Supervillain War # 4








	[Flashback] “Hammer’s gonna have our heads, you numbskull! Your brilliant ice wall just blocked off the corridor we needed!” The man in the garish blue-and-white costume shrank back as his two companions turned on him in anger, one clad in a svelte black outfit accessorised by violet mask, gloves and cape, and the other in flashy purple-and-green armour. The latter fellow was known as The Beetle; the man in the cape, who had just been yelling, was Blacklash; and the poor sap they were furious at was Blizzard. The three of them were villains-for-hire, currently on the payroll of a corrupt businessman named Justin Hammer, and ten seconds earlier they had performed that most curious of acts – they had broken into a police station at a downtown Los Angeles precinct. Their mission was simple: they were to assassinate Clay Wilson, a former Hammer employee who had recently turned himself into the authorities, claiming that he possessed enough incriminating evidence to see his ex-boss finally brought to justice for a litany of crimes. Unfortunately, in an attempt to protect himself and his allies from a legion of armed police officers, Blizzard had just utilized the cryogenic capabilities of his battlesuit to lower the air temperature in a localised area, creating an instant barrier of solid ice – with Clay Wilson on the other side of the wall. Needless to say, Blacklash – who had been on Blizzard’s case ever since they had first met, barely more than a week ago – was not impressed. “Hey, cut me some slack, huh?” Blizzard whined. “I… I’m new at this.” And he was. At a tender nineteen years of age, Donald ‘Donnie’ Gill was the second man to operate under the Blizzard moniker, and he had big boots to fill – his predecessor had been an accomplished desperado, battling the hero known as Iron Man to a standstill on more than one occasion. Donnie knew that it was important he didn’t screw up this mission. Well, any more than he already had, at least… “Enough!” hissed The Beetle, his chittering voice eerily inhuman as it was filtered through his mask. “If we can’t use the corridor, we’ll go through the walls.” Blacklash sniffed, and cast Blizzard a look of pure malevolence. Donnie’s shoulders slumped. Did he truly have what it took to make it as a big-time supervillain…? [Flashback ends] Donnie Gill stood at the edge of the parapet and gazed out upon the alien landscape before him, utterly forlorn. He had materialized at the summit of a tower at the heart of what appeared to be monastery ruins, and from this vantage point he could see acres of battlefield stretching out into the distance; from a ragged cloister directly below, to a crystal canyon away to his right and a maze of crooked streets to his left, and finally to an area of dense forestland in the distance. The air was coloured with a hazy mist and the filtered light of The Grandmaster’s vessel overhead, beyond which was a tumult of storm and a huge, red planet that virtually filled the heavens. There was no doubting that this was a world far from Earth. Donnie found that he couldn’t stop shaking, not through cold – though that idea almost made him laugh out loud – but rather through fear. The tower overlooked a courtyard where, just a few minutes before, a fierce conflict had taken place; he had witnessed a deadly swordswoman carve into bloodied shreds a band of thugs who themselves had previously set about another female in brutal fashion. That first woman had worn midnight blue and silver, and she had perished quickly. Her successor, an oriental beauty with black hair tied back with scarlet, had then despatched the perpetrators of that first murder with similar ease. Her prowess with her twin blades had been breathtaking and brought to mind a title from an old album in Donnie’s CD collection: Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. Yeah, damn right. Five against one, but the thugs hadn’t stood a chance. On the one hand Donnie was thrillingly impressed, but on the other it caused his heart to quicken in trepidation. It was terrifying to think that he was stranded here with such a warrior – and, even worse, to imagine that she might just be one of many. Supervillains were a rum lot. Donnie had never been comfortable in such company in the past, and he was fully aware that this situation was a hundred times worse. Identity confirmed, a mechanical voice whirred from above. Designation: Blizzard. Probability of overall victory: 2.3 per cent. Donnie glanced up, his eyes wide behind his mask. “Hey!” he yelled at the drone that had appeared close by, sounding far more confident than he actually felt. “Listen to me – this is a mistake! I’m not Blizzard any more. I’m not a supervillain any more. I gave it all up. I went straight – understand? Hell, these days I’m even… I…” What? he suddenly thought, miserably. What are you going to say, Donnie? That you’re a hero now? That you’re Iron Man? Or one of them, at least. Because that would sure go down well with Tony. Revealing his secret identity by literally shouting it from the rooftops whilst surrounded by hordes of crazed criminals… “Dammit,” Donnie breathed, watching the drone retreat a discreet distance and then simply hover, as if awaiting developments. What was he supposed to do? He hadn’t even worn the Blizzard costume in months; he was used to Stark’s sophisticated armour now, not some half-assed, blue-and-white, tin-foil all-in-one energized by an out-of-date power pack. If only this Grandmaster freak had done his homework, none of this would – Donnie spied a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye and whirled. At first he thought it was his overwrought imagination playing tricks, but then, a few metres away, a flying figure emerged slowly from behind the parapet on the opposite side of the tower. Donnie’s heart seized in recognition, not just because he was familiar with this individual from having been forced to digest reams of information from Stark’s data files but because it was almost like facing a mirror image of himself, just in negative. The costume design was fundamentally similar, but whereas Blizzard wore blue and white so this other was clad in scarlet and gold body armour that leaked grease and small clouds of steam from the joints. The figure was propelled by jets in the soles of his boots, and in this instance, as well as in his colour scheme, he was more analogous with Iron Man; perhaps, then, with the bitterest irony, this fellow was reminiscent of some macabre hybrid of Iron Man and Blizzard, just as Donnie himself had become in spirit. Whatever the truth of the matter, the sudden and implicit correlation between the two warriors was quite uncanny. Identity confirmed, bleeped the tentacled drone from above, its patience rewarded. Designation: Firebrand. Probability of overall victory: 3.6 per cent. The man named Firebrand pivoted his head in the drone’s direction, eyes bright in the slits of his crimson faceplate. He then raised a hand… and a stream of concentrated flame burst from a small, circular vent in his palm, engulfing the drone before it could take evasive action. Donnie flinched as he heard the mechanical orb seem to shriek, then saw it speed away, singed and smoking, one of its tendrils still aflame. Firebrand wheeled lazily in the air, then turned his attention towards the man cowering on the tower ramparts below. “Blizzard, right?” the jet-propelled villain snarled, his voice eerily distorted behind his metal mask. “I heard you died.” “That was another guy,” Donnie said. “I just quit.” “Same thing.” “You think?” Firebrand raised the palm of his hand in the other man’s direction. “Yeah,” he hissed. “I think.” And then he let loose a torrent of murderous heat and flame… [Flashback] The old man, withered like a raisin in the Californian sun, smiled to himself and pushed his half-moon spectacles up to the bridge of his hooked nose. “Interesting,” he rasped, trailing his fingers over the sheets of blueprints spread out on the table before him. “Very interesting. May I ask where you came by these plans, Mister…?” “Just call me Harvey,” said the swarthy, red-haired fellow who stood in the doorway of the workshop, hands shoved into the pockets of a worn, tan overcoat. “And where those documents came from is none of your business. I just need to know if you can build me the suit… or if your reputation isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.” The old man chuckled to himself, then shuffled behind a desk and began tapping away at a computer keyboard. After a few moments, streams of coded data began to process on a monitor screen, then vanished behind a number of information windows that quickly began to blink into existence. The wizened man nodded, thoughtfully. The red-haired fellow scowled. “Is that a yes?” “Hm? Oh… oh, yes, the suit…” the old man waved a hand dismissively. “Standard crystallised iron and titanium weave outer shell with an antithermal interior lining, compressed butane projection with ignition trigger, jet propulsion system – nothing particularly taxing, I assure you, especially with these microcircuit relay blueprints to work from.” “So what’s with the computer?” The old man glanced back over his shoulder, still smiling. “Just precautions, Mister Broxtel. You can never be too careful.” The man in the doorway, Harvey Broxtel, recoiled in shock. “The hell? How’d you know my - ” “Computers are marvellous things. Can’t remember how I ever got along without one. There are fingerprint recognition pads built into the handles of every door, retina identification scanners in every corridor… and direct access to FBI, CIA, SHIELD, STRIKE and all other international law enforcement databases to process the information.” The withered man raised an eyebrow. “Believe me, young fellow, that reputation of mine is well-earned; if anything, it fails to do me proper justice. Now, if we might just move on to the subject of my fee…?” Broxtel pursed his lips, then grinned ruefully. “Tinkerer,” he murmured, “You’ve got a deal. And I’ve got a feeling you’re about to earn every damn cent…” [Flashback ends] As Blizzard disappeared from view, consumed by a veritable inferno, Harvey Broxtel – the second man to have operated under the villainous identity of Firebrand – smiled cruelly to himself behind his faceplate. It had been over a year since he stolen the plans for the power suit from the laboratories of Stark Enterprises in California whilst working there as a janitor, thereafter presenting the blueprints to the eccentric scientific engineer known only as The Tinkerer. Since then he had maintained a relatively low profile, clashing briefly with Spider-Man and then a gang of kid heroes known as The New Warriors before being recently incarcerated. Not the most impressive resume, admittedly. However, all that was about to change. Now, The Grandmaster’s game was the perfect opportunity to – Firebrand recoiled instinctively, yelping out a curse as the air around him erupted in a sudden cloud of white, hissing steam. He wheeled in mid-flight, his vision obscured. Only when he pulled clear of the cloud was he able to look back and see… a shaft of ice, some ten inches thick, shooting up towards him! Firebrand swore again and took evasive action, spiralling away to his right as the ice pole lanced through the air where he had been hovering a split second previously before sailing away harmlessly, out over the ramparts. He twisted then, staring back in the direction of the tower, where Blizzard was staggering for cover, curls of smoke rising from his scorched blue-and-white costume. “Run, rabbit, run…” Firebrand breathed, angling himself towards his enemy and then propelling himself forward with the jet boosters in the sole of his boots. Down below, Blizzard was in a world of pain. There was more than just a similarity of outer design between the suits he and Firebrand wore; structurally they were almost identical, with a heavy duty, microfibre-weave outer layer over an insulated inner suit, all lined with thin, hollow piping. In Firebrand’s case, the tubing contained compressed butane that could be released through palm vents, whereupon it would catch fire by virtue of an automatic ignition trigger in much the same fashion as the workings of a flamethrower; for Blizzard, the piping was filled with liquid nitrogen that could be manipulated with cryogenic circuitry in his gauntlets, allowing him to freeze the latent moisture in the air, often in very specific shapes and forms as guided by his fingers. When Firebrand had attacked, Blizzard had instinctively attempted to shield himself within an ice cocoon, and had been successful in a sense – he was, after all, still alive and able to move – but, despite this, he had still been momentarily roasted inside his suit, by both fire and also the scalding steam that had resulted when his ice had been consumed by the gas-fuelled flame. It was now all he could do not to collapse screaming at the agony of his blistered flesh – and, worse, he was sure that the insulation layer of his suit had all but melted, meaning that the slightest rip in the outer weave could result in him being exposed to his own liquid nitrogen. It was, he couldn’t help but muse, a far cry from the remarkable protection offered by the Iron Man armour he had become used to these past few weeks. In short, he was screwed. The crest of the tower was circular, with a large opening in the floor at the centre and a spiral staircase leading down into shadow. Just as Blizzard reached the stairs he heard the whistle of a heavy mass pass behind him, then felt the thunderous crack of a fist encased in metal slam into the side of his head, lifting him off his feet and sending him sprawling, back away from his escape route. He attempted to roll as he hit the ground, but the combination of his injuries and a head that was now ringing like a bell was too much to counter. He slumped forward, the world spinning. At that moment Firebrand swooped down again – releasing flammable butane from vents in his boots in the same manner as from his gauntlets, to act as jet propulsion – and grabbed his enemy about the waist, plucking him from the floor as if he were weightless and lifting him high into the air. Blizzard shrieked and thrashed in Firebrand’s arms, encased in piping hot metal, but all this earned him was the other man’s scornful laughter from behind his faceplate. “Every wondered what it felt like to spontaneously combust, frosty?” Firebrand growled in Blizzard’s ear. “Well, you’re about to find out…” Firebrand released his grip then, and Blizzard was momentarily suspended in thin air, some fifty metres above the tower ramparts, his bodysuit charred and issuing alarming trails of black smoke. Then, he back to fall. In his wake, Firebrand twisted and extended both hands, palms outward, ready to engulf his helplessly plummeting adversary in another, final burst of searing flame… …only to shriek in sudden agony as – with a distinct, resounding ker-crack! – something struck him across the backs of both of his legs, slicing through his armour as if it were paper and biting deep into the flesh and muscle housed within. Firebrand wheeled, aware that every layer of his suit had been violently punctured – including the lattice of fuel piping beneath the outer weave, which was now releasing a hissing stream of highly combustible butane into the air. His eyes shot wide behind his faceplate as he glanced down, towards the tower… where he saw his attacker staring back up at him. The man who had caused such devastation to his armour in one blow