[Flashback]
“Miss Velasquez? What are you doing here at this time of night? This is a restricted area, I’m not sure you’re supposed to… to…”
The security guard paled as the woman at the end of the corridor turned slowly towards him, illuminated in the beam of his flashlight. He’d recognised Special Agent Alannah Velasquez from behind because of her distinctive, glossy black hair and – to be blunt – her peach of a butt, which he’d admired sashaying to and fro throughout the complex many times. He’d always thought her pretty, too; but, a week ago, something awful had robbed her of her charming smile, leaving her little more than a hollow shell. Tonight, her expression was more haunted than ever – and, of course, there was the added distraction of the mask, and the costume… and the swords.
“This is my suit, Lewis,” Alannah declared, her voice catching in her throat. “It may be Agency property, but the design template was based on my brain-scan and nervous system. It’s useless to anyone else, until they reconfigure the hardwire data. And, right now, I need it. For Jay.”
The guard, Lewis, nervously palmed the standard issue revolver holstered at his hip. He was unable to tear his eyes away from the weapons in her hands – twin katana, with wickedly curved blades that glowed with a faint, neon-blue luminescence – and when he spoke his tone was kind but anxious.
“I… heard about what happened to your son, Miss Velasquez,” he said. “It was a tragedy. So young. But… but breaking and entering, and stealing the suit…? The Agency won’t allow it. You’ll go to prison, or worse, they’ll track you down and - ”
“The city streets are running black with the blood of children, Lewis,” Alannah hissed, her eyes in the slits of her mask raw and red with tears. “My boy. My Jay. They took him away from me. I won’t let them destroy anyone else – I’ll kill them all before I let that happen.”
Lewis could barely breathe. His hand closed around the hilt of his gun. “Well, then I’m sorry, Miss Velasquez,” he said. “Because I can’t let you do that…”
Alannah regarded the sentry with sadness, then nodded and bowed her head. And then, with a swiftness augmented by the specially constructed power suit she was wearing, she lunged forward, swinging both swords with expert precision. Lewis didn’t even have time to scream as one blade sliced down across his gun-hand, instantly cauterising the flesh with ice rather than heat, whilst the other penetrated his chest and his heart beneath, with similar results. The guard’s body flinched and quivered… then, frozen solid from the inside out, he toppled forward and slammed against the floor with a dull crunch. Alannah withdrew her swords and stepped back, stifling a sob.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But I must have vengeance, don’t you see? For Jay. Because the woman you knew died with him… and now there’s only Coldheart.”
[Flashback ends]
High overhead, the alien skies were alive with a tumult of thunder and streaks of lightning and The Grandmaster’s enormous vessel pulsed with a study thrum of power. The woman now known only as Coldheart stared up into the maelstrom through dead eyes, her mouth set in a grim line. Her stolen battlesuit, which The Agency had been unable to reclaim these past eighteen months, was a resplendent mélange of gold, sapphire and silver mail and cloth, as had once befitted its intended wearer’s vivacious outlook on life, but now it was all but swallowed by the darkness that had consumed her soul.
They had killed her beloved Jay; a common terrorist may have been the one to pull the trigger and put a bullet through his six-year-old brain when Agency files had been leaked and her identity compromised, but ‘they’ were the multitudes of faceless criminals and activists that this one man had represented. For a year and a half, then, she had waged a secret war upon those she perceived as guilty… and now, here she was. The ultimate of secret wars, perhaps.
She would die here, of course. A physical demise, to match the death of her spirit eighteen months past. But, before she perished, she would grasp this opportunity for one final act of revenge.
Identity confirmed, bleeped a mechanical voice from above. Designation: Coldheart. Probability of overall victory: 1.3 per cent.
Coldheart gazed blankly at the tentacled orb than had swept down from above, then tensed as she heard another sound: approaching footsteps, echoing about the crumbling walls of the ruined cloister where she now stood. This was the northernmost quadrant of the Se’dai battlefield. Crenellated towers and Gothic arches rose about her on all sides, some whole, some remnants, all choked with ivy; wide galleries lined with columns stretched out in the four directions of the compass from this central courtyard; and the flagstones beneath her boots were cracked and uneven, in places treacherously so. A chill wind whistled through the haunted edifice, and shadows cast all about like a clutch of black claws. It all appeared authentically ancient, although in truth none of it had existed until The Grandmaster’s recent machinations, unbeknownst to the players of his terrible game.
Upon materialising in what would quickly become a war zone, most combatants would have chosen to seek safety. Coldheart knew this – she had received extensive military field training in her time – but the truth was she had no interest in self-preservation. She had purposefully staked her claim in the open territory of the cloister, willing her enemies from the shadows. As those footsteps now surrounded her, she realised that her strategy had worked.
Brandishing her twin swords, Coldheart revolved slowly on the spot and gazed in turn at each of the five men who had emerged from the edges of the courtyard to encircle her. One was huge, almost seven feet tall, broad across the shoulders and muscular; the next was short and dressed in a pinstripe suit and fedora, with a weasel face dominated by a sharp moustache; the third was ruggedly handsome, in a Stetson and cowboy boots and carrying a lariat; the next was painfully thin, and with a sickly pallor, clad in an unflattering black; and the last, young compared to his companions, was unremarkable save for slabs of moulded metal worn about his knuckles. There was something of the street gang about the five of them, although with the exception of the latter these men, with a weariness to their heavily-lined faces, had obviously not been teenage hoodlums for a good many years.
