...He waited patiently. Patience was a virtue he’d developed long ago, waiting for important files to download on his BBS, or his favorite TV program to begin. Patience was a virtue he knew every cop knew, and as a detective in every way that he felt counted, he knew he’d developed it.

But he’d been waiting for nearly ten minutes now, and he felt, truly felt that his patience was through.

He looked again at his therm scan. There were definitely multiple people in the location below. He’d tracked down the purchases made by the woman who named herself Jane West that had visited the old man in the rest home. This was it. The nest. The lair. A group of people, all dedicated to crime and no good. This would make up for all the humiliation he’d suffered when he’d broken into the lair of the last, self-styled supervillain, and they were waiting for him. He’d been gassed, then strapped into a comically complicated deathtrap, one he was in the middle of escaping from when Jason and the rest humiliated him further by suddenly turning up and saving him at the last minute.

“Not this time,” he said under his breath.It had taken a sizable amount of promised money to keep his little goof out of the papers, but they’d pulled it off.

Now, busting a whole group of villains, intent on no good. This would make up for all that. The other heroes would use the name “The Dark” around the base once again like it truly meant something special, something to be feared. Something to be respected.

His Dark Chopper, as the papers had called it, was still in whisper mode. Nigh unhearable by anyone below, its rotor noise was further camouflaged by the windy night. Painted black with no lights visible [not even on the dashboard; he’d trained himself to know the position of every valid button, dial and lever by touch and memory alone. He hardly ever needed to light the board up anymore], it was the perfect vehicle of the night. Even better, plastic copies of it sold in the hundreds of thousands in the toy market, and the Christmas season hadn’t even started yet.

He smiled underneath his mask as he hooked himself up to the cable, and prepared for the jump.

The cable made that zipping noise he loved, loved to hear, because it meant the time for adventure was nigh. ‘Nigh,’ what an awesome, amazing word, he thought in the back of his head as he went through all the martial arts moves he was going to use when he busted through the window. Jeet-Kun-Do if he met a single, worthy opponent, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu if he had some beefy lunkhead who preferred close-quarter fighting, and for groups-

Through the window! Busted glass everywhere! People running, shouting, screaming, high pitched shrieks as he stepped over the Atari.

Atari?

But these were-

He looked again. The room was dark, save for the sounds of Space Invaders, stomping and pulsing in the background on the TV. One child, no more than fourteen, sat on the beat-up couch looking at him. Several pairs of eyes peeked up from behind the couch and around the corners of the walls to look at him in the darkness.

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The, *Fuck*? he thought.

He’d been handed a red herring, and he’d followed it like a first-class amateur.

He looked around some more, his infa-red goggles hidden underneath his mask. The place was crumbling around him- holes in the walls, mold in the ceiling. The place must have been recently abandoned if it still had enough electricity in the wall to run an Atari for their little videogame party.

“Gentlemen,” he said, trying to make his voice sound smooth and kind as possible through the voice distorter, “I am The Dark. I need your help on a case.”

The little guys began to poke out from behind the wall, looking at each other then back at him. The biggest one, obviously their leader, was an Asian like Henry himself. But with a fuller, fleshier face that was almost certain to become piggish later in life.

No matter. Now- he could imagine that he was going to be Henry's sidekick.

They started to edge out towards him, like timid rabbits coming towards offered food.

“I need to know who pointed you to this place. Who told you to use it as a hideout.”

“We won’t get into trouble?”

Henry smiled under his mask. “No. Not if you tell the tru-”

The smoke bomb went off behind him, the thick fog enveloping him and the room in less than three seconds. The boys screamed and ran. Henry turned around just in time to see the white-wigged shadow materialize out of the vapor, just a foot or so in front of him.

“Court’s in session.” it said. Henry dropped and spun, and just barely avoided the large hammer as it swung near his head.

“I’m on your side,” Henry said as he scampered away behind the couch.

“Home invasion,” it said, taking another swing that bashed and broke the couch almost in half.

“I’m working a case!” Henry was having a hell of a time with this idiot. He’d heard of the Hanging Judge before, but never had he actually had to square off against him.

“Menacing minors,” the Hanging Judge continued, his trademark noose barely missing Henry's boot.

Cripes! This shouldn’t be this hard! Who the hell put this guy onto him? Henry had never had to play defense this long in a fight since he was six years old!

Time to stop playing defense, then.

“Objection!” Henry roared, launching himself at the big man. The fellow was large; nearly seven feet tall, it seemed. Henry’s fist careened through the air like a deadly missile, the razors in his gloves’ knuckles popping out slightly, just enough to give a smarting, but not deep cut to whomever he was punching. “Counsel is-”

...and the Judge disappeared. Collapsed into black smoke and whirled away from Henry.

“...making a speech?” Henry finished the one-liner, unsure what to do. He’d trained and trained for years now, to the point where he knew how to counter virtually any kind of punch, kick or object tossed his way by a standard or super-powered criminal. And his acting coach had trained him further on how to improvise cool one-liners in the middle of a fight, the kind bystanders would hear, remember, talk about, and would then show up in the comics and cartoons that came out about The Dark and the rest of the team.

But no teacher he’d ever paid $200 an hour to had ever told him how to counter someone turning into vapor and scuttling away.

“Overruled,” said the voice to his left.

The hammer connected. Henry’s world exploded into colored lights.

#

TO BE CONTINUED...