The world had changed. Necromancers threatening the planet, actresses destroying entire fleets, monsters dropping out of the sky, aliens invading the planet, villains openly negotiating with the UN, and now the League of Superheroes leading humanity into the stars. These were perhaps the greatest and most dramatic changes humanity had ever experienced.

Yet, some things remained the same.

Such as the Mexican drug trade.

The cartels had been quiet for a bit after the blow dealt to them by the ILS, but they never went away. The systemic problems Mexico faced took more than a caped crusader punching a couple cartel enforcers to resolve; even wiping out an entire cartel or two didn’t change the overall conditions. Once the cartels were sure the ILS had moved on, they returned to business as usual. Albeit, with care to avoid any situations that could justify further ILS intervention.

It did give one avenue of reprieve for the Mexican people. Anyone working for the ILS became untouchable, a possible path to escape the reach of the cartels. But that didn’t apply to the government or the police, as ILS staff could not also hold official office. So at the end of the day, the people making the decisions in the country were still within reach of the cartels. And with Icy Falcon’s death, the cartels began to grow bolder. They had been freed from the specter of vengeance.

Or so they thought.

A group of cartel enforcers stood in a warehouse, guns at the ready and pointed at the door.

The door blasted off its hinges with a crash. The enforcers opened fire.

A man strolled in through the door, ignoring the bullets bouncing off his chest.

“Come now, I simply wish to parley with your better. There is no need for all this?”

The men ignored him and continued firing their guns. Arvid shrugged and hefted his blade.

“Ah well, if it is a fight you want then a fight you shall have!”

A few minutes later, Arvid strolled past the groaning men and broken guns littering the ground and made his way further in. He quickly located the cartel boss as he was packing up to leave. The boss picked up a pistol, sweat dripping down his brow.

“W-What do you want with me, gringo?”

“First of all, I’m Swedish. And second of all…”

Arvid reached into his pocket and held out a piece of paper.

“You are invited to a meeting. Your choice is your own but I strongly recommend you attend.”

A group of cartel bosses sat around a conference table, armed guards standing behind them. They raised their eyebrows, scoffing and chuckling at the person sitting at their head.

A young girl. Flanked by an impressively muscular man with a dangerous looking sword, but just a girl in the end.

Sure, she might be the hero known as Icy Rose, but running around with some gringos in capes and negotiating with the cartels were two very different jobs.

“Thank you all for coming. Let’s get started then.”

They chuckled at her.

“All right chica, what is it you want? An end to crime? For us to give up our evil deeds? Let’s hear it then.”

She crossed her hands in front of her.

“No. I have no illusions any of you are going to stop your business, nor is it my place to try and make you. That’s between you and the government. I have gathered you all here for one thing: peace in the streets.”

They chuckled at her. One of them puffed up, his face turning red.

“Look, chica, you have no idea what you’re talking about. These jerks over there killed my brother. My brother! And now you want me to just sit down and take it? Smile and shake hands? Quit it with the hero act, chica. There is a debt of blood that needs to be paid and you have no right to interfere.”

Suddenly the temperature in the room dropped. Snowy winds began to blow around the room, forcing the bosses to shield their faces.

They all gasped.

Ice crept up their feet, encasing them each all the way up to the neck.

Icy Rose turned her head to Arvid. He nodded with a grim look on his face and took a step forward.

He drew his blade.

He placed it on the speaker’s neck.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Icy Rose stayed seated at the table, with her hands still crossed in front of her.

But her eyes narrowed, sharp as daggers as she looked the man in the eye.

“My mother. My father. My adopted mother. My adopted father. My cousin. My grandfather’s brother. The auntie across the street. Our neighbor from down the block. Our classmate. Our classmate’s brother. Our teacher’s sister. All dead at the hands of men like you. All killed by men like you who wouldn’t spare them a second glance before you lit up the block. I doubt you even know who they were. I doubt you even saw them at all. And if you did, I bet you enjoyed it. The fear. The death. The blood.”

She glanced at Arvid and he pressed the sword against the man’s neck, drawing a bit of blood.

“I, too, have a debt of blood that is owed by you. By all of you. All of Mexico does as well. So yes, I have every right to interfere. Every single one of us who has lived with fear and loss by your hands has the right to interfere. If you wish to insist on collecting your debts, then I will do so as well. And I will not rest until every last drop of blood is accounted for. If I had my choice, every single one of you would be in the grave.”

She nodded and Arvid withdrew his blade. The wind died down, the ice began to slowly recede. She looked each of the shivering cartel bosses in the eye.

“But that would mean war without end, until every last one of us is dead and our entire nation is burnt to the ground. So I am willing to compromise. I will not ask for justice. I will not even ask you to stop your ‘business’. Honestly, I don’t even care what you jerks do to each other. Kill each other for all I care. All I ask is that you leave the people out of it. Let us have peace in the streets. Let those of us who aren’t involved in your business live our lives in peace. For the sake of Mexico, for the sake of the peace, for the sake of seeing no more families torn apart, I am willing to put my debt on hold. IF, and only if, you are willing to do so as well.”

The men were silent, glancing at one another and at Icy Rose. One of them shook his head.

“Our men…they will not understand. You cannot expect us to know everything they are doing.”

Icy Rose rose from her seat and turned to leave.

“What your men do is your problem. I hold you responsible either way. I suggest you make them understand that.”

And with that, she and Arvid left the room.

A group of men drove in a couple cars at night, heading towards a particular nightclub. They loaded their pistols and submachine guns, cocking them in a chorus of clicks. One of them turned to the man in the passenger seat at the front of the car.

“Patrón, are you sure about this? That super girl’s not going to be happy about this.”

