Supervillain War # 10








	[Flashback] “Do you have a name?” The homeless wretch gazed up at the men in the white overalls who were crowding around the operating table where he lay, leather straps laced tight about his wrists, ankles and throat. He gave a wordless gasp as he trembled. He bit down on his lower lip, drawing blood. A hand in a white latex glove wiped at his mouth with some irritation. One of the men snorted with disgust behind his surgical mask. “You better not have AIDs, dirtbag,” he spat. “Christ, what a stink. You’d think someone would wash these crap-rats off before palming them off on us.” “Maybe feed them as well,” another murmured. “This poor shmoe doesn’t look like he’s eaten in a week. You can see his bones through his frickin’ skin.” “Waste of soap and soup, considering what we’ve got in store.” Someone laughed. The man on the table mewled. He saw the flash of a scalpel blade, and the mewl became a coarse shriek. Immediately he felt a rubber ball pressed between his teeth, forcing his jaw wide, and a gag was knotted about his head, muffling his cries. He strained against his bonds, but he was so frail he quickly exhausted what little energy he had left. The hand clutching the scalpel moved to his arm and began to slit through the sleeve of his jacket and then his shirt beneath. His clothes were as fetid as the blemished skin that was revealed. “The smell of him is making me sick,” one of the men complained. “Let’s just get this done, okay?” The wretch saw another hand moved in, this one holding a syringe with a long, silver needle. The liquid in the syringe was yellow-white, like soured milk. The needle stung as it entered his vein, but worