It wasn't a frag grenade!
Even if Locke occasionally conceptualized sending George to an early, peaceful retirement in the afterlife, he wasn't so completely devoid of human empathy that he would utilize a lethal fragmentation explosive to blast George into the next realm.
That would be terribly ungentlemanly.
He guaranteed that if he ever chose to let George go, it would be executed entirely in a quiet, painless, and completely imperceptible manner.
This particular object was merely a tactical smoke-and-flashbang hybrid manufactured to cosmetically resemble a standard military grenade.
*Pop!*
"Ah!"
"Shit!"
"Flashbang!"
"Hold the threshold! Don't let the Peerless Assassin break out!"
"Copy that!"
*Cough, cough, cough!*
The entry point erupted into absolute chaos. Fortunately, the visual suppression output of this particular flash device had been manually dialed down, ensuring it would cause zero lasting damage to human retinas.
Had he deployed a genuine military-grade flashbang, the operators looking directly at the blast radius would have likely faced permanent visual degradation.
However, the subsequent thick volume of visual-obscuring smoke that billowed out was entirely genuine.
By the time George led six spearhead ESU operators through the haze—wiping streams of tears and fluid from their faces as they forced their way deep into the apartment—he opened his eyes only to find that the Peerless Assassin had vanished without leaving a single trace behind.
"WTF?"
Squinting his heavily bloodshot eyes, George stared directly at a crisp note resting on the living room coffee table that simply read: *Goodbye.* He adjusted his tactical headset.
"Jason."
Operating from the street level below, Jason immediately acknowledged the transmission. "Sir."
"Did anyone breach the perimeter?"
"What?"
"The Peerless Assassin has vanished from the objective. Did anyone run past your lines?"
"...Negative!"
Jason cross-referenced the sharp headshakes from the uniform officers maintaining the perimeter blocks around the structure, speaking firmly into his receiver.
"Our personnel have established a tight cordon encompassing every square inch of this block. It is structurally impossible for anyone to have bypassed our eyes."
George took a deep, steadying breath. Hearing the ESU Captain calling out for him from the direction of the study, he issued a direct mandate to the channel.
"Then he is still concealed inside this apartment complex. Initiate a sweep. Search every single residential unit, door by door."
...
In reality.
Locke, utilizing his advanced active Stealth progression, had strolled cleanly past the uniform line via the building's rear service exit. Given his mastery of concealment, executing a clean extraction from an entirely sealed structure was elementary, let alone the standard escape protocols that comprised an assassin's foundational education.
But...
George possessed zero knowledge of these parameters.
Inside the study.
Two ESU operators had already manipulated the rear compartment of the wardrobe, extracting a heavy item wrapped tightly in multiple layers of commercial plastic wrap.
Without a shred of doubt.
It was a distinctly human-shaped object.
"Cut it open."
"Sir."
The two operators exchanged a brief look, carefully slicing through the thick layers of plastic sheeting. They had mentally braced themselves for a massive wave of decomposition odor to flood the room, yet strangely, even after the final layer of plastic was completely removed, not a single trace of an offensive scent registered in the air.
The corpse before them wasn't a dried mummy, yet it bore a striking resemblance to one.
The pupils were dilated to absolute limits, the facial structure frozen in a mask of sheer terror, and every single drop of adipose tissue and vital blood appeared to have been completely drained by an unknown mechanism.
Had an individual encountered this specific visual in the dead of night, the psychological impact would have been absolute.
"Huh?"
One of the operators noticed a card protruding slightly from the coat pocket of the shriveled corpse. Fishing it out, he recognized it as a standard driver's license. Standing up, he handed it directly to George. "Captain."
George accepted the card.
The profile photograph displayed a woman displaying a wide grin, though the context made the expression appear incredibly macabre.
"This is..."
"Nick Rice's fiancée," George answered the ESU Captain's unvoiced question. Raising his head, he began walking out of the study.
"Nick Rice filed a formal missing persons report with the local precinct a few days ago. Who would have thought she was inside his own residence the entire time?"
