[Flashback]
In the eyes of twenty-three year old Maguire ‘Maggie’ Beck, family didn’t come much cooler than elder cousin Quentin. Not only was his downtown Manhattan workshop – a converted warehouse – filled with all manner of fascinating equipment and technological apparatus, he was also a bona fide supervillain, regularly tangling with the likes of Spider-Man in the identity of Mysterio, Master of Illusion. The rest of the Beck clan had disowned Quentin long ago, considering him the blackest of sheep, but Maggie had secretly maintained a close relationship with him for the past five years. In that time she had more than learned the tricks of her cousin’s trade; she had surpassed him. For, whereas Quentin Beck was an accomplished electronic engineer in the specific field of movie special effects, Maggie was an absolute genius.
This fact was not lost on Daniel Berkhart, Quentin’s long-time partner-in-crime. Nor was Berkhart oblivious to Maggie’s more… physical charms. With her short, untidy crop of brown hair and her disinclination towards cosmetics or fashionable clothes, Maggie was every inch the tomboy, but that couldn’t detract from the truth that she was pretty as a picture, and damn sexy to boot. Lecherous by nature, Berkhart couldn’t help but lust after this girl, ten years his junior, from afar – as he did on this particular afternoon, as Maggie arrived at Quentin’s workshop at her cousin’s bidding having been promised a ‘surprise’.
“Et voila!” Quentin Beck said with a flourish, whipping back a crimson velvet curtain to reveal what was hidden beyond – a padded bodysuit of olive and lime green hanging from a hook, with yellow boots, gloves and helmet resting on a plinth beneath. Maggie blinked, her jaw slack. Then, slowly, she smiled.
“Oh my God!” she cried. “Is that… oh, it is, isn’t it? That’s my design!”
Maggie rushed forward to run her hands over the suit, whilst Quentin stood back, grinning – and, watching from the background, Berkhart glowered.
“I had a little help,” Quentin admitted. “From an old friend who likes to… tinker with things, shall we say? But, yes. It’s your design. Are you going to try it on?”
Maggie laughed, suddenly reverting to the young girl Quentin remembered from those old family gatherings where they’d first met all those years ago. She shrugged off her sweatshirt and jeans, down to vest and leggings, then began to dress herself in the green bodysuit, unaware that Berkhart was leering at the sight of her body all the while. When she was done, she slipped on the gloves and boots, then the helmet, which was spherical, cast from some kind of gold-tinted plastic, with an opaque faceplate that revealed her grin beyond.
“Okay,” she breathed. “Operating… now!”
Maggie fingered a touch-pad mechanism in the palm of her right glove, and instantly the helmet was engulfed in flame – and took on the appearance of a carved pumpkin, complete with ghoulishly jagged eyes and teeth. Once again she laughed, although this time her voice was eerily distorted. The flames crackled and danced, scarlet and amber and green… and yet they gave off no heat. This was because they didn’t truly exist. The appearance of the fiery pumpkin was an illusion, a sophisticated, three-dimensional holographic projection, although it was so realistic even Maggie – who had adapted Quentin’s technology to create such a specific image – was momentarily convinced that her head truly was aflame.
“Oh my word,” Maggie sighed. “It’s perfect. Macendale’s going to pay us a fortune for this. He - ”
“Well, actually… that’s the bad news.” Quentin, who was currently dressed in civilian clothes rather than his more distinctive green-and-purple Mysterio costume, cast Maggie a glum look. “Our client, Mister Macendale, has recently become our erstwhile client; he’s moved on to bigger and better things, it seems, and this modified suit he requested is therefore no longer required.”
Maggie’s smile fell, and her shoulders sagged. She disengaged the illusion and removed the helmet.
“Oh, come on. He’s pulling out? But the time and money we spent on this…”
“…won’t go to waste,” Quentin breathed. “After all, just because Macendale has decided to abandon the identity of Jack O’Lantern doesn’t mean that there can’t be a new Jack.”
Maggie blinked. Quentin gestured, and Berkhart emerged from the shadows, smiling.
“To my way of thinking, my dear cousin, you deserve to experience the thrill and excitement of the world I inhabit in all its aspects,” Quentin declared. “Daniel has agreed to tutor you in the use of the many and varied little gadgets that go with the costume, not least the new Disc Glider you designed… but then, before long, you’ll be able to spread your wings alone! Can you imagine it? Maggie Beck – the new, improved Jack O’Lantern…”
[Flashback ends]
Maggie Beck cruised through the eerily lit skies above the town quadrant of the Se’dai battlefield like a phantasm, her pumpkin head aflame and carved with a wicked smile, riding a cloud of green-golden fire. This cloud was another holographic illusion, of course, although the Disc Glider that it disguised was real enough; more than that, it was a technological marvel. A seemingly simple, flat circle of dark green steel, some thirty inches in diameter, the Glider was powered not by fuel and jets but by a ring of twelve anti-gravity discs, each measuring no more than a hand’s width, imbedded into the undercarriage. These discs – utilising a design originally conceived by a man named Bentley Whitmore, otherwise known as the genius-level supervillain The Wizard – resisted gravitational pull to the extent that they could bear aloft a significant weight, and although far less powerful than jet propulsion they proved more versatile, especially in confined spaces. With the barest shift of body weight, Maggie could direct the trajectory of her flight without loss of balance; and exerting or releasing pressure beneath the soles of her boots allowed her to influence the strength of the gravitational repulsion, resulting in an effortless and instantaneous increase or decrease of altitude whenever required.