was a well-built fellow, resplendent in a fancy black and violet costume, and brandishing a highly distinctive weapon: a whip of tightly threaded steel filament coils, golden in colour but also glowing and humming with a fierce, electrical burr. “Yo, Smokestack!” snarled the man otherwise known as Blacklash. “What say you get your lame, Human Torch wannabe, barbeque grill ass-scorch the hell away from my friend?” Firebrand cursed through gritted teeth. And then, the whip cracked a second time – and the clouds of escaping butane ignited in a cacophonous explosion. [Flashback] Dressed now in civvies rather than his costume, Donnie Gill stood out on a balcony overlooking an impossibly wide expanse of verdant green, stretching as far as the eye could see in all directions beneath a darkening Californian sky. The setting sun was bleeding into a damson stain on the horizon, and the air was warm, and ripe with a heady scent of oranges from the orchards and grapes from the vineyards. This, Donnie thought miserably, was what it meant to be rich, and successful; this was what it meant to be Justin Hammer. “Hey, kid…” Donnie turned at the sound of a familiar voice, his expression already souring. Mark Scarlotti had emerged out onto the balcony, also having discarded his costume for a black sweater and jeans; absent of mask, his handsome face was tanned and weathered, topped with a crop of whitish-blonde hair and softened by eyes of a disarming, glacier blue. Donnie flushed. Without his super-villain threads, he was a nobody and he looked it; in contrast, Scarlotti radiated confidence and executive status. He had been a major player in the Maggia, the largest international crime syndicate in the world, long before he had ever taken up the mantle of first Whiplash and then Blacklash, proving a major thorn in the side of Iron Man in both incarnations. “It’s okay, it’s all yours,” Donnie mumbled. “I’m just leaving.” “Don’t.” Donnie looked confused. Scarlotti sighed, and glared out towards the glorious sunset. “Listen,” he muttered. “I’m sorry about all that business earlier, okay? I didn’t mean to rag on you so bad.” “I screwed up…” “Nah. Well, yeah… but no more than anyone does their first time out, me included.” “You?” “Hell yeah.” Scarlotti smirked. “And when your signature weapon is an electrified bullwhip you can bet everyone’s gonna be watching when you make a mistake. But, anyway. Whatever. I just wanted to say, I was too hard on you. You’ve got potential. You’ll make yourself a good name in this business eventually. Maybe.” Donnie’s cheeks were still pink, but now he was blushing with praise. “Wow,” he said. Then, his eyes narrowed. “You serious? Or is this a wind-up, and Beetle’s waiting back inside with a big bucket of water to pour over my head…?” Scarlotti grinned. “I’m serious. I’ve got a brother, see. A younger brother, about your age. Name of Michael. You remind me of him, a little. Not as good-looking, of course…” “Is he in the Maggia too?” It was an innocent question, but Scarlotti’s smile fell instantly, and the warmth that had been present in his gaze a second earlier now vanished to be replaced by dark clouds. “No,” he said, quietly. “No, Mike’s smarter than that. He’s gonna be a doctor, a surgeon… something important. We should all make the best of what we’ve got, right? And, as I said, kid… you’re gonna be good. Just don’t pay any attention when I get in your face on a job, okay? I just wanna make sure we all get back in one piece. Okay?” Donnie nodded, breathing deeply. Out in the valley, indigo dusk was encroaching and the vineyards below rustled in the slightest of breezes. Donnie and Scarlotti just stood and watched for awhile, an easy silence between them. Neither could have known that this was the last conversation they’d have for a very long time… [Flashback ends] The explosion reverberated throughout the Se’dai battlefield. Stealthily navigating the ruins in the immediate vicinity of the tower, Lady Deathstrike had already witnessed flashes of fire in the sky without being able to determine their source; then the detonation came, a hundred times more devastating, causing the ground to tremble underfoot and the sky to darken swiftly with ash and smoke and a rain of stones. Eyes narrowed, she glared back towards the tower, then sprinted for cover. To the southeast, close to where the labyrinth of narrow streets were beginning to give way to undergrowth at the edge of the southern forestland, two figures were hunkered down in the shadows of a building at the time of the explosion. The silver-suited Slyde flinched at the sudden boom! as he tended to the woman in his care, Black Mamba, who was still struggling to throw off the effects of The Needle’s psionic paralysis a half-hour after succumbing to his stare. She was able to move her hands now, just a little, and also her lips. Soon she might even be able to talk. At the sound of the detonation, she gazed up at the man caring for her with dark, nervous eyes. He rolled up the bottom half of his mask in response, so that she could see what he hoped was a reassuring smile. If not for the drastic nature of their situation it may even have made for a tender moment. Almost a mile