Tommy Hill Figure, a.k.a. ?The Figure? had been making a collection from his favorite hot dog vendor in Long Beach on the day he wound up in Rhydin. The vendor, a skittish Pakistani dude who worked seven days a week, handed over his protection money in an envelope. He thanked Tommy, but the Figure just snorted at him and turned his back, heading for his next collection. He got back into his huge black thugged-out Hummer and peeled away. When he had driven about half a block, the vehicle began to flicker. Pedestrians and motorists alike stared in wonder as the tank-like automobile driven by one of the most feared gangsters in Long Beach vanished into thin air.

The Nexus spit him out intact, into a back alley of some ancient looking, medieval town. The engine of the Hummer had stopped. Cloaked in shadows behind tinted windows, Tommy sat at the wheel of his vehicle and tried to get his bearings. Had he lost his mind? Was he was dreaming? Had someone come up behind him, shot in him the head and sent him to Hell? His hands tightened about the steering wheel as panic took hold of him, the knuckles whitening and trembling.

A fistfight going down at the mouth of the alley drew his attention. A thin kid with long hair who might have been a boy or a girl was trading punches and kicks and knees and elbows with an older man. Tommy stepped out of the car.

Shirtless and pissed, he walked toward the two unskilled imbeciles. Tommy was six feet and nine inches tall, but he wasn?t gangly like some tall guys. He was solid and thick and huge. His chest was like a plate of armor, with arms like cannons and hands like boulders. An uncountable number of scars adorned his torso. The Figure?s abdomen featured six prominent, jagged mounds, like earthworks, while violent and sexually-themed tattoos lined his forearms. He wore more jewelry than a woman; gold chains around his neck, jewels set in platinum rings on his fingers, a belt buckle made of diamonds. His boots were size seventeen, steel-toed ghetto-busters. These were all secondary and unremarkable features, however, next to the man?s face. It was comprised entirely of flat planes, connected with sharp angles. His jaw was almost a perfect square. Tommy?s eyes were disquieting, cruel orbs of hatred, deep-set and hard to look upon for long. His mouth was frozen in a permanent frown, as if those lips had never smiled. An unsettling aura of anger and brutality surrounded him.

Tommy slapped a massive hand against each of their chests and thrust them apart. The bodies of both the boy and the man slammed against opposite walls of the alley. They forgot about one another for the moment and gawked at him. The Figure looked the two of them over in turn. The one with the long hair was in fact a boy, it seemed. Without a word, he slugged the older man in the face. His enormous fist smashed the man?s jaw off its hinges. The dude sank down, all the fight gone out of him.

Tommy spoke to the boy. He had a deep, gravelly voice. If he had wanted to pursue a career as a vocalist, he would have been doomed to a life of miserable failure. ?Why you two fools fighting??

?I was trying to mug him for his wallet.?

?Where?d you learn how to mug someone? That was pathetic.?

The boy glared up at him. ?I had him right where I wanted him.?

?No, you didn?t. What?s your name??

?Skyler Jackson Chamberland. The Vile Villain!?

Tommy spat, unimpressed. ?Shut-up.? Then he bent down, relieved the older man of his wallet and tossed it to Skyler.

The man was just lying there, holding his broken jaw. ?Take it and leave me alone,? he managed, though his words were slurred and broken and bubbly.

Tommy addressed Skyler without looking at him. ?Rule number one. If you want to assert authority over someone, never do what they tell you to do. This fool just told me to leave him alone, so I?m going to have to do the opposite.? The Figure began to kick the man in the ribs with those massive boots. One kick after another was delivered, not moving on to the next rib until the previous one cracked. The man gargled and whined and pleaded pathetically as Tommy broke him apart. ?See what I mean? If he had told me to finish him, because he didn?t want to live anymore, I would have just walked away.?

After the beating, the man on the ground was still conscious. He gazed up at the two of them in pitiful anguish. Tommy glanced at Skyler and saw something very promising. The boy took a picture of a little girl ? probably the guy?s daughter ? out of the man?s wallet, put it in his mouth, chewed it up and swallowed it. The man on the ground began to cry. If Skyler was capable of something that mean, perhaps the youth had promise.

The Figure squared his shoulders to the boy and glared down at him, like an eagle on a high tree branch, glaring down at a kitten on which he was about to descend. ?You?re going to tell me where I am, why I?m here, and anything else I want to know.?

Skyler met his gaze calmly, his eyes filled with admiration and curiosity. ?All right.?

Side by side they walked down the alley, disappearing into the shadows.