In short, although Maggie possessed no inherent super-powers of her own – and although the suit was little more than lightweight battle armour – the Glider ensured that she was never less than a formidable opponent when entering into conflict. Of course, her threat was supplemented by a personal arsenal of hand grenades, moulded into the shape of copper pumpkins, some of which were traditional explosives but others of a far more surprising nature…
…which was probably just as well, considering that her current situation was more terrifying than anything she could ever have imagined.
Identity confirmed, a drone bleeped, suddenly swooping down alongside Maggie and causing her to yelp in alarm. Designation: Jack O’Lantern. Probability of overall victory: 2.4 per cent.
Maggie Beck, Jack O’Lantern, snatched a pumpkin grenade from her belt clip and hurled it, but it sailed harmlessly past the tentacled drone, which manoeuvred slickly and without apparent concern. The grenade detonated some twenty feet away with a loud crack! and a brief concussive tremor that Jack rode expertly. The drone sped away, and Jack cursed beneath her breath. Her pumpkin visage may have been grinning but inside her helmet she was almost on the verge of tears.
What was she doing here? Her of all people? She had hardly worn the suit at all this past year, ever since Quentin had committed su… had… had died. Understandably, dressing up in a Hallowe’en costume and creating havoc for the sake of it had lost much of its appeal after that. For her, at least. Not for Berkhart, though. He had jumped into Quentin’s boots before they were even cold, operating as the new Mysterio, with scant regard for the man who had come before him, his own partner. The very thought of it made Jack furious. Quentin would have wanted her to continue his legacy, she was sure of it. Berkhart was nothing more than a crummy opportunist – and a lecherous slimebag, as she had discovered to her cost in the time they’d worked together.
She had been on the verge of taking on Berkhart – Jack O’Lantern in her private war against Mysterio – when, suddenly, here she was, whisked away to participate in a far larger conflict. Was Berkhart here? And, if he was, would she survive long enough to confront him? Her lower lip trembled inside her helmet. Compared to some of the other players of this dreadful game she was a novice, little more than flying target practise for one of her more experienced peers. It was only a matter of time before –
“You up there! Hey!”
Jack spiralled at the sound of the cry from beneath her, angling her Glider so that she could ascertain the source of the voice whilst simultaneously climbing higher in the air to gain a greater measure of safety, a surreal trail of holographic smoke and flame curling in her wake. Below, a man was gazing up at her, waving his fists. At least, Jack assumed it was a man; considering that his body was a riot of hissing fire and seething flesh, it was difficult to know for sure. And these flames were real, not illusory. Jack gulped.
Suddenly, she realised that this was a crucial moment in time. The man wasn’t attacking, but that was likely because he was too far away. If she wanted, she could simply fly away – but how long before she encountered another foe? She couldn’t run forever. Perhaps it would be better simply to engage in conflict and be damned of the consequences.
The burning man continued to wave his arms. Jack breathed deeply, her decision made. She reached down and unclipped a pumpkin grenade from her belt…
[Flashback]
The lab door slammed open, and in stalked a young, blond man in a white coat, his expression livid. The man held a manila folder in his hand, which he now shook in the direction of another fellow – far older, with a drawn face and silver-white hair – who was hunched over a desk, examining a beaker of bubbling golden liquid.
“What the hell is this, Professor?” the younger man snapped. “A patent? A patent? Pyroscyne is mine, and you damn well - ”
A single, raised finger stilled the man’s bluster. Professor Spencer Smythe, one of the world’s foremost authorities in advanced robotics, treated his assistant and protégé with a thin, contemptuous smile. “Oh, Mark,” he murmured, his English accent rich and cultured. “Dear boy, I would have thought it obvious that any developments you make in my laboratories, using my funding, automatically belongs to me and my foundation. Besides – can one really allege bragging rights over a substance gleaned from the insides of a meteor? I would suggest that God himself has prior claim when discussing the spoils of the universe…”
The youth, Mark Raxton, snarled and shook his head in disbelief. “The raw material in the meteor was simple, organic matter,” he hissed. “I’m the one who used it to create Pyroscyne. Don’t you understand? What we’ve got here – a metal alloy that maintains a constant temperature of residual heat – renders the processes of standard thermodynamics void. Electricity consumption will halve! This alloy will be worth millions on the open market. Billions! My name will be spoken along with Edison, Tesla, Da Vinci… and what do you want to do with it? Coat your bastard robots with it, like it’s gold paint…”
Smythe breathed deeply, his deep-set eyes glittering like sequins. “I think our conversation is at an end, Mark,” he said, evenly. “Not to mention our arrangement. Now, I want you off these premises inside the next ten minutes. I’ll ensure all your personal effects are forwarded – but, as I said, everything you were working on belongs to me, and you will not be allowed to - ”
Raxton grabbed the elderly Professor about the collar and pulled him close, his face twisted with a hateful sneer. “You think you can cheat me out of what’s mine, you crack-brained lunatic?” he snarled. “Well, maybe I’ll just take the Pyroscyne… because how are you going to stop me?”