The drone sped towards the new arrivals, whirring excitedly.
Identities confirmed, it chirped. Individual designations: Ox, Fancy Dan, Montana, Snake Marston and Hammer Harrison. Collective designation: The Enforcers. Probability of overall victory: 1.6 per cent.
The weasel-faced man in the suit waved his hat at the drone, then turned towards Coldheart and smiled, though with little humour or kindness. “Sorry ‘bout this, sweetcheeks,” he said, in a clipped Brooklyn snarl. “We don’t make a habit of beatin’ on the ladies, y’know? But, hell… it ain’t like we got a choice, y’know? Right, Montana?”
The man in the Stetson looked uncomfortable. “Ah reckon so, Dan,” he murmured, without confidence.
Coldheart glanced between the two men, then smiled, humourlessly. “There is one other alternative,” she breathed.
“An’ what’s that, honey?”
Coldheart scraped the blades of her swords together, creating a shower of shivering blue sparks. “Well,” she said, “I could always be the one who does the beating…”
[Flashback]
The antique table had belonged to King Louis XIII of France back in the early-to-mid 17th Century and had recently been purchased for $1.2million at auction. It was walnut, crested with intricate engravings around the moulding, and was eight feet wide and weighed over six hundred pounds. It was a measure of the enormous man sitting behind it that the table was only the second most impressive thing in the room.
Wilson Fisk studied in turn each of the five men standing before him, his brow creased, a bullet cigar smouldering in his fist. His eyes were almost pure black, a shark’s eyes, and he didn’t blink; lamplight gleamed on his hairless pate like a wholly inappropriate halo. He didn’t even appear to be breathing… until, suddenly, he erupted in a deafening snort of what might have been described as laughter. Two of the five men, Fancy Dan and Montana, glanced at each other uneasily.
“We’re serious,” said Dan, his narrow face flushing to a puce just a shade lighter than his pinstripe suit as looked back towards Fisk. “We’ve been workin’ hard, y’know? We screwed up before, more than once, but we were young, easily led. Listen, Mister Fisk, if you’ll just give us a chance, we’ll show you - ”
Fisk raised a stubby finger, calling for instant hush. “Call me Kingpin,” he said, softly. He was no longer laughing.
He shifted slightly in his chair – reinforced to accommodate his colossal bulk – and the leather creaked with a sharpness that was unnervingly reminiscent of splintering bones. He raised his cigar to his lips, then exhaled a plume of silver smoke that clouded momentarily above their heads before being dissipated by the slow, steady whup-whup-whup of a ceiling fan.
“Gentlemen,” Fisk breathed, “Be aware that the only reason you are all still alive is because I allow it. Your past failures are multiple, and inexcusable; and your attempt to operate on a level with the sprawl of costumed freaks who proliferate in my city like a cancer is both objectionable and embarrassing, not only for yourselves but any who would misguidedly associate themselves with you. You are, in every sense, a pathetic rabble, whose unswerving stupidity is aptly encapsulated by your presence here today, stealing away my precious time in the belief that I would ever consider placing you upon my payroll after the gross incompetence you displayed when previously in my employ. Believe me when I say, that if I wasn’t already late for another appointment this morning I would take great pleasure in personally removing each and every one of your limbs and then dumping the remainder of your sorry carcasses in the dock. Do you understand?”
Four out of the five men stood silently, their faces very pale and their foreheads beaded with sweat. The last of them – the burly, dough-faced Ox – just frowned and scratched his head.
“Does dat mean we don’t get da job?” he asked. “Cuz I gotta phone my ma an’ let her know. Cuz she, y’know… she worries.”
Fisk stared, cigar drooping. Montana pulled the brim of his Stetson down to cover his face. Fancy Dan raised his eyes to the ceiling, his expression helpless. “Ox?” he said, hoarsely. “You remember we talked ‘bout how there was times you should just stand there an’ say nothin?”
“Uh-huh.”
“This is one’a them times.”
Wlison Fisk, the infamous and undisputed Kingpin of Crime of New York and the entire Eastern coast, just sat behind his antique table, quietly shaking his head as he looked upon what was quite possibly the most wretched pack of criminals it had ever been his misfortune to encounter. Obviously today was going to be a very long day indeed…
[Flashback ends]
The fight was brutal, but brief. Eighteen months ago, Coldheart might have wiped the floor with her enemies without so much as breaking sweat… but a lot can happen in eighteen months.
Coldheart had undergone extensive combat training whilst part of The Agency, but since branching out on her own her attention to detail had waned; her ability with her swords remained impressive on the surface, but bad habits had crept in, blunting her effectiveness. In contrast, The Enforcers had worked diligently this past year-and-a-half since their unsuccessful attempt to return to the employ of The Kingpin. It was true that, back then, they had been a laughing stock – a motley band of thugs forever running afoul of costumed heroes and spending more time behind bars than free – but they were a different prospect altogether now. Tougher. Smarter. They worked as a team. And poor Coldheart was to be their first adversary to truly realize that.