distant and heading in the opposite direction – towards the monastery ruins, in fact – Bullseye almost lost his footing as the ground quaked beneath him. He saw the flare up ahead and grimaced. The battlefield had just been rocked by its first major demonstration of power; he knew there would be many more to come. He paused, wondering whether he should continue on his present course. Then, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something that instantly made the decision for him… Blizzard knew that he was screaming – he could feel the vibrations coursing through his throat and chest – but he heard nothing save for a shrill hiss of white noise, the result of the deafening boom! that had just occurred. He was also falling, his legs flailing into space, his hands scrabbling… and then, at the last moment, his fingers closed around a shard of solid rock and he gripped tightly. He was barely able to focus, and his immediate surroundings were shrouded in whorls of smoke and steam. Then, when he glanced down, he saw that he was treading thin air – the tower had crumbled beneath him, raining chunks of rock and flagstone down onto the courtyard below. He gulped for breath, but his mask was shredded and clogged about his mouth. He felt his fingers begin to slip. “Kid!” a voice yelled, suddenly, breaking through the fug in his ears. “Dammit, reach for me!” For a moment, Blizzard was uncomprehending. Then he saw a hand, clad in a violet glove, extended to him from above. He wanted to grasp it, but his muscles had seized. His whole body, seared and numb with pain, was trembling. The gloved hand pushed forward an inch further. Blizzard heard a creak of stone, then a crack, and a splinter. The ledge he was holding onto shifted, and came loose… …but, at the last second, Blizzard snatched out and grabbed the hand that was straining for him. As the ledge fell away, he found himself hauled upwards, until he felt solid, stable ground beneath his stomach and thighs. He collapsed, hacking, his lungs scorched with smoke. “Jesus, kid. You look like a wiener that fell off the end of someone’s stick…” Blizzard coughed and lifted his head weakly, his eyes streaming. He knew that voice. And he also recognised the violet-masked face that was peering down at him in concern, especially the mocking smile playing about the lips. “Scarlotti…?” “That’s Blacklash to you, ice-cube. Been a while, man.” Donnie Gill tore away the remnants of his mask, revealing a young face with dark eyes and a mop of reddish-brown hair, now singed and crispy. “What happened? Firebrand…” “Taken care of,” Blacklash murmured. “A bit more dramatically than I was expecting, but - ” At that moment, Donnie grunted and shoved Blacklash in the chest, sending him sprawling. He then rolled sideways himself, almost disappearing back over the edge of the shattered ramparts but steering clear at the last second… and the ground where had had been kneeling erupted in a plume of fire, the air igniting in a stream of dancing flame. Blacklash leapt to his feet, his lithe body tensed and ready for action in his all-over black bodysuit. He had already lost his violet cloak and the plume of green feathers that had crested his mask, but these were insignificant trappings. He still had hold of his most important possession: his weapon, a golden bullwhip with a lash woven from sapphire filament and steel fibre, and which channelled ten thousand volts of electrical energy via a micro-cluster power pack in the grip. The electrified lash was powerful enough to penetrate anything short of Adamantium, which was why Blacklash had proved himself such a potent adversary for Iron Man in the past – and why he had supposed he had incapacitated Firebrand with his earlier strike. That assumption had been mistaken. His armoured scarlet-and-gold bodysuit was severely damaged and the man beneath wounded – leaking oil and blood in equal measure – but Firebrand remained standing. One of his gauntlet vents was still working, with a single butane hose unruptured, and as he staggered from the smoking wreckage of the tower with his palm extended outward he sprayed fitful bursts of flame in all directions. He paused only when he saw his adversaries before him. Blacklash snarled and flourished his whip. Across from him, Donnie rose unsteadily to his feet. Firebrand looked from one to the other, his eyes crazed with pain behind his smoking faceplate, which, it seemed, had half-melted against his flesh and bone – ironically, now branding him in a very real sense. For a moment, not one of the three moved. Then, Firebrand activated his ignition trigger, and Donnie released a stream of liquid nitrogen in reply… …unaware that the cryogenic circuitry in his own gauntlets had been irrevocably damaged earlier, when he had grabbed out at the tower ledge to halt his fall. Thus, the air between the two foes didn’t freeze into an ice wall as Donnie intended; instead, the liquid nitrogen vaporised, extinguishing Firebrand’s flames and smothering him in a cloud of glittering white. The armoured villain stiffened, instantaneously frozen, but not within a cocoon of ice – rather, his armour and flesh alike underwent molecular cryogenic