With that, he shoved Smythe to one side and snatched for the beaker on the table. Unfortunately, in his rage, he forgot that he wasn’t wearing protective gloves – and, when he burned his hand on the hot glass, he screamed and released his grip… tipping the boiling golden liquid over himself. He fell backwards, shrieking, wringing his hand in agony. He could smell roasting flesh, and the stink of sulphur; he could feel the Pyroscyne, eating into flesh and bone beneath like the most virulent acid; and then, as Smythe looked on in horror…
…Mark Raxton burst into flame.
[Flashback ends]
The burning man wasn’t like so many others of his ilk. He was temperamental, certainly – hot-headed, one might say, if one was inclined to be cruel – and that irritability had earned him pain and humiliation on more than one occasion, invariably at the fists of Spider-Man. Also, his moral compass was not so strictly aligned that he wasn’t disposed to the odd illegal act here and there. However, he was far smarter than the average criminal, and he was convinced that would serve him well in these unexpected circumstances. For Mark Raxton, The Grandmaster’s game was the opportunity he had been craving for a number of years – if he could emerge victorious, it was a chance to regain the humanity that had been cruelly stolen from him that day his bare skin had been exposed to Pyroscyne, transforming him into this flaming effigy of a soul…
Identity confirmed. Designation: The Molten Man. Probability of overall victory: 3.7 per cent.
Raxton, The Molten Man, heard the whirring of the drone at his shoulder and lashed out with a burning fist. The drone squawked and wheeled away, tentacles flickering, but if The Molten Man’s blow had connected it would have echoed with the distinctive ring of metal on metal; for, beneath what appeared to be a broil of melting flesh, there was actually a layer of solid, golden plate. All those years ago, Raxton’s skin had reacted to the Pyroscyne in astonishing fashion – it had absorbed it, reconstituting his genetic structure, transmuting his skin into that same, superheated metal alloy that Raxton had developed from extraterrestrial origins. Sometimes Raxton would appear as a walking statue, a man carved from gold and bronze, almost beautiful in conception; at other times the Pyroscyne would become unstable and would ignite the air in a localised environment, manifesting as simmering flesh not unlike magma. Perhaps reacting to some trace elements in the Se’dai atmosphere that The Grandmaster had been unable to eradicate, this was Raxton’s current state, hissing and spitting and smoking like a human candle.
As ever, the man beneath the outward combustion was slightly discomforted but otherwise unharmed. This boded poorly for his enemies, not least the individual currently circling above him…
A hunched Hallowe’en refugee on a glider could only mean one thing, of course. It was some kind of Goblin: The Green Goblin, or The Hobgoblin, or some other bastard kind of Goblin, it didn’t matter which one. The Molten Man hated them all. Not so long ago he had been used as a murderous pawn by Norman Osborn, the sadistic father of all Goblins, into whose backward family Raxton’s own stepsister, Liz, had unwittingly married. During that time, Raxton’s flaming hands had been stained with the blood of innocents, his mind seared away by Osborn’s brain-altering drugs. He had recovered somewhat, but his sleep was still plagued by nightmares at the atrocities he had been forced to commit. In all truth, the experience had left him entirely deranged.
And now, here was another Goblin, sailing down to meet him on a trail of greenish-black smoke, pumpkin face grinning like a fiend from the pit. It was as if fate had decreed The Molten Man should be gifted his chance for revenge. As the villain drew near, The Molten Man slowly clenched his fists, ready to lunge forward and unleash a flurry of scalding firebolts…
…only to be frozen in the act when his adversary spoke.
“I’m armed!” Jack O’Lantern snapped. “Try anything and I’ll… I’ll douse you!”
The Molten Man’s eyes narrowed in his fiery visage. The voice was oddly distorted but it was unmistakably female. A woman Goblin…? His heart seized. His fevered mind fixated on a single image, and wouldn’t let go. There was only one woman in the Osborn clan. Norman’s evil knew no bounds.
“Liz…?” Raxton breathed, his hands falling to his sides. “Liz, please, tell me it isn’t true…”
Behind her helmet, Maggie Beck grimaced. Liz? Who the hell was that? She palmed her grenade nervously. Having made up her mind to attempt to talk with the burning man rather than attack him outright – perhaps with the view to forming an alliance – she was now unsure. What would this guy’s reaction be when he discovered that she wasn’t who he thought she was? What if –
A noise and flash of light from above interrupted Jack O’Lantern’s train of thought. She glanced up, as did The Molten Man – just in time for them both to see an arcing burst of energy lancing towards them like a bolt of golden lightning. The bolt struck, sending them both sprawling in different directions, shrieking and flailing…
…and above, the source of the energy burst smiled to herself in triumph.