Montana had always been accomplished with his lariat, but now he was deadly. He had learned that the best way to operate within the group was not to go directly on the offensive but to instead concentrate on negating any advantages an enemy might possess – and in this instance, that meant Coldheart’s swords. He waited patiently for the right moment, then lassoed the woman’s forearms halfway between elbow and wrist, pulling her hands together so her twin blades clashed. Then it was Snake Marston’s turn; he moved with tremendous agility and guile, avoiding Coldheart’s attacks when her hands were free but then able to slip alongside and strip away her weapons when she was snared.
That left Ox, Fancy Dan – a master of the martial arts – and Harrison, with his steel knuckle shields, to close in upon a disarmed Coldheart and to bludgeon her. Which is exactly what they did.
They punched, and they pounded, and they kicked, and they stamped. And, when they eventually curtailed their vicious assault and stepped back, each of them breathing heavily, Coldheart’s body was slumped on the flagstones between them. She was buckled and broken, her face dark with blood and bruising, unintelligible sounds spilling from a dislocated jaw. Montana and Marston stepped forward to join their companions. With the exception of Harrison, who had always been the most ruthless of them, they each stared down at their victim with a flicker of self-doubt.
“Ox don’ like hurtin’ women,” the big man grumbled, clenching and releasing his massive fists, which – regardless of his statement – he had just used to such devastating effect.
Fancy Dan pursed his lips. “Yeah, buddy, I know. But we talked ‘bout this, yeah? We got no choice, see?”
“Always a choice, Dan,” Montana drawled, disgust evident on his face.
“What choice is that, cowpoke?” Dan snarled. “Line up against the wall an’ let her prick us like wieners? It’s kill or be killed. An’ I didn’t see you pullin’ out, y’know? This is our chance, yeah? We win this freakoid game, we write our ticket. Guys like Fisk, they’ll be kissin’ our boots, y’know?”
Montana stared down at Coldheart, whose breathing was ragged and who was now writhing on the ground, leaving bloodied smears on the stone beneath. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Well, that’s all fine and dandy in abstract, now, ain’t it? But when it comes down to it…”
Fancy Dan grimaced. “Okay. Whatever. Let’s just finish this, y’know?”
Marston glanced at Montana, then turned away. “All yours, Dan.”
Montana nodded. “Ditto. And ah reckon same goes for Ox.”
Harrison looked around nervously, smoothing his hands through his hair so that his knuckle shields flashed in the light. “Uh… now, wait a minute here. I know you guys think I get off on this stuff - ”
“Which you do.”
“Oh, come on. Beatin’ on a chick in some armoured suit is one thing – a broad runs around in a cape an’ tights, she’s askin’ for it, right? – but killin’ her off when she’s just lyin’ there…?”
Montana tipped his hat at Dan, a bemused half-smile playing about his lips. “Damn. And y’all think we got what it takes to win this thing?”
Dan regarded his four companions sourly, then sighed. “Okay, okay,” he snapped. “I’ll do it. Just - ”
And it was then that a glowing blade sliced through the air and decapitated the injured woman in their midst with a single strike, cauterising the wound with ice before the blood had even had a chance to spatter. The five Enforcers all staggered backwards with various cries of alarm, arms flailing, as Coldheart’s severed head skidded away across the courtyard, leaving a trail of frosted blood particles glittering like rubies in its wake.
“Sweet baby Jesus in a Buick!” Fancy Dan squeaked. “Who the hell…?”
The five of them all stared at the newcomer who was standing before them, brandishing both of Coldheart’s swords in her grasp. It was another woman, but wholly different from the individual they had just bludgeoned – this person was taller, broader across the shoulder, with jet black hair tied back with a red bandana and delicate, oriental features that bestowed her with a striking beauty. Her slender figure was sheathed in an ivory shirt and black leather leggings, with a red sash looped about her slender waist. And, most noticeably of all, her fingers that curled about the hilts of the twin katana were twice as long as any human fingers should be, fashioned from silver steel and tapered to wicked points.
The beautiful stranger studied the weapons in her grasp, smiling strangely at the play of neon that signified the energy discharge that was channelled through the blades. Then she looked up at those men who surrounded her, and who were currently numbed to silence. Holding their attention, she slowly extended the tip of one sword, stabbing it down into the chest of Coldheart’s headless corpse. Immediately the dead woman’s flesh and costume alike began to crackle and stiffen, gathering a sheen of glittering rime within seconds.
“Cryogenic circuitry woven into the steel, I’d wager,” the Japanese woman murmured, her voice honey-sweet. “The energy lowers the temperature of whatever it comes into contact with, inanimate or organic, to freezing point. It’s an intriguing design. Don’t you think? No?”
The drone that had earlier announced both Coldheart and The Enforcers now swept down once more, so close that its tentacles almost brushed the woman’s head. Identity confirmed, it whirred. Designation: Lady Deathstrike. Probability of overall victory: 5.7 per cent.
Then, after a pause, it added: Fatality confirmed. Deceased: Coldheart. Survival confirmed. Designation: Lady D – akkk
One glowing blade swept up with devastating speed, spearing the drone through the underbelly and causing an explosion of sparks and frozen metal fragments. The other blade whipped across in an arc, slicing the mechanical orb in twain and scattering severed tentacles in all directions. The remains of the drone fell in frosted chunks to the ground, where a number of them shattered into splinters of ice and steel.