metamorphosis. There wasn’t even time to scream. Donnie’s jaw fell slack in shock at what he’d done. Alongside him, Blacklash breathed deeply. “Nice,” he murmured. “Now, the coup de grace…” He pulled back his arm, the lash of his whip glowing brightly. Donnie turned towards him, startled. “Wait!” he yelled. “You can’t - ” “Name of the game, kid,” Blacklash growled. And then he brought the whip down with a devastating ker-crack! that caused Donnie to rear back instinctively – and, a split second later, he watched in horror as the petrified Firebrand shattered into a thousand, glittering shards beneath Blacklash’s attack. He turned away as he was showered with fragments of glasslike skin and bone and metal, and bile rose in his chest. He sank to his knees, shaking his head in despair. “You didn’t have to… you didn’t…” “He was trying to kill you, kid!” Blacklash snapped. “Christ, what’s wrong with you? This what we’re here for!” Donnie looked up, his eyes bright with tears. “That’s not why I’m here,” he declared, in a venomous whisper. “I never wanted to be part of your world, not really – and, as soon as I realised that, I went straight. When I became Blizzard it was for the money, for the respect… and because I thought being a supervillain would be glamorous. It’s not. It never was. The costumes and the fancy names may be flashy, but it just hides the mayhem. The murder. You’re a killer, Mark. I’m not. I looked up to you, once…” Blacklash just stared at the man before him for a second, then slowly cocked his head. “You turned tail?” he asked, quietly. “I wondered what the hell happened to you. So… what? You’re a Thunderbolt or something?” Donnie smiled at that. He couldn’t help himself. If his lungs and throat weren’t so ruined through fire damage, he might even have laughed. “Worse,” he said. “In fact, back in the real world – if we make it that far – we could even end up meeting each other again pretty soon…” Blacklash snarled, and cradled his bullwhip in both hands. “Kid,” he breathed, “I reckon I wasted my time saving your life. Guess I’d better set about putting that right.” He stepped forward then… …at the exact moment an object sailed through the air and clattered across the jagged flagstones of the ruined tower, rolling to a halt directly between the two men who had once been friends but who likely never would be again after these events. Blacklash looked down, eyes narrowed behind his mask. The object was a cube, eight inches by eight by eight, engraved wood painted with a shiny lacquer. One face of the cube was hinged at the edge – a lid – and, as the two men watched, this lid flipped back… and a doll’s head on a coiled spring suddenly popped up, accompanied by a simple melody, a children’s tune, plus the steady click-click-click of some internal clockwork mechanism. A jack-in-the-box. Blacklash snorted. “The hell is this? Playtime?” The doll’s head was macabre, lacking eyes and lips, and with scars etched into its porcelain face. It weaved backwards and forwards on its spring. Blacklash blinked, and glanced at Donnie, who was frowning. The jack-in-the-box would have been incongruous at the best of times, but here, on an alien world in the middle of a war between killers…? Click-click-click. Click-click-click. Click. And then, for the second time, and far more devastatingly than before… …the tower exploded. Five kilometres to the south of the monastery ruins, deep in the heart of the forest region, the explosions were so distant that they couldn’t really be heard; the skies were merely scored with sudden flares of colour like fireworks on the Fourth of July, glimpsed briefly through the canopy of the trees. Fred Myers barely noticed the spectacular display, concentrating on his own situation. The woodland was dense and oppressive, especially to a man like Fred who had been born in the comparatively rugged and featureless environs of Alice Springs in Australia. His family had emigrated to the United States when he was still young, but he remembered the Outback with great fondness and he had returned a number of times in his life, feeling more at home in the flat scrubland under a merciless sun that anywhere else. That wasn’t to say he didn’t appreciate the beauty of this landscape, with its thick swathes of giant sequoias and redwoods, intermingled with cypress and pines, but he certainly wasn’t comfortable here – and it didn’t help that, for all The Grandmaster’s efforts, it was all so unnatural. It was a little lost on Fred, but the nuances were all awry. There were too many disparate classifications of trees and wildflowers all vying for attention; there was no birdsong, no scuttling of chickarees or insects; the mood was wrong, the smells were wrong, everything was just… wrong. And, worst of all, there was a sense of death beginning to pervade the atmosphere as The Grandmaster’s game slowly started to gain momentum. Fred couldn’t help pondering the Elder’s words, uttered back on in his Court. Regardless of pacts and pledges, you will fight until just one participant remains. And, for this individual – the winner of my game of life – there shall be a prize. That winner will be entitled to a boon – a wish that, if it is in my power, and