[Flashback]
“Whisky, double.”
The bartender poured and set the glass before the man who had just slipped onto his favourite stool, then collected a handful of bills and moved away to serve another customer, all without a word or a smile. It was that kind of bar. There was a television on the wall showing basketball. There was the smell of cigarette smoke and bourbon on the air, mingling with some woman’s cheap perfume. There was the steady click of pool balls and the chime of a slot machine. People were laughing. People were enjoying themselves. For them, it was the beginning of a good night. For the guy on the barstool it was the end of another lousy day.
He was heavy-set, with a defined ridge about the shoulders, and a swarthy, overly square jaw. His brown hair was unkempt. He didn’t smile. There was, it had to be said, an air of failure about him, nothing unusual in a barfly; but then, there was also more than a hint of danger. The man’s name was David Cannon. One month from now, he would be famous. But, for now, there was just beer and sports.
As Cannon drained his glass, he was approached by another man – or rather, by a skinny kid, with lank, dark hair and a vacant stare. A grungy little tyke, no more than nineteen, who looked thoroughly out of place in a dive like this. Cannon glanced around at the youth, his expression nonchalant, although the muscles in his arms visibly tensed in the sleeves of his shirt.
“You want something, boy?”
The kid blinked, obviously nervous. He glanced around, licked his lips, then leaned in close.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “You’re him, right? The Whirlwind?”
“Who’s asking?”
The kid smoothed his palms on his jacket, and attempted to smile. “I’m Ramrod,” he said, extending a hand. “And there’s something I wanted to ask you…”
[Flashback ends]
It had started, as so many things do, in a bar. It had ended in traction, his body a mess of broken bones and ruptured muscles, a uniquely concocted sedative flowing through his veins to not only ease his pain but to nullify the mutated genetics that had gifted him his powers.
In the month in-between, everything had changed in the life of David Cannon, otherwise known as the villain Whirlwind; after so many years of failure, he had finally achieved a level of notoriety precious few of his peers could claim. Whirlwind may have been ultimately defeated in his most recent altercation with the heroes who called themselves The Avengers, but not before he had killed one of them, snapping his neck with his own hands. The death of an Avenger. Such an accomplishment had made the news around the world.
Since that day he had been kept, drugged and shackled, at New York’s Newhope Memorial Hospital, relishing his infamy. But now, here he was, on the other side of the universe… and he couldn’t help but think that his moment of triumph had somehow been stolen from him.
He was glad to back in his battlesuit, of course, even though this should have been impossible. His sleek body armour – silver and dark green, complete with domed, aerodynamic helmet – had been badly damaged when the hero named Moon Knight had dropped an entire helicopter on him from a great height, an incident that had been every bit as painful as it sounded. What remained had then been confiscated and likely destroyed by The Avengers. However, the suit he now wore was an exact replica of the previous version, although burnished with a spanking new gleam. It stood to reason that any being capable of whisking a few dozen supervillains across the vast reaches of space should have no problems in tweaking all those little inconsistencies, such as replacing lost costumes and healing lingering injuries, but nevertheless Whirlwind was impressed.
Even more welcome, however, was the fact that he could move freely once more – and for a man whose mutant ability, manifested when his body had reach puberty, was to be able to revolve at incredible speeds without incurring physical damage from friction burns or disturbed equilibrium, well… to suddenly find himself unconstrained after months of being confined to a hospital bed, the joy was indescribable.
His only lament regarding his current circumstances, therefore, was simple; back on Earth, his recent murderous rampage had secured him a significantly high profile in the villainous community. Now, once again, he was just another soldier at war. Unless, of course, he was able to turn this situation to his advantage…
Identity confirmed, a mechanical voice chirped. Designation: Whirlwind. Probability of overall victory: 5.6 per cent.
Whirlwind glanced up to see a drone hovering above his head, then gazed about at his surroundings, his icy blue eyes narrowed behind the heavy faceplate of his helmet. He had materialized in the southwest of the Se’dai battlefield, on the border between the crystalline and forest quadrants. Pillars of crystal striated with wire, interlaced with an insane array of metal pipes and conduits, sprawled in haphazard fashion away to one side; to the other, a bizarre juxtaposition as the alien landscape shifted into a swathe of trees and wildflowers. The skies overhead remained eerily lit by the glow of The Grandmaster’s starcraft, whilst beyond there was the perpetual flash and broil of lightning and thunderclouds, and the looming presence of red Rem.
