The Hood

As Parker Robbins gazed out over the endless sprawl of desert sand, he realized just how far he was from home… and how much further he still had to go before he could return. Not long ago, The Hood was poised to expand his budding criminal empire from the streets of the Bronx into Manhattan. But he was forced to put his ambitions temporarily on hold when the powerful being who had granted him his powers gave him a new mission. Before he knew it, he was in the ancient city of Thebes in an alternate universe, lurking behind crumbling stone pillars and watching every move of a Mutant warlord on the verge of becoming a god.

It wasn’t Apocalypse that Parker was sent to find, though. It was something that Apocalypse possessed — a mystical relic known as the Tablet of Death and Entropy. Parker had already seen another tablet just like it, back when New York’s heroes inadvertently broke him free from Wilson Fisk’s maximum-security prison, the Vault. If this second artifact was as powerful as the Tablet of Life and Time, it was no wonder that his benefactor wanted it.

Parker had waited patiently for days, watching from afar as Apocalypse and his followers prepared for some sort of arcane ritual. Parker was more than confident in the mystical powers he had acquired when he donned his enchanted cloak, but he knew that Apocalypse was on a whole different level. If he wanted to get into Apocalypse’s pyramid and find the tablet without getting the tar beaten out of him, his best bet would be to wait until all Clan Akkaba was distracted. So, when the day finally came that the ancient Mutant gathered his forces to witness his ascension, The Hood was ready to make his move.

Knowing he had to act fast, Parker raced toward an entrance into the pyramid’s grounds that had been left unguarded. Sticking to the shadows, he quickly navigated his way through a series of narrow alleyways until he reached an exterior courtyard. But there, he encountered someone unexpected — a man who seemed to be carved from living stone.

“Greetings, Parker Robbins,” the man said calmly. “I have been expecting you.”

“How the hell’d you know my name?” Parker demanded, drawing his pistols from inside of his cloak.

“The stones told me…” the man said dragging his hand across the hieroglyphs carved onto the courtyard wall.

“Did the stones tell you I’m ‘bout to blast you into a pile of pebbles, cabrón?” Parker threatened.

“What the stones say of my fate is not your concern,” the man replied. “However, they did show me why you came here… and how I must aid you with your quest…”

“You don’t know nothin’, you talkin’ rock” Parker scoffed. “And whaddaya mean ‘aid’?”

“I know more than you might believe,” the man said, turning to face the carvings on the wall. “I know that you are a child of another reality. That your path was one of strife and oppression. That your father unwillingly served an unjust king and found himself dead at his hand when YOU sought to claim what was rightfully yours.”

“#$%&@ Fisk…” Parker mumbled under his breath.

“I know that you were set free by your reborn idol and given a chance to follow them in their crusade. But instead, you chose to walk another path. One of righteous vengeance. You claimed a garment of great power woven by a force beyond your comprehension. That force guided you here, to claim an object that my master has kept from falling into the wrong hands.”

“The Tablet of Death and Entropy,” Parker said. “Guess you do know what I’m about, old man. But I don’t know you.”

“I am Ozymandias,” the man replied, gesturing to a fresh series of carvings on a nearby wall. “Look on my works and despair!”

The Hood leaned in and took a closer look at the intricate murals that seemed to be etched into every available inch of stone in the courtyard. Even one depicting the death of Apocalypse as he ascended to godhood. A sharp blade jutted out through the ancient Mutant’s chest. Although he didn’t understand the meaning behind most of the images, he eventually stopped cold when he saw a picture of a hooded man presenting a stone tablet to an enormous hand.

“Tell me what happens after this,” Parker demanded. “I need to know if I’m makin’ the right choice here.”

“I… cannot…” Ozymandias said with a heavy sigh.

“Thought you could see the future,” Parker snarled.

“I could,” Ozymandias said, “until you arrived.”

Ozymandias led Parker over to a series of carvings that were only partially complete. A table with six shadowed seats and a figure standing at the head, unfinished and unidentified. Another, solely the rough outline of a figure who held what looked like a spine in his hand. And the last and least clear, the base of a throne engulfed in what looked like fire.

“The moment you walked into this courtyard,” Ozymandias continued, “my visions of the future became obscured. If I cannot see them, I cannot carve them. If I cannot carve them, then I cannot read them. And thus, we are all left in the dark, forced to face the unknown.”