“Screw her! These guys killed my brother, and they will pay for that. Forget that idiot. Stupid chica playing with the gringos in capes, she doesn’t understand how things work. She won’t do a thing. She doesn’t have the stomach for it and her gringo friends wouldn't let her if she did. Now shut up and let’s do this.”

The next day, the news reported a nightclub being shot up. Most of the casualties were cartel, but several civilians were caught in the crossfire as well.

Icy Rose grit her teeth and clenched her fist as she watched the television.

“Those jerks…are they so stupid they won’t even listen to a threat to their life?! Is there no way to stop this besides war?”

Just then she felt a big, warm hand on her shoulder. Arvid shook his head.

“Ones like that mistake restraint for weakness, the peaceful for harmless. You must show them the difference, and then the rest will fall in line.”

She took a deep breath and looked down.

“...so we have to kill after all.”

“No, you do not.”

She looked at him.

“Hm?”

Arvid grinned at her and winked.

“You are not in this alone, Constanza. You have friends now, in places both high and low. Fear not, I’ve already made arrangements. You did your part, as a hero should. Now let the others do theirs. For if they will not listen to a hero…then they will learn to fear the villains.”

A cartel warehouse, full of cash and drugs. A group of men sat at a table in a dimly lit side room, playing cards late into the night.

They did not notice a flash of light within the warehouse.

Nor did they notice when a black streak shot through the warehouses, flashes of light with each swing of a sword causing entire boxes to vanish all at once.

They very much noticed, however, when they checked the next morning and found the entire warehouse empty.

As did their boss…

A man addressed a couple of truck drivers as they loaded up a sixteen-wheeler with the latest shipment. He went to give them the coordinates of their next delivery. He did not notice as his phone flickered and the target address suddenly changed…

The drivers were very much surprised when they found themselves surrounded by DEA agents on the American side of the border.

As did every driver that made a trip on behalf of a certain cartel that week.

A group of armed men made their way towards their target, a rival warehouse in the middle of the night. They reached into their pockets, pulling out their guns.

Then they heard the soft sound of a silenced gun.

They cried out as something impacted the guns in their hands, forcing them to drop the weapons to the ground. Each of the weapons had a bullet hole dead center.

And then they started to fall.

Darts with paper talismans tied to them struck each man, seals jumping off the talismans and wrapping around them.

They were thus deposited, wrapped up and now unarmed, right in front of the local police station. Surrounded by journalists who had been tipped off previously. All of which caused the police chief no small headache as he tried to control the now viral situation.

The cartel boss was sleeping soundly in his mansion, his guards patrolling the perimeter.

A slight breeze suddenly began to blow across the premises, carrying a light fog. A fog with subtle red shades…

Everyone in the mansion fell to the ground and began to snore where they were.

The wind blew into the boss’s bedroom and spiraled around, coalescing into a solid cyclone.

And when the cyclone faded, a girl appeared in the room.

She grinned as she made her way over to the sleeping boss and tapped him on the forehead…

The sleeping guards awoke to a scream piercing the night.

Within a month, the cartel was in ruins. It had run out of cash and inventory, unable to pay either its men, its clients, or its partners in the local government. Even the boss’s private funds had vanished, whether the deposits in the bank or the secret stashes hidden about. Every shipment it had made in that time had been apprehended by the DEA on American soil, all of its smugglers behind American bars and all of its clients left hanging. Its enforcers had all been apprehended and disarmed, leaving it entirely defenseless. And the boss himself had descended into a nervous wreck, ranting and raving about invisible terrors.

And every single other cartel boss found a blue rose on their nightstands one morning, with a small letter.

A letter that simply read:

“Next time, there will be blood.”

From then on, things began to grow quiet in Mexico. There was certainly still drug trafficking, still corruption, even violence. But that violence now occurred behind closed doors, in private homes or at specified locations in uninhabited areas. There was a concerted effort by every organization to avoid confrontations in the streets and above all to avoid collateral damage. The bosses met, establishing rules and agreements between them about when, where, and how disputes would be settled, including disputes in blood. And anyone who broke those rules, from the newest recruit to the boss themselves, would be permanently expelled from their own organization and handed over to authorities actually committed to their role.

Of course, all this made it harder for the cartels to operate and easier for the committed authorities to catch them in the act. And the technological advancements due to Vophae tech heavily favored the authorities, since both the ILS and every government in the world wanted to hunt down any unauthorized users of such tech, especially criminal organizations. Even drugs themselves started to leave the cartels behind, due to humanity reaching the stars. Why go through the effort and risk to smuggle the drugs across a guarded border when one could simply go to an area of space with no borders to begin with?

So, for the first time since they began, the Mexican cartels began to shrink in size and activity, unable to keep up with the changing world.

Until one day, parents could let their children play in the streets without fear. The city folk could go about their business without looking over their shoulders.

And eventually…

A new generation of leaders began to rise within Mexican society. A generation that could work to change things without fearing they would be killed for the effort. In fact, many of the old politicians and cops began to distance themselves from the cartels, realizing those who went about their own business had immunity from the violence, while those who got involved could be caught in the disputes without reprisal from Mexico’s Defender.

For the name Icy Rose now rested on every lip. Spoken of with bright smiles and fondness among the common folk…and with fear and trepidation among the cartels. The one who saved Mexico. The one who crushed it under heel. The one who protected. The one who hunted in the dark.

Because she had accepted the truth. Icy Falcon was right all along. Mexico deserved a hero, but a hero was not what it needed. A hero was not sufficient to put an end to Mexico’s struggles. A hero could not win the war with the cartels.

What Mexico needed was a boogeyman. A dark terror stalking the steps of all who would place it at risk. Someone to teach the cartels the same fear they spread to the country.

What it needed was a nemesis for the cartels.

And as it happened, Icy Rose knew exactly where to find one.