Whirlwind had witnessed a lot of strangeness in his life, but this was definitely the pinnacle of weird. A surprisingly intelligent fellow considering his predilection for mindless violence, he had spent awhile pondering the implications of being transported across the span of the universe; however, his instincts kicked into gear the moment he realised that he was no longer alone in the clearing where he currently stood.
Emerging from the neck of the crystal canyon some fifty metres away there strolled a man clad in a costume that was more boiler suit than traditional supervillain fare, tan in colour, with heavy gloves and boots. The man’s mask was akin to a welder’s helmet, with a dark, frosted visor obscuring his face. Strapped about his chest and waist were numerous belts, adorned with armaments – cylinders of gold and silver – that were reminiscent of grenades. Cradled in the man’s arms was a rifle, supplemented with an abundance of special modifications that gave it an appearance more like a flamethrower or a rocket launcher. It was, Whirlwind mused, a damn intimidating gun, perfect for long range attacks.
“Hey there, buddy,” he called out, his whole body tensing as he prepared to take flight. He could start to rotate at will and reach a terrific speed in seconds – so long as he had seconds. “Just, uh… don’t do anything rash, okay? Let’s get to know each other awhile, what do you say?”
“No need, Cannon,” the man in the welder’s mask yelled back. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you. I guess you don’t recognise me since I changed my look – and, unlike you, I’ve been keeping a low profile just recently. I saw you on the news, you know. Much respect, man.”
Whirlwind cocked his head, curious. That voice was familiar…
Overhead, the drone bleeped once more, tentacles flicking. <<Identity confirmed,>> it chirped. <<Designation: The Trapster. Probability of overall victory: 4.1 per cent.>>
Whirlwind blinked. “Holy cow,” he murmured. “Pete…?”
[Flashback]
“Pamela Isley? The redhead from biology? Oh man, no way you bagged her.”
Pete Petruski, son of second generation Polish immigrants, was a rakishly thin fellow with a mop of brown hair that refused to part beneath any comb, an awkward face, and one eye that kept creeping sideways to look at its fellow. An adolescent Humphrey Bogart, some said, provided they were feeling kind. At nineteen he was the youngest of the four students sitting round the table at the university bar, drinking beer with tequila chasers, and compared to his three rather dashing friends he was certainly the most unfortunate looking. Therefore the boasts of his latest conquest were never going to be met with anything less than utter derision. Still, he got points for trying, bless him.
Petruski looked aggrieved. “You don’t believe me?” he whined, his voice every bit as unappealing as his looks. “What, my own best friends think I’d lie to them?”
“Man, you’d lie to your own mother.”
“I’d lie with your mother, Raxton.”
Mark Raxton, tanned and beach blond, snorted and necked his beer, whilst the two African-Americans in the group both laughed. Curtis Carr, confident and mischievous in the way that all the girls loved, lit a cigarette and flicked his match at Petruski, who gave him the finger. The fourth member of the quartet, the handsome-like-a-puppy-dog Jalome Beacher, held up a coin between thumb and forefinger and squinted.
“Ish hish a dime?” he slurred, his eyes wandering in different directions in wholly innocent but nonetheless accurate mimicry of Petruski’s amblyopic affliction. “If ish a dime, ish a – hic! – lucky dime.”
“Jesus, Beach,” Curt laughed. “You’re one drunk cat, man.”
“Ish a lucky dime.”
Raxton waved a hand. “Ignore him,” he said. “I want to hear about the redhead.”
“Oh, come on. Pete couldn’t get near a hot broad like her if he turned himself invisible, man. But, dude, I swear. I once had a class with her and, man, the way she stroked those plants… dammit, she stroked me like that, I’d be growing too, y’know what I mean?”
Petruski scowled. “Dammit, I’m telling the truth! I saw her at the library, and we got to talking…”
“Liar, fire, pantsh on liar. Pantsh. Plantsh. Heh. Hic!”
“Shut up, Beach.” Curt tapped the base of his bottle on his inebriated friend’s head with a dull clunk, then turned back to Petruski. “Listen, Pete – Pete, man, I love you. We all do. We’re all gonna graduate from this place and go on and become big-ass scientists and develop cures for cancer and the next evolution of synthetic polymers and turn rust into gold and whatever the hell else, right? And you, Pete, you’re gonna be the best of all of us. Because, no matter what Raxton says about your parentage, you are a genius, man. You’re thinking up hula the guys at Roxxon and Stark and wherever haven’t even dreamed of, man. But let’s be realistic here.” Curt puffed at his cigarette and grinned. “There’s no way on Earth you got into Pamela Isley’s pants, man.”