Sitting ducks, mused a flying woman who glowed like a dying star. If only the rest of the players in this game would prove to be such a trouble-free proposition…
[Flashback]
“Pyroscyne?” Dagny Forrester murmured, her eyes narrowed as she studied the eight-foot high, cylindrical glass chamber filled with a softly bubbling liquid that dominated the centre of the laboratory. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s an experimental alloy rather than a chemical,” explained Cedric, Dagny’s brother, as he attended to a bank of monitor screens flanked with dials and levers. “Developed some years ago by the Smythe Foundation, it was initially intended to revolutionise thermodynamics…”
Dagny snorted, and lit a cigarette. “Isn’t everything?” she sighed. “Scientists and our pretty delusions… it’s remarkable someone hasn’t passed a law requiring we be culled at birth.”
“Ever the cynic, my sweet,” Cedric muttered. “Anyway. Pyroscyne was declared unsafe after some kind of accident, the exact details of which were never publicly divulged. What remained of the metal would have been destroyed had we not purchased it.”
“Had you not purchased it,” Dagny corrected. “If you don’t mind, I’ll distance myself from your obsessive-compulsive need to fritter our fortune on the blind accumulation of junk patents.”
Cedric raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have you know, Pyroscyne could well be the crucial element in our experiments. Even in this diluted form, it conducts energy with such intensity that - ”
“Spare me, please,” Dagny sighed. “I’m bored already. Can we just proceed?”
Cedric grimaced. They were so alike, these two, in appearance and manner; they were both tall and good-looking, in the way that only substantial wealth could buy, with russet hair and green eyes, but they rarely smiled, and their conduct was unremittingly unpleasant. No-one loved the Forresters, not even each other. Perhaps they didn’t even love themselves. It was their desire for power that drove them.
Dagny slipped her robe from her shoulders, revealing an athletically toned body in a one-piece swimsuit, then discarded her cigarette – dangerous in an environment such as this but simply indicative of her careless, wretched attitude to life – and strapped herself into a leather harness. She then affixed breathing apparatus over her face and nodded to her brother that she was ready for what was to come. Cedric sniffed, then operated the harness mechanism, lifting his sibling into the air and manoeuvring her above the glass cylinder, whereupon he began to lower her into the liquid contained within. Dagny flinched slightly, for the water was unexpectedly warm, but she was constrained so tightly there was nothing she could do.
Cedric smiled thinly. “Perhaps I should have mentioned,” he breathed, “That another of Pyroscyne’s curious qualities is the way it retains and conducts heat. Things may become a little… uncomfortable in due course, my dear.”
Cedric flicked a switch, and the liquid in which his sister was immersed began to hiss and churn, and discolour with a distinctive yellow hue. Dagny’s eyes shot wide inside her oxygen mask, and she opened her mouth in silent scream…
[Flashback ends]
Jack O’Lantern realised that she was screaming, but it was more through shock than pain. Her bodysuit was smoking – real, not illusory, for she was thoroughly singed – but it was otherwise undamaged, and she herself was unharmed. Her Glider also seemed to in perfect working order, and she was easily able to regain control once her initial panic had abated. Guiding herself round in an arc so that she was facing back along the street, she saw that the burning man she had been conversing with a few moments before was lying crumpled on the flagstones, flames bursting from his back and shoulders as if he had been doused in gasoline.
Jack glanced up. Over the rooftops there came a bright, golden glow… and then, darting down into the narrow street in a ray of intense brightness, there arrived the woman whose sneak attack had just caused such devastation. She was sleek and shimmering, her lithe body clad in coils of golden light that gleamed like armour plate; she was also surrounded by an aura of greenish-bronze that seethed as if alive, and she veritably hummed with energy, like a human generator.
As Jack looked on, a drone swept in from the side, daringly close to the glowing woman. Identity confirmed, it chirped. Designation: Corona. Probability of overall victory: 2.3 per cent.
“What derogatory odds!” the woman crowed, her voice shrill and resonating with static. “I would have thought a creature such as myself, who possesses power beyond imagining, should be worthy of far greater respect…”
She extended a slender arm and unleashed a pulse of crackling energy from her palm in the direction of the drone, which barely managed to withdraw its tentacles in time. It shrieked and sped away, prompting the woman, Corona, to bark with laughter. She then turned her cruel, electric-white eyes upon Jack, and wriggled her fingers in delight.
“Come, my festive friend!” she hissed. “The quicker you all die, the quicker all my wishes come true!”
With that, she brandished both palms towards her foe and released a barrage of power that caused the very air to smoke and curdle. Jack cursed and stamped down on her Glider, darting abruptly to the right and almost somersaulting in her attempt to steer clear. She span, gaining height and velocity in a heartbeat, but all too aware of the searing heat that now erupted in her wake. Behind her, an entire building exploded with a cataclysmic roar, showering the street with fire and brick and stone. Jack was forced to duck and veer left, then right, to avoid chunks of masonry that hurtled towards her like cannonballs.
“Keep still, you jack rabbit!” Corona screeched.