“You’re blamin’ me for your performance issues? Tsk, no sense of personal responsibility.” Parker asked, shaking his head in disapproval.

“Not you,” Ozymandias responded. “The dark force that empowers you. I know not its goals nor its true identity. Even when I could still see clearly, there were some things beyond my view. But I do know that it has no desire for you to know your true fate. It prefers you as its puppet.”

“You don’t gotta worry about Big O. The Hood ain’t nobody’s puppet!” Parker yelled, his eyes beginning to glow with a demonic rage.

“Then prove it,” Ozymandias said. “Remove your vestment and show me the man that you truly are.”

“Clever,” Parker said with a smile. “The second I take off my hood, I’m an easy target.”

“You already were,” Ozymandias said. “Your master knew exactly what it was doing when it chose you.”

“I chose them!” Parker argued. “I put this thing on of my own free will! And then I used it to carve out my place in the underworld to fill the void Fisk left behind! That was all me! Ain’t nobody tell the Hood what to do!”

“If that is the case,” Ozymandias said, “then remind me… why are you here?”

The Hood lowered his head. Ozymandias wasn’t wrong. Parker had dropped everything when the voice inside of his head told him to come to Thebes and find the Tablet of Death and Entropy. It was almost as if he couldn’t resist. Maybe he wasn’t as in control as he had tried to tell himself he was…

“I’m here to do a job,” Parker eventually said. “Nothin’ more.”

“Just as your father once did for your fallen king?” Ozymandias asked. “The same king who threw you in a dungeon to die when you stood against him? Do you expect any less from this new master?”

“I don’t expect nothin’ from no one,” Parker said. “Never have. Never will. The only one I can count on is me.”

“Ah, perhaps you are wiser than visions led me to believe,” Ozymandias said. “And so, for your own sake, I beseech you once more: Remove your cloak.”

Parker grabbed ahold of the collar of his crimson cape. But before he could tear it from his body, he hesitated. He had tried to remove it before, and every time, he’d ended up in agonizing pain. It was almost as if he had become addicted to the cloak’s power and, by severing that connection, he was being thrust into a state of withdrawal. Parker dropped his hands. He knew he couldn’t take it off, no matter how badly he wished he could.

“I thought not…” Ozymandias said with disappointment. “As I have watched humankind over the centuries, I have seen how easily power can corrupt. I fear that the corruption that flows through you is stronger than any I have ever seen before… and it is only getting worse with every day that passes.”

“You think you know all my secrets, eh?” Parker asked as the stone man’s words hit far too close to home. “Then tell me this one: Which one of us makes it out of here alive?”

“We both already know the answer to that,” Ozymandias said solemnly.

Before Ozymandias could finish his words, Parker had already opened fire, unleashing a barrage of flaming bullets into the stone man’s body. Chunks of rubble flew through the air as the cursed projectiles blasted their way straight through the living limestone of the ancient prophet’s frame. Before long, Ozymandias’s figure lay shattered on the courtyard floor.

Parker walked over to where the head of Ozymandias laid, putting his boot atop it triumphantly.

“Almost forgot…” Parker mused. “I still need ya to tell me where the Tablet is…”

“Apocalypse… keeps it close… at all times…” Ozymandias said, struggling to speak.

“So, if you really do got your story straight,” Parker said with a smile, “then all I gotta do is sit back and wait for the big guy to die? Fine by me. It’s a hell of a lot easier to steal somethin’ when the person who has it can’t fight back.”

Parker aimed his pistol down at Ozymandias’s head.

“But I can’t risk you tellin’ his followers what I’m up to,” Parker said. “There’s too much at stake.”

“My story… has come to its end…” Ozymandias lamented. “But your future… is not yet carved in stone…”

“I hope you’re right…” Parker said as he pulled the trigger one last time, “…but I got a bad feelin’ you ain’t.”

As Parker exited the courtyard, he heard a scream that echoed across Thebes. He raced out to see where it came from, only to witness Apocalypse plummeting from the top of his pyramid toward the ground below.

Before long, the ancient city would be crawling with heroes, all of them trapped together in Thebes by a field of divine energy released during Apocalypse’s failed ritual. As The Hood hid himself from sight, awaiting his chance to claim his prize, he thought about all that Ozymandias had revealed to him.

For the first time in ages, Parker Robbins didn’t look at the future and see the endless possibilities that his new powers had presented him. Instead, just like Ozymandias before him, he saw the unknown. And it terrified him in ways he had never imagined…