Raxton barked, then clinked beers with Curt. Beacher stared at the coin in his hand. “Ish a quarter.”
Petruski continued to glower for a moment or two, then grimaced and shook his head. “Okay, okay,” he muttered. “So, maybe I embellished some…”
“You did not embellish Pamela Isley, man.”
Raxton giggled. Beacher dropped his coin, then slipped backwards off his stool as he tried to reach for it. Curt choked on his cigarette, convulsed in laughter. “Beach, man. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone spend as much time sliding around on his ass as you do. Me, no matter how much I drink, I just can’t seem to get legless. Just once I wanna be legless, man…”
“Jesus,” Pete Petruski sighed, taking a swig of beer with a wistful smile. “You think it’s always going to be like this? Us four, I mean. Even when we graduate and we head off to our inevitable multi-billion dollar contracts…”
Raxton raised an eyebrow, and smirked. Curt grinned, and tipped his bottle. “Damn straight, man,” he murmured. “Here’s to us – the terrible four! No, no, wait… the frightful four! Yeah, that’s it. It’s more – what’s that word?”
“Stupid?” said Raxton.
“Alliterative,” said Petruski. Curt snapped his fingers.
“Yeah, that’s it. See, Pete? You’re the brains, man. You’re gonna go right to the top. But no matter how high you climb, you’re never gonna forget your friends…”
[Flashback ends]
“Nice threads, Pete,” Whirlwind said, making no move to bridge the gap between himself and The Trapster. “The Tink’s handiwork?”
The Trapster shook his head, the visor of his helmet gleaming eerily with reflected light. “I put a lot of work The Tinkerer’s way these days, but no. This is my design. I was quite the tech wizard back in university, you know – and, I had some help from an old friend.”
There was movement to The Trapster’s right, and Whirlwind glanced across to see another man emerge from behind a pillar of crystal threaded with copper. This second guy was African-American, well-built, with short black hair, wearing a costume comprised of a brash red torso and half-mask and silver gloves and leggings. He too was carrying a weapon, more a modified handgun than a rifle. The gun was trained at Whirlwind. Suddenly, the air was thick with tension.
Identity confirmed, chirped the drone that was still hovering above their heads. Designation: Chemistro. Probability of overall victory: 2.3 per cent.
“Other guys have gone by the name, but I’m the original,” declared Curtis Carr, friend of Pete Petruski since their student days and more recently his criminal partner. He nodded briefly towards the man in the dark green and silver armour who stood across from him. “Nice job with that Avenger, man,” he said. Whirlwind grunted.
“I heard you were moving up in the world, Pete,” he murmured. “You’re working the system now, right? The Alliance, that’s what your organisation’s called if I remember. And you, you’re head honcho. That’s one in the eye for the damn Wizard, if nothing else.”
The Trapster nodded. “I rarely go out into the field myself these days. But I don’t mind getting my hands dirty occasionally. Old habits die hard.”
“Uh-huh.” Whirlwind arched his back, eyes flickering behind his faceplate. “So, Pete… you want to introduce your other friend? The guy currently creeping up behind me?”
Over by the edge of the forest, slinking through the shadows, a man clad in lightweight bronze armour slowed to a halt. His face was completely obscured by a featureless, mirrored shield-mask that glinted like a beacon. He wasn’t exactly surreptitious, but it was unlikely that The Trapster had believed he could take Whirlwind by surprise; he simply wanted him surrounded.
Identity confirmed, the drone bleeped again, before The Trapster could reply to Whirlwind’s question. Designation: Shockwave. Probability of overall victory: 1.6 per cent.
Whirlwind grunted again. “Guess I was right, Pete,” he said. “You must be a real mover and shaker back in the real world. We’ve been here, what… a half hour? And already you’ve got yourself a posse.”
“I cheated. We were together when we were abducted, and we were still together when we were beamed down planet-side. Guess this Grandmaster thought we made a good team; and, together, we obviously stand a much better chance of winning the game, right? But there’s always room for improvement.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” The Trapster absently stroked the body of his gun as if it was an extension of his body. “I reckon we’ve got room for one more, and I was wondering if you wanted to throw in with us.”
“You always did have a thing for a gang of four, right, Pete? But what happens if I say I prefer to operate alone?”
The Trapster breathed deeply, his eyes narrowed behind his visor. “Well, then,” he whispered. “In that instance, Cannon, I guess we’d have ourselves a problem…”
[Flashback]
“Yo, you got a problem?”
