Bloodshot
From Valiant Entertainment - The Book Of The Geomancer
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Sold out by the the Carboni crime family, mobster Angelo Mortalli is forced to be a test-subject and has his memories erased when his bloodstream is infused with microscopic computers called nanites. Now a killing-machine and lethal engine of destruction, he struggles to accept what he has become as Bloodshot.
Family Blood
Angelo Mortalli stood on the balcony of his lover’s apartment where she pleaded with him to break off his engagement with Diana Canelli, but he slapped her across the face and left. The next day, Angelo ambushed Gilad Abrams at the docks, where after a shootout he stood triumphant over Gilad’s bleeding body. Angelo threw Gilad into the river, unaware that Buck McHenry would rescue him. Angelo thought that he was on the way up the echelons of the Mob, but what he did not realize was that Don Canelli discovered that he cheated on his daughter. Framed for the murder of a rival family, Angelo turned evidence against the Carboni family to avoid life imprisonment. While in custody, a government agent betrayed Angelo and sold him to the Iwatsu Corporation. Taken to Project Rising Spirit, Angelo endured a process that erased his memory and replaced his blood with plasma filled with nanites. Freed by Geoff McHenry before Iwatsu’s training was complete, Angelo rechristened himself Bloodshot after the project and embarked on a quest to learn who he was.
Blood Of The Machine
At Heathrow Airport, Bloodshot killed two members of the INLA and took a briefcase from them. Escaping from MI–5 agents who were staking out the airport, Bloodshot jumped on a bus that took him to the East End. Using a stereo and the nanites in his blood, Bloodshot decoded a CD–Rom he found in the briefcase. Two days later at the River Thames, Bloodshot staked out an exchange between the INLA and Canelli, a name he found in the CD–ROM. After dispatching the Irish, Bloodshot questioned Canelli about what he knew about him and Project Rising Spirit, when then Thompson and Otomo, two Speedshots sent by Hideyoshi Iwatsu, attacked. As their fight took them into the river and Otomo and Thompson almost choked him to death, Bloodshot reached out to the nanites in their blood and made their hearts explode. Coming out of the river, Bloodshot came across Charles "John" Sinclair, the MI–5 agent in charge of the stake out at Heathrow that he botched. Meanwhile in Manhattan, Don Benito Carboni saw a picture of Bloodshot taken at the airport and realized that Mortalli still lived.
An Ax To Grind
In Del Mar, California, Ax and his cybernetically–enhanced thugs broke into Project Rising Spirit, where he used his power over machines to open the files on project Bloodshot inside Wallace Durkins' computer. Meanwhile in NYC, Bloodshot met with an arms dealer in a shoddy hotel near Times Square who equipped him with replacements for the weapons he lost in the Thames. The next day, following Canelli’s trail, Bloodshot broke into an office in the financial district and questioned a pencil pusher who told him that he could find Canelli in Long Island. An hour later, while Bloodshot made his way through Battery Park, Ax’s thugs attacked him. Besieged at first, Bloodshot made quick work of the thugs, disabling most of them and killing others. Just then, Ax appeared on the scene garbed in an X-O Commando Armor. As a battle ensued, Ax used his ability over machines to control the nanites inside Bloodshot’s blood to make him freeze in place, but then Bloodshot turned the tables on him and ordered his armor to break open, which gave him an opening to slice Ax’s exposed arm with his sword. Flying away, Ax swore that he would have his revenge. Elsewhere, the pencil pusher called Carboni.
Crime Lords Of Flatbush
While Bloodshot was in a bar, Maria the bartender confused him with a man she knew who died after getting involved with the Mob. Wondering if he was that man, Bloodshot returned to his hotel. Elsewhere, Carboni hired the arms dealer Bloodshot got his armaments from to build him a weapon Bloodshot could not control. After leaving a warehouse where a man told him that he could find Carboni in a chop shop, Bloodshot helped a street kid escape from a gang beating. After avoiding a confrontation with the street kid’s gang, Bloodshot narrowly escaped from a car that almost ran him over. Shooting two bullets into it, Bloodshot killed the driver, who recognized him before he died. Blinded by the headlights from a second car, Bloodshot took cover from an assault led by Tony Barucci, a man he recognized as a friend who betrayed him on the witness stand during his trial. Shooting a phosphorus tracer round into the gas tank, Bloodshot blew up Tony’s car, killing everyone. Elsewhere, Canelli joined Carboni and revealed that the chop shop was a trap for Bloodshot.
Chop Jam
Breaking into Carboni’s house during his daughter’s wedding, Bloodshot retrieved data from his PC that led him to a chop shop in Long Island. The next day at the ranch, the H.A.R.D. Corps headquarters, Superstar was on the verge of a breakdown while Flatline was eager to see his wife, who still believed that he was dead. Assigned to determine whether or not Bloodshot was a Harbinger, the Corps followed him to Long Island, where they witnessed a shootout between Bloodshot and the Mob that escalated once they joined the fray and concluded when a mobster dropped a grenade that destroyed the building. As the dust settled, Gunslinger told the others to shoot Bloodshot if he tried to leave. To everyone’s surprise, Flatline stood between the corps and Bloodshot as he could not abide taking his freedom as Omen Enterprises had taken theirs. Asking what they wanted from him, Bloodshot allowed the Corps to scan him with a device that his nanites recalibrated to show negative results no matter what it was looking for. The next day Seth denied Flatline’s request due to his breaking from the team. As Flatline left, Seth expressed concern over Shakespeare’s’ whereabouts. Unaware that the Spider Aliens had captured him, Hammerhead assured Seth that Shakespeare was safe with a friend in Oregon.
Blood Of The Ages
After accompanying Maria home from the movies, Bloodshot, nervous over how to conduct himself in a romantic setting due to his lack of memories, declined her invitation to go up to her apartment and left. Going home, Bloodshot discovered that someone had broken in. Drawing his gun, he followed the scent of paint–thinner to the bathroom, where Gilad shot him with an empty gun as payback for when he dumped him on his butt the year before. While talking over a couple of beers, Gilad warned Bloodshot about going after the Mob, whom he had a run–in with a few years earlier, a reference to when they met when Bloodshot was Angelo Mortalli that Bloodshot did not understand. Revealing the reason for his visit, Gilad offered Bloodshot a job for Neville Alcott, when then Bloodshot’s arms dealer arrived to deliver a custom–made gun and a note from Carboni that said that he had kidnapped Bloodshot’s sister, a sibling he did not know existed.
Following the note, Bloodshot and Gilad made their way to an abandoned factory in New Jersey where they met with Carboni and the heads of his crime family, including Canelli. Speaking on Bloodshot’s behalf, Gilad admitted to knowing that he was Angelo Mortalli, but offered that Angelo died when Bloodshot was born. After considerable debate, Carboni concluded that Bloodshot was too dangerous. Under the threat of his sister’s death, Bloodshot agreed to submit quietly in exchange for her freedom, but as she was leaving, Canelli pulled a gun and shot her. Enraged, Bloodshot jumped on Canelli and grabbed his neck in his hands.
2,000 years in the future, the Malev Emperor ordered his subjects to kidnap Rentaro Nakadai.
Blood On The Sands Of Time
Bloodshot proceeded to tear through the mobsters in the room, until finally, Carboni agreed to a truce. Leaving with Gilad, Bloodshot inquired about the woman’s health, who he had surmised was not his sister. It turned out that she was an actress Canelli hired as part of his elaborate scheme for revenge. Having spent his fury against the Mob, Bloodshot accepted Gilad’s invitation to become an agent for Neville Alcott. Later that night, Bloodshot knocked on Maria’s door and spent the night with her.
2,000 years later, the Malev Emperor tortured Rentaro and used him as bait for Takao Konishi. Discovering that the Malevs had taken Rentaro, Gilad located Rai just as the Malevs had offered to exchange Rentaro’s life for his own. As the Malevs took Rai and Gilad to meet with a hologram of the Malev Emperor, Gilad recalled the time he and Bloodshot met with Carboni to rescue his sister, and was unsettled at the thought of Bloodshot’s blood running through Takashi’s veins. As Rentaro refused to allow Takao to take his place, a Malev shot him and he fell to his knees. Angered, Takao used his Harbinger ability to cause explosions throughout the installation until the Emperor agreed to let them go, which he did.
Death At 10,000 Feet
On a plane over Sidney, Cinder stole a briefcase that contained a component from an agent of the Weaponeer, then after setting the plane ablaze, he escaped with his wife Glyder. Meanwhile, Bloodshot returned to his flat in London, where his friend Malcolm, a tabloid photographer, had been living. That day in France, Alicia Guerrero, the second of five agents able to deliver her cargo, quit the Weaponeer’s organization due to the increasing amount of deaths. Four hours later, Colin King drugged Alicia and took her to parts unknown.
Back in London, Bloodshot reported to Neville Alcott. Introducing himself as Michael Lazarus, Bloodshot embraced his new life. Telling him that someone was killing the agents of the Weaponeer, Neville showed Michael pictures of Cinder boarding the same planes as the agents. Believing that the plane crashes covered the attacks on the agents, Neville assigned Michael to discover why Cinder was after. Two days later, Bloodshot followed Colin aboard a plane to Manila. During the flight, Cinder approached Colin like he had the other agents, but Colin caught him unawares and injected him with a drug that knocked him out. Weary, Glyder stood up and ran toward the exit hatch, and though Bloodshot tried to stop her she opened it and flew away. Hanging on for dead life, Bloodshot could not fight the suction and fell off the plane.
The Unkindest Cut Of All
Plummeting toward the ground, Bloodshot saw Glyder and angled his body towards her to grab her ankle and force her to take him closer to the ground. Struggling against Bloodshot’s grip, Glyder kicked her boot off and pushed Bloodshot off her, which sent him crashing down toward the jungle. Meanwhile at the airport, Colin took an unconscious Cinder to the men’s room, where he left him after he changed into a new disguise. Waking up, Cinder walked out of the restroom and overheard two police officers discussing their inability to search the jungle for Glyder and Bloodshot due to a storm shutting traffic control down entirely for an hour. Unaware that Colin was following him, Cinder made his way toward the public phones and reported the situation to his handler, Brandon, who he told to meet him at their rendezvous point.
Waking up with injuries sustained during the crash that his nanites were already healing, Bloodshot made his way through the jungle to look for Glyder, when then a hurricane fell on his position. Unbeknownst to him, half a mile away Brandon and three armed soldiers were making their way toward the rendezvous point three klicks up. Back at the airport, Colin shadowed Cinder and saw him kill a guard and steal his transportation.
