight of a monkey tail in the middle of a Manhattan dock, Jack let go.

He dropped out of the sky like a stone.

The second Black gunman from the sedan barely had time to bring his sidearm up before Jack crashed into him. In mid-air, Jack threw his legs forward, locking his shins around the man's neck in an inverted scissor choke.

The kinetic force spun the two-hundred-pound enforcer completely off his feet, driving his skull face-first into the hardwood planks.

Crack!

Jack didn't give him a second to breathe. Still straddling the dazed man's neck, Jack plunged both thumbs straight into the sockets of the man's eyes, drawing a muffled, blood-choked howl. Before the scream could reach the water, Jack brought his right elbow down in a vicious, pile-driver strike directly against the man's left temple.

The gunman went limp, his consciousness erased with a hollow, sickening crunch.

Jack rolled forward in the same fluid motion, springing onto the balls of his feet as the two submachine-gunners from the truck opened fire.

Muzzle flashes tore jagged holes in the dark.

Jack didn't even flinch. He reached toward the ruined hood of the Lincoln and splayed his fingers.

Come.

The needle-rod ripped itself free from the mangled car chassis, the iron screeching as it tore through sheet metal and rocketed across the gap, slapping into Jack's right hand with a booming shockwave.

Jack spun the two-meter staff in a blinding, horizontal helicopter wheel.

Ping! Ting-ting-ting! Clang!

Sparks showered the pier like fireworks as the black iron rod batted supersonic nine-millimeter rounds out of the air. The deflected lead ricocheted into the river and chewed through the flatbed truck's tires with loud pops.

Jack closed the distance in two lunges, vaulted off an iron bollard, and swept the staff low.

The celestial mass took both guards out at the shins.

Snap! Crack!

The sickening sound of shattered tibias echoed across the water as both men were flipped violently into the air, landing hard on their backs with agonized gasps. Before they could crawl, Jack tapped the butt of the rod against their sternums, driving the air from their lungs and leaving them twitching in the dark.

A sharp metallic click echoed from behind him.

Jack turned his head, his golden eyes glowing in the gloom.

Taz stood ten paces away, a heavy .45-caliber pistol raised in both hands, his knuckles bone-white.

Without a single word, Taz emptied the entire magazine.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Seven heavy hollow-point rounds streaked toward Jack's face and chest.

Jack twirled the staff with one hand in a tight, dizzying figure-eight, the iron singing a high, mechanical melody.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Every bullet was slapped out of the air, flattened lead fragments clattering harmlessly against the dock timbers.

Click.

The slide locked back empty on Taz's weapon. A curl of gray smoke drifted from the barrel.

Taz stood frozen, his chest heaving, his eyes darting frantically past Jack's shoulder toward the dark shadows of the shipping containers and the rooftop crane at the far end of the pier.

He was looking for his perimeter guards. The sniper he had placed on the warehouse roof. The scout at the access gate.

Jack leaned casually against the black staff, resting his chin on his forearm, his golden tail swaying slowly from side to side behind his ankles.

He looked up at Taz, his lips parting in a wicked, mocking sneer.

"Don't even bother thinking about the sniper or the lookout, Taz," Jack chuckled, letting out a grating, raspy snicker. "I broke their necks and tossed 'em in the drink before you even stepped out of your car. Kekekeke."

Taz stumbled backward, his boots skidding across the blood-slick timbers until his spine slammed hard against the mangled rear quarter-panel of the sedan.

He stared at the teenager, his empty pistol shaking in his grip.

"Mutie..." Taz rasped, his voice trembling with a mixture of hatred and cold realization. "Fisk sent you. Didn't he?"

Jack tilted his head, his eyebrows arching in theatrical disgust. "The fuck? What, you think every mutant in this city is on that fat bastard's payroll?"

Jack stepped forward, planting the black iron staff into the wood and leaning his weight against it. He dropped into a casual crouch, his slit-pupil golden eyes locking onto Taz's sweating face.

"Taz Brooks, right? Cornell's reliable hound dog. The loyal pup who fetches the bones."

Taz bared his teeth, spat a glob of crimson saliva onto the planks, and glared into the boy's amber gaze. "Count your days, kid. Stokes is just a drop in the bucket. You have no idea whose toes you're stepping on."

Jack's eyes narrowed slightly. "So you won't talk."

"Fuck you!" Taz barked, his voice rising in desperate defiance. "I'm a dead man either way. You can't make me say a damn thing."

Jack stood back up, dusting his denim with a light, indifferent shrug.

"Alright."

There was no interrogation nor dramatic monologue.

In a fraction of a second, the black staff lengthened to four meters. Jack gripped the midsection and drove the heavy iron butt straight forward with explosive, pneumatic force.

Taz's mouth flew open, raw panic breaking through his bravado. "Wait! I thought-"

The thought was never finished.

Crack-splat.

The celestial iron crushed Taz's sternum like dry eggshells, punching through bone and spine with terrifying velocity. A shower of dark arterial spray erupted across the pier, spattering the length of the staff and painting Jack's cheek in warm, crimson flecks.

Taz collapsed into an unmoving heap against the tire, his eyes glazed and lifeless.

Jack wiped a streak of blood from his cheek with the back of his thumb, looking down at the corpse with flat, pitiless eyes.