With that.
George walked back over to the coffee table in the living room, bending down to retrieve the parchment card Locke had left behind.
The front side displayed the word *Goodbye.*
Turning it over, a single line of elegant script met his eyes:
'Without my intervention, how long would it have taken your department to locate this poor soul?'
Structurally, it read like a simple query.
But in George's eyes, it constituted a blatant, unadulterated display of professional mockery.
He unclipped his primary radio line. "Kate?"
"Captain! Did you secure the asset?"
"Where is Nick Rice's current location?"
Operating from the perimeter of Central Park, Kate Beckett kept her eyes locked onto a figure standing near a massive oak tree. The target appeared identical to the standard civilians who frequented the park for afternoon picnics, with only a partial silhouette visible. She spoke directly into the line.
"Target remains stationary at Central Park."
George's voice turned incredibly cold. "Place him under immediate arrest."
Beckett froze slightly at the directive.
Though George despised admitting the reality, he stated clearly, "The Peerless Assassin just guided our team to a primary homicide victim inside Nick Rice's residence. His fiancée is confirmed deceased."
They had crossed the threshold of Nick Rice's private property strictly to apprehend a fleeing mass murderer. The evidence uncovered during the pursuit, despite the lack of an explicit judicial search or arrest warrant, fell entirely within the parameters of legal admissibility under the exigent circumstances doctrine.
However.
A sudden sense of apprehension flared within George's mind.
The Peerless Assassin was an absolute enthusiast of extrajudicial summary execution. He would never possess the altruism required to drop ironclad forensic evidence right before their eyes merely to allow the state to prosecute a target.
If he was executing this specific maneuver, it meant one thing: the assassin was undoubtedly planning to utilize the NYPD fleet as a prop once more, mirroring the public execution of the cop-killer Barry Weiss to humiliate the department.
Right at that exact instant.
A sharp exclamation of surprise echoed through the receiver.
George's heart skipped a beat. "Kate, report status!"
...
Deep within Central Park.
Beckett stood holding a standard men's suit jacket that had been meticulously propped up using a cluster of tree branches. Surveying the immediate perimeter as her team fanned out to initiate a rapid grid search, she spoke in a taut voice.
"Nick Rice has slipped the detail. He isn't here."
George closed his eyes in silent frustration.
Sure enough.
A textbook diversion.
George took a deep breath. "Have Transit and Park Rangers pull every available surveillance feed matching his last known coordinates immediately."
"Sir."
"Hold on." George paused, calculating the variables before adding, "Issue a citywide flash bulletin to all active law enforcement branches across the tri-state area. Prioritize international airports and maritime ports. Move!"
At this juncture, Nick Rice's evasive actions confirmed an active consciousness of guilt.
Perhaps the moment the Assistant District Attorney witnessed his personal death notice surface, he realized his illicit activities were on the verge of exposure.
Compounded by the news choppers broadcasting live overhead, Nick Rice likely deduced the exact nature of the incoming storm and chose to initiate an active flight protocol.
Suddenly, George arrived at an epiphany regarding why Nick Rice had adamantly declined police protection upon reading the notice.
And...
Why the Peerless Assassin had orchestrated this entire high-speed chase with them.
The assassin had mathematically calculated that Nick Rice would refuse custody, and further anticipated that once the media spotlight exposed the apartment deployment, the target would autonomously seek to evade the NYPD detail.
Consequently, Nick Rice would walk straight out of their surveillance grid and plunge directly into the assassin's waiting snare like a brainless animal running into a hunting trap.
*Slam!*
Arriving at the realization that he had been systematically manipulated as a tactical chess piece by the Peerless Assassin once again, George struck his fist hard against the concrete wall.
"Fuck!"
...
Across town, Locke felt he was being treated with a massive amount of injustice.
Good heavens...
No.
He could literally swear on Gwen's name that from the very inception of this operation, his movements had been calculated entirely to accommodate George's professional standing.