While Brandon found Glyder hiding from the storm beneath a stone, half a mile away Cinder’s truck broke down. Forced to make his way to the rendezvous point on foot, Cinder went on his way, unaware that Colin, now garbed in his Ninjak uniform, was following him. Spotting Bloodshot, Ninjak deployed his collapsible sword and stabbed him on the chest while accusing him of being a killer. Saved by his nanites, Bloodshot removed Ninjak’s sword from his abdomen. Returning his sword to him, Bloodshot told Ninjak that if he had come after Glyder and Cinder that they were on the same side. Though he could tell that Ninjak did not trust him, Bloodshot teamed up with him to deal with their foes.
Circling around Brandon’s camp, Ninjak killed one of his men and subdued another, but alas Brandon captured Bloodshot. Holding Bloodshot at gunpoint, Brandon demanded that Ninjak surrender himself. Swooping down from a treetop, Ninjak wrapped a cord around the third man’s neck and killed him too. As Brandon threatened to kill Bloodshot unless Ninjak granted him safe passage back to his chopper, Ninjak deployed his sword once again and killed Brandon by stabbing Bloodshot in the same spot as before.
As Glyder escaped with Cinder and boarded the chopper, Bloodshot asked Ninjak what he was going to do about them. As Ninjak assured Bloodshot that he always took care of things, the chopper exploded. Following Ninjak’s lead, Bloodshot followed him back to the truck Cinder abandoned.
Bad Blood
At a warehouse in Philadelphia, Bloodshot took out a group of counterfeiters in a bloody firefight, then after recovering the printing plates for Neville and planting a bomb, he exited the building. While taking cover from the explosion, Bloodshot came across Geoff McHenry, who recruited him to help stop Master Darque. Though agreeing to join the fight, Bloodshot left to take care of a previous commitment in London, but he promised to meet Geoff at Gilad’s apartment in New York 48 hours later. Meanwhile in London, unidentified men captured Malcolm after he returned home from work.
After meeting with Neville, Bloodshot returned to his flat. As Bloodshot walked up the stairs thinking of Jillian and of Maria’s inability to handle what he was, the scent of musky cologne stopped him in his tracks. Drawing his gun, Bloodshot pushed the door open and saw that whoever had been there had trashed the place. Finding a note on the wall hanging off a dagger with a message inscribed in Malcolm’s blood that read For Lucy, Bloodshot realized that the INLA had taken Malcolm to trade for him.
While Bloodshot armed himself to face the INLA, a sniper shot him with a trank dart from across the street. While chasing the sniper through the rooftops, Bloodshot felt dazed and sluggish even though the nanites in his veins were counteracting the chemicals in his blood. Catching up to the shooter after he failed to jump to another building, Bloodshot hoisted him up with his hand. As the sniper confessed that an Asian man sent him to inject Bloodshot with a computer virus, Bloodshot lost his grip and the sniper fell to his death.
At a textile plant, Bloodshot watched as the INLA’s leader, Eric, beat Malcolm for betraying them. With his senses awry, Bloodshot failed to see one of Eric’s men walk up to him until it was too late. Though loosing the element of surprise and weakened due to the virus, Bloodshot took out Eric’s men. Enraged, Eric aimed his gun at Bloodshot to kill him, but before he could, Malcolm shot him with one of his own men’s shotguns. Hearing police sirens surround the building, Bloodshot knew that he and Malcolm were trapped.
16 hours later at Scotland Yard, the police surrendered Bloodshot into Charles Sinclair’s custody on Neville Alcott’s behalf and Bloodshot was free to return to New York and meet with Geoff and the others.
Blood Sacrifice
In the jungle near Macao, Jillian parted ways with Gilad as he left to find a designer drug plant. While Jillian returned to her seaplane on her motorboat, a group of thugs on jet skies shot at her and made her crash. Taken Jillian captive, the men took her to Hong Kong, where they delivered her to Emil Sosa, the soul eater, who had spent the last nine months recovering from injuries he sustained during in battle with Shadowman.
The next day, Bloodshot arrived in Hong Kong to search for Jillian. Following Sosa’s name, the only lead he had from Jillian’s transmission before she was captured, Bloodshot made his way through a seedy market where he learned where Sosa lived from a child porn peddler.
A few blocks away, Mohammed Mekkel, Sosa’s spiritual trainer and one of Neville’s former agents, told Jillian that he was holding her captive to exchange her for high–level computer access codes. Moments later Sosa walked into the room after feeding off one of his aides, an act that displeased Mohammed, who warned Sosa that if he was not careful the pain would be his undoing. Meanwhile, Bloodshot broke into the building and followed Jillian’s scent to where they were holding her captive.
As Mohammed told Jillian how her mother died when her father failed to make a deal with Dr. Silk, Jillian saw Bloodshot sneaking into the room. Fooling Mohammed into freeing her, Jillian kicked him across the head and flung him out the window. Watching as Sosa grabbed Jillian by the wrist, Bloodshot tackled him and the two crashed through the concrete wall out onto the street, breaking the power lines as they fell.
Lunging toward Bloodshot, Sosa grabbed him by the neck to suck his soul. Treating Sosa’s drain as an infection, the nanites in Bloodshot’s blood sent his energy back at him, which made him loose his balance long enough for Bloodshot to kick him off his feet into the open power lines, which fried him to a crisp.
Joining Bloodshot, Jillian asked him if he saw what happened to Mohammed and he said that his sensors detected that he had died from a broken neck. Unbeknownst to Bloodshot, Mohammed had survived through the use of a trick taught to him by a fakir and was hiding in an alley.
The Rat
After sending Jillian to London, Bloodshot traveled to Cu Chi, Viet Nam to search for a former American GI called the Rat as a favor for Neville. An embarrassment to the States, the Rat was a dangerous individual that used to run drugs during the war. The day after Bloodshot checked into a hotel, the girl from the front desk, Lao Cho, the daughter of an American soldier and a Viet Namese woman who preferred to be called Julie, was found dead in an alley from a heroin overdose. Infuriated by a local cop’s racism, Bloodshot lashed out at him before taking his leave to go search for the Rat, who unbeknownst to him was closer than he thought.
Figuring that he should try to get inside the Rat’s head, Bloodshot traveled to the jungle to investigate a tunnel used by the Viet Cong during the war to attack American GIs, which had become a tourist attraction. Unable to go through the hole with the other tourists due to his size, Bloodshot followed them from the surface using his nanites to track their movements. Reaching the supposed end of the tunnel, Bloodshot heard movement coming from the beneath his feet on the other side of the wall that seemingly sealed the rest of the tunnel.
Plunging a knife into the ground to mark the spot, Bloodshot went back to the tour. Returning that night garbed in his uniform, Bloodshot dug an entrance and crawled down into the tunnel to find the Rat. Making his way through a couple of traps, Bloodshot reached the Rat’s hideout, where he found a stash of heroin and a pile of CIA documents detailing something called Operation Phoenix, when then the Rat returned. Running away, the Rat lead Bloodshot on a chase through the tunnels that turned into a shootout. Loosing himself in the dark, the Rat inadvertently triggered his own trip line and shot himself with a riffle embedded on the wall.
Coming out of the hole, Bloodshot ran across two CIA agents who congratulated him for taking care of the Rat and wanted to take him with them for a debriefing. Flouting the agents, Bloodshot said that he knew that they did not care that the Rat was a pusher, and that their only concern was stopping the truth about Operation Phoenix, which involved using the Rat’s drugs to kill many people in the name of eradicating the Communist infrastructure, from coming out. Walking away, Bloodshot left the agents to dig for the evidence themselves.
Empirical Dynasty
Arriving at Musashi Labs in Osaka, Yoshi Iwatsu informed his father, Hideyoshi Iwatsu, of their continual failure to replicate Angelo Mortalli’s transformation into Bloodshot, when suddenly Hideyoshi suffered a heart attack. Taking his father to undergo the Bloodshot procedure, Yoshi hoped that he would not survive, but much to his chagrin Hideyoshi live through the transformation and became a Speedshot.
The next day in Viet Nam, Tanaka approached Bloodshot at the airport and told him that this father was dead and that thieves had stolen the prototype of the device that put the nanites in his blood. Giving him a circuit board encoded with pieces of Angelo Mortalli’s life, Iwatsu offered Bloodshot to return his memories if he helped him recover the device. Eager to recover his memories, Bloodshot went with Tanaka to Osaka.
Arriving at Musashi Labs, Tanaka took Bloodshot to where the alleged break–in took place. Walking by testing facilities that stirred his memories of equipment he saw at Rising Spirit, Bloodshot linked with it and discovered that it was in fact the device that Tanaka claimed the thieves stole, which had been used the day before to operate on Hideyoshi, who suddenly came up from behind Bloodshot and hit him across the head.
Transformed into a long–haired, 7-foot Speedshot, Hideyoshi stood over Bloodshot with a sword in his hand. While Hideyoshi praised Tanaka while condemning Geoff the Geomancer, Bloodshot trained his gun on, but before he could fire Hideyoshi sliced it in half with his sword. Confessing that he did not have long to live, and that he brought him to learn how he survived the process, Hideyoshi disarmed Bloodshot of all his modern weapons, leaving him only with his sword to defend himself, like honorable men do.
Recognizing that they were engaged in a battle preprogrammed into his nanites, Bloodshot deduced that the only chance he had to win was to break the pattern. Reaching for his gun, Bloodshot emptied the clip on Hideyoshi, then before he could heal himself he grabbed his head and used the nanites in his blood to accelerate the nanites in Hideyoshi’s system to burn out his metabolism, killing him.
Standing over Hideyoshi’s body, Bloodshot demanded that Tanaka give him the memories he promised him, but Tanaka revealed that what he showed him was all he had, and that Bloodshot destroyed everything else when he escaped from Rising Spirit. Enraged, Bloodshot left, leaving Tanaka alone with his father’s corpse.
Bloodshot’s Day Off
After six months of endless fighting, Bloodshot decided to take a vacation in Puerto Rico. Looking forward to spending time on the beach surrounded by beautiful women, Bloodshot checked into a high-class hotel. While watching a movie, Bloodshot overheard a couple arguing on the room next door, but deciding that their fight was none of his business, he got dressed and went to the lobby. Walking past the couple’s door, Bloodshot heard some labored breathing and the sound of two heart beats coming from inside the room. Deducing that the couple had kissed and made up, Bloodshot went down to the bar, where he met Trish, an attractive woman he told he was a buyer for an art house, a lingering undercover ID programmed into his blood. While asking Trish to have dinner with him, Bloodshot noticed a man bleeding from a cut on his head that he was certain sounded like the heavy–breather from the room next to his.