Lady Deathstrike’s lips curled into a dark, devilish grin. “Well, gentlemen,” she crooned. “You were splendid and oh-so-courageous in your battering of that poor wretch… but you’ll find me an altogether different prospect, I assure you. It’s been a long while since I indulged myself with a blade or two, but, as you see, one never forgets the art. Now – shall we begin…?”
[Flashback]
Yuriko Oyama could not help but flinch, even though the touch of the man’s fingers upon her face was feather light. He traced the scars about her eyes and mouth with such an intimate caress, yet his interest was not that of a lover but as a scholar of the arcane; there was not sympathy in his blue eyes but rather fascination.
“Your own father inflicted these upon you?” he asked, softly.
“A reflection of his own injuries he received as a kamikaze pilot during the War,” Yuriko replied. “He was a powerful man, feared throughout Japan, but he was humiliated to his very soul by the various failures of his life, all of which were encapsulated, it seems, by his disfigurement. He took my two brothers and I whilst we were young and branded us in this way.”
“Cruel, indeed.”
“My father was insane, Mister Pierce,” Yuriko murmured. “But that does not mean I didn’t love him, as only a daughter can.”
Donald Pierce smiled thinly, and removed his hand. “Quite. I can… heal you, if you’d like. During the augmentation process.”
There was the barest flicker of emotion on the face of the woman who was stretched out, naked, on the operating table before him. She would have been beautiful, in conventional terms, without the scarring, although in Pierce’s mind the mutilation radiated a certain quality of its own. He felt the stirrings of lust deep inside, for the first time in a very long while, but he ignored it. Once, back in his days of Hellfire he would have devoured this woman… but now, instead, it was the desire for vengeance that was all-consuming.
“Do what you will,” Yuriko said, coldly. “After all, I promised you my body and soul, did I not?”
Pierce nodded, his eyes suddenly dark as fire. “Absolutely,” he breathed. “And now we shall proceed – with introductions. Yuriko Oyama, daughter of Lord Dark Wind and bearer of the title Lady Deathstrike, the individual you are about to meet goes by the name of Spiral…”
[Flashback ends]
The Grandmaster cocked his head and stared at the cube-shaped spacecraft that had materialised in the air before him, his red eyes feverishly bright.
“I have studied your world with such fascination over millennia,” the Elder murmured, “And I do believe I’ve been infected with your modern argot and with the repetitive familiarity of your proverbs and tales. One such idiom occurs to me now.”
He laughed then, a rasping cackle that caused the drones in attendance about him to twitch as if in apprehension.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in,” The Grandmaster cooed. “Else I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in…”
He weaved his fingers, and instantly the cube shuddered as if bludgeoned by a tidal wave. Then the outer shell of the craft began to dislocate, entire sheets of metal being peeled away by unseen hands and then discarded upon the shifting chequered floor below. The Grandmaster stripped away pipes and wires and rivets with rapid speed, causing the cube to whine and crackle like something alive. After just half a minute of this assault – although it seemed like an age – the hull of the craft ruptured with a hiss of steam and oil, and a hatch door tore away like paper. Instantly, a figure – a woman with silver hair, and a slender body sheathed in a silver-blue tunic – emerged in a flurry of arms and glinting steel, tumbling over and over through thin air.
Spewing curses, the warrior brandished a pair of swords in two hands that were constructed of a sophisticated meld of metal, flesh and bone. The woman’s other four hands – for she possessed six arms – seemed outwardly to be normal, although there was no telling what surprises lay beneath the surface of her skin.
Six arms. But, ultimately, that was the least of what this woman was.
Four hands, those not wielding swords, began to twist and curl, fingers spinning an intricate dance; as the woman plummeted, she became surrounded by swirls of glittering white light the shot forth from her fingertips and gathered about her like silken web. As The Grandmaster watched so the woman arrested her fall and drifted down to the floor below, feather-light. There was an unmistakable haze of magical residue in the air.
“Ah,” The Grandmaster breathed. “A spellcaster. One whose powers are augmented by technology – a heady concoction indeed. Analyse her.”
He flicked a hand towards his drones and a cluster of four immediately broke free of the swarm and swept down towards the silver-haired woman, their sensors whirring. Instinctively the warrior responded to the threat she perceived, weaving both her swords back and forth whilst conjuring more whorls of white energy with her other hands. The drones were swift, but not all of them could evade their subject’s attack; one exploded in a shower of sparks as it was engulfed in swirling light whilst another dipped too close to an arcing blade and was carved asunder, its tentacles writhing in spasm.
Anomaly, one of the remaining two drones bleeped. Analyse. Anomaly. Analyse. An -
The woman spun with mesmerising grace, twisting at the hips, her golden eyes bright with concentration. She speared the orb with a lance of light and dragged it towards her, then ended its mechanical life with a thrust of her sword. The drone shrieked – and its fellow immediately swivelled and streaked away, tentacles trailing.
Identity confirmed, it reported, as it went. Designation: Spiral.
The Grandmaster’s brow furrowed as he stared down at woman who met his glare with such impudence. “Interloper!” he snarled. “You’re a stowaway, yes? You used science and magic to cross the stars, riding the funnel of the spatial fluctuation via which I transported your fellow humans here. But why? What is your purpose?”
