My Invincible Defense: Traversing the Endless Worlds

Daredevil watched Finn shrink Purple Man’s body and slip it into a transparent box, which promptly vanished. He had plenty of questions, but this hardly seemed the time to ask.

“Finn, do you know what happened to the money in the truck? It all belongs to Citibank—”

“The Punisher really delivered today,” Finn interrupted. “Without him, Purple Man would’ve escaped. If the rest of you punished criminals the way he does and made an example of them by killing them, Hell’s Kitchen would’ve been cleaned up ages ago. You could’ve renamed it Heaven’s Kitchen by now.”

Daredevil took the bait at once.

“We have no right to take another person’s life! Criminals should be judged by the law—”

In his day job, Daredevil was a lawyer. Like Batman, he lived by a strict no-killing rule.

That made his superhero career a constant struggle, full of moral knots. The Punisher, who killed without hesitation, had a much more straightforward time of it.

“Thanks for the compliment, Blaze!”

The Punisher approached across the deserted construction site, a sniper rifle in his hands. A menacing white skull adorned his body armor. With his weathered face and piercing eyes, he looked like a lone wolf ready to take on the world.

“Wait, aren’t you called the Pill-Man?” Daredevil asked, puzzled.

Finn let out a long sigh. “I haven’t settled on a name yet. Stop making them up.”

“Then you’d better hurry. Once the public gets used to a name, you’ll be stuck with it.”

Finn gazed toward the horizon. For some reason, a gas station in the distance erupted in an intense explosion, sending a plume of orange-red flame into the sky.

He gave a slight nod.

“Call me Beacon.”

***

The Punisher was an antihero, a former Marine captain skilled in all kinds of firearms and hand-to-hand combat.

After mobsters murdered his family, he fell into darkness and became the Punisher, launching a campaign of brutal revenge against the criminal underworld. His creed was simple: “If you’re guilty, you die.”

He showed no mercy to any criminal, and his methods were utterly ruthless.

“Punisher, whatever our differences, thank you for helping us wound Purple Man,” Daredevil said grudgingly.

The two were old nemeses who were forever at each other’s throats. The Punisher killed to stop killers. Daredevil refused to kill at all. Their beliefs were fundamentally opposed.

At night, Matt Murdock put on the Daredevil suit and fought the Punisher until both of them were bloody to stop him from killing people. Their sweaty wrestling matches had so much chemistry that even the criminals hated to interrupt.

By day, when the Punisher was hauled into court, Matt Murdock stood up as his defense attorney.

“Punisher, I’m planning to take out Kingpin,” Finn said. “Want in?”

“Hell yeah! Let’s do it!”

The Punisher was delighted. He had wanted to kill Kingpin for years, but taking down that fat bastard was more than he could manage alone.

“Interested?” Finn asked Daredevil. “You don’t have to come. The two of us can handle it.”

“I’m in!”

Daredevil sighed deeply. One trigger-happy maniac like the Punisher was bad enough. Now Finn had turned up with even fewer restraints. At this rate, the streets of Hell’s Kitchen would run red.

With his no-killing rule, Daredevil had little choice but to join them. He hoped he could keep the pair in check and get as many criminals as possible sent to prison instead of executed on the spot.

***

At the Defenders’ secret base, Finn, Daredevil, and the Punisher ate pizza, drank Coke, and discussed how to bring down Kingpin.

Jessica Jones and Iron Fist were recovering in the hospital, with Luke Cage looking after them.

Finn didn’t think much of any of them. Finn alone was more than capable of killing Kingpin.

Still, even a mighty dragon could have trouble overpowering a local snake on its own turf. Besides, a burning sense of justice wasn’t what drew him to Kingpin.

He was interested in Kingpin’s money.

Purple Man had robbed the bank, and Finn had robbed Purple Man. Every dollar and every bar of gold in the truck had gone straight into Finn’s storage space.

It was an enormous haul.

“Beacon, do you know where the money Purple Man stole went?” Daredevil asked cautiously. “The police have searched everywhere within a ten-mile radius. They haven’t found a thing.”