That evening, while Bloodshot and Trish entered the restaurant, he collided with the heavy–breather and saw a gun in his pants. After dinner and gambling in the casino, Trish invited Bloodshot up to her room, but he hesitated for the briefest of moments and she left without him, promising to see him later. Returning to his room, Bloodshot walked by a couple of thugs carrying a man–sized object wrapped in a bloody sheet. Feeling paranoid, Bloodshot dismissed it, but then curiosity got the better of him and he decided to listen in on the room next to his, but heard nothing. Breaking into the room, Bloodshot found a puddle of blood on the floor.
Learning that the room was registered to a drug dealer called Alberto Cordova, Bloodshot followed his trail to a warehouse where he found Cordova and his men holding two drug runners that had stolen his drugs and were spending his money at the casino at gunpoint. Breaking into the warehouse, Bloodshot fooled some of Cordova’s men into killing each other while he knocked the rest unconscious. Walking away, Bloodshot left the drug runners tied up surrounded by Cordova’s men waiting for the police to arrive.
Returning to his hotel room, Bloodshot enjoyed a relaxing bubble bat, when then Trish knocked on his door with a bottle of champagne. Gazing at how beautiful Trish looked, Bloodshot was glad that he took a day off.
Who Killed The Weaponeer?
At the behest of Neville Alcott, Bloodshot followed two Weaponeer agents that were leading him to a cache of armaments in the Balkan mountains, when then two mysterious individuals killed his guides. Surviving the ambush, Bloodshot hid in a cave on the side of the mountain from where he saw the killers escape in a copter.
Sometime later at MI–5’s headquarters underneath Heathrow Airport, Neville reintroduced Bloodshot to Sinclair, the newly–appointed field ops commander. During a debriefing to recap the assassination of the Weaponeer’s agents, Neville told Bloodshot that Montblanc, a high–level official in the Weaponeer’s organization, had recently been killed and that they had discovered that the Harbingers Cinder and Glyder worked for Dr. Silk, whose Webnet operatives were systematically killing the Weaponeer’s agents. Showing Bloodshot a mobile missile system in their keep, Sinclair charged him escorting a Weaponeer agent who had the schematics for the missing component needed to operate the machine in his possession.
Two hours later, as Bloodshot watched the agent’s plane descend into Ryan’s field, he helplessly witnessed as Webnet’s agents blew it up with a stinger missile and then got away. Sometime later, Bloodshot returned to his flat, where the Weaponeer agent that supplied him with his armament the year begged him for his help.
Forty–five minutes later Bloodshot escorted the agent to a heavily–fortified and protected MI–5 safe house in Liverpool, where four other Weaponeer agents were hold up. Not soon afterwards, however, the Webnet operatives stormed the house and they killed the MI–5 agents they slaughtered the Weaponeer’s agents one by one. Breaking the agents out of what was to be a safe room, Bloodshot led them towards the roof, but with every step they took one more of their numbers fell to an assassin’s bullet. Once all of the agents were dead, the man Bloodshot brought with him shot him with a dart filled with malaria and revealed that he had betrayed the others to Webnet. Paralyzed by the infection, Bloodshot was helpless to stop the agent as he escaped in a Webnet helicopter. Surrounded by flames triggered by a Webnet incendiary device, Bloodshot forced himself to walk out into the street, where he came across Sinclair, who was waiting for him in a car.
Sins of The Father
Upon discovering a break in at his house in Massapequa in Long Island, Daniel, a member of the Carboni crime family, called Don Benito Carboni and told him of the robbery of the Canelli file, a theft perpetrated by an individual barely caught on tape who Daniel and Benito believed was Bloodshot, who they were convinced had broken their truce.
Arriving in New York City, Bloodshot decided to visit Gilad in his new apartment, but after getting there he discovered that he had left with Geoff shortly after he moved in. Leaving the apartment to do some Christmas shopping, Bloodshot barely avoided a car sent to run him over by Don Carboni. Moments later in Little Italy, Diana Canelli met with Don Benito and told him that she received a phone call from someone with a high voice that told her that she would be receiving a special wedding gift which Benito deduced referred to the stolen file. After seeing Diana out, Benito inferred from what she told him that Max Bartolo’s boys were the real culprits behind the theft, so he called Daniel to tell him that Bloodshot was innocent.
That Saturday at the Carboni estate, Bloodshot crashed Diana’s wedding in a cook’s uniform and confronted Carboni. Apologizing for the confusion, Carboni told Bloodshot of the contents of the file, which detailed various intolerable acts committed by Canelli that the Bartolo boys intended to use to hurt Diana. As the Bartolo were under protection, they were beyond Carboni’s reach, so, reminding Bloodshot that Diana was the woman he was going to marry, he urged him to stop the Bartolo himself.
Following the information Carboni provided him with to Champ’s Place Sports Bar in Brooklyn, Bloodshot used his enhanced strength to shatter a billiard ball in his hand to intimidate the Bartolo boys into giving him the stolen file. Meeting with them later that night underneath the Brooklyn bridge, Bloodshot discovered that the Bartolo had betrayed him and intended to kill him. After a brief skirmish, Max Bartolo, the boy’s father, arrived in a car and gave Bloodshot the file, which he said his boys stole to get back at Gino for treating them like dirt by letting his little princess known exactly what kind of monster her old man really was.
Later that night at the Carboni home, Bloodshot delivered the file to Carboni, who claimed that in the changing times they lived in, in which the old family ways were ignored, he was the only one he could count on to be consistent. Promising to destroy the papers, Carboni raised a glass in Bloodshot honor and wished him a merry Christmas, an act that reminded him of the man he was before, Angelo Mortalli.
Returning to the city to look for Gilad, Bloodshot missed him by mere moments and ended up in a restaurant spending Christmas alone.
The Hunter: The Hunted
Early one morning, Bloodshot barely escaped from a fire in his building holding a woman and her child in his arms. Certain that the blaze had been set to kill him, Bloodshot was unaware that on a rooftop across the street Cinder and Glyder, who survived the copter’s explosion, plotted to kill him to get in Dr. Silk’s good graces. Meanwhile, beneath Heathrow Airport, while Neville, Jillian, and Sinclair discussed their inability to use electronic devices to find the Weaponeer’s vault because their use alerted Webnet, Jillian suggested recruiting Geoff McHenry so that he could find the vault using his ability to speak with inanimate objects.
Two hours later, Bloodshot discovered that someone had thrashed his apartment during the fire, so he decided to call Neville to ask him if he knew who could have done it. Hesitant to use his phone, Bloodshot went out to find a public phone. Though feeling that somebody was following him, Bloodshot was unable to see anyone despite his enhanced vision, when then, Glyder bumped into him and planted a tracker on his clothes and left before he could recognize her. Later that night, Cinder and Glyder followed the tracker’s signal to an alley where they ambushed someone wearing Bloodshot’s coat who turned out to be a homeless man.
Thinking that Bloodshot was a hundred miles away, Glyder and Cinder returned to their hotel unaware that Bloodshot had followed them. Breaking into their room, Bloodshot punched Cinder, so Glyder kicked him across the face. Turning to face Glyder, Bloodshot left himself open for Cinder to set him ablaze. Grabbing Glyder, Bloodshot jumped out the window hoping that she would pull them up before they hit the ground, but instead she twisted free of his grasp and dropped him on the roof of a warehouse. As a fight ensued, Cinder set the roof ablaze and it gave way beneath their feet, dropping them in the middle of the warehouse. Hitting her head on the ground Glyder passed out. Upset, Cinder called out to Bloodshot, who punched him out of his way. Grabbing Glyder, Bloodshot took her outside, when then Cinder, blinded by rage, set his hands on fire and unintentionally ignited the boxes of fireworks that were around him and destroyed the warehouse. Minutes later, Bloodshot walked away with Glyder, while the firemen found Cinder badly burned but alive.
The next evening, at Geoff McHenry’s Greenwich Village apartment, Gilad and Bloodshot recruited him to help them find the Weaponeer’s vault.
Search For The Vault
Late one night in Battery Park, as Bloodshot told Gilad and Geoff of his need to use Geoff as a bloodhound to find the Weaponeer’s vault, snipers onboard a Webnet stealth helicopter opened fire on them. Running away, Gilad dispatched a group of Webnet goons coming out of a van just as Bloodshot saw a second van coming their way. Following Geoff to the subway, they ran inside the train as the doors closed, but then the Webnet agents cut the power and the train stopped. As the Webnet operatives boarded the train, Gilad, Geoff, and Bloodshot escaped through a grate into the sewer. Meanwhile, 100 feet below Heathrow Airport, in a shooting range within MI–5, Richard Grant arrogantly showed his superb marksmanship skills to Charles Sinclair.
Hours later, in the Lower East Side, as Gilad, Geoff, and Bloodshot left New York aboard a speed boat, Webnet operatives shot at them with a bazooka from a yacht and destroyed their transport. Jumping into the water before the missile hit, Bloodshot, Gilad, and Geoff swam to the yacht and dispatched the agents, then, using his ability to speak with machines Bloodshot jammed Webnet’s frequencies so they would not be able to locate them and commandeer control of the boat.
The next day in the Balkan mountains, Felina, a guide, led Gilad and the others to a cave that Geoff discerned was were the vault used to be before it was moved. While making their way down the mountain, Bloodshot heard the faint sound of an assailant taking out a Webnet sniper, but dismissed it. Twenty six hours later in Hong Kong, Geoff looked out at the city from the roof of a hotel and found the vault. Making their way south, Gilad saw two Webnet cars coming at them, so he led them into an outdoor market to end their pursue. While Gilad and Bloodshot dispatched the Webnet agents, Felina took Geoff to the other side of the market, but two agents found them. While Felina fought off an agent, the other one offered not to kill Geoff in exchange for his help finding the vault, but then, through means he refused to elaborate on, Geoff knocked out the agent.
Sometime later, on an island off the coast of the Philippines, Geoff took the others into an active volcano that he assured them was where they would find the vault. Finding the Weaponeer’s weapons cache in a massive cave, Geoff asked the security system to let them in, then he and the others found a specific crate that Neville was looking for. Just then, however, a group of Webnet agents came out of the shadows to take it from them.
Elsewhere, the Weaponeer wrote down an entry in his journal detailing his assistance to Neville’s men looking for his vault and his hope that Neville would put weapons they found there to good use.