Pink-haired and hard-faced and five years past her best, the prostitute stood in the doorway of the hotel room, smiling. The trouble was, it was a forced smile, preceded by telltale hesitation and a momentary flicker of horror. The man before her scowled and turned away, fists clenched.
“Where’s Candy?” he snarled, his English accent slurred not through drink but through the unsightly scarring about his mouth that made pronunciation difficult. “I asked for Candy. I always ask for Candy when I’m in town. I - ”
“Candy died.”
The man froze, then glanced back over his shoulder. “What? When…?”
“Couple’a months back. Some Joe knifed her in the lung, left her bleeding on the stairwell.” The hooker attempted to sound compassionate, but it wasn’t really her forte. Her smile had dropped, and now she was chewing the gum she kept stashed behind her back teeth. “So, you wanna do this, or what? Cuz, y’know, it sucks about Candy an’all, but I’m what’s here now, ‘kay? So - ”
The man shook his head slowly, regret clouding his eyes. “Dead,” he muttered. “But she was always… nice to me. She didn’t care about… about…”
He raised his hand to his ruined face, flinching as his fingertips passed over the network of ridges and valleys where, once upon a time, there had been smooth skin. He had never been handsome, for sure, but there’d been a time when women who opened their legs for money weren’t scared of him. That time was before a field mission in North Africa when, as an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service – MI-6 – he had been standing ten feet away from a colleague who had fumbled the explosives they were rigging. It took surgeons six months to rebuild his body, but his face had been beyond repair of even the most advanced plastic surgery – unless, of course, he had consented to resembling Michael bloody Jackson. He had declined, obviously. And now here he was, ten years later, grieving over a woman he paid for sex every few months, whose real name he didn’t even know…
“Listen,” the man said, stiffly, turning away once more. “Money’s on the dresser. Take it and go. I’m… not in the mood any more.”
“Suit yourself, pal,” the whore muttered, tonguing her gum. She snatched up the pile of bills and made her exit without another word, obviously glad that she didn’t have to spend the next hour staring down at a face-wreck and trying to pretend he was some kind of Brad Pitt. The man closed his eyes and sat on the edge of the bed, hands hanging limply between his knees. He was still there ten minutes later when there came another knock at the door. When he answered it he found two guys standing in the hallway, one white and the other black, both dressed in tan overcoats.
The scarred man snorted. “Well, bugger me,” he muttered. “Pete Petruski – and friend. How the bloody hell did you find me here?”
The white guy – brown haired and unfortunate looking, although obviously not as unfortunate as the Englishman – smirked, an unlit cigarette drooping from his lower lip. “You’re a creature of habit, Lance,” he declared. “Always the same hotel when you hit town, always the same escort agency. It’s the kind of thing it’s helpful to know. This is my friend, by the way: Curtis Carr, alias Chemistro. Curt, meet Lancaster Sneed, otherwise known as Shockwave.”
Curt grinned. “We were gonna wait ‘til you were done with your company, man, but you were quicker than we expected. Hope she gave you half-rate…”
“You sod off, you little - ”
“Gentlemen,” Petruski murmured, with a clam authority. Curt demurred immediately, which Lancaster Sneed noted with interest; after all, the man otherwise known as The Trapster hadn’t always commanded such respect.
“What are you doing here, Petruski?” Sneed scowled. “I didn’t think you got your hands dirty these days. And this job you farmed out to me – it’s just a simple exchange, right?”
Petruski grimaced. “Not really,” he said. “The woman we’re dealing with is a professional, meaning you need back-up – and, this business is personal. She’s paying top rate for a certain… product I’ve developed, and she wants me present when we trade.”
“You’re letting some bitch call the shots?”
Petruski smirked. “Not just some bitch,” he breathed, lighting his cigarette. “Tell me, Lance – have you ever heard of Yuriko Oyama…?”
[Flashback ends]
“That’s quite a proposition, Pete,” Whirlwind said, his voice measured. “The thing is, if I do refuse… do you really reckon you three can take me down?”
“You’re not the only one who’s improved with age, Cannon,” The Trapster replied. “You probably still think of me as that kid who started out his career as Paste Pot Pete, right? High on marijuana and the chemical odour of my own special adhesive I’d created… I thought I could take on the world. And, the thing is, even though everyone pegged me as a joke, I held my own against some of the best – Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four… I may have ended up doing jail time, but then, haven’t we all? You, Cannon – you were The Human Top when you first went up against Pym and The Wasp, never really in control of your powers. You and me, we were the same. And we weren’t the only ones. So many of us, fledgling criminals with incredible powers and weapons, but never with the smarts to really go for broke.