“That’s Jack O’Lantern!” the pumpkin-headed villain retorted, executing a perfect three-hundred-and-sixty degree spiral above Corona’s head whilst unclasping a half-dozen grenades from her belt clip. “Now, play nice and say hello to a few of my little friends…”
Jack began to hurl the grenades, one after another in quick succession, as she continued to pirouette in mid-air, ghoulish smoke trailing in her wake. Corona snarled, but simply hovered, making no attempt to dodge her enemy’s missiles – and in the next moment, Jack realised why. When the grenades struck the green aura that surrounded Corona’s body they simply disintegrated into fragments, without so much as the tiniest explosion.
Corona grinned wickedly, and extended both hands once more. “Delightful, I’m sure,” she murmured. “But I grow weary of you, my dear. Say - ”
The glowing woman suddenly lurched forward, buffeted from behind, and her words were swallowed in a shriek of pain. Jack looked down to see The Molten Man rising to his feet below, his entire body now consumed in a conflagration.
“Get away from her!” the burning man declared, his voice distorted by a sickening gurgle. “Leave my Liz alone!”
Corona wheeled, her smile vanished now to be replaced by a rictus of hate. “You… penetrated my aura!” she seethed. “How…?”
The Molten Man flailed with a fist, releasing a stream of spitting fireballs in his foe’s direction. Corona weaved sideways, but she was unused to having to dodge missiles – at least three struck her, passing through her flickering aura is if it didn’t exist and searing her golden flesh beyond. She wailed and thrashed in anguish. Then, she twisted in mid-air and unleashed another burst of energy towards her attacker, this one far more powerful than before. The Molten Man disappeared from view momentarily as he was engulfed by pure, destructive energy…
…but, when the blinding light of impact cleared, he remained standing, a beacon of flame at the heart of the narrow street.
Corona hissed, beside herself with fury. “It’s not possible!” she croaked. “Nothing has ever… nothing…”
“Pyroscyne,” The Molten Man breathed, staring down at his own hands, his flesh hard and gleaming within a sheath of fire. Then, slowly, he smiled, although his face was a similar blazing mask. “Your power – your very being – is derived from my substance!”
Jack O’Lantern stared down from above, suddenly forgotten as her two smouldering adversaries faced one another. She knew that she should have made her escape – there was no denying that she was completely outmatched here – but a sense of fascination held her firm. And so, when Corona shrieked with rage and propelled herself towards The Molten Man at incredible speed, she was on hand to witness exactly what happened next.
Corona unleashed pulse after pulse of energy as she travelled, each burst twice as forceful as the last, but The Molten Man stood his ground, absorbing every strike without flinching. In fact, with the more blasts he endured, the larger he seemed to become – until, by Jack’s estimation, he resembled an infernal fireball with a mass twice that of what he had originally possessed. Then, Corona slammed into her foe with all her might…
…and the resulting explosion sent both protagonists hurtling in opposite directions on a concussive shockwave of fire and debris, flattening buildings in a wide radius. Jack O’Lantern spun in circles, momentarily out of control, but the anti-gravity discs in her Glider allowed her to ride the shockwave without too much difficulty once she regained her bearings. She skated back down towards the street, which had now been reduced to a blackened crater some fifty metres in diameter, her eyes narrowed within her helmet as she scoured the battlefield for life.
She spotted Corona first. The woman’s shattered body was draped over a dislocated chunk of brick wall like a handful of shred rags, her skin no longer golden and gleaming, her aura dissipating even as Jack watched. Her jaw hung slack, her eyes open and staring. She was obviously dead. Jack grimaced, then piloted her glider to the other side of the crater. Here, The Molten Man was also lying in a crumpled heap. He was no longer burning uncontrollably, but rather his body had taken on a calm, statuesque demeanour. As Jack approached, she saw that his eyes were closed – scorched and ruined – but then, as she watched, his mouth curled into a gentle smile.
“Liz?” he whispered. “Is that you…?”
Jack breathed deeply. “Uh… yeah,” she muttered, awkwardly. “It’s, uh… it’s me. What happened…?”
The Molten Man grimaced. “Too much,” he grunted. “Couldn’t take it all. That woman… she was mutated. Two strains of Pyroscyne… trying to knit together, but no longer compatible…”
Jack raised an eyebrow. The specifics were beyond her – she was an engineer first and foremost, not a chemist or biologist – but she had witnessed enough chemical reactions when she and Quentin had experimented with compounds and hallucinogenic gasses to be able to appreciate the basic mechanics of what had just occurred. On instinct she reached out and placed a gloved palm on The Molten Man’s brow. His skin was hot to the touch, but not overly so.
“I’m sorry, Liz,” The Molten Man croaked. “Sorry I couldn’t protect you…”
Jack bowed her head, then sighed. “Okay, listen,” she muttered. “I’m not… I’m…”
Her voice trailed away. It was too late. She could tell, even before the golden man twitched and then gasped in final breath, a trickle of smoke escaping from his lips.
As Jack just stood there, dumbfounded, a drone descended alongside her, bleeping and flexing its tentacles.