Search And Destroy
Though surrounded on all sides by the Webnet agents, Bloodshot and Gilad dispatched them and escaped. Carrying the three crates that Neville was looking for on their shoulders, Gilad, Geoff, and Bloodshot found a submarine in a dock within the volcano. Sensing the approach of more Webnet agents, Geoff said that they should stay and hold them off, but Gilad urged him to get inside the submarine and leave. Staying behind with a crate, Gilad dealt with the agents while Bloodshot took Geoff and the remaining crates away in the sub. As their submarine sped away from the island, Geoff saw two enemy vessels following them on the radar. During a firefight, the submarine hull breached and the vessel went down to the bottom of the ocean.
Back in the cave, Gilad engaged the Webnet agents in a fist fight, but they overpowered him and took the crate, which in reality was a bomb primed to blow up within seconds. Fighting his way through the agents, Gilad escaped the explosion and leapt off a ledge onto a rope ladder hanging from Felina’s chopper. As the chopper flew away, the island exploded behind it. Meanwhile, beneath the ocean, Bloodshot rammed the Webnet submarine with his own. As the hull cracked and the submarine filled with water, Bloodshot gave Geoff an aqua–lung and dragged him to the surface, where Sinclair was waiting for them aboard a boat.
That night in Bangkok, Gilad took Felina to dinner to repay her for saving his life, while back in London, Neville admired his new acquisitions, eagerly looking forward to begin Project: Secret Weapons.
Divided We Fall
In a train station in the former Soviet Union, Bloodshot stopped a man from shooting Ambassador Wolfgang Rokjevich before they boarded a train to Geneva where the Ambassador was to speak in a peace conference. While the ambassador applauded Bloodshot as the police took the man away, Vladimir, the ambassador’s second in command, who Bloodshot could tell resented his position, did not think that they should praise him.
As they arrived in Geneva, a reporter asked the ambassador to comment on General Grejhev’s claim that he was a puppet of the west. Replying that the puppeteers would call the accusation mudslinging, the ambassador told the reporter of a press conference the next day before he and the others left for their hotel. A short time later at the hotel, where Vladimir assured the ambassador that General Grejhev was not a threat and that he would be content with his military power, Bloodshot met Sergeant Major Olga Petrolka, the local head of security, who ordered him to report to the ambassador’s room at Three am for his night watch. That night Bloodshot relieved Olga, who flirted with him as she walked away from the ambassador’s room.
The next morning at the dining room, while Bloodshot listened to Vladimir insult the General, the nanites in his blood registered an incredible power surge that created a powerful electrical field that he deduced would fry the ambassador during his speech. Running into the PA control room while the ambassador walked to the podium, Bloodshot ripped the console apart before the ambassador grabbed the mike and completed a circuit that would have killed him. That afternoon, Bloodshot called Neville, who warned him of a highly–placed official who had made a substantial deposit in his bank account that tagged him as suspicious. Promising to do what he could, as the official had made himself too visible to pin anything on him, Bloodshot went to work.
The next evening, while Bloodshot commended the increased security measures, Olga stopped a revolutionary from crashing the dinner with a fake press pass. Meanwhile, in the dinner hall, General Grejhev objected to his placement in the speaking order, so the ambassador gladly gave him his spot. Turning to a man on his table, the General whispered something in his ear, and soon thereafter a man asked the ambassador to inform others of a meeting in his suite that night following the dinner, an invitation that concerned Bloodshot.
Shortly after dinner Olga went to Bloodshot’s room, where she seduced him and they made love. An hour later, Olga left to go over the route to the peace conference before going to sleep. While getting dressed, Olga told Bloodshot of her cousin, who was shot for looting while trying to salvage his own belongings after an attack, a tragedy that symbolized the urgency of need for peace in her nation.
The next morning, while preparing to ride on the motorcade to the peace conference, Vladimir decided to ride in a covered car instead of going with the ambassador in a convertible, a move Bloodshot found suspicious. Getting into the covered car, Vladimir told his companions that tomorrow would be a different world. While on route to the peace conference, a sniper’s shot a bullet at the ambassador, but Bloodshot protected him with his own body and the bullet hit him behind the head.
Coma
At the Center for Neurological Trauma, high in the Swiss Alps, Dr. Fjielkegord took Miss Linda Lincoln of Omen Enterprises to see Michael Lazarus, who following a traumatic head wound suffered through a profound coma. Standing over Bloodshot, the doctor told Miss Lincoln that it seemed as if he was shutting down all but his automatic functions and putting everything he had into healing himself, a notion he knew made him sound crazy. Taking Miss Lincoln to the lounge, where Olga waited for Bloodshot to get better, Dr. Fjielkegord told Miss Lincoln that he was at his wit’s end and would greatly appreciate her taking Bloodshot off his hands.
The next day at the Ranch, the HARD Corps’ headquarters in New Mexico, Director Sigmund Heydrich sent the Corps to verify and retrieve Bloodshot as a possible candidate for the project. Meanwhile, in London, Jillian offered to travel to Switzerland to retrieve Bloodshot from the trauma center.
Back at the center, as Dr. Fjielkegord and his colleagues used an MRI machine to analyze the damage to Bloodshot’s brain, all they saw on the monitors was static. Leaving the room, Dr. Fjielkegord ran across Ms. Lincoln, Gunslinger, and Shakespeare, the latter of whom were posing as specialists from Cornell. Just then, an orderly taking Bloodshot back to his room walked by them and no one noticed Bloodshot making a fist. Pretending to work for British Intelligence, Gunslinger gave Dr. Fjielkegord a falsified authorization notice that released Bloodshot into their custody, and less than an hour later they took him with them in a helicopter. Returning to his office, Dr. Fjielkegord met Jillian, who was there to take Bloodshot into her custody. Perplexed, Dr. Fjielkegord showed Jillian Gunslinger’s notice, which she quickly realized was a forgery.
Soon, in a nearby chalet owned by Omen Industries, Mr. Lincoln hooked Bloodshot up to a VR gear that Flatline used to maneuver around inside his brain to ascertain the damage he sustained. Navigating through a virtual model of Bloodshot’s skull, Flatline made his way deep into his brain, where he witnessed the nanites repelling the bullet fragments and regenerating Bloodshot’s skull and brain. As Flatline reached out to touch a piece of skull, an electrical surge repelled him and shorted out the VR gear. Back at the trauma center, Jillian left Dr. Fjielkegord in a huff demanding that he find Bloodshot soon as possible. Meeting Olga in the lounge, Jillian sat with her and asked her to tell her everything she knew from the moment she met Bloodshot.
At the chalet, Bloodshot broke free of his restrains and, following a self–preservation program embedded into his nanites, attacked the Corps in a bid to escape. Accessing strategy maneuvers based on Bobby Fisher’s chess moves, Bloodshot easily dealt with Gunslinger and Hammerhead. Running outside, Bloodshot led the Corps on a merry chase through the snow. Attacked from all sides, Bloodshot grabbed Shakespeare and jammed the Corps’ com–link with Softcore, rendering them unable to switch powers. As Bloodshot pulled his arm back to punch Shakespeare in the face, he suddenly recognized him as an ally and let him go. Returning to normal, Bloodshot apologized for his rampage and made peace with the Corps.
Sometime later, at the trauma center, as Jillian and Olga walked toward Jillian’s car to go find Bloodshot, Dr. Fjielkegord walked out of the center and told them that he was back. Soon, Jillian and Olga went to see Bloodshot, who was back on his feet and had a long story to tell them.
Download
On top a motorcycle somewhere in the newly independent Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, Bloodshot barely made it onboard an evac helicopter to escape from an armored tank and a group of soldiers. Meanwhile, in the underground prison of Bhutu Hassan, Hassan mockingly told his prisoners that the whole world would soon recognize Palestine as a country once his military obtains a nuclear bomb. Enraged, one of the prisoners leapt tried to reach Hassan through the bars, so Hassan shot him and left him on the floor to die.
Somewhere in Damascus, Syria, one of Neville’s contacts took Bloodshot to an old computer that he used to download reconnaissance files he acquired during his last mission and make contact with Neville and Jillian. Informing Neville of a warhead on route to Syria via the Indigo Cartel, Russian weapon dealers, for delivery to Bhutu Hassan, Bloodshot offered to intercept the missile before it reached Hassan at sunset that night. Thought hesitant at first, Neville ordered Bloodshot to intercept the cargo and stop Hassan by any means. Meanwhile, somewhere in the desert, Hassan and his men boarded a hovercraft bound for the Syrian shore.
Sometime later in the Syrian shore of the Mediterranean, as Hassan finished his transaction with the Indigo Cartel and took delivery of the warhead, Bloodshot suddenly came out of the desert riding a motorcycle and startled the cartel’s operative, who ran inside a helicopter to escape. Leaping into the helicopter after it took off, Bloodshot killed everyone onboard and commandeered control of the craft to go after Hassan, who escaped on the hovercraft with the warhead. Flying over the hovercraft, Bloodshot’s chopper took crippling bullet hits, so he jumped onto the hovercraft before the chopper crashed.
Running on the deck toward the warhead, Bloodshot killed everyone who stood in his way until he and Hassan where the only ones left onboard. Shooting at Bloodshot from the safety of his gun turret, Hassan mockingly yelled that unless he reset the bomb’s timer it would blow up. Convinced that Hassan was mad enough to go through with his threat, Bloodshot reached for the bomb certain that his nanites could reset the timer. Worried that Hassan would blow up the bomb before he finished, Bloodshot took control of the crane and released the bomb into the ocean just in case he could not reprogram it in time. Finding the timer with three seconds to go before detonation, Bloodshot used his rapport with machines to halt the countdown.
Fighting through the pressure of the depths, Bloodshot swam back to the hovercraft and knocked Hassan out.
Blood And Roses
Somewhere in Alphabet City, New York near Avenue D, Bloodshot acted as back up for the DEA during a drug sting operating as a favor for Neville Alcott. Witnessing the dealers murder the DEA agents, Bloodshot leapt into the fray certain that the dealers had a snitch who alerted them to the sting and killed every one of them except for Rosetti, the dealer, who he decided to track later. Reaching for a briefcase that Rosetti left behind, Bloodshot opened it to see what was worth killing for, but as he did, a bomb inside it went off. Less than a block away, Anna Trebecci, a mysterious beautiful woman waiting in a limo, asked her driver, Charles, to investigate the hold up, when just then, Rosetti ran by and killed him. Almost an hour later, Anna walked into the alley and found Bloodshot’s body laying on the ground amid the rubble from the explosion.