“But things have changed. We’ve changed. And guys like Chemistro and Shockwave here, while they’ve never scaled the heights of our little world, they’re still around; older, wiser, tougher. You may fancy your chances against us, with your confidence still high after everything you’ve achieved, but don’t underestimate us. After all – everyone underestimated you. And look what happened there…”
Whirlwind stood there in silence for a moment, studying the man in the welder’s mask standing across from him. It was strange, but despite all their respective years in the business their paths had rarely crossed. There was one time they’d been members of Baron Zemo’s gathering known as The Masters of Evil and had attempted to work together to tackle Captain America, but that mission had been disastrous from start to finish. Still, as The Trapster said, they’d both grown up a lot in the following years. It was a tempting offer, but not without its drawbacks. However, when all was said and done, there could only be one reply.
Whirlwind stepped forward. The Trapster did likewise. Chemistro and Shockwave both tensed as they looked on, moving cautiously forward so that the four of them formed a rough circle. Whirlwind extended a hand…
…and, at that moment, the ground at the centre of the group exploded in a flash of white light and crackling energy, sending the four of them flying backwards in different directions. There then came a stranger, charging forward from nowhere into their midst. He was a tall fellow, but slight, almost frail; he was clad in an armoured bodysuit of tangerine and emerald, with a green helmet that covered most of his head, leaving only his mouth free. In the forehead of the helmet there was a protrusion, not unlike a blunt horn, that currently glowed hot with a spectrum of flickering colour. The man was hunched, gibbering and shrieking, and pawing at the ground with gloved fingers hooked into claws.
As Whirlwind, The Trapster, Chemistro and Shockwave each lay on their backs, groaning and smouldering, so the tentacled excitedly drone swept down from overhead towards the newcomer.
Identity confirmed, it bleeped. Designation: Unicorn. Probability of overall victory: 3.2 p-
The drone never got the chance to record its observation. The green-and-orange clad man, Unicorn, whipped his head towards the floating orb and screamed… and, a split-second later, a pulse of burning white energy spiked forth from the horn in his helmet, spearing the drone in mid-air and causing it to explode in a shower of sparks and hot splinters of metal.
“Everything must die!” Unicorn howled, shaking his fists. “Everything must die!”
And with that, he turned towards the nearest of the four men who were all still prone following his earlier attack, and his horn began to glow…
[Flashback]
Milos Masaryk screamed; he screamed so loudly that he could clearly be heard even over the dynamic refrain of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, which the surgeons played at full volume as they went about their work with scalpels and drills.
“Should he not be sedated?” murmured silver-haired General Piotr Dravic, in Russian, as he gazed through the viewing window down onto the operating theatre, those screams ringing in his ears. “The pain must be excruciating…”
Standing beside Dravic, a pretty, dark-haired woman in a white lab coat – Doctor Tania Belinsky – smiled reassuringly. “Certain areas of the brain, specifically the cerebral cortex and pineal gland, must be functioning throughout the procedure to allow the fusion of the microcircuitry to his neurological system to be fully effective,” she murmured. “And I have complete faith in our top surgeon, Doctor Malus. Trust me, General. We’ve learned from our mistakes after the debacle with Aleksei Sytsevich, where his mental faculties were severely compromised, not to mention the recent difficulties with Shostakov.”
Dravic grimaced. “Our record of success leaves much to be desired, Doctor. Krylov is becoming… concerned.”
“And yet, we’re still ahead of the Americans, whose accomplishments have stalled since the War. Our Super-Soldier program is - ”
“Faltering.” Dravic turned towards his fellow, scowling. “This new specimen must be perfect, Doctor. Understand? The defection of Anton Vanko is a stain upon Soviet pride, and he will be brought back to stand trial for his crimes – if not by us, then by our replacements.”
Doctor Belinsky remained outwardly cool, but the flicker of her dark eyes betrayed her fear. “We won’t fail again,” she said, quietly. “Masaryk was a consummate agent; these experiments will increase his worth to us tenfold.”
Dravic stared back through the window. The man on the operating gurney was held still by sundry metal clamps and brackets to prevent his agonised thrashings, but the rictus of his jaw could not be mistaken, nor could that haunting, blood-curdling howl. There was now a gaping hole in the forehead of his skull, between his eyes, into which the scientists were meticulously threading various wires. The patient would periodically slip into unconsciousness from the pain, at which point electricity would be channelled through his body to re-awaken him. It was brutal, even by Soviet standards. Dravic shook his head in distaste.
