There were 24 houses along the west side of Via Porta Rossa, but only one had a plaque on the door specifying the interior as the home and medical office of one Dr. Bastiani. There was nothing about the exterior of the dwelling and, indeed, scarcely little on the inside that would have suggested to even his closest neighbors that Medusa would come here, not once, but twice.

It was 7 o'clock on a Tuesday night when Medusa made her second visit. Her black mask and tight, purple bodysuit would look familiar to anyone following her professional career as a member of the Frightful Four or, since her reclamation, an amateur crimefighter here in Italy – though today the bodysuit was modified to have short sleeves. Regardless of what she would have chosen to wear, she was immediately recognizable by the huge head of flame-red hair that bobbed and swayed behind her like a buoy on a tumultuous ocean.

At Medusa's side, and even more likely to be recognized by the casual observer because of her appearance on the cover of every glamor magazine in Europe, was Countess Stephanie De la Spirosa. What would have surprised the casual observer more than their obvious acquaintance and shared destination was the fact that the countess was clearly injured. She leaned on Medusa and Medusa's gloved left hand stretched across her back and held a bloody rag to the countess' left shoulder.

Dr. Bastiani, when he answered his door, appeared to be an Italian male in his late 40's, fit, clean-shaven, and with a large head of curly black hair that ran in a circle around his extended forehead. He was half-dressed in formal attire, as if he had planned on going out this evening when he was interrupted. “Princess!” he said after only a moment of being startled. “Please, come in.” With a low bow, Dr. Bastiani stepped back into his foyer so the two women could come in.

“Thank you, doctor,” Medusa said in Italian. “The countess has a gunshot wound to the shoulder.”

“Bring her through here,” Dr. Bastiani said. He waved his arm towards the door on the side of the foyer that led directly into his office. “Let me see the wound.”

The countess took a quick glance at her bloody shoulder as Medusa took away the rag. She grimaced and looked away again as Dr. Bastiani examined it. “Wait,” Countess De la Spirosa said. “So, she really is a princess?”

“Did you think she was just making that up?” Dr. Bastiani asked with a smile as he looked all around the shoulder. “Yes, I suppose that would be more plausible, wouldn't it? I'll clean the wound more to be sure, but I'm not seeing any sign of penetration here. It looks like the bullet just grazed you.”

“Grazed?” Medusa echoed angrily. She turned an angry gaze on the countess. “Why, I carried you for a half-mile because you were acting like you were at death's door, you big baby.”

“I am not accustomed to being shot in any way! Ow!” the countess shot back just as Dr. Bastiani touched hydrogen peroxide to the wound.

“Who attacked you?” Dr. Bastiani asked as he continued dressing the wound. “Was it our kind or theirs?”

“Theirs,” Medusa said. “We were on the south side of Florence, at the countess' villa...”

One hour earlier.

“My house...my beautiful house...” Countess Stephanie De la Spirosa moaned as she moved from the salon to the family room. “This was my favorite house in Italy too. Look, they even broke my couch! That was my favorite couch!”

Medusa sighed. It had been like this in every room of the house so far. The villa had been meticulously ransacked before they arrived. “Stephanie, I need you to focus,” Medusa said. “I've spent the last two weeks capturing Nefaria's men between here and Rome and questioning them, and according to their every story Nefaria is still alive somewhere, but in a coma. So, if he could not have hired the Titanium Man to attack me in Rome, then that means it could have been you he was after. We need to talk about why.”

“I told you it could have been the Mad Thinker,” Stephanie said.

“Because he hit on you and you rebuffed him?” Medusa said. “And then he built a giant robot that looks like the Titanium Man to attack you? I admit it is remotely possible. I have someone in my family they call mad and he too might do something that insane.”

“Then hiding out in my own house from him seems a little insane too, if you ask me.”

“We're not supposed to be hiding; you're supposed to be looking,” Medusa admonished sternly. “I thought maybe we would find something here, like a letter from a vengeful admirer, but now it looks to me like no one was after you at all, but after something you might have.”

“Hmph,” went Stephanie as she sulked through a doorway that looked like it went into the kitchen.

“Are you getting a snack?” Medusa asked as she followed her into what was indeed the kitchen. This room had been at least partially ransacked too.

“No, I am checking my mail like you said to do,” Stephanie answered brusquely as she bent over to open the oven.

“You keep your mail in the oven?”

The countess straightened up and gave Medusa a defiant glare. “Do I look like I cook?”

Medusa pushed Stephanie aside and saw a stack of mail sitting in the cold oven. As she went through it, she found most of it was junk mail, but a good amount of it was business-related, with reputable return addresses. Some of it looked to be fan mail and those were suspect until Medusa came across one large envelope, battered but padded, with no return address that really looked suspicious. “What's in this?” she asked, handing it to the countess.