Waking up naked in bed in Anna’s mansion two days later, Bloodshot found himself smitten by her beauty and personality, so, despite the lingering question of what happened to the DEA agents and his duty to report to Neville, he opted to stay with her. Over the next two days, while his body recovered from the trauma of the explosion, Bloodshot continued to dodge calling Neville while he and Anna grew closer, until one night, he made love to her in spite of his qualms over getting romantically involved with a married woman. Two days later, time during which they grew closer in love with one another, while Bloodshot made breakfast for Anna she discerned that he was leaving her and was not planning to return.
An hour later, Bloodshot left Anna’s mansion garbed in a suit she bought for him. Dodging a Mob tail, Bloodshot made it to his flop house in New York and called Neville, who informed him that the DEA had found the snitch that sold out their agents and were about to arrest him.
Three hours later, on the Jersey side of the Hudson river near Hoboken, Bloodshot accompanied the DEA agents to a yacht to arrest Agent McCarthy, an undercover officer who had been under so long that he sold them out. Spotting a shooter at the dock, Bloodshot froze for the first time in his life and was unable to stop him from killing McCarthy and then running away.
Uncertain of why he did it, Bloodshot returned to Anna’s house and broke in to see her. Wondering if it was love that paralyzed him, Bloodshot wanted to tell Anna that he loved her, but she stopped him before he could say a word. Later, Bloodshot urged Anna to leave her husband and go with him, but she refused, and instead begged him to protect her husband and ensure the would make it home alive. Though he would rather kill him, Bloodshot nevertheless did as Anna asked him and went to find her husband, Vincenzo Trebecci.
That night, at a private airstrip outside Massapequa Park, Bloodshot waited for a plane carrying Vincenzo, a criminal in exile from the country who the feds would arrest and rival mobsters would kill just as fast. As the plane landed, Bloodshot spotted a sniper and killed him, but not before he got a shot off that hit Vincenzo’s bodyguard. Engaging a group of mobsters that came down the runaway with guns blazing, Bloodshot recognized Rosetti’s voice and killed him. Smelling a set–up, Bloodshot killed everyone except for Vincenzo and his men. Standing over the mobster’s corpses, Bloodshot warned Vincenzo to leave.
Sometime later, standing outside the gate to her mansion, as Bloodshot told Anna what happened he realized that she did not really love her husband, just the things that he gave to her. Confessing that he was running away and that he realized that he did not love her either, Bloodshot decided that it was not worth it to trade his prison for the one that he would share with her and walked away, leaving Anna behind her mansion gates.
Tears Of A Clown
Outside the Daly–Walstein Circus Big Top, Joey Vantago and Nick Maccini, two Mob hitmen, opened fire on the carnival freaks and walked away certain that they had killed all of them, unaware that Lenny Branuzzi, the clown, was alive. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Bloodshot stalked out a condemned building that Detective Morgan told him was a front for Det, a gun runner selling army–issue weapons. Breaking into the building, Bloodshot killed Det’s men and then forced Det to tell him where he got his stock from. Later that night, at St. Vincent’s hospital, Mr. Walstein, the circus owner, asked Lenny, a former boxer, to become his head of security, but claiming that he was a clown that made people laugh and not a dumb pug, Lenny kicked him out of his room.
Two weeks later, after seeing on the news that Vantago had been released due to lack of evidence, Lenny went to the cemetery, and while standing over his friends’ graves garbed in a dark clown suit with a skull on its chest, he yelled out that he was a clown that made criminals pay.
The next day, Bloodshot used Det’s information to stop a major weapons deal in Harlem, but during the tumult, Det got away just as Detective Morgan arrived with the cops. Later that afternoon in the Bronx, Lenny followed Vantago and Maccini into a mob front, and calling himself Uzzi The Clown killed everyone inside. Later in Harlem, Uzzi forced Det inside a car and took off, unaware that Bloodshot was close behind them.
That night, on a bridge on New York’s south side, Uzzi pushed Det down the catwalk to take him up to the top of the bridge so he could string him up as a symbol for all the mobsters that crime did not pay. Kicking Uzzi on the shins, Det tried to run away, but Uzzi shot him in the knee caps and crippled him. Standing on the other side of the bridge, Bloodshot called Uzzi out by his real name and told him to drop his gun, but he refused. Firing a shot at Uzzi’s head, Bloodshot missed his target due to the high winds and the bullet ricocheted off the girder. Refusing to go to jail, Uzzi leapt off the bridge into the stormy waters below.
Chaos Effect Gamma
Lights Out
Finding the Secret Weapons running an exercise outside Heathrow airport, Bloodshot stopped Mach’s high–jinks before he alerted airport security of their presence. Asking Bloodshot to let him run the team his way, Sinclair reminded him that he was the Secret Weapon’s leader, a de facto decision that Sonar, who Bloodshot could tell was bitter over what happened to the original Para–Man, did not agree to. Upset, Sinclair told Sonar that there were many things he did not agree with that he was stuck with, just like she was stuck with him. Just then, Jillian arrived to inform the team that they had clearance to enter the Tower of London to diffuse a hostage situation. Watching the Secret Weapons walk away, Bloodshot whispered to Jillian that for a new team they already had a lot going against them. Meanwhile in suburban London, the Immortal Enemy, empowered by the influx of necromantic energy, gained the ability to transfer his consciousness from Timmy, his latest incarnation, to the boy’s father without touching his new host or having to kill the child.
Beneath the Tarmac of Heathrow Airport, as Bloodshot made his way to the locker room to retrieve his bag, the lights suddenly went out and the lift he was in plummeted to the ground. Awakening an hour later unable to access his internal clock, read his metabolic system, or employ his enhanced strength, Bloodshot realized that his nanites shut down when the elevator did. Some miles away, the Immortal Enemy, drawn into town by the effects of chaos, wandered the empty streets, which reminded him of the days when he could kill an entire family and it would take the authorities weeks to find the bodies. Two hours later, the Immortal Enemy discovered that he was burning out his host’s body and needed to find another one, when then he ran into an acceptable subject.
Under Heathrow, Bloodshot, unsure of what was going on topside, retrieved a dead guard’s gun and made his way to a system of access tunnels Neville told him about once. Coming upon a fork in the road, Bloodshot, unable to access any of the data stored in the nanites, had to make an educated guess on what path to follow, one of which had been walled off years earlier. Above ground, not many miles away, Cheng followed the death energy that caused the chaos around him in his new body, leaving Lloyd’s corpse behind on the lawn.
Reaching a dead end, Bloodshot turned back and found an exit that opened in a cemetery. Staring at Big Ben, Bloodshot noticed that there were no lights on in the city. Presuming that Para–Man had the sense to abort the mission, Bloodshot went to find the Secret Weapons. Sometime later, outside the Tower of London, Cheng attacked a sentry and two police officers, one of which shot him. Hitting Cheng on the back with the butt of his gun, Bloodshot stopped him from snapping a cop’s neck, when then, he recognized his distinctive eyes. Fighting Cheng hand to hand, Bloodshot accused him of being part of the craziness around them. Grabbing Bloodshot by the neck, Cheng, who was unable to take over his body, told him that he could make him watch while others died. Taking a switchblade out of a pouch, Bloodshot slashed Cheng’s face.
Certain that Cheng was connected to the night’s events, and feeling a different type energy coming off of him, Bloodshot chased him inside the tower. Feeling the same energy coming from the top of the tower, Bloodshot deduced that it was the center of all the chaos. Reaching the top of the tower, Cheng searched for the Silver Basin, a container of death energy that held the necromantic power he needed. Following the basin’s call to a hall in the wall, Cheng stepped through it, when then, Bloodshot jumped him and pushed him into the other room, where the Secret Weapons were fighting a man called Crona.
Clothes Make The Man
Standing outside the White Tower, Carol Hatcher accused Sinclair of not deserving to wear his suit, then she said that Richard would not have had them stand there like fools during a hostage situation. Pointing at the guards, Sinclair told Carol that there were two of their own inside, and that they deserved every chance to rectify the situation themselves. Laying against a tree, Andre DuBois asked Joe Valez what moved Carol, Richard’s death or the fact that Sinclair was wearing his Para–Man suit, which he himself was not sure he deserved. Assuring Andre that Sinclair, with whom he had worked before, could handle the suit, Joe said that Carol was another story. Fed up, Sinclair ordered Carol to fall in line, when then Tex, one of the burglars, opened fire on the guards. Telling the others to check their suits’ batteries, Para–Man ordered them to breach the tower.
Standing by a window at the top of the tower, Tex watched with delight as the guards scattered, when then a raven flew at him and he shot him. Recounting the legend of the ravens that guard the royal treasures in the tower, the burglars’ leader, a blonde woman, told them that the queen could sleep easy as they were too stupid to pull of a simple robbery. Telling the woman that there was time for them to retrieve the Silver Basil, Tex questioned why their boss wanted her to tag along and wondered what her part in the robbery was. Assuring Tex that he did not have to worry about her, the woman told him that he worry about the storm. Telling Tex that he would find out why she was there soon enough, the woman discreetly placed her hand on a knife.
Under the cover of a blanket of white noise generated by Sonar’s suit, the Secret Weapons broke into the tower, startling a sentry in the lower level. Advancing on the man from opposite sides, Tank and Mach told him to lower his weapon, when then the lights went out. Refusing to surrender, the man shot Tank, who snapped his neck. Upstairs, the woman killed all the burglars and filled the basin with their blood, which released a surge of energy. Kneeling down, the woman recited an incantation that called forth Crona, a spirit trapped within the basin that manifested beside her. Seeking nourishment, Crona sucked the woman’s soul.
Hearing a scream, Para–Man sent Mach to investigate, but soon as he took a step, Mach fell down and they all discovered that their suits no longer worked, but nevertheless, Para–Man ordered them to go up. Reaching the top of the tower, the Secret Weapons were astonished to find the badly decomposed corpses of the guards and the burglars. Enraged, Sonar accused Sinclair of being responsible for those people’s deaths, when then Crona ordered them to leave him to the power in the basin or suffer the same fate as the other mortals.
Angered, Mach lunged against Crona, who easily pushed him out of his way. Grabbing a scepter, Tank hit Crona across the jaw, but proving to be stronger than he was, Crona grabbed Tank’s neck and pushed him to the ground. Looming over Tank, Crona reached for his head to rip it off his shoulders, when then Sonar came running toward him with a sword. Promising to keep her alive long enough for her to see her own body rot, Crona shot Sonar with a blast from his hand, but then Para–Man tackled her to the ground before it connected. Standing over Para–Man and Sonar, Crona accused them of distracting him from tapping into the power within the basin, when just then, Bloodshot and the Immortal enemy came crashing through a wall.
