Evil Returns

"…My name is Jackson Norris. Today will be the most important day of my career. I will be interviewing America’s most terrifying and most ridiculous criminal. The whole world believed he was the terrorist known as the Mandarin, but now, supposedly, he was nothing more than an actor. So far, this interview subject has remained evasive, and he clearly has not noticed the focus of my interview. In fact, he does not seem to notice anything except his growing fame."

"Now the whole world knows his name. This is my last chance to see through his lies and excuses, to make him confront his past and uncover the truth. Because we need to know, once and for all—who exactly is Trevor Slattery?"

Jackson set up the tripod, turned on the Sony camera, then obediently sat in his chair and waited for the actor who had played the leader of the Ten Rings to arrive.

He was an employee of ABC Television, sent specifically to interview Trevor Slattery—a little-known third-rate actor who had become a household name by playing the infamous terrorist leader.

Less than twenty minutes later, Trevor, dressed in a yellow prison uniform, entered his private cell. Because he had informed on others, the judge had shown leniency and granted him special treatment: a spacious, clean solitary cell decorated like an actor’s dressing room, with the costume he had worn as the Mandarin hanging on the wall. Compared to the other prisoners’ quarters, this place was practically a presidential suite.

Behind the short, thin old man followed a tall, burly Black man named Herman. He was Trevor’s loyal fan and butler, responsible for protecting him, bringing his meals and water, and cleaning up after him.

Surprisingly, after being thrown into prison, this third-rate actor had managed to fool quite a few people with his eloquence and talent for putting on airs. Rather than suffering the pitiful fate of being bullied, he had lived quite comfortably under the protection of the prison’s Black gangs.

"Start when you’re ready." Jackson raised his hand to check the time. Four prison guards sat by the main door behind him.

Even though nearly a month had passed since the president’s death, the Ten Rings and the Mandarin remained hot topics of conversation. People loved discussing Trevor Slattery, the washed-up actor who had played a terrorist, as well as the dead tech upstart. The Daily Bugle had even dedicated a column to Aldrich Killian’s twisted, tragic life, naturally embellishing and dramatizing it along the way.

Killian, who had planned to assassinate the president and foster a terrorist organization, was portrayed as a pitiful man who had suffered discrimination and abuse in his youth, harbored an unspeakable obsessive madness toward Tony Stark, and later turned to crime because of psychological issues. Its convoluted plot and lurid implications boosted the paper’s sales considerably.

"Let me do some vocal warm-ups first. It’s an old habit from my stage days." Trevor twisted his waist and made strange noises, looking every bit like a clown.

"At the beginning, you definitely never imagined you would end up like this." Jackson watched the old man hollering away, contempt flickering in his eyes.

Before the truth came out, who could have imagined that the leader of the Ten Rings was such a grinning old fool? There was not the slightest trace of the terrible, brooding, imposing presence seen in the videos.

"A lot of people want to know about the man behind the videos—the real Trevor Slattery. You know there are plenty of online rumors and tabloid exposés, but none of them are really about you personally."

Jackson looked at the old man sitting across from him, stroking his beard, and a chill passed through his eyes.

"I think actors should maintain some mystery. Otherwise, it affects the audience’s perception."

Trevor did not care in the slightest. He lived in his own mental world. His failed acting career in the first half of his life had left this down-and-out third-rate actor addicted to drugs and alcohol. Later, Killian discovered him and put him on display as a puppet pulling the strings.

If he had not retained a little conscience and realized that he had lost his usefulness, Killian might have discarded him as a pawn. He had promptly told Tony Stark everything he knew.

That act allowed Trevor to receive special treatment, sparing him from being thrown into a pitch-black cell like everyone else or enduring the abuse of prison bullies.

"You seem to have reduced your life to a series of missed opportunities, unwilling to take responsibility for any of them."

Over the next ten minutes or so of the interview, Trevor remained as evasive as ever, dodging questions and changing the subject. He was like a crafty old con man, revealing not the slightest flaw.

"Do you know that your performance may have angered some people? For example, the Ten Rings."

"That shit was all fake! There is no Mandarin, and there are no Ten Rings!" Trevor cursed without restraint.

Jackson stood up, took off his brown suit jacket, and pressed a finger against the camera. Components inside the Sony camera shifted and assembled into a miniature pistol.

"Perhaps you do not know that the Ten Rings and the Mandarin truly exist. More precisely, he should be called the Mandarin." The young reporter looked at Trevor and spoke a sentence in Chinese. "He is a warlike king, a descendant of Genghis Khan. Legend says he founded the Ten Rings in the Middle Ages—perhaps it can be traced back even further…"

"Who the fuck cares, mate? Because of my performance, people will remember not the Mandarin, but this name—Trevor Slattery."

Trevor struck a pose for the camera like an old rogue. He did not care about the Mandarin or the Ten Rings at all.

"Perhaps you are right. But soon, you will suffer for it. Every ring we believe in will leave a matching hole in your body."

Jackson’s gaze turned cold. The miniature pistol hidden inside the Sony camera sprang out. He seized it with lightning speed and fired four shots in a row, killing the guards watching over them. The burly Black man named Herman charged forward, only for Jackson to pull a telescopic baton from the tripod and smash him to the floor.

"Target secured and in position. Extraction team, begin the operation." Jackson raised his hand and spoke into the miniature communications device on his watch.

He picked up a guard’s pistol and pointed it at Trevor, who was cowering beneath the table. The exposed skin of his arm bore the Ten Rings insignia—ten rings forming a circle, with two curved blades crossed within it.

"Relax. I am not here to kill you, though I really do want to put ten holes in you for insulting the honorable Mandarin." Jackson’s eyes were ice-cold. "You stole his name, and I would very much like to help him take it back."

"But the Mandarin needs a stand-in, so you may continue living and continue your work, Mr. Slattery."

Jackson lowered his gun. Chaos erupted throughout the prison, alarms buzzing deafeningly through the halls. Dense gunfire sounded in the distance, along with violent explosions and blazing fire, as though heavily armed terrorists were assaulting the prison.

"Now, I am taking you to meet—the real Mandarin."