Fatalities confirmed. Deceased: Corona. Deceased: The Molten Man. Survival confirmed. Designation: Jack O’Lantern. New probability of overall victory: 4.1 per cent.
Maggie Beck, Jack O’Lantern, shook her flaming head in dismay. “But I didn’t do anything,” she said. “They killed each other.”
The drone whirred. Survival confirmed, it retorted, simply.
Jack breathed deeply. “And that’s the real aim of the game, isn’t it?” she murmured, realisation slowly dawning. “Not how many you can kill… but how long you can survive.”
The drone said nothing more, turning and drifting away, already searching for the next skirmish. Jack glanced up at The Grandmaster’s vessel, still circling high overhead, and she smiled tentatively inside her helmet.
“Okay then,” she whispered. “If all I have to do is not be killed… then maybe I’ve got a chance after all.”
Pete Petruski, The Trapster, couldn’t help but notice that the path he was following from south to north was a narrow, meandering sliver of discoloured bronze flagstones. Or, if one were inclined to use a smidgen of imagination, yellow brick. A yellow brick road. Was he supposed to have collected a scarecrow, a tin man and a cowardly lion along the way? In other circumstances the idea of it was so absurd it may have been delightful. Of course, being embroiled in a battle to the death in an arena full of crazed individuals was always liable to leech away a man’s sense of fun.
He would have preferred not to have to break cover, but there seemed little alternative. In his wake, the crystal and steel wonderland that was the western quadrant of the battlefield glimmered with reflected light, whilst the sprawl of dense forest to the south had quickly fallen away. Neither of those terrains had held enough appeal to make The Trapster wish to remain sequestered back there, especially considering the sounds of battle that had persisted. Instead he was now skirting the environs of the eastern quadrant, with its dark, hunched buildings lining a labyrinth of crooked streets and alleyways, and heading for the abbey ruins to the north – or, more precisely, the stretch where the two locations melded together. The improvised town was all rather eerie, more so for the fact it was, in essence, almost cartoonish; he half expected the buildings to suddenly come alive with activity at any moment, with shrieking, shambling zombie villagers pouring out from every door and window armed with pitchforks and bloodshot eyes. With this in mind it perhaps seemed strange that he’d made a conscious decision to travel in this direction, but there was a method in his madness.
He was called The Trapster for very good reason. Traps were his forte. And, like a spider spinning its silk, he required somewhere dark and enclosed to weave a web in which to ensnare errant flies, which is how he now perceived his potential adversaries. This environment, the juncture of streets and ruins, suited his purpose perfectly. Thus, upon arriving at his destination, he allowed himself a grim smile behind his welder’s mask.
It was a smile that lasted all of three seconds. Then, a hitherto unseen figure stepped from the shadows where she had been silently observing her enemy’s approach.
Her lithe body was sheathed in black leather leggings and an ivory shirt, with a red sash about her waist and a bandana of the same sweeping her black hair back from features of a startlingly refined beauty. The Trapster turned slowly to see the glinting point of a sword hovering a half-inch from his heart.
“Mister Petruski,” purred Yuriko Oyama, the resplendent Lady Deathstrike. “How fortuitous, considering that our previous meeting was so rudely… truncated. Now, I believe we had an arrangement back on Earth, did we not? And, although I must regretfully decline to honour my side of our deal, considering the change in our circumstances, I shall nonetheless be holding you to your end of the bargain. And, so - you have something for me…?”
To equate Sabretooth’s animalistic tendencies with a lack of intelligence was a mistake, for there was true cunning behind that mask of fangs and fur and burning, yellow eyes. He had no intention of pursuing The Spot through the rocky labyrinth beneath the streets of Se’dai’s western quadrant, wary of his adversary’s strange powers to conjure conduits to and from a dimension of organic darkness; it was far more sensible to set off in the opposite direction and to see where the path he was on eventually ended up. What he didn’t expect was that the maze of catacombs would be spread out over a greater area than he’d anticipated. After a lengthy trudge he was so bored with his surroundings that he was contemplating burrowing through the ceiling to return to the surface world, only for the passageway he was travelling to suddenly widen out and begin to ascend. The stone walls melted into softer earth, punctuated with a mass of tendrils and roots, and rose on a shallow incline to an opening shrouded in vines and foliage, with weak sunlight filtering through,
Despite his eagerness to vacate the labyrinth, Sabretooth hesitated, growling deep in his throat. For the other players of The Grandmaster’s game the artificiality of Se’dai was the source of a gnawing discomfort – the recognition, on a subconscious level, that nothing was as it appeared to be – but little more than that. For Sabretooth, it was as if someone had doused his instincts in acid. He wasn’t pleased to see plants and to feel a cool rush of fresh air, far from it. This synthetic world repulsed him. Everything – scents, sensations, every aspect of the natural ambience – was distorted, and each breath made him want to recoil. It made him want to howl. It made him want to kill.
And so, he resolved to do just that.