Grabbing the side of the basin, the Immortal Enemy could feel it drawing the power from whatever was going on outside in great amounts, while Crona, sensing that he was not like the others, warned him not to test him. Deciding that they were out of their league, Para–Man ordered the others to retreat, but Bloodshot refused to let either Cheng or Crona have the basin. Telling Para–Man that whatever was going on outside powered Cheng, Bloodshot explained that it was the silver that was focusing it and ordered him to destroy it. Certain that his suit would protect him, Tank grabbed Mach and threw him against the basin, which shattered into a dozen pieces. Enraged, Crone lunged against Tank, when suddenly the ravens swoop down on the broken pieces of the basin and took them with them, taking Crona’s power as well. Grabbing an ax, Tank then beheaded Crona, who turned into energy and vanished.
Sometime later, while paramedics took Bloodshot out in a stretcher, Carol accused Sinclair of killing Richard and two guards had to drag her away.
Heart’s Desire
While on his way to Heathrow Airport, where Neville was expecting him to brief him on a mission to capture Mademoiselle Noir, who had escaped from MI–6, Colin King avoided an airplane that crashed within meters of his car. Feeling the blistering heat on his face and the stench of aviation fuel and smoke in the air, Colin wondered what brought the plane down, when then he heard the shrieking sound of a second plane crashing behind him and he realized that there was nothing natural about these disasters. Sometime later, Ninjak broke into MI–6 headquarters through the vent system. Informing Alcott that Heathrow was a disaster area, with planes dropping like lead balloons, Ninjak asked if anyone knew what was going on, so Sinclair told him that before everything died on them they registered a global power surge on the electromagnetic scale.
Deducing that Silk would be blind and more helpless than he had ever been before, Ninjak wanted to strike, when, suddenly, Mademoiselle Noir, empowered by the chaos effect, materialized in the middle of the room as an unearthly Goddess behind a carpet of red muzzle flash fired by puppets who were once MI–6’s finest. Falling to their knees, all the men in the room became Noir’s slaves, except for Ninjak, who despite his racing heart and lust for her, resisted her irresistible charms. Amazed by Ninjak’s resistance, Janine desired to know more about him. Taking Ninjak to a tropical island, Janine found him to be a man who had strength that made him a worthy lover. Savoring his immunity to her power, Noir found Colin to be everything she desired.
Confessing that when Darque made her what she was she lost the chance to love, Janine told Colin that she loathed the human cattle that fell at her feet, and that she longed for a partner who would love her, not her powers. In awe of her, Colin told Janine that in exchange of her taking him to face Dr. Silk so that he could finally end his struggle with him, he would be hers forever. Finding his heart’s desire to be a fair exchange for her own, Janine entered Colin’s mind and used his memory of Silk to take him to Dr. Silk.
Appearing in Webnet central in less than a blink of an eye, Ninjak engaged Silk’s security guards, when then Janine ended their lives with a snap of her fingers. Telling her to stay out of his business, Ninjak moved forward, but Janine ignored him and continued to interfere, until he threatened to rescind their deal unless she allowed him to finish things his way. Reaching the inner sanctum, Ninjak swiftly dispatched Fitzhugh, Silk’s bodyguard. Holding Silk at bay with the tip of his sword, Ninjak ignored his pleas for mercy and was ready to strike, but then he hesitated and pulled back. Realizing that his journey had been a mockery of everything he struggled for, Ninjak accused Janine of taking away the challenge and the prize of being hollow. Accusing Ninjak of being unbearably noble or pathetically squeamish, Janine used her spell on Silk to make him beg Ninjak to kill him, but turning his back on both of them, Ninjak told her to let him go and called their deal off.
Upset, Janine blasted Ninjak across the room with a wave of her hand and threatened to burn the flesh from his bones if he defied her any further, when just then, she noticed Fitzhugh wheeling Silk out of the room. Though she commanded him to return to her, Janine’s spell did not work on Fitzhugh, who took Silk away. Facing Ninjak, Janine demanded that he honor their deal. Asking Janine to reach into his mind, Colin told her that it was fitting that they should be together since they were kindred spirits destined to never find real love again. Showing her his memories of Michiko Okubo, Colin told Janine that her prize was as empty as his. Appalled, Janine accused Colin of buying her help with an empty promise. Her heart fluttering away, Janine released Ninjak, who through the vestige of their psychic bond, felt her hopelessness before she vanished.
Finding himself alone, Ninjak centered his thoughts and focused to drive aside the madness of that insane day. Though he threw away the change to kill Silk, Ninjak felt no regret, certain that Silk would soon die by his hand in a victory that he would earn. Hearing Webnet’s guards approaching, rallied, rearmed, and returned in force, Ninjak welcomed the challenge.
Risen From The Dead
Outside Heathrow airport, Gilad witnessed as an airplane crashed on the tarmac after its engines cut off as a result of the strange clouds gathered overhead. Wondering if anyone survived the crash, Gilad jumped over a fence and ran toward the airplane to help the survivors. Ripping a door off its hinges, Gilad walked inside the plane, while outside the paramedics and ambulances gathered around the crash. Kicking the emergency door aside, Gilad emerged from the wreck holding two children on his shoulders. Hearing the paramedics say that even their flashlights did not work, Gilad felt like he was back in the dark ages. Watching the paramedics take the passengers away, glad that theirs was the only plane on the glide path, Gilad wondered what would have caused the disaster, when just then, he felt a strange sensation that drew him elsewhere. Resigned to accept that the whole world seemed to have turned on its rear end in the last few hours, Gilad decided to play by the new rules and followed the strange calling wherever it might take him. Meanwhile, Malloch, empowered by the chaos effect, escaped his confinement within a cavern in a hillside near Heathrow
Sensing Gilad’s presence in a horse ranch where he was borrowing a mare, Malloch thanked the fates for delivering his old enemy into his hands. Retreating into the cavern, a resting place prepared by his followers, Malloch opened his lady Julia’s crypt and commanded her to rise so they might reign once again, but the death power that brought him back was not enough to rouse her from her slumber. Soon, Malloch found Gilad looking to take what he sought from him. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Geoff made his way to Gilad’s apartment looking to gather others who could help him against the chaos effect, when suddenly the pipes blew up and the stairwell filled with water that threatened to drown him.
While riding through a canyon, Gilad got the inexplicable feeling that Geoff was in trouble, when suddenly Malloch threw him off his horse. Lunging against Gilad, Malloch said that his death would awaken his lady, but Gilad hit him across the fate with a rifle and knocked him to the ground. Looming over Malloch, Gilad told him that he believed that he had died in a fire. Crawling away, Malloch said that the cursed silver coins wielded power beyond that ken that saved his body even as the fire took away his life, and that he had laid there ever since, interred alongside his coven, waiting for that night of death. Shooting the mountain to seal the entrance to the cave, Gilad told Malloch that he would have to dig his friends out. Crying out for Julia, Malloch used his power to barrage Gilad with a pile of rocks, but, standing his ground, Gilad shot him repeatedly. Taunting Malloch to pray to his dark Gods to keep his dusty bones together, Gilad shot him in the chest and said that that night was no different than the other times he defeated him and his damned priests.
Standing over Malloch’s remains, Gilad wondered what had brought him back. Taking a dagger from his bag, Gilad walked into Malloch’s resting chamber to finally bring peace to the lost souls that followed him and look again upon the face of the woman he stole from him. Back in Brooklyn, Geoff yelled for anyone to help him and asked the walls to tell him how to get out, when, suddenly, he vanished in a flash of light.
Reaching London’s East Side on his mare, Gilad felt Geoff calling him again, but he also felt that he was all right. Thinking that if anyone in the city would know what was going on it would be his brother, and that he would not be surprised if he had a hand in it, Gilad rode to Ivar’s apartment, where he found a letter addressed to Aram that said that Ivar had left in a time arc. Getting the feeling that the world was coming to an end, Gilad left Ivar’s apartment thinking that there was nothing he could do about it.
Fossil Fuel
Trapped in the flooded stairwell of Gilad’s building, Geoff McHenry could no longer feel the geo–lines of the Earth, when, suddenly, he vanished in a flash of light and reappeared in a cemetery in New Orleans where Sandria Darque told him that the world was full of Darque energy and that chaos was upon them. Taking Geoff by the hand, Sandria told him that there were others they needed to find before they traveled to Ladakh.
That evening, while Archer and Aram were stuck in Los Angeles traffic, an earthquake shattered the bridge they were on and sent all the cars down to the ground. While helping the other drivers, Archer got the feeling that Ladakh was calling him home, so he and Aram went to find a way to get there. As they sky darkened and the temperature fell, Archer said that it seemed like the end of the world, when then he and Aram came upon a mini mall under the protection of a man armed with two guns that was keeping the looters away. Stepping forth, Archer assured the man, Fred Ames of Ames music, that they were not looters. Shortly, a group of actual looters broke into the store, and while Archer and Aram attempted to dispatch them without bloodshed, one of them shot Aram in the chest and Fred, unaware of Aram’s immortality, killed him. Astonished to see Aram still standing, Fred gave him a boxed set of jazz recording as a thank you for his help.
Taking their leave, Archer and Aram followed a crack in the Earth that lead directly to Ladakh that took them to a petroleum field overran by dinosaurs. Igniting the oil around them to cook the dinosaurs, Archer and Aram took shelter in a ridge within the crevice. Just as the fire sucked the oxygen up, and it looked like the end was at hand, Sandria and Geoff appeared and took Aram and Archer with them to Ladakh. Telling them that the chasm would take them to the temple, Sandria left to search for the one who could end the chaos.
As Archer and the others neared the temple, a volley of arrows stopped them in their tracks. Showing himself, Chan ordered them to halt where they were, but then Archer told him that they were friends and had come to help. Aware of who Archer was, Chan gladly guided them to the temple. Reaching a high peak from where they could look at the temple in the distance, Archer knelt before it, grateful that he was able to see it again. Telling Archer and the others that a traveler had fallen out of the sky and not yet regained consciousness, Chan took them inside the temple in the hope that they might recognize him. Walking inside a room where the monks kept Ivar as comfortable as possible, Aram knelt beside his brother and grabbed his hand in his.
The More Things Change...
Outside the Lake Union Mall in Seattle, Washington on July 1988, Ax used his power over electronics to steal money from an ATM, when then, the cops arrived and he and his friend, Artie, barely escaped. A half an hour later in Ax’s basement, his grandfather swatted him with his cane for skipping school. The next morning, while his grandfather yelled at him, Ax used his power to swat him back with the garage door.