Locke had originally intended to ignore the broader investigation.
But...
Regardless of the inner mechanics, this target was an Assistant District Attorney representing the state's legal apparatus. If an active ADA vanished into thin air under his watch, George—despite his current high-ranking status and immunity from casual bureaucratic purges—would still face intense administrative blowback.
Now, however, George had a verified, ironclad homicide case on his books.
With this discovery, George would secure massive institutional credit once the dust settled. While Locke understood that expecting George to stop hunting the Peerless identity was a statistical impossibility, keeping his father-in-law occupied with legitimate case files to prevent him from aimlessly wandering the streets was an objective good.
The core logic remained unchanged.
George could eventually meet his fate, but he absolutely could not expire before the young Spider-Man materialized in this universe.
Otherwise...
Locke felt his internal timeline would face a catastrophic divergence. Prior to his arrival, canon dictated that George survived well into Peter Parker's active tenure. Yet after his insertion, George was actively flirting with Death.
Who could he even blame for that distortion?
More importantly, Locke's refined six senses were continuously signaling that New York City was becoming increasingly unstable by the day.
Stepping onto a sidewalk a block away from the active containment zone, Locke dialed Carrie's encrypted line.
As for the silver Audi R8?
His perfect clone had already systematically broken visual contact with the remaining pursuit units and navigated the vehicle safely back into its designated garage.
After all, he had acquired that specific piece of machinery using his hard-earned capital; he had zero intention of donating it to the NYPD property clerk's room.
"Carrie," Locke spoke into the receiver, scanning the avenue for a taxi. "Report target coordinates."
Having utilized a comprehensive visual transformation to mirror the aesthetics of Syndra, Carrie sat quietly in the rear of a standard yellow cab, tracking a vehicle further up the lane.
"Approaching the George Washington Bridge."
Locke gave an affirmative grunt.
Nick Rice had indeed initiated his flight protocol entirely on his own volition.
The exact moment Locke led George's tactical teams to breach his front door, Nick Rice—who had just finished retrieving the two resentment dolls from their concealment zone near Central Park—received an automated alert from his apartment's internal security matrix.
Thus, Nick Rice instantly understood that the Peerless Assassin had penetrated his sanctuary.
Granted, Nick Rice internally believed that if the assassin dared to confront him directly, he possessed the capacity to utilize the infernal power granted by his master to slaughter the killer on the spot. However, that execution needed to remain entirely off the grid.
The grand task his master had assigned to him had barely entered its introductory phase.
Yet the moment he accessed his remote video feed and witnessed tactical operators marching directly into his private study, Nick Rice understood that a quiet resolution was completely off the table.
He needed to flee New York immediately.
Wretched George Stacy.
Wretched Peerless Assassin.
'Just wait. The moment I secure the complete Voodoo Omnibus, I will ensure you both understand what happens to those who cross the most loyal servant of the absolute master of this world.'
Clutching a standard plastic bag tightly in his lap, Nick Rice urged his driver to accelerate toward the New Jersey boundary line.
Right at that moment.
The taxi's radio receiver, tuned to a New York Daily news bulletin, crackled to life as an anchor delivered an urgent update.
"We have just received a breaking dispatch from NYPD headquarters. A citywide arrest warrant has been formally issued for Assistant District Attorney Nick Rice. Forensic evidence recovered moments ago links Rice directly to the active homicide and disappearance of his fiancée—"
"Hey, pal," the driver glanced into the rearview mirror, his voice rising. "Is that radio guy talking about you?"
"..."
The driver looked toward the passenger seat, a wide smile forming on his face as he prepared to make a remark, only to freeze instantly as he met Nick Rice's gaze.
The passenger's face was completely devoid of human expression, and his eyes had rolled back entirely, revealing two pools of absolute, pitch-black darkness.
Trailing half a block behind, Carrie witnessed the lead taxi suddenly begin veering wildly across the lanes like a drunk driver losing total structural control of the chassis. Her expression turned cold.
Infernal energy.
...
Bonus chapter