“I don't know...” the countess said as she opened it. The first thing she pulled out was an old key that looked like it was made of bronze, green from age. She put it in Medusa's gloved hand. Then the countess pulled out a letter and started reading it. “This is in Serbo-Croatian...” she said. “My mother's family is Serbian. The Solokevich's. Oh...” Her brow furrowed as she read further.

Outside, they could hear the “whoop-whoop” of an emergency siren.

Stephanie looked up from the letter. “The police! Someone must have seen whoever did this to my house and called them!” And she hurriedly stuffed the letter back into the envelope as she ran out of the kitchen.

“Odd, though, that the siren came from right outside the house...” Medusa said as she walked after her. “How long have they been out there?” Medusa kept following, slipping the key into her glove for safe keeping. They moved back into the family room and down the hall that, past the stairs to the second floor, led to the front of the villa. Medusa caught the flashes of reflected red lights coming from front-facing windows. Medusa grew wary. Beyond the fact that her black mask made her look like she was dressed like a burglar, Medusa's instincts told her there was something suspiciously wrong with the timing of their appearance.

Stephanie picked up her pace as she reached the foyer, arriving just as they could both hear the doorbell.

“Wait...” Medusa said, her hair snaking forward in a long, thick lock to swirl around the countess' arm, but Medusa hesitated and the countess answered the door.

Three police officers were standing under the front portico. There were four cars belonging to the Florence Police Force parked in a row out front, and more officers just standing around in front of the house. “Scusi, Contessa,” the officer standing in front said, “but we heard there was a disturbance. May we come in?”

Before Medusa could say anything else, Stephanie had already told them to come in and was spilling the whole story about what had happened in random order.

“That envelope in-a your hand,” the officer said, interrupting, “is that-a something the burglars would have wanted? Please hand it over.”

Medusa shouted, “Don't give it to them!”

“I said, please hand it over,” the officer repeated more forcefully, as all three officers went for their holstered pistols.

Medusa let her hair flow as long as it could and it billowed out in long tresses that stretched half across the room. With one tress, she picked up a heavy wooden stand and threw it into the lead officer with enough force to knock him back into the other two just as they were taking aim with their guns. With another tress, Medusa scooped up the countess and flung her gently towards the rear exit of the room. “Run to the back door, Stephanie! Now!” she yelled. The rest of her hair whipped in wide circles around the room like a windstorm, keeping the officers off-balance.

Stephanie ran down the hallway, through the family room, and unlocked the door that led to the back porch. No sooner was she through the door, though, when she realized there were men waiting on the porch. Two of them converged on her quickly and grappled her with strong, rough hands.

“Contessa, you must-a come with us,” one of them said, sounding more polite than his actions indicated.

Stephanie was still not sure if these were real police officers or not. At least these two kept their guns holstered. They had almost walked her to the corner of the house and around to the south side when twin locks of red hair snaked down from above, jerked the two men back, and bashed their heads together. As they fell, Stephanie looked up and was relieved to see Medusa lowering herself by her hair from an upstairs window.

“That's five down, but there's still three more outside,” Medusa said as she bent down to examine Stephanie's erstwhile captors.

“Are they imposters?” Stephanie asked.

“I don't know. The uniforms and badges look real. I'm glad they did not get the envelope from you. Let's get it as far from here as possible and you can tell me what it says.”

The countess' villa was on a relatively modest six-acre plot and, on the east side of that plot, a copse of huge Italian cypress trees grew up to the edge of the property. Light was coming from the villa and the police cars on the west side of it, but the east side of the plot was almost as dark as pitch and they would quickly become lost from sight there. Or at least that was the plan. As they came up to the first of the trees, though, twin searchlights beamed down on them from above – searchlights that glared down like blazing eyes from the top of a monstrous silhouette, almost as tall as the trees.

The countess looked up and screamed.

“The Titanium Man,” Medusa said.

“Pleased to be meeting you again, Contessa,” the same voice as before spoke from the giant battle armor, “and your very lovely bodyguard. I presume you know 'vhat I 'vant?”

“Here! Just take it!” the Countess screamed as she threw the envelope against the metal leg of the giant robot.

Behind the two women, four of the policemen, including one that had recovered from the foyer, had seen the light and heard the scream and came running. Luckily, they seemed just as startled at the sight of the Titanium Man as Stephanie had been. While they screamed in alarm, they lifted their pistols and fired wildly at the giant, green, metal man. The ricochets flew even more wild.

“Ohhoowww!” Stephanie howled as she seemed to be struck by one in the shoulder.

Medusa quickly caught her as Stephanie fell back and, while the Titanium Man was distracted by the police, she ran off into the trees and out of sight.

The present.

“...And after that, we came straight here,” Medusa said, finishing her tale for Dr. Bastiani.

“That is most strange,” Dr. Bastiani said, scratching his chin.

“Wait,” Stephanie said. “What is this talk of 'our kind or theirs' and Medusa's claims about her 'people'?”