He emerged, blinking, from the underground tunnel into the thick forestland that covered the southern quadrant of the battlefield. As much as it displeased him to do so, he sniffed the air and studied his environment closely. He was the first living creature to have set foot on this precise patch of earth, a deeply unsettling impression, but others had recently passed by some two hundred metres to his right. There was also the distinctive sound of flowing water from this direction. His eyes narrowed.
He could still taste Stegron’s blood on his lips, thick and sour, and it matted in the fur of his tunic. He needed to wash, and he needed to commit violence. Up ahead, he knew, there would come a chance for both…
For what seemed like an eternity Black Mamba struggled against her paralysis like one would attempt to throw off the shackles of a particularly lucid nightmare, consumed by a desperate panic as she fought against her own body, which stubbornly continued to resist her. Eventually, however – just as she was beginning to concede that she might never fully recover – she broke through, quivering and drenched in a cold sweat, but otherwise elating in sudden release. She sat upright, black hair hanging in damp ringlets about her face and brow, where her green serpent tiara had slipped slightly askew. Her eyes were instantly bright, and moist with tears. Her hands trembled.
Again, just like awakening from a nightmare, she was assailed by revenance; darkness, a sense of motion, a disembodied voice proclaiming a desperate hunger… and, most hauntingly of all, one viciously precise image of a man’s face, obscured by a black mask with concentric white circles on the forehead, grinning whilst his hands roamed illicitly over her body…
Bullseye. Bastard!
“Here,” said a man’s voice, gentle but hesitant. “It’s not much, but - ”
Mamba swore and flailed out an arm, slamming her elbow into the face of the figure kneeling beside her. As her victim fell back with a yowl she scrambled unsteadily to her feet, exhaling a further stream of curses. She prepared to continue her attack… but then, she froze. An ivory shell hit the pointed toe of her right boot, spilling its contents: water. And then, she suddenly realised that the fellow who had been holding the shell out towards her, offering her a drink, was not dressed in black but rather in gleaming silver…
“Ow!” mewled the man, his voice muffled as he cupped his hands to his face. “Jesus! Ow…” He was spinning around in circles on his back on a patch of grass like an upended snail, his legs slithering in all directions as he attempted to gain purchase. Black Mamba looked on guilty. She extended a hand, unsure of how she could offer help…
…then faltered, an abrupt pain lancing through the frontal lobe of her brain, causing her to gasp. She felt a flicker of images, and a tide of darkness, welling inside her. The air about her began to shimmer and blacken with whorls of smoke and shadow. Her eyes shot wide. “No,” she hissed, a command to herself. “Stop it. Stop.”
HUNGRY.
“No.”
HUNGRY!
“No!”
The gathering surge of living black shivered and died, suddenly fading, as swiftly as it had coalesced.
The man on the ground managed to curb his spinning by laying the palms of his hands flat upon the grass beneath him, the soles of his boots pointed skyward. His expression – complete with a severely bruised nose – was one of sheer aggravation. This was obvious because Jalome Beacher, otherwise known as Slyde, currently wasn’t wearing his mask.
“I’m sorry,” Mamba said. “I thought you were… I must have…”
“You were slipping in and out of consciousness, like you were feverish,” Slyde muttered. “I could see your condition worsening, but then, all of a sudden, you were awake and moving. And hitting me.” He raised one hand to his face again, and gently pressed his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Ow,” he said again, miserably. “Just… ow.”
Slyde reached for his mask and goggles, which were lying close by, but Black Mamba gestured at him to stop. “Don’t,” she said, awkwardly. “I… prefer your face.”
Slyde looked on in surprise, all crooked smile, stubble and dark, puppy dog eyes. And bruised nose, of course. “You like this face?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “You sure you’re not still under some kind of voodoo spell?”
“It’s a lovely face. Well, maybe not lovely, but… I just… I don’t want to look at a mask right now, okay? I mean, I know you probably have a secret identity you want to protect, but - ”
Slyde snorted. “Yeah, right. Secret identity? Halfway across the galaxy and you think I care? Hell, you probably don’t even know my supervillain name, do you?”
“Uhm…”
“There you go. I’m Slyde. With a ‘y’. Pleased to meet you.”
“Black Mamba.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You do?”
“Uh-huh. You were in the Masters of Evil’s database. They’ve got files on everyone.”
“You were part of the Masters of Evil?”
“Well… yeah. But, to be honest, it was a kinda makeshift version. More like the Masters of Not Very Nice.”
“I… see.”
“You were also featured in their calendar. Miss August. An artist’s interpretation, but a good likeness.”
“There’s a calendar?”
“Oh yeah. Now, Miss January, that was Elektra. Miss February was Typhoid Mary – a bit of an odd choice, I always thought. Then Miss March was… uh…” Slyde faltered. “You… you probably don’t actually care, do you?”
“Not really, no.”
“Okay. Sorry. So, are you…? I mean, when I found you, Bullseye was - ”
Black Mamba suddenly flinched, as if her companion had slapped her, then scowled. “Bullseye!” she snarled, glancing around for the first time since regaining alertness. “That son of a bitch… where the hell did he go? I’m going to kill him, that scum-sucking little…”
“We, uh… we left him behind, way back,” Slyde replied, disconcerted at the abrupt change in his companion’s demeanour. “After I performed my daring rescue. Do you remember that I rescued you? Daringly?”