Spiral adopted an aggressive stance, her expression still impassive. She offered no reply.
The Grandmaster growled deep in his throat. “Very well,” he hissed. “Then, in pursuit of answers, I shall be forced to dissect your mind as easily as I did your home.”
He waved a hand in Spiral’s direction, thoroughly irritated, and instantly she found herself levitated, each of her six arms pinned back, her fingers of her free hands splayed and locked so that she was unable to cast her enchantments. She gasped, suddenly aware of the incredible power belonging to the one she faced.
“Stop!” she cried, finally finding her voice. “Please. I - ”
“Be silent!” The Grandmaster commanded. “The time for conversation is passed. Save your breath now for screaming…”
[Flashback]
Rita had screamed so hard and for so long that the inner lining of her throat had ruptured and she had almost choked on her own blood. Recognising the problem, the machines attending her broke momentarily from their sophisticated routines to slide thin tubes past her lips, which were fastened back against her jawbone with steel pins, and feed them further down into her gullet, whereupon they siphoned out the offending liquid and stitched her internal wounds with micro-wire. Then they returned to their scheduled tasks, of dissection, dislocation and substitution of flesh, bone and muscle. The shrieks of agony also resumed, just slightly tinnier than before.
It was a requirement that the subject always be conscious throughout the augmentation process, to allow the thousands of slivers of metal that the machines were inserting into her to meld cohesively with her physiology. Thus, whenever she slipped from delirium into unconsciousness – which was often – she was jolted back into wakefulness through a combination of electrical charge and a chemical cocktail introduced to her bloodstream. Of course, this didn’t rule out the use of pain inhibitors. It was just that those conducting the operation enjoyed the sounds of agony.
Back on Earth she had been known by a nickname: Ricochet Rita. The good old girl who kept coming back for more. She was a stuntwoman, widely regarded as one of the best in the business and always in high demand for the latest Hollywood action blockbuster. She had been tough and pretty, with a wry sense of humour and a deliciously rude turn of phrase, and a smile that lingered long in the memory. One day, she had fallen in love with a man very much like herself. And now, because of that love, here she was – trapped in a place, in a space and time, so ridiculously implausible that she may as well no longer have existed. She couldn’t remember her real name any more. One of the machines had stolen it from her when it had carefully carved away a portion of her brain and secured an implant in its place before re-affixing the portion of her skull it had removed.
The process lasted for hours. By the end of it there wasn’t a segment of her that remained untainted. They had even removed her eyes and replaced them with others; now, when she looked, everything was tinged with amber-gold and off-kilter, as if the world had been stretched along a horizontal axis. But, when all was said and done, that was the least of what she had become.
The scientist who had overseen her transformation and who had purposefully withheld pain block medication was a sadist named Arize. His master was called Mojo. They were evil creatures. They were not human. And now, nor was she. Not any more.
Her new name was Spiral, and with the delicate fingers of six hands she could feel the flow of magical energies in the air, the kind of magic that warped realities and opened doors, allowing her to step from one plane of existence to another – one dimension to another – with but the cast of a simple spell. Her body was an exquisite synthesis of flesh and steel. She was beauty and she was power and she was a bringer of death.
Tragic, then, that there was so very little remaining of the woman with the unforgettable smile…
[Flashback ends.]
With what might have been a glimmer of sympathy, The Grandmaster regarded the rag doll of a woman currently suspended in the air before him, her six arms now hanging limp and her golden eyes rimmed with tears. Spiral shivered, desperate to wretch. The Elder had been far gentler in his exploration of her brain and the memories stored within than he had threatened – gentler, certainly, than the fiends who had engineered her in their alien laboratories – but even so she felt violated beyond measure.
“I, too, have had dealings with the denizens of this so-called Mojoworld,” En Dwi Gast sighed. “Mojo and I have bickered for many, many years over contests aplenty. I find him an insufferable boor. But there is, I believe, much pleasure to be gained from having a plaything of his fall into my hands…”
The Grandmaster glanced down at the battlefield moon beneath him and grimaced. “You have disturbed my attention; my drones shall be forced to replay vital interaction from below that may have occurred whilst I was otherwise occupied. For this, I should slaughter you outright. But I gleaned information of much importance from your mind. There is one present here with whom you are inextricably linked, yes? The one who you were likely monitoring when I abducted her from your world, and whom you followed through my spatial portal. You have a vested interest in her well-being – and an emotional bond. Would you wish to be despatched to her side?”
Spiral remained silent, tears rolling down her cheeks. The Grandmaster pursed his lips in reflection.
“There is always room for one more in any game,” he mused, “Although one as powerful as you would upset the delicate balance I have sought to create. My selection, you see, was quite specific; my entertainment would be lessened by the presence of one with the capabilities of mass destruction, and thus my players are all of comparable levels of potential. For you to exist comfortably among them, you must be… downgraded.”
Spiral flinched, her eyes darkening. The Grandmaster smiled.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You may keep your extra appendages, and your implants. I’ll even leave you your ship. But, I’m afraid, your manipulation of magical energies is surplus to requirements…”
Lady Deathstrike cricked her neck and flexed the muscles in her back, treating her enemies not only to a crack of bone but also of metal. She flexed her elongated fingers and swept the blades of her twin katana through the air, creating whorls of neon blue. She grinned, wickedly.
