Leyton Poole’s hands had never shaken. Never once in his entire career. Not in blizzards or hurricanes, not when he was sleep-deprived, not when he was sick.

But today, waiting outside the outskirts of Detroit with his camera on his shoulder, feet floating off the ground and the greatest murderer in human history patiently counting down the minutes by his side – today, he shook.

“Careful of that,” the Black Death said mildly, sliding over his trembling with an imperious eye. The first words he’d spoken since he’d teleported them from New Mexico. “I want it as clear as possible. I want everyone to see.”

Leyton nodded, swallowing, clenching his jaw. Sweat, or maybe tears, stung his vision.

“Don’t worry,” the Black Death assured him, his arms behind his back, “You’re not in danger. So long as you remain by my side doing your usual, exemplary work, you and your family will live.”

“Y-y-yes,” he stammered. His fingers squeezed white around the camera.

“Yes what?” Heydrich said quietly.

“Yes, yes sir!”

“Good,” he smiled. The alarm on Leyton’s watch beeped and the Black Death got to his feet. “You learn quickly.” He glanced with an expression of mild boredom in towards the city, at the crowd gathering in the streets. “Others, it seems, resist the lesson.”

His head turned to the cameraman. “Turn it on.” Leyton’s fingers fumbled and the broadcasting light flashed red. “I take no pleasure in this,” he announced into the lens, shaking his head, “In the arrogance of fools. I do this to better the world. A gardener, pulling weeds.”

He started towards the crowd. “Stay close Poole,” he instructed, striding forward, “Let the world bear witness.” They walked without speaking – the Black Death first, his hands behind his back, humming a tuneless tune, coattails flapping in the breeze; the cameraman six steps behind, his pale blue shirt and jeans stained with sweat. The waiting crowd made no noise to greet them – no shouts of anger, no cries of fear. They stood, the wall of them, a formless mob turning to distinct human figures as the Black Death and his witness drew closer.

Police and military uniforms, clerks and office workers, punk kids and tradesmen. Lightning crackled and fire sparked, knuckles cracked and light flickered. Some turned larger, some turned to stone, young and old, rich and poor. All came, all stood together, defiant, to defend their city. A wall of people against him. An army of the superhuman. Against one man.

The Black Death stopped, fifty feet from the first of them. Then he held out his hands and spoke to them, to the whites of their eyes.

“I will give you one more chance,” he called and his voice echoed through the streets, “I am merciful. Leave now and go unharmed. Stay and perish.”

The wind rolled through behind him, between the silent houses and amongst the waiting crowd. Fists clenched. Throats swallowed.

But no one moved.

“Screw you,” someone called. A shout rang out amongst the fighters – and then, together, they attacked.

A wall, a tidal wave of ice and lightning, metal and earth, acid and energy, flesh and flame, charging, unleashed.

The Black Death smiled.

And in his mind’s eye, time slowed to a crawl and he moved to super-speed.

In the space of a nanosecond, he flew up, twenty feet above the crowd. His pupils flashed sparking green and in an instant, a shrieking blast of energy surged out from his eyes. It hit the assembled, a searing deluge slicing through them, blasting half of them back, turning half to ash – and then he flew, faster than sound, down through the middle of them, his body turned to iron, a bullet train carving through meat. His hands crackled and erupted forth a storm of lightning, arcing out into the backs of those still alive – as within the space of the same heartbeat the wall of people fell in slow motion apart, disintegrated, shattered and bleeding. He slammed his hands into the road, rending the earth, turning it to his bidding, raising a thousand shards of splintered rock, launching them out, an unstoppable, gleaming wave, piercing, shredding everything in its path-

And then, so few remained. Then, he only needed to clean up.

Another speedster had escaped, moved aside from the blast, eyes widening with terror as he ran, his mind alone moving fast enough to comprehend the devastation. As he whitened at the sight of slaughter, the Black Death raised a hand, telekinetically pulled him beneath his boot and split his skull against the bitumen. A woman made of metal still stood, naked, her arms over her eyes and her body glowing red from the onslaught – the Black Death sighed, moved alongside her, turned a fingernail to diamond and patiently slit her throat. Then he turned similarly to a man of stone and crushed his head to powder between his palms.

Then he slowed down, stepped back and returned to walking calmly down the road, whistling the same tuneless tune – as three hundred corpses, a field of ash and blood, fell apart in his wake. He raised his hands, palms out towards the buildings lining the street on both sides, magnetically gripping the metal inside them. The walls cracked and the buildings groaned.

“Come along, Mister Poole,” he called pleasantly, “Do keep up.”

Less than ten seconds had passed.

*****

They stood in the colours of the Legion.

Crimson and gold, Kevlar weave and ballistic plating, some with weapons, some without. From every corner of the globe, every colour and creed, but to the same place, for the same reason.

Some stood pale and steadfast, their faces blank. Some sweated, some shuddered, some rocked with heavy rage. Some sobbed, their faces tracked with tears – afraid to go, afraid to die.

But still they stood, as one by one, a hand closed around their shoulder and they vanished into the air. As one by one, they appeared in the city. As together, united, the Legion’s last battalion, the best of mankind, they looked up at the smoke and listened to the sirens, the screaming and the cries.

“Let them know we’re here,” James Conrad said quietly.

And in an instant, Celeste took to the air, arms shimmering to wings of tawny feathers. And as she flew, as her head stretched to a bird of prey’s proud, imperious face, she grew. Higher and higher she flapped above the rooftops, growing, changing, become the eagle – soaring, free. She lifted her head and spread her wings, twenty, thirty feet wide.

And side by side, Charles Farrington of the Ashes, his body aflame, and Jane Walker, the silver badge pinned to her breast, raised their hands into the air and sent forth a blazing wreath of fire, a hundred feet above the city skyline, an arc beneath Celeste. The eagle screeched a bellowing, defiant scream and every person in the city, every fearful face who’d turned and run heard it, looked up and saw – the symbol of the Legion, living, burning in the sky.

The Legion of Heroes had arrived.

Come to save the world, one last time.

*****

“Tsssssrrrr!”

A piercing, distant cry. The Black Death raised his eyes. His face hardened, passed over by a shadow, a flicker of annoyance. Leyton Poole followed his gaze with the camera, to up above the other side of the city where the fifty-foot eagle soared above a wreath of flame. His breathe caught in his chest.

“Survivors,” the Black Death murmured, and there was within his words the barest anger, “Fools.”

He floated upwards, boots drifting from the ground. “Come Poole,” he said softly, “Let us offer them sense.” And then towards the burning symbol they flew.