in my own interests, I shall grant. A game of life. Fred had never enjoyed the best of fortunes in his endeavours, as either a solo operative or as an agent of men such as Justin Hammer, thwarted time and again by the likes of Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Hulk. In fact, he could even be described as a loser; not in the context of the supervillain circuit, where all his peers has tasted defeated at one time or another, but on a personal level. Even the slightest of victories would be something to look back on with pride, but there was nothing. Until now. Now, finally, he had an opportunity. He was determined not to waste it. Identity confirmed, a mechanical voice announced. Designation: Boomerang. Probability of overall victory: 2.3 per cent. Fred Myers, the super-criminal known as Boomerang, turned to see one of The Grandmaster’s drones emerge from the trees before him, glinting in the light filtering down through the canopy overhead. He hesitated, unsure how to respond. He was an athletic man – tall, broad across the shoulders, and as fit now as he ever was back in his days as a pitcher in major league baseball – and he moved easily in his all-over bodysuit of violet-and-blue, adorned with more than a dozen boomerangs that were affixed to his costume at specific junctures for easy access. There were more such missiles in the satchel he wore on his back. All were carved from wood or moulded from steel, but not a one could be considered ordinary. “So, mate, what are you?” Boomerang asked the drone. “Me own personal guardian angel?” The drone didn’t reply, and instead began to drift away, tendrils trailing. Boomerang grimaced. He plucked one of his weapons from his hip, weighing it in his hand… …but, before he could decide whether to hurl it at the drone or to simply leave it be, his attention was drawn instead by the sound of crashing and splintering wood somewhere off into the undergrowth to his right. He had been hearing such noises for the past ten minutes, but now they were drawing closer and were accompanied by cries of alarm. Evidently, there were at least two – perhaps more – other players in the game close by. Scowling, Boomerang propelled himself upward by triggering the twin jet boosters in the soles of his boots. He only had limited fuel and was loath to waste it, but he needed to know who these others were. He manoeuvred through the canopy, leaving a trail of scorched leaves, and set off in the direction of the sounds of battle – which, if the violent shaking of trees some quarter of a mile up ahead was any indication, was less a skirmish and more some form of all-out war… It was beautiful down here, deep beneath the water’s surface: dark, silent, still. Peaceful. It had been so long since Todd Arliss had known peace. He drifted in lazy circles, extracting oxygen from the water through the gills in his throat. His eyes were black but shone with an inner fire. His jaw was crammed with teeth that were elongated and serrated. Otherwise, he still resembled the human he had once been… for now. In recent months he had been experiencing changes. He had always believed his original physical mutation to be a singular occurrence, but his genetic template had obviously been rendered unstable all those years ago when he had found himself playing the role of experimental specimen for a lunatic scientist by the name of Lemuel Dorcas. Now, his body was in a state of flux. During the period of his incarceration at The Raft his humanoid form had been maintained – and controlled – through the steady administration of special chemical serums, as well as regular blood transfusions. Now that he was free of those routines he could feel the physiological need for metamorphosis slowly building. It was only a matter of time before the mutation took effect once more. Todd Arliss, who had long ago all but abandoned that name in favour of the identity of Tiger Shark, closed his eyes and clenched his fists tightly as he experienced the first telltale tremors in his muscles and his frantically pulsing heart. His skull was pounding, his brain throbbing; his nervous system was aflame. He flexed his biceps involuntarily and the orange-red costume that The Grandmaster had furnished him with immediately tore into shreds from his shoulders to his wrists. He snarled in the back of his throat. The skin along the nape of his neck and shoulder blades ruptured, leaking inky blood into the dark water, and a ridged spine of leathery bone and flesh began to grow out of the fissure wound. His fingertips burst, his gloves rent asunder, and his nails lengthened into tapered claws. His jaw snapped and stretched. He threw back his head, mouth wide in silent scream, and his shuddering body sank further into the shadowed depths… “A’well a’bless my soul, what’s’a wrong with me…” His name was Daniel Brito. He was thirty-six years old. He was born… he was born in… His name was Dan. Dan. Daniel. He was… He was born in… His name. He… …hurt. “Ah’m itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree…” In the half-lit chamber at the heart of Spiral’s cube, the corpse twitched and its jaw sprang open. Its eyes flew wide. It screamed. “My friends say ah’m