Hammer Harrison looked on, apparently unimpressed, clapping his steel knuckle-guards together so that the resulting ring echoed about the crumbling stone walls of the courtyard. “Dammit, let’s get it on!” he yelled. “One broad with a pair of blades is just like another, right? Right?”
“Right,” said Fancy Dan, though with little conviction. Ox snorted and pawed the ground with the heels of his boots. Montana and Marston exchanged an uneasy glance, both in silent agreement that all they wanted was to go back to cold beer and a game on the big screen and a discussion about film stars, and that, for all they cared, The Grandmaster’s game could go hang. Unfortunately, that option didn’t seem to be available.
Deathstrike swept back her hair and blew Harrison a kiss. “Any time you’re ready, pretty boy,” she breathed.
Snarling, Harrison darted forward, surprisingly light on his feet for such a heavy-set man. It was because he had spent a number of years as an amateur boxer, and a pretty successful one all told, until realising that the cash and fringe benefits of organised crime were far more appealing than sporting contests. He ducked and weaved now as he approached Deathstrike, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed in concentration. He jabbed out his left hand, once than twice, gauging his balance on the uneven flagstones underfoot, and sniffed. His silver knuckles flashed.
Deathstrike cocked her head, still smiling like a cat. “Your previous victim had no way of defending herself by the time you set about her,” she taunted. “Are you just as confident against an armed opponent?”
“It’s all speed and technique, sweetheart,” Harrison growled.
Deathstrike raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Yes, it is…”
Harrison lunged then, feinting to his right then stepping to the left, swinging a haymaker. Deathstrike moved to counter, bringing one sword up to protect her face whilst preparing to stab with the other… only to be snared by the loop of a lariat settling about her shoulders and yanking tight. She hissed, almost staggering, but maintaining her balance – then, shifting her entire bodyweight suddenly to her right, she managed to reel away from Harrison’s fists whilst pulling at the lasso. One glowing blade flicked up and out, slicing Harrison across the shoulder as he curled away to shield his face, and he screamed as a cloud of dry ice erupted from the wound. The other sword exploded from Deathstrike’s grip as she twisted and hurled it towards Montana, whose attack from behind had almost proved so costly. The cowboy’s eyes shot wide in astonishment, a split second before the flashing blade penetrated him square in the chest and out through his back. He stumbled, hands twitching as he dropped his lariat…
…and then, as his blood and muscle and organs froze from the inside out, and his flesh began to turn blue with frost, he fell backwards with a strangled gasp.
For a moment, no one moved or spoke. Then, Snake Marston shrieked and scrambled across the courtyard to the fallen man’s side.
“Jackson!” he croaked. “Oh, Jackie, no…”
Montana’s Stetson had fallen from his head when he fell, and Marston clutched it to his chest now as he choked back a sob. When he raised his head to glare hatefully across at the woman who had slain his partner, his eyes were dark and full of tears. “It’s not right!” he yelled. “You can’t just… you can’t…”
Deathstrike snarled and swayed as Harrison came at her again, jabbing with both fists. She took a glancing blow across the shoulder, but barely noticed – and then she thrust her remaining blade up through her attacker’s head, splintering his jaw and skull with a sickening shuk. She slide the blade clear and kicked away the man’s spasming corpse before the deep freeze had taken hold… then whirled to face the onrushing charge of the muscle-bound Ox, who was bellowing incoherently in response to the demise of his companions. Deathstrike threw herself clear, hitting the ground and rolling to her feet in one movement, and when she straightened she found herself face-to-face with Marston.
“Bitch!” he hissed, lunging at her. Deathstrike merely slashed out with her free hand, her ten-inch talons raking across the man’s face and stripping away most of his flesh in one strike. Marston screamed and flailed blindly, but his agonies were short-lived – he felt a blade slice thickly into his stomach then slide out again. He sank to his knees, clutching at his gut, already experiencing the spread of intense cold throughout his core. A second later, there was only darkness – a mercy considering that Deathstrike then whirled upon the spot and decapitated him with one clean strike, sending his head spinning through the air.
Still moving in mid-pirouette, Deathstrike heard the thundering of Ox’s boots behind her and danced away, her hair flashing about her shoulders and her cheeks flushed with colour. She dipped, snatching out for the hilt of the sword currently embedded in Montana’s frozen body, and grunted with exertion as she yanked it free. Then, as Ox bore down upon her once more, she twisted at the waist and brought both swords up before her in a cross, with the junction of the glowing blades positioned directly at Ox’s trunk of a neck. With a grim smile she pulled both weapons back with a vicious shriek of steel on steel, slashing her enemy’s throat in both directions at once.
Ox gurgled, blood threatening to gout from his wound but freezing into scarlet ice just as it began to spill. Incredibly, he remained standing, his hands slowly reaching out… but then, just like the others, he collapsed heavily, like a puppet with severed strings.
“Four of five,” Deathstrike muttered, brandishing her swords with a flourish. “Just one left – the courageous leader…”
She turned to see Fancy Dan standing a few feet away, his weasel countenance pale and trembling. He had removed his fedora and was pressing it to his chest, the way that Marston had held Montana’s hat, and it occurred to the swordswoman that these common thugs mourned each other like soldiers… or family. She had known family, once.