In 1994, in NYC, Ax built a remote–controlled robot to attack Bloodshot. Not far away, at the Carter Hotel, Bloodshot held Marty Dietz, a man who witnessed Louis Dominguez killing the Marini boys, off the fire escape from his ankle fourteen floors above Time Square and threatened to drop him unless he testified. Just then, there was a knock on the door and Bloodshot left Marty tied to the fire escape while he went to answer it. Opening the door, Bloodshot let Lt. Morgan, who he left a message for with the dispatch to personally pick up Marty, inside the room. Looking out the window while grabbing a beer, Morgan heard Marty screaming for help and promising to do anything as long as they kept Bloodshot away from him. While the officers took Marty away, Thomas told Bloodshot that there were rumors that a new guy who was taking over territory like crazy had placed a bounty on his head, and did not care how he was brought back, dear or alive. Meanwhile, on New York’s Chelsea area, near 19th Street and 9th Avenue, two armed men killed two gangsters extorting money from the owner of a deli, only to turn on the man and demand the extortion money for themselves.
At One am that morning, Bloodshot, who Morgan told that someone was moving in on family territory, and that a dozen businesses on the block were paying protection money to two new goons that wasted the old messenger boys, followed a tip and found the men the deli. While Bloodshot followed the men to Teddy H’s bar, he heard a noise like a plane flying awfully low, when, suddenly, a robot with Ax’s face came out of nowhere and swatted him off the fire escape to the street. Grabbing a lamppost, Bloodshot twirled and kicked the robot on the chest as it swooped down to attack him. Grabbing the robot’s head while Ax taunted him, Bloodshot got Ax to say that he was wired to the automaton. Fooling Ax to get close to him, Bloodshot used his control over machines to send a feedback burst that blew Ax’s virtual reality remote control and burnt his hands. After severing the robot’s head with his sword, a cathartic experience, Bloodshot walked out into the street and saw an ambulance taking Teddy H to the hospital after the thugs shot him for refusing to pay them.
The next day, in a penthouse office near Central Park, a man draped in shadows warned Don Benito Carboni that unless his men were placed in his territory within sixty days and his crime family removed, what had so far been a relatively bloodless transition would escalate into a war. After Carboni left the office, four trained assassins walked inside and the man offered 10 million dollars to the one who killed Bloodshot.
Wanted: Dead Or Alive!
Following a tip from Andros, a blind newspaper man, Bloodshot went to Mullen’s Pub in Chelsea to ask the bartender, Pat, about the bounty hunters that were after him. Seeing a Japanese man sitting at the bar who he suspected was one of the bounty hunters, Bloodshot fooled him into following to the bathroom, where he leapt up from behind him and grabbed him by the neck. Surprising Bloodshot, the man, Mr. Oyama, tossed him over his shoulder against a door. Drawing his Magnum, Bloodshot shot Oyama, but he dodged the bullet and hit him in his carotid artery, freezing his muscles. Standing over Bloodshot, Oyama told him that he would not kill him in the toilet, as there would be no honor in that. Before leaving, Oyama removed the bullet from the wall and told Bloodshot that the next time he saw it, it would pierce his skin before he died.
Chasing Oyama to the roof of the bar, Bloodshot demanded to know who hired him, but then Oyama, who reshaped the slug into a shruriken, threw it at Bloodshot, who parried it with his sword. Suddenly, Diana, another hunter, shot Oyama in the arm with an arrow to take him out of the hunt. Dodging Diana’s arrows, Bloodshot leapt off the roof and stood on a ledge to wait for her to stand over him to pull her over the edge, but she landed on her feet. Lunging against Diana with a knife, Bloodshot asked her who sent her, but kicking the knife off his hand, she slashed him on the chest with her own blade. Disarming Diana, Bloodshot pulled her toward him by the hair and slammed her against a wall, and then he knocked her out with one punch.
Applauding Bloodshot for taking Diana out, Tex, a third hunter, told him that he was no longer interested n the bounty since he could not spend it if Bloodshot turned him into a multi–plegic who sucked food through a straw, and that he bet it would be more interesting to be on his side. Although he knew that Tex was feeding him a line, Bloodshot decided to go along with him for there chance that he could learn something.
Sometime later, Tex and Bloodshot found Laws, the last hunter, on a roof facing the Carter Hotel preparing a bazooka to shoot a missile into his room. Using his ability to control machines, Bloodshot disarmed Laws’ weapon, but then, the hunter threw a smoke bomb that detonated over their heads. After shooting Bloodshot in the arm with a hollow point bullet, Laws kicked Tex in the abdomen and escaped. As the smoke cleared, Tex told Bloodshot that he could take him where Laws was staying.
Several hours later, Bloodshot and Tex followed Laws to the warehouse distinct. Watching him take a crate inside a warehouse, Bloodshot and Tex jumped into the room through the window guns blazing, but Laws had vanished. While Bloodshot searched the room, Tex opened the crate and activated a bomb inside it. While Bloodshot pushed Text out the window, the bomb exploded and the blast knocked them out. Looming over Bloodshot, Laws aimed his gun at his head.
A Touch Of Fire
Standing over Bloodshot and Tex, Laws called the Immortal Enemy to inform him that he had captured them, but then, Bloodshot took the phone from Laws’ hand, and while holding Laws by the neck, told Juan Caldone that he was coming to get him. After breaking the phone in his hand, Bloodshot tossed Laws against a wall and demanded that he tell him everything about his boss. Meanwhile, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, while a doctor insisted that he put on a pair of prosthetic arms, Cinder, who lost his hands in his last battle with Bloodshot, burnt the doctor and orderly to a crisp and discovered that he did not need hands to touch them to do it. Across town, Bloodshot engaged Laws in fisticuffs and demanded to know about his boss, but, ultimately, Laws escaped using another smoke bomb. Throwing Text over his shoulder, Bloodshot walked out of the smoke determined to get past the cannon fodder and find the Immortal Enemy to take the battle to him.
While Bloodshot took a stroll through Central Park, Cinder, who blamed him for his wife leaving him and the loss of his arms, shot him with a blast of fire. Realizing that Cinder’s power had changed, Bloodshot dodged the blasts and threw a park bench at him, but that only enraged. Shooting Bloodshot, Cinder set him ablaze, but Bloodshot jumped in the lake and put the flames out. Jumping out of the water, Bloodshot destroyed Cinder’s prosthetics and, punching him out, told him that he set off the explosives that cost him his hands and drove his wife away. Suddenly, someone shot Bloodshot with a dart. Turning back, Bloodshot saw Glyder, Phaze, and Cobrah, the Harbinger Foundation’s Black Ops team, who knocked him out but did not kill him. Dazed, Bloodshot watched as Cobrah and Phaze took Cinder inside a van and left. Gliding over him, Glyder told Bloodshot that she knew Cinder was too violent to live in the real world, which was why the foundation formed her group, to deal with Harbingers like him. Certain that they were going to kill Cinder, Bloodshot walked away unsure of what made him sick the most; their doing it or his not thinking it was so wrong.
At the penthouse of the Immortal Enemy, Tex told Caldone that despite not being too wild about catching some of Laws’ blast in his face that was the clincher for Bloodshot to get him figure as being on his side all the way. Telling Caldone that they had reeled him in, Tex said that it was time for Bloodshot to take the bait.
The Blind Leading The Blind
At the 15th Precinct, Bloodshot used the police computers to track down the Immortal Enemy’s host, a broker who two months earlier started putting together a criminal organization. Telling Morgan that the Immortal Enemy had to be close to the person that he was going to take over, Bloodshot said that he was going to get him in a room where it was just the two them and going to put a bullet through his brain. Elsewhere, Diana witnessed as Clay McHenry, Geoff’s uncle and current Geomancer, stopped two men from raping a woman.
Later that night, while Bloodshot circled Caldone’s penthouse in a taxi, inside, Caldone ordered his men to double–check the lower floors and make sure to replace all digital surveillance equipment with older models. Upset to see Tex kicking back in his office, Caldone grabbed him by his shirt and roughly asked him what he was doing there, but then Tex pulled a gun on him. Cocky, Caldone dared Tex to shot him, threatening to take over his body if he did, but then Tex revealed that he had a cyanide tooth in his mouth and that he would bite it before he made the jump. At an impasse, Caldone let Tex go and told him to go check on the others.
Several hours later, Bloodshot swung through a window in Caldone’s building from an adjacent edifice, guns blazing to get his guard’s attention. Hearing the shots, Caldone’s men broke into the room where Bloodshot was and he took them out, but just then, Diana shot him on the leg with an arrow. While fighting Diana, all Michael could think about was that she was the first woman he had met since he became Bloodshot that he could hold without being afraid to break her, but he knocked her out regardless. Walking in on Bloodshot, Clay McHerny said that he sensed the Immortal Enemy and followed him there. Musing how in the past it was Gilad who had defeated the enemy, Clay wondered what he would think of a fighting Geomancer, but Bloodshot told him that he would have to find out next time because Caldone was his.
While Bloodshot and Clay made their way to the penthouse through the stairs, Laws jumped on Bloodshot’s back and detonated a tear gas bomb to blind him so that he could not disable his bomb. Tossing Laws over the railing, Bloodshot sent him careening down 20 stories to the ground. Telling Bloodshot that the stairwell told him that that there was enough Plastique in the penthouse to take out the roof, Clay said that the bomb did not have any electronics for him to control and that the only one that could disable it was Laws. Sensing the timer ticking, Clay led Bloodshot to an elevator and they jumped down the shaft to avoid the explosion.
Shortly, outside, Bloodshot recovered his sight, but it was too late and Caldone had escaped, but Clay assured him that they would be there when he returned.
Big Trouble In Little Clown Town
Big Trouble In Little Clown Town
In the Carny Town of Orchid, off the Southeast coast of Florida, while Uzzi the Clown painted his face and Malcolm took pictures of Monkey–Boy in his house, a group of thugs working for Mr. Grambolli suddenly tore the house down with a bulldozer to make room for condominiums and Uzzi killed them with his guns.
Two days later, Malcolm showed Bloodshot a picture of Uzzi, and Michael decided to go find him. The next day, Bloodshot arrived at the Carny Town right before Grambolli’s men arrived with bulldozers to raze it. Helping Monkey–Boy’s wife and daughter escape the gunfire, Bloodshot took them to the fun house, from where he saw as the goons killed the circus folk. Joining Uzzi and the others against the mobsters, Bloodshot thought that if they could get past that little war he might be able to bring the law into this since he Mafia’s strong–arm tactics had screwed up any legal claim they might have had, when then a mobster attacked him with a bulldozer. Unable to shut it down, Bloodshot took hold of the dozer and toppled it on its side.