With his radar-like senses, Daredevil had detected the piles of cash and gold in the truck. After Finn ducked into the cargo compartment, it had all vanished like mist, leaving no trace.

Finn was clearly the prime suspect. But Daredevil had only his own account of what he had sensed, which hardly counted as evidence he could hand over to the police.

“Must be one of Purple Man’s tricks,” Finn said without a trace of concern. “The money was already gone when I got inside. Try searching his house. You might find something.”

Daredevil couldn’t detect Finn’s heartbeat, so he had no way to tell whether he was lying. For now, he could only keep his suspicions to himself.

Finn didn’t consider Daredevil a threat. He extended his awareness into his storage space and got down to counting his money.

The cash from Purple Man’s truck was bundled into stacks that formed a small mountain. All the bills were hundred-dollar notes, with a thousand consecutively numbered notes in each bundle.

That made each bundle worth a hundred thousand dollars.

Then there were the crates of gold bars.

Finn counted silently.

One bundle, two bundles, three bundles, four...

By his rough estimate, he had sixty million dollars in cash alone. The five crates of gold would have to be valued separately.

Robbing a robber had really paid off.

After Finn had sat in silence for some time, Daredevil asked, “Beacon, what are you doing?”

“Counting money,” Finn answered automatically.

“Counting money?”

Daredevil looked astonished.

“No, wait. Meditating. Counting money helps you meditate, just like counting sheep helps you sleep.” Finn delivered this off-the-cuff nonsense with perfect confidence.

“Does it?” Daredevil was deeply skeptical, but he let the matter drop.

An LCD television hung on the wall, playing the evening news. Kingpin had just donated five hundred thousand dollars to a foundation that supported orphans.

On-screen, the heavyset crime lord stood at a press conference in a white suit, looking like an oversized snowman. His face glowed as he delivered his speech.

“Kingpin’s trying to clean up his image!” Daredevil said bitterly. “He’s already bought off New York’s entire police force. Half the officials in the government take orders from him, and the mayor is his lapdog! Now the public knows him as a successful businessman and a great philanthropist. Next thing you know, he’ll be running for governor!”

“If we killed Kingpin, wiped out the Irish mob and the Hand, those orphanages would have at least half as many kids to look after,” the Punisher said.

“No.” Daredevil shook his head. “Kingpin runs Hell’s Kitchen. To some extent, he maintains order here. Without that order, more innocent people would die in gang wars.”

“Then keep killing until nobody dares join a gang,” the Punisher said casually.

“That’s far too extreme!”

Daredevil was about to launch into another argument when the news caught both men’s attention.

On the screen, Kingpin was taking questions from reporters. He announced that he had joined the Republican Party and intended to run for governor of New York.

“That bastard’s actually running for office?” Daredevil said in disbelief. “I have evidence of his crimes. It’s time to bring him down through the courts and put him behind bars!”

“Hahahaha! Putting Kingpin behind bars—that’s the second-funniest joke I’ve ever heard,” the Punisher said mockingly. “Know what the funniest one is? ‘Bring him down through the courts.’”

“We have no right to pass judgment on other people—”

The two started arguing again. Finn ignored them. Another news story on the television had caught his interest.

A mutant working for Magneto had infiltrated the White House and attempted to assassinate President Steele. He had managed to get close to the president while there wasn’t a single guard in sight.

In the security footage, the mutant launched himself at President Steele like an arrow. Then he stopped dead in midair, as though something invisible had blocked his path.

A barrage of unseen punches began hammering him.

It was a bizarre sight. Fist-shaped dents appeared all over the assassin’s body, while President Steele stood calmly to one side, still sipping his kopi luwak, or civet coffee.

Only after the mutant had been beaten within an inch of his life did the guards finally arrive and drag him away.

The internet was buzzing with speculation. Plenty of people believed President Steele had been hiding superpowers all along.

At a press conference, a CNN reporter asked Steele about the incident.

“Some people are saying you staged this video using special effects. Voters often believe that a country led by someone with superpowers will be stronger. Are you pretending to have powers in an effort to win more votes?”

“Fake news!” President Steele snapped in fury.

He then ended the press conference.