actin’ wild as a bug…” Spiral smiled to herself in satisfaction, and proceeded to thread another wire into the cadaver’s torn throat with one hand whilst wiping away the spill of thawing blood that flooded from the wound with another. Two more hands worked diligently with clamps and circuits and hot solder about the corpse’s brow, wiping away rivulets of melting flesh, whilst one more took a hook-tooth saw to its skull, just above the right ear. The final hand cradled a smouldering cigarette. “Ah’m in love… ah’m’a all shook up, a huh hoo…” Daniel Brito – thirty-six years old, born in Brooklyn, otherwise known as Fancy Dan – continued to scream as Spiral prised open two spongy buds of his brain and delicately inserted an implant that immediately attached itself with a dry hiss. And, throughout the shell of the cube-shaped vessel, the music played on. The woman in the scarlet cloak stared through the bars of the wrought iron gate, a haunted smile playing about her lips. Beyond the gate there was a winding path that passed through a cemetery then climbed at a slight gradient up to a darkened building of distinct silhouette. The graveyard was littered with tombstones marked black against a swirl of white mist like the stab of a crayon in a child’s fist; the building on the hilltop boasted a broad haunch and a tall spire, its body punctuated with narrow windows that blazed with a riot of crimson and gold. A church. The scene was like something out of a horror film, but in a way it was less daunting because of that. The sense of unreality was palpable, and that was without taking into account the spacecraft overhead and the backdrop of an alien world as blood red as the church windows. It was all so… artificial. Again, almost like a child’s version of what should be, gleaned from movies and comic books. Scarlet Fasinera’s son had loved those old Universal movies, the monochrome originals with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. They had used to watch them together, when he was much younger. A long time before he died. The Grandmaster, the being who had conjured all this for their benefit, obviously possessed power beyond imagining – and he evidently had access to their hearts and minds as well as their bodies. It was surely no coincidence that she should find herself here, at a church; no coincidence that she had been whisked away mere moments before she would have taken her own life. There had to be a reason for that. Even if The Grandmaster was not God he was a God. And He had answered her prayers. Up there, in that church with the blazing stained glass windows, Scarlet knew that her son was alive once more, waiting for her. It was the only explanation for this madness. Still smiling, she pushed open the gate and wandered through, her cloak rustling softly about her ankles. Some thirty metres away, leaning against a crumbling stone pillar, a man dressed all in black watched her begin along the path, his eyes narrowed curiously in the sits of his mask. A flash of silver played about his knuckles: a shuriken. Upon on the hill the church beckoned with mist and shadows. The man grinned ruefully. He wasn’t a religious fellow, but he’d experienced his own epiphany in a house of God not so long ago when he’d spilled the blood of one pretty woman. Now, serendipity had delivered him another. Bullseye glanced up at The Grandmaster’s vessel overhead and winked. “Ah, you’re just too good to me, Lord,” he breathed. “But I guess that makes me your favoured son, here to carry out your glorious work… right?” En Dwi Gast steepled his fingers upon his lap as he watched events progress on his multitude of floating screens, his eyes flicking between them all at incredible speed. There were now eight darkened windows, signifying eight deaths. Only eight. This fact caused him to arch one silver-white eyebrow and for his mouth to curl in a curious smirk, but he accepted the evidence without murmur for his drones were not accustomed to malfunction. Despite the devastation occurring down on Se’dai a mere fifth of his assembled players has perished thus far – although he was certain there were a number who were barely clinging to survival. Perhaps - Anomaly. The Grandmaster glanced up, his expression darkening instantly. “What?” he snapped. “Again?” Anomaly. Anomaly. The Grandmaster snarled and leapt up from his throne, his ethereal robes fluttering about his spindle-thin frame. “Where?” he demanded. One of the viewing windows suspended before him slid its way to the forefront of the Court with a whisper. The scene it revealed was of glittering water, cast with a sheen of reflective silver – a lake, wide and deep and rimmed with trees, located to the far south of the battlefield at the edge of the forestland. At the heart of the lake there was an island. And, at the heart of the island… The Grandmaster scowled. Anomaly, indeed. Why is that nothing could ever go exactly according to plan…? To Be Continued...
	Significant Issues Important events referred to in this issue occured in the following Marvel titles: Blizzard, Blacklash and The Beetle worked together in Iron Man # 223 Donnie Gill has been working for Tony Stark in Avengers 2000's Iron Man