“I hope, Doctor Belinsky, your faith is not misplaced,” the General breathed. “For all our sakes…”
[Flashback ends]
Milos Masaryk, otherwise known as Unicorn, unleashed a blast of concentrated concussive force from his horn…
…but the armoured Shockwave was already on the move, rolling to his feet and leaping clear at the last second as the ground where he had been lying exploded in a shower of crystal and steel. Lancaster Sneed had spent a significant amount of time in the Orient following the ruination and subsequent rebuilding of his body, and during this period he had progressed from practising traditional disciplines geared to aiding his recuperation to learning more aggressive, combat-styled martial arts. There was nothing superhuman about his speed or agility, it was simply that he was in the peak of physical condition – but a slick line in evasive manoeuvres wasn’t the only surprise he had in store for his attacker.
As Unicorn wheeled to launch another devastating assault, Shockwave darted forward in a half-crouch, featherweight upon the soles of his boots. Even though he was clad from head to toe in bronze armour he sacrificed nothing in the way of dexterity, and he was able to slip alongside his foe and unleash a savage kick to the other man’s chest. There was a flare of bright blue sparks at the point of impact, accompanied by a thunderous crack of power, and Unicorn reeled backwards, howling in shock.
Behind his faceplate, Sneed smiled thinly. His bodysuit was lined with special coils of wire that channelled electricity throughout its outer shell, up to two thousand volts via boots and gauntlets; whilst he was dangerous enough with his bare hands, he was appreciably more so as Shockwave. He moved now with the deceptive elegance of a man versed in the techniques of jujitsu and kung fu rather than the swagger of a street brawler, seeking out blind spots in his adversary’s defence, and Unicorn was struggling to meet him face on.
Shockwave lashed out with two further kicks to his enemy’s midriff, then struck with an elbow and a palm sweep to his head, each blow erupting in a hiss of sparks upon contact. Unicorn was jolted with each electrical charge, twisting and snarling – but not falling, to his attacker’s astonishment. Unicorn’s resistance was born not only from being protected by his own armour but also from the fact that his skin and muscular structure had been augmented, during the same process back in the Soviet Union that had seen him receive a cybernetic implant in the area of his pineal gland. The force beams he unleashed were not produced solely via his helmet’s internal circuitry but through psionic accumulation and manipulation of latent energy, and thus there was no danger of his power source being depleted; and, even though Shockwave’s assault caused him pain, it was never likely to be truly debilitating. For Lancaster Sneed, this realisation was about to become all too clear.
As Shockwave stabbed forward in another attack, Unicorn did something utterly unexpected – rather than attempting to move clear, he instead grabbed out at his enemy, wrapping his arms about him and gathering him to his chest so that they were suddenly face-to-face. Unicorn was assailed with an unbroken charge of volts, of course, but he bore the agony with a shudder and a stoic grimace, reflected in Shockwave’s visor.
“Die,” Unicorn hissed, squeezing tight… and then unleashing a force bolt of incredible power, enough to tear Shockwave’s head clear from his neck in a clamour of blood and metal and sparks. The villain was still wracked with death spasms as Unicorn cast his headless body aside, and turned – to discover that his other three adversaries had now each risen to their feet, staring on in shock.
“Son of a bitch!” Chemistro roared, surging forward with his gun aimed high. He jammed his finger down on the trigger mechanism, but no bullets or pulse blasts spewed forth; it wasn’t that kind of weapon. Instead, the air between the barrel of the gun and Unicorn abruptly shimmered and warped with a sound approximating a whistle… and Unicorn staggered backwards with a grunt, staring down at his chest. The armour plating about his upper torso, once orange, was now transparent – and patterned with cracks, slowly spidering out from a central impact point.
A few metres away, Whirlwind looked on with eyes narrowed behind his mask, then glanced at The Trapster, who was brushing himself down alongside him. “What the hell was that?” Whirlwind snarled.
“Elemental transmutation,” The Trapster murmured. “Chemistro’s gun directs waves of alpha energy that rearranges the molecular structure of anything it strikes, turning metal, rock, or even flesh, into another substance, such as crystal – or, as in the case, glass…”
“Nice. Your pal The Wizard teach you all those ten-dollar words, Pete?”