“This weren’t the place for us,” Dan said, quietly. “We’re nothin’. Nobodies. Why’d that freak even bring us here?”
“Fodder, perhaps,” Deathstrike murmured. “Every war needs casualties. Then again, sometimes, miracles happen – you may have survived far longer if you hadn’t attracted my attention. Your mistake was not sticking to the shadows but instead succumbing to mob mentality. There are players in this macabre game who, no doubt, will relish the opportunity to rend flesh and shed blood without consequence. You people, I suspect, were prompted to act by other, more personal motivations – not least fear. But you lacked the killer instinct necessary for such an endeavour.”
Dan grimaced. “Killer instinct… yeah. Well, honey, you got that in spades. You murdered my friends without even battin’ an eyelash.”
“And was your beating of that unfortunate woman before me any less heinous a crime? Five against one, I’d say it was worse.” Deathstrike breathed deeply then, and set aside her swords. “Come, now. Let me send you to join your brothers.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment he didn’t move. Then, he smiled, grimly. “Yeah,” he rasped. “What the hell, right? As you say… sometimes, miracles happen.”
The small man in the suit skipped forward then, light on his feet but with a different stance than Harrison; Fancy Dan wasn’t a boxer but rather an expert in more elegant disciplines, such as karate, judo and Jiu-Jitsu. He possessed great speed and guile, and his attacks were fuelled by both fury and the knowledge that he had nothing to lose, save for a life that was inevitably forfeit anyway. Ducking beneath Deathstrike’s slashing talons he snapped out a kick at her knee and, when he connected and was rewarded with the unmistakable crack of splintering bone, his felt a momentary surge of triumph. Unfortunately, that was followed by a wave of excruciating pain as he collapsed, clutching frantically at his own shattered leg.
Utterly unharmed, Deathstrike stood over the writhing man, her face an implacable mask. “My body is as much steel as it is flesh,” she informed him, gently. “This Grandmaster’s sense of humour is cruel indeed that he would preside over such a mismatched contest – and I’m afraid I’m not a woman given to allowing miracles. My gratitude, little man, for allowing me to send out a message of warning to any other players of this game who would choose to challenge me…”
She reached down then, her claws outstretched, and closed them about Fancy Dan’s head. Then, in one movement, she squeezed and twisted, eliciting a sickening snap that echoed throughout the courtyard. Dan slumped, suddenly limp. Deathstrike stood back and glanced around, surveying the scene of her devastating victory.
Fatalities confirmed, a mechanical voice bleeped. Deceased: Fancy Dan, Ox, Montana, Snake Marston, Hammer Harrison, collective designation The Enforcers. Survival confirmed. Designation: Lady Deathstrike. New probability of overall victory: 6.1 per cent.
Deathstrike glanced up at this new drone hovering above her head, her eyes narrowed. She didn’t seek to destroy this one. Instead, she simply nodded to herself. “And so it continues,” she muttered. Then, she turned away, still armed with the two neon swords that had belonged to Coldheart, and stalked menacingly from the scene of her conquest.
Hunkering down in the shadows in one of the cloister galleries, a hulking figure watching on with eyes that glowed like hot coals in the dark. His claws were trailing absent patterns on the flagstones before him, and when he sneered he revealed rows of sharpened teeth. His breathing came deep and even, although his heart hammered with excitement in his chest and every nerve in his body was alive.
Victor Creed, the mutant Sabretooth, sniffed at the air and snarled in his belly. Lady Deathstrike wasn’t the only enemy in the immediate vicinity; there were others, one of them so close he could almost taste her. Not for a moment did he entertain the thought that any adversary could get the best of him in a physical encounter, but there was no telling what other surprises there were out there, and it was therefore best to be cautious. Sabretooth was many things, not least a savage and merciless killer, but he wasn’t stupid. Anyone who mistakenly believed that invariably ended up dead.
Deathstrike was another such warrior, blessed with a ruthless heart. If he was going to emerge victorious from this contest – and, of course, he imagined himself favourite to do so – then Sabretooth knew that he and the swordswoman would ultimately have cause to face one another. Until then… well, there was no harm in getting in some practise.
Sabretooth grinned and flexed his claws. Then, he sniffed the air again. So many scents, so many individual trails, like wild animals – but there was one in particular, a natural musk, that stood out in its appeal. He licked his lips. Now that this perfume was in his nostrils there would be no escaping him.
Springing silently to his feet and padding away through the dark, Sabretooth took to singing lightly under his breath.
“Wabbit, wabbit, wabbit… ah’m’a goin’ huntin’ wabbit…”
On the other side of the courtyard, another pair of eyes – ellipses of gleaming gold – was also spying on Lady Deathstrike as she took her leave. Spiral had no idea that Sabretooth was also in the vicinity, but then she wouldn’t have particularly cared. Deathstrike was the only one that mattered.