Mamba pursed her lips. “Thank you.”
“Well, there’s grudging…”
“What do you want? A round of applause?”
“No, no, don’t trouble yourself. The forearm smash to my jaw will keep me going for a while.”
Mamba had the good grace to look guilty, just briefly, then subjected her new surroundings to greater scrutiny. The last thing she remembered was the maze of narrowed streets following her encounter with the scuzzbag who had attacked her; now she found herself in some kind of forest clearing, on the edge of a wide, freshwater pool at the base of a waterfall that cascaded from a rocky overhang some ten metres above. The trees and wildflowers and running water should have made for a relaxing location, but the lingering menace of The Grandmaster’s craft overhead served to steal away much of the beauty of whatever existed below. However, Mamba was fairly reassured by the notion that she and the man in the silver suit were currently alone, and therefore in no immediate danger. She forced herself to breathe deeply… at which point she felt the wriggling in her brain once more, and a veil of darkness pass fleetingly across her consciousness.
She turned her head, eyes narrowed. She could… feel him. Bullseye. Not close – distant – but, even so, she could feel him. Her skull was reverberating to a low pulse, which at first made it difficult for her to concentrate but which, after a few seconds, she realised was acting as some kind of beacon signal. Back in the alleyway, after she had been paralysed by The Needle’s supernatural stare, she had attempted to use her psionic power to manifest Darkforce to attack her enemies, but it was as if her brain had been petrified just as surely as her body. Even so, when Bullseye had been… touching her… she had almost broken through. She had progressed as far as reaching inside his mind, searching for his greatest fears and desires, his weaknesses, to use against him – and, at that point, Slyde had appeared from nowhere and proceeded to whisk her to safety.
She and Slyde had travelled in one direction. Bullseye had moved in the other. But she still retained an essence of their psychic connection. She could still sense him. And, if she could sense him, then… she could track him.
Black Mamba took another deep breath, then turned towards Slyde.
“I am grateful,” she said, softly. “If you hadn’t intervened, he would have… well, we both know that he would’ve finished what he started. That’s why I have to go back.”
Slyde raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”
“I’m not going to let him get away with it.”
“Bullseye? But he didn’t… well, he didn’t get the chance to…”
Mamba’s eyes flashed. “It doesn’t matter how far he got,” she snapped. “It’s enough that he thought he could, and that, without you, he would. I never appreciated what it would be like, to be paralysed, to be helpless at someone else’s whim. Now I do. Now I understand how my victims felt. Someone needs to teach Bullseye that it’s wrong – and I think I’ve earned the right for it to be me. Don’t you?”
Slyde whistled and turned to look at the waterfall. “You know, that’s so pretty. You think that’s pretty? Because I think that’s - ”
Black Mamba was about to say something more – in fact, her expression suggested she was about to say a lot more – when the two of them heard a sound from close by. Across the pool, there was a shuffling in the undergrowth, accompanied by a strange, lingering hiss… and then what was unmistakably the sigh of a human voice, a sigh of satisfaction rather than despair. Slyde and Mamba exchanged uneasy glances, and then the former quickly slid on his mask and goggles whilst his female companion silently took up a position on his left flank, her dark eyes narrowed fiercely.
A moment later, a form emerged from the trees and came to stand by the edge of the pool. It was a man, tall and achingly thin, dressed in a black funeral suit and ivory shirt; his face was pale and withered like rotten fruit, his shoulder-length brown hair untidy. His eyes glittered like sequins. His smile was thoroughly unsettling, that of a fellow who took great pleasure in the suffering of others. He was clasping his hands to his chest, his fingers interlocked – and three times as long as that of any normal man, tapering to wicked points.
The man had an escort, one of The Grandmaster’s drones, its tentacles shivering beneath its underbelly. Identity confirmed, the drone whirred. Designation: Styx. Probability of overall victory: 4.9 per cent.
The debonair gentleman named Styx gazed across the water and bowed in the direction of Black Mamba, then Slyde. Then, he reached down to a clump of reeds growing on the pool bank, his wicked fingers glinting. He clasped the reeds… and, instantly, they shrivelled dramatically beneath his touch, blackening and blistering, with that same distinct hiss that Slyde and Mamba had heard earlier. Styx sighed, his eyes flickering with ecstasy. When he withdrew his hand, the once-living plants crumbled to ash and drifted away on the breeze. Then, still smiling, he returned his attention to those opposite him.
“Call me a cynic,” Mamba muttered, “But I’m not getting the impression we’ve just found ourselves a new friend.”
Slyde nodded, adjusting his goggles. “You know,” he said, “I think you might be right...”
To Be Continued...
Significant Issues
Important events referred to in this issue occured in the following Marvel titles:
Dagny Forrester was transformed into Corona in Spectacular Spider-Man # 176
Slyde was a member of The Masters Of Evil in Avengers 2000's Warriors