The Trapster hefted his own gun, ready to advance. “I’m a scientist, Cannon,” he said, evenly. “I forgot that for a while – got wrapped up in my own failure and a sense of worthlessness – but, as I told you, I’m - ”
“You say that gun of his can change flesh as well as metal?” Whirlwind interrupted, suddenly.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I reckon no-one told that to horn-brain…”
Up ahead, Chemistro had drawn close to Unicorn and was proceeding to club him viciously about the head with the butt of his weapon. He was expecting his enemy to shatter, but he was overlooking a crucial factor – Unicorn hadn’t been fully transmuted into glass. His armour was splintering into jagged shards, but his body beneath remained healthy flesh and muscle, again due to the experimental processes that he had undergone back in Russia. With a second blast of his gun, Chemistro could have finished the job – but even though Curtis Carr was a science whiz he wasn’t a career criminal in the same sense as Whirlwind or The Trapster. His prosthetic leg was a testament to the fact that the supervillain business hadn’t treated him particularly kindly. And it was all about to get worse.
As Chemistro, finally realising his error of judgement, attempted to take a step back and aim his gun, he slipped in a patch of dark liquid that part of his brain registered as Shockwave’s blood – and the next thing he knew, Unicorn was rearing before him, divested of much of his upper armour and his head slightly bowed, so that his horn was pointed downwards. When he blasted Chemistro with a concussive beam, it was – with cruel, cruel irony – his artificial leg that was obliterated.
Chemistro collapsed, screaming, his limb a smoking stump of scorched plastic and fibreglass at mid-thigh. Unicorn aimed again – only to be shunted from the side by a sudden, invisible force, that plucked him off his feet then carried him some fifty metres through the air then slammed him down into a bed of metal and crystal. Unicorn’s concussive ray spiked out into the sky, once then twice, blindly seeking to destroy whatever had attacked him, but it was no use – Whirlwind, spinning at close to five hundred revolutions per minute, was too quick for him to see, let alone hit.
As Unicorn attempted to right himself, Whirlwind struck again, and again, hammering down like a localised hurricane – which, in essence, was exactly what he was. Perhaps more than any other player in The Grandmaster’s game, Whirlwind was more a force of nature than a man. His recent elevation to the major leagues through masterminding the death of an Avenger was not a fluke or an aberration; more than anything, it had been overdue. The Trapster knew this. It was why, as Whirlwind now battered Unicorn into the ground like a tent peg, that he chose that moment to cease meandering on the sidelines and finally take action.
When he was twenty-six years old, four years out of university, Pete Petruski had developed his first batch of an experimental multi-polymer adhesive that, if he had chosen to use it wisely, could have revolutionised certain industrial processes and earned him wealth beyond his wildest dreams. Instead he had chosen a life of excitement: a life of crime. Even now, when there was still a marketable opportunity for his invention, he persisted in his illegal pursuits; but, in recent times, he had come to terms with the reasons for this illogical behaviour. Ultimately, although the idea of riches had its appeal, that wasn’t what he strived for. Neither was power his goal. What The Trapster wanted – what he needed, after so many years of playing squire to Bentley Wittman, otherwise known as The Wizard – was respect.
Just like Whirlwind. David Cannon had earned respect. He had killed an Avenger. If Pete Petruski joined forces with him now, it would be The Wizard all over again; The Trapster would be reduced to sidekick once more. It was why, as soon as he had spotted Whirlwind earlier, he had planned to eliminate him at the first possible opportunity. That opportunity was now.
The Trapster aimed his gun and squeezed the trigger mechanism. The nozzle disgorged a stream of cream-coloured gloop, at such velocity and in such quantity that it shot out in a torrent over some considerable distance. Whirlwind should have been aware of the attack; he could, after all, see in all directions at once as he revolved, and his mutant brain was able to process that information in ways no human could ever understand. However, he was intent on pulverising Unicorn, who by now – despite his augmented skin and muscle – was already as good as dead. At that moment, Whirlwind wasn’t glorying in the physical destruction of an enemy he didn’t even know; he was reliving his recent battle with The Avengers, and specifically a man named Hank Pym, with whom David Cannon shared a very personal enmity. Whirlwind had come so close to finally annihilating Pym, so very close…
…and this moment of psychosis played completely into The Trapster’s hands.
The surge of adhesive sludge drenched Whirlwind whilst he was still spinning at top speed, and the resulting effect was instantaneous – and devastating. The Trapster’s paste was absorbed into Whirlwind’s air current, whereupon it immediately hardened, creating a solid, cylindrical cocoon. Much of the coagulated sludge shattered as Whirlwind somehow continued to revolve within his unexpected shell, but The Trapster kept his finger on the trigger of his weapon, expelling more and more of the adhesive, so that the cocoon thickened relentlessly… and, in the space of a heartbeat, began to lose height and momentum, and then fall.