"You're already dead because I decided so," Jack muttered.

He retracted the staff back to two meters, rested it over his shoulder, and surveyed the wreckage. "Let's see... Hmmm."

In the distance, the wailing sirens of approaching police cruisers began echoing across the West Side Highway, cutting through the thick summer air.

Jack took a slow, deep breath, smelling the hot copper, burnt rubber, and river brine. The cleanup crew was already en route. This raid was never meant to be subtle anyway. It was a loud, bloody calling card kicked into the underworld's teeth.

"Might as well do it with a bang," Jack said.

He stepped over to the flatbed truck. Next to the wooden rifle crates sat an open green steel box packed with military-grade fragmentation grenades. Jack scooped up two of the heavy pineapples, hooked his fingers through the rings, and yanked the pins with a twin metallic clink.

He tossed one grenade under the flatbed's exposed diesel tank and kicked the second beneath the Lincoln's crumpled frame.

Jack grabbed both heavy Pelican cases off the hood, curling his fingers around the reinforced handles, and bent his knees.

He leaped.

His legs coiled and exploded with unnatural kinetic spring, launching him thirty feet straight up into the dark rafters of the pier gantry.

Below him, the timers expired.

BOOM!

A blinding orange shockwave tore the pier wide open. The flatbed's fuel tank detonated in a towering geyser of fire, tossing jagged chunks of steel into the river and turning the sedan into an incinerated skeleton.

High on the iron beam, Jack hung on with one hand, his golden tail wrapped around an upright girder to steady him against the rushing blast of heat.

The fiery inferno painted the river yellow and gold, reflecting in his wide amber eyes.

Jack looked down at the burning pyre of Cornell's ambitions, his jaw setting hard.

'Soon, Sean,' Jack thought, the ghost of the murdered boy whispering in his veins. 'I'll butcher every single bastard who wanted you dead.'

He turned on the girder, hoisted the cash cases over his shoulder, and vanished into the night, leaping across the rooftops of Greenwich Village in long, silent arcs.

"Ahh... Heavy is the head that wears the crown," Jack laughed to the wind, his raspy cackle trailing behind him. "Just wait, Fisk. Your so-called empire will crumble soon enough. Ah, and Cottonmouth too... What a forgettable piece of trash. Kekekeke."

…

Ten minutes later, four NYPD cruisers screeched onto the wooden approach of Pier 45, their blue and red beacons flashing against clouds of billowing black smoke.

Patrol officers jumped out with service weapons drawn, coughing in the sweltering heat, their flashlight beams cutting through the haze to reveal a landscape of total slaughter: mangled corpses, shattered limbs, and the flaming carcasses of two vehicles.

The lead sergeant stared at the devastation in sheer disbelief, raised his radio with trembling fingers, and began calling in code after code.

Unbeknownst to the scrambling police, fifty yards away across the churning river slip, someone watched from the shadows.

Perched atop an abandoned timber mooring on the adjacent pier was a solitary figure cloaked in crimson darkness.

Matt Murdock.

His sightless eyes did not see the flames, but his world was painted in a symphony of horrific detail: the crackling roar of burning diesel, the scent of fresh blood mingling with salt water, the shattered bone fragments scattered across the planks, and the terrifying weapon that carried the density of an avalanche.

A new variable had just carved its way into the murky grime of New York.

Matt's senses traced the brutal, surgical efficiency of the dead bodies.

Without a word, the devil of Hell's Kitchen turned and slipped into the darkness of the city, bounding across the waterfront rooftops in silence.

…

Dawn broke over Manhattan with the dull gray glare of late August, the morning sun already baking the asphalt before the rush hour commenced.

The city moved forward as if nothing had occurred, commuters funneling down into the subway grates, oblivious to the blood washed into the Hudson hours before.

Inside the noisy, paper-strewn bullpen of the Daily Bugle, veteran investigative reporter Ben Urich sat hunched over his desk.

A fresh printout from the overnight police wire lay beside his half-empty cup of black coffee.

The official precinct assessment was routine, dismissive, and completely blind: a black-market arms exchange gone wrong on the waterfront, a minor crew reaching beyond their depth, ending in an explosive backfire.

Five dead. Hardware incinerated. Cash unaccounted for.

Ben leaned back in his squeaking swivel chair, a smoldering cigarette balanced between two nicotine-stained fingers. He read between the lines, his brow furrowing deeper with every sentence.

He had spent thirty years documenting the pulse of New York's underbelly. He knew what a street beef looked like, and he knew how professional hits were choreographed.

This was neither.

The scale was contained to five bodies, yet the sheer physical wreckage suggested the cataclysmic end of an established order. The forensic notes were bizarre: crushed skulls, shattered engine blocks, and wounds caused by immense, localized blunt impact that defied standard ballistics.

The signature bore no resemblance to the red-masked vigilante who had begun breaking bones in the alleys of Clinton. Nor did it carry the measured, protective weight of the rumors drifting out of upper Harlem.

A completely new predator had stepped into the fog.

Ben crushed his cigarette out in the overflowing glass ashtray, stood up, and pulled his battered trench coat from the back of his chair.

He slid the police wire into his notebook and jammed his fedora onto his head.

There was something massive buried in this one. He could feel it in his teeth.