Dr. Bastiani looked to Medusa and said nothing until she nodded. “We call ourselves the Tilanese, but our people have been called 'Inhumans' for so long we have also taken that name as our own. Our civilization is older than the Egyptians, the Sumerians, and Atlanteans.”

“But you look human to me,” Stephanie said, “except for Medusa's hair.”

“We are as close to humans as the Neanderthals were. None of us are born, though, with a special gift like the Princess Medusa's living hair. Genetically pure Inhumans have the right to give selective mutations to their children.”

“And you are not...?”

“A genetically pure Inhuman? If I was, I might ask for a cure for baldness,” he said, smiling and pointing to his extended forehead. “No, our people keep strict control over the population of pure Inhumans. If an Inhuman wishes to have more children past their legal limit...well, that has led some Inhumans to go out and have dalliances with humans. If there is a product of that union, the child cannot live in the Great Refuge, but must go out into the human world. So, you see, I am actually as much one of your people as I am of her highness'.”

“Dr. Bastiani is one of thousands of people around the world who have some Inhuman blood in them,” Medusa added. “The Great Refuge is our secret city where none but pure Inhumans may live, but the impure still have some rights to visit and communicate with the Refuge. That was why I had already paid a visit here two weeks ago.”

“We call it the Whispering Chain,” Dr. Bastiani said, clearly enjoying the chance to talk about all this. “When Medusa needed to send word back to the Great Refuge, she contacted me. I contacted the next closest Inhuman to the Refuge and he, in turn, contacted the next one down the line. By keeping our communications as low-tech as possible, we avoid them being discovered by mankind and your modern spying capabilities.”

“Has there been word back yet?” Medusa interrupted.

“Patience, your highness. I am sure, when your message reaches the Refuge, a response will come quickly. In the meantime, I have cleaned the contessa's wound. What I can do for you next is offer you some refreshments.”

“Is it safe here?” Stephanie asked, looking with worried eyes at Medusa.

“You are as safe here as anywhere in Florence,” Dr. Bastiani said with a shrug.

“I honestly don't know if we lost the Titanium Man or not,” Medusa said. “If not, I hope I have not brought you in harm's way, Doctor.”

Boris Bullski watched the monitor in front of him. Switched to infrared imaging, he was able to follow the movement of the three people in the house. His microphone picked up the sound of them talking, but not what was being said. If he was allowed any closer he might have heard everything, but his new comrades were still stalling. Every hour he had made a new call – really just long rants now -- to headquarters. When he was the most feared commissar in all Siberia, no one would have dared keep him waiting. Now, at headquarters, they were pretending to be too busy for his calls. Now he waited on them. And now he suffered the humiliation of being used for surveillance. All for having lost face in his two failed and very public battles with Iron Man.

“We read you, comrade,” a voice finally said on the open channel in Serbo-Croatian.

“'Vhere is my Russian translator?” Boris roared in the same tongue. “You know my Serbo-Croatian is not so good.”

“He is busy, but will be back soon,” the voice said. “Do you have something new to report?”

“I am having them both in my sights now,” Boris said. “I at range to attack with thirteen different 'veapon systems.”

“You are advised to hold, comrade. The contents of the envelope are still being evaluated. We might not need the countess any longer.”

“The bodyguard is crafty. She would not be letting the envelope go if they had not kept the most important contents. And I 'vould have the bodyguard already if the Italians had not interfered.”

“A miscommunication, comrade. The Italians were not told of your involvement. If we can resolve this situation using only the pro-Communist faction in their police, without your direct involvement, so much the better.”

“Or they could be making a mess of everything,” Boris said.

“Just follow your instructions, comrade,” the voice said, growing more agitated. “Remember, the Titanium Man battle armor is indeed a powerful weapon, but after this, it shall not be our only one.”

At that, Boris noticed various instruments around him start to register an enormous energy surge within the house. On the monitor, he could see bright light through the windows of the house. “Or perhaps, comrade, a third 'veapon is coming into play...”

Medusa, Stephanie, and Dr. Bastiani had left his office for his living quarters on the other side of the house when it happened. He was pouring wine for them in the living room when a bright flash of light flooded the room.

“The Titanium Man? Again?” Stephanie asked, jumping up with fright.

“No,” Medusa said, smiling. “I recognize the energy filling the room. Help has arrived!”

The nimbus of energy seemed to flow through everything around them without harming anything. The center of this energy burst was the largest open space in the living room. As everyone shielded their eyes and looked into that space, they could see two shapes materialize out of thin air. One was enormous, grotesquely misshapen, but as its features became clearer, it looked to be a giant mastiff hound with enormous drooping jowls and, inexplicably, antennae growing out of its forehead. The other was a man, lithe, muscular, wearing a tall hat and carrying some sort of staff-like object in his hand.

“Behold!” Medusa proudly announced. “Karnak of the Royal Fam--” but her words caught in her throat when she recognized the item Karnak held and fear clutched at her heart.