The solidified shell crashed to the ground, splintering crystal and denting metal where it landed.
The Trapster disengaged his own weapon, then sprinted across to where Chemistro was lying, groaning, and picked up the other man’s transmutation gun. Without a word, he turned this gun upon the cocoon and depressed the trigger. The air crackled and warped – and, before his eyes, the shell began to discolour and flex, transforming into glass. As The Trapster watched, so Whirlwind slowly became visible at the heart of the mass; no longer spinning, no longer moving in fact, he resembled a fly trapped in amber. This cocoon – this prison – was, in effect, a chrysalis. David Cannon, Whirlwind, was undergoing a metamorphosis.
He was turning into a dead man.
The Trapster kept Chemistro’s alchemy gun trained on the cocoon until it – and the man inside – had transmuted completely into glass. Then, he stood back, allowing the gun to fall away. His eyes narrowed coolly behind his welder’s visor. For a while, nothing happened. Then – with merciful swiftness, for Whirlwind’s sake – the glass began to tremble and splinter.
“Something I forgot to mention,” Petruski murmured, even though Whirlwind couldn’t possibly hear him. “Curt’s transmutations, they’re unstable on a molecular level. Whatever elemental transformations he effects, they tend to disintegrate pretty damn quick. As you’re about to find out…”
The air was filled with a cracking sound… and, as The Trapster looked on, the whole mass before him suddenly began to crumble into dust. The process took the best part of a minute. The Trapster watched in silence, gaining some measure of long overdue satisfaction from his success. And then, not with a bang but with a whisper, it was done. Whirlwind was gone. Obliterated.
“I warned you not to underestimate me, Cannon,” Petruski breathed. “See you in the next life.”
He turned then, and walked back over to where Chemistro lay, face turned up to the sky. His pupils were dilated and his colour ashen, but he was still alive – and still coherent. He saw The Trapster loom over him, and he smiled, weakly.
“Hey, Pete… did we win…?”
The Trapster was silent for a moment, then crouched down and raised his visor. His face was just as unfortunate as ever, but there was something about his droopy eyes that Curtis Carr had never seen before. A cold, steely determination. A sense of purpose.
“Remember what The Grandmaster said, Curt?” Petruski murmured. “There can only be one winner. However far we made it through the game as a team, it was always going to come to this. A shame it had to happen this early, but… well, that’s just the way it goes. Goodbye, Curt.”
Curt’s brow furrowed. “Pete? Pete, come on, man… no matter how high you climb… you’ll always remember your friends… right? That’s what we… that’s…”
His words trailed away as he found himself staring into the barrel of a gun; not his own weapon, that would have been far too cruel, but rather that belonging to The Trapster. Curt closed his eyes.
Without a flicker, Pete Petruski pulled the trigger… and Curt’s head vanished in a rush of cream-coloured paste, which then hardened and proceeded to suffocate him in a matter of minutes. Again, The Trapster waited until his friend was dead – this time a show of respect – before slowly standing once more and replacing his visor.
A drone drifted down from overhead, a replacement for the one Unicorn had destroyed. Fatalities confirmed, it bleeped. Deceased: Shockwave. Deceased: Unicorn. Deceased: Chemistro. Deceased: Whirlwind. Survival confirmed. Designation: The Trapster. New probability of overall victory: 7.2 per cent.
The Trapster breathed deeply, then shouldered his gun. “Yeah,” he murmured. “And, believe me… it’s not going to stop at that. This is my time. My destiny. And God help anyone who gets in my way…”
There was a voice in the darkness, although very few were aware of it – for now, at least.
Hungry. Feed me. Hungry.
The Grandmaster frowned at the sound of whispering in his ear, and leaned forward in his throne so that he might glance back over his shoulder. There was nothing. Just a flicker of shadow in the ether: there, then gone…
The Elder raised an eyebrow. A trick of the imagination? Even Gods were prone to such a thing, it seemed; it could be nothing more substantial, for his heightened senses would have revealed any interloper in his Court. He settled back in his seat, disquieted, but unwilling to miss a single moment of what was transpiring far below.
Soon he was smiling once more, the brief disturbance all but forgotten.
The shadows glimmered, here and down on the battlefield that was becoming soaked with blood and death and dark, dislocated souls.
Hungry, the voice breathed. Hungry.
And, in that moment, it too began to smile…
To Be Continued...
Significant Issues
Important events referred to in this issue occured in the following Marvel titles:
The full story of Whirlwind's meteoric rise can be found in Avengers 2000's Supervillain Team-Up