Watching the monsters leave, Bloodshot declared that he conflict was over, but Uzzi wanted to take the fight to the Mafia’s turf and convinced others to follow him. Giving them a five minute head start, Bloodshot followed Uzzi and the other circus folk to the swamp, where three alligators suddenly attacked him.
Uzzi And His Killer Clown Commandos!
Wrestling a giant alligator in Southeast Florida at midnight, Bloodshot tossed it against a tree and then scared it and its friends away with gun fire. Twenty minutes later, Bloodshot returned to the Carny Town with Uzzi, who went back when he and the others realized that they could not track down the mobsters in the dark. A few miles away, Marty, Mr. Grambolli’s hired thug, told him that he needed manpower and support to clear out the Carny Town and deal with Uzzi. Meanwhile outside, a guard found Malcolm taking pictures and took him to the office, were Grambolli ordered him to drop Malcolm on the foundation of lot fourteen. Back in Orchid, while Bloodshot used maps of Grambolli’s construction site that Monkey–Boy stole to lay out a plan of attack, Uzzi stocked them up with weapons from his arsenal.
Meanwhile, in England, Ian McDowell, Jillian’s replacement while she was on holiday, informed Sinclair that he wanted the Secret Weapons and Bloodshot to travel to Korea to stop the sale of components to nuclear weapons. Later, McDowell called Tanaka in Osaka and informed him that Bloodshot would be in Korea.
Back in Florida, Uzzi and his commandos cut out the lights of the Mafia–controlled construction site and attacked. While Uzzi broke into the trailer and took out Grambolli, outside Bloodshot led the assault hoping that he could convince the Carnies to come to some kind of deal before there was no one left on either side. Seeing Uzzi chasing Grambolli out of the trailer at gun point, Bloodshot stopped him and told him that he did not have to kill him. Standing back to back, Uzzi and Bloodshot watched while the mobsters held their friends at bay. As Bloodshot asked Uzzi if he wanted to see his friends get killed and Uzzi said that he just wanted them to stand up for themselves, a monster walked up from behind them and held Uzzi at gun point, but then Monkey–Boy leapt out at him and the guy shot him with Uzzi’s prop gun.
Just then, Benito Carboni arrived on the scene and stopped the shootout, promising that Orchid would be left alone and that the inhabitants could assume immediate possession of the completed condos with Grambolli’s complements. Surprisingly, however, Uzzi took Malcolm hostage so that Bloodshot would not arrest him. Running into the bayou, Uzzi stood too close to the water and fell over the edge. Watching the alligators gather where Uzzi fell, Bloodshot did not put it past Uzzi to bite the gators and escape.
Rampage
Rampage – Part I
Climbing down from a helicopter into North Korea, Bloodshot lead the Secret Weapons to a distribution hub confirmed to be wholesaling nuclear bomb components. Commandeering a truck, Para–Man drove it through the front gate while Bloodshot gunned down anything that moved. Meanwhile, at Musashi Labs in Osaka, Tanaka, having learned of Bloodshot’s attack on the Kyoto facility, ordered Nicolai, the facility’s manager, to pull his men while he took care of everything else. Walking into a heavily–protected room, Tanaka stood over a cryogenic tube that held Hideyoshi Iwatsu inside and told his father that he would be rejoining them soon.
In Korea, Bloodshot and the Secret Weapons discovered that the facility was empty, when suddenly the doors to the warehouse shut closed and the room filled with gas that knocked the Secret Weapons out while armed mercenaries shot Bloodshot with high–powered tranquilizers that knocked him out before he could metabolize them. Restrained in a device designed to send a random frequency charge that prevented him from using his ability to control machines, Bloodshot awoke in a room at Musashi Labs where Tanaka told him that he was going to complete the programming in his nanites to turn him into the perfect host for his father’s memories.
Elsewhere, the Secret Weapons broke out of a cell and went to find Bloodshot. Fighting their way through the security guards, the Secret Weapons reached the room where Tanaka was holding Bloodshot hostage. Breaking inside, Sonar let out a high frequency pitch that destroyed Hideyoshi’s cryogenic tank. Looming over Bloodshot, Tank asked him if he was okay, when suddenly Bloodshot punched him on the jaw and sent him reeling backwards. The programming in the nanites in his blood having been completed, an imposing Bloodshot, his body covered in sweat, stood over the frightened Secret Weapons.
Rampage – Part II
Somewhere in rural Japan, Bloodshot used his ability to control machines to take out Sonar and Mach, and though Tank wanted to face him one on one, confident that he could not stop him since his power was in him and not his suit, Para–Man held him back and Bloodshot escaped. Later, in a jet heading for England, Sinclair told the rest of the team that, from the stories Bloodshot had told him, he was acting like a rampaging killing machine like when he awoke from Project Rising Spirit. Wondering how they could stop him, John told the others that he knew of man capable of stopping Bloodshot, but that he doubted that Neville would agree to it.
Later, with Neville’s permission, Sinclair went to MI–6’s medical center where the individual he spoke of was prisoner. After signing documents and having the built–up of static electricity in his body discharged, Sinclair, ignorant of the extent of the inmate’s power, followed a nurse to a specially– built wing of the hospital constructed out of that lacked any technology and where the nurses only used 19th Century medicine to take care of their prisoner. There, he walked into a room where he offered Ax, the Harbinger with a score to settle with Bloodshot, amnesty for his help in bringing Bloodshot in, but swearing that when Bloodshot went down he would be the one to do it and not with Sinclair’s help, Ax refused and laughed at his face.
Later, the Secret Weapons followed a reported sighting to a lab not 20 minutes away from Heathrow, where they found Bloodshot garbed in a Speedshot uniform. With extreme prejudice, Bloodshot took out every members of Secret Weapons one on one until he and Para–Man where the last ones standing. Though injured, Para–Man, sufficiently enraged, stood up to Bloodshot ready to face him with the full power at his disposal
Rampage – Part III
Obeying the programming in his nanites, Bloodshot escaped through a hole on the wall blasted by Para–Man before he fell unconscious to continue his acquisition of the necessary means to complete his directives to destroy target sites and kill Neville Alcott. In Osaka, Tanaka learned that Bloodshot was following the new programming in his nanites, and was well on track to destroy all known British Intelligence facilities and methodically murder all division heads. Breaking into a paramilitary installation outside London, Bloodshot acquired hand held firearms and enough C4 explosive to complete his directives.
Hours later, Bloodshot broke into the home of Neville Alcott, but Ninjak stopped him from killing Neville. During the ensuing battle, Bloodshot knocked Ninjak out, and would have killed him had Neville not shot him with his berretta to distract him. Stopping Bloodshot from breaking Neville’s, Ninjak planted a tracking beacon on him before the Secret Weapons arrived and forced him to escape.
Following the beacon to a British Intelligence’s newest high–tech facility hidden below an urban setting near the docks of the Thames river, the Secret Weapons ambushed Bloodshot, who once again took them out with ease. Leaping between Bloodshot and the others, Ninjak showed him that he had diffused his bombs and begged him to go with him to the hospital where they could make him better. Just then, however, Bloodshot took out a C4 block and a detonator that he used to blow up the facility.
Rampage – Part IV
Falling through the floor following the explosion, the Secret Weapons and Ninjak found themselves in the sewer, where, frozen with panic, Tank, who was afraid of fire, could not move. Crawling out of the wreck, Bloodshot grabbed Ninjak and squeezed him in his arms to kill him. Surmounting his fear, Tank punched Bloodshot out and then escaped with Ninjak in his arms. Gathering with Mach and Sonar behind a wall of fire that separated them from Bloodshot, Ninjak got an idea to use his nanites against him.
Elsewhere, a doctor informed Neville Alcott that John Sinclair had gained the powers of the Para–Man suit independently from it, and that he did not need the suit to have the powers. Telling Neville and Jillian that when the others had problems with their suits Sinclair did not because his suit was not working, the doctor theorized that when the suit started to malfunction rather than adapt to Sinclair’s body, it adapted Sinclair to it. Excited, Neville ordered Sinclair to engage Bloodshot, certain that without the limitations of the suit, he could get close to him without his being able to shut his powers down.
Meanwhile, at the Mansion of Colin King near Canterbury, retrieved a sample of Bloodshot’s blood filled with uninfected nanites from the sword with which he skewered him when they first met to put his plan in motion. Elsewhere, in an abandoned tenement building, Bloodshot ingested trace minerals and protein drinks to help his nanites heal him from the damage he sustained in the explosion, unintentionally giving the infected nanites a stronger foothold in his system.
While Ax killed the nurse watching him in the hospital cell and went to find Bloodshot, back at MI–6 headquarters, Jillian introduced the Secret Weapons to the new Para–Man, John Sinclair, who showed up in a newly–designed suit similar to the Weaponeer’s enhancement suit ready to face Bloodshot once again.
Rampage – The Conclusion
While Bloodshot walked through a busy street in downtown London, a double decker bus ran him over. Enraged, Bloodshot jumped inside the bus and tossed the driver out the window, when just then, Para–Man arrived sporting a modified costume and attacked him. Sensing that Para–Man posed a threat, Bloodshot used his command over machines to endanger a lift filled with innocent people to distract John while he escaped.
In Canterbury, Colin located the high–order functions within Bloodshot’s nanites, which he believed he could use as antibodies to purge the Rampage programming that Tanaka infected him with. Looking at Bloodshot’s being laid out before him, Colin wrestled with the morality of improving him, and though he decided that doing so would make him no different than the people who did that to him in the first place, he decided that perhaps he would let Bloodshot keep his physical enhancements and boost his strength and agility a notch. Back at MI–6 headquarters, Ax used the digital phone lines in the building to listen in on a conversation between Jillian and the rest of the Secret Weapons. Learning that Neville was hiding in a safe house in old Glenborough lane, Ax, certain that Bloodshot would go there, decided to beat him to it.
Several hours later, outside the safe house, Ax, posing as a fast food delivery boy, killed the guard at the gate, while inside Bloodshot broke in through a window looking for Neville. Holding Bloodshot at bay with a gun powerful enough to blow a hole in his chest, Neville gave Bloodshot reason to question the level of threat that he posed to him. Just then, however, Ax arrived, and after disarming Neville, he used his technopathy to paralyze Bloodsh