When her quarry was gone, Spiral glanced about her immediate surroundings where she had materialized a few minutes previously, just as Deathstrike was despatching the last of her foes. Lodged amidst the ruined columns of the southern edge of the cloister her ravaged craft cowered like a wounded cub, deep gouges decorating its metal hide. Spiral felt anger well deep within, quickly overwhelmed by a sense of her own impotence. She weaved the fingers of all six of her hands, even though she knew deep down that The Grandmaster had been good to his word – her ability to manipulate magic, including the art of teleportation for both herself and her vessel, had been stolen away. There was no passage of retreat.
However, that wasn’t to say she was powerless.
Unsheathing her swords from the scabbards at her waist, Spiral crept out into the open courtyard, eyes narrowed and searching the shadows. Satisfied that there was no immediate danger she wandered amidst the carnage Deathstrike had left in her wake, poking and prodding at the six corpses that littered the ground. As she moved, she began to smile grimly to herself.
Some of these specimens were lost to her. But not all. Provided, of course, she acted with haste.
Sheathing her swords once more she crouched down at the head of the nearest body and set to work…
So, Tanya Sealy mused wretchedly, this is what it must have felt like for those men and women who, over time, she had gathered in her dark embrace. There hadn’t been many – a handful of victims during her days as a covert operative of Roxxon, a few more after joining The Society, but none in the past three years – and, if she was being honest, those deaths had never previously weighed upon her conscience. That was just the way for some people; murder was an occupation, nothing more. She considered herself kind-natured in many respects, and derived no pleasure from killing, it was just something she was called upon to do every so often.
Of course, now she saw things a little differently.
She had smothered her victims in Darkforce and slowly asphyxiated them, like the snake that was her namesake. The fact that these people had died with a strange smile upon their lips meant nothing; she had still rendered them mute and paralysed in their final moments. Now, here she was, unable to speak or move herself, every gasp of breath a struggle. Would The Needle’s petrifying stare ever wear off? Or had he somehow stimulated her body to experience a stroke, or some all-encompassing palsy from which she could never recover?
And, when Bullseye had been touching her, breathing on her, owning her in the midst of her fossilized state… how had that been any different from what she had always done?
Still clasped tightly in the arms of Slyde, who was convinced that Bullseye would be following hard on their heels and who was desperate to escape the warren of narrow streets that enclosed them, Black Mamba’s dark eyes glistened with the beginnings of tears. She wept at her own helplessness, and – belatedly – for those whose lives she had ended.
But, worst of all, she wept in realisation at that she and Bullseye were as good as one and the same beneath the skin…
The man in the scarlet-and-gold body armour reeked of oil and scorched metal, and the distinct tang of burning gas. The air about him rippled in heat waves, causing the reflected light of the vessel overhead to shimmer, and trickles of steam escaped from the eye- and mouth-slits of his faceplate, and from his hinged joints. He resembled a man, but he could just as easily have been a creature from the pit.
Harvey Broxtel circled some fifty metres above the ground, born aloft by jets in the soles of his golden boots. After a few months of being incarcerated at The Raft he was enjoying his return to freedom and being reunited with his armour. He was also relishing the prospect of what was to come. To many of those unwitting participants of The Grandmaster’s game this situation was entirely unwelcome, but not to Broxtel. His predecessor – the first man to wear a version of this armour and to call himself Firebrand – had been a political activist and eco-terrorist, but Broxtel had no such leanings. He was only interested in two things: money and wreaking havoc. Therefore, in his eyes, he couldn’t imagine a more perfect scenario than this. Here he was being encouraged to wreak as much havoc as humanly possible… and, if he slaughtered each and every other villain in the game, he would be rewarded with riches beyond his wildest dreams.
It was as if this entire set-up had been envisioned with his insidious sensibilities in mind.
Behind his faceplate, Broxtel grinned. Before him, a tower with crumbling, crenellated battlements stood tall and imposing, casting an area of ruins below in shadow. There was a figure moving up on those battlements, clad in a costume that Broxtel recognised. It was a man whom he had never met and yet with whom he shared a strange measure of kinship. Both were the second individuals to have operated under their adopted names; both claimed a close affiliation with the elements. However, the particular element each man had selected as his power was the polar opposite of the other.
For the natural enemy of fire… was ice.
A gloved hand – stitched fabric squares of green and purple, embroidered with a golden thread – stroked gently at the carved wooden façade of a square box. A mouth curled into a thorn-sharp smile. Dark eyes twinkled with amusement. A head nodded, in approval, and bells jangled with a merry tune.
“O! For a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention…” the thin man in the gaudy costume sighed, his gaze upturned to the figure in scarlet-and-gold armour who was wheeling high overhead. Then, he cackled to himself and danced a little jig, the bells on each spoke of his tri-corned hat now lost in a frantic melody.
The hand patted the box, then tucked it back into a bulging shoulder satchel.
And then Jonathan Powers, the man otherwise known as The Jester, slipped away into the shadows.
En Dwi Gast settled back into his throne, red eyes affixed once more on the events playing out on the myriad image screens that surrounded him, jostling for attention. Six more portals had darkened: six more casualties. The Grandmaster smiled.
The game was proceeding apace – but there was still so much more to come…
To Be Continued...
Significant Issues
Important events referred to in this issue occured in the following Marvel titles:
Coldheart first appeared in Spider-Man # 49
Lady Deathstrike was transformed into a cyborg in Uncanny X-Men # 205
Spiral's origin was told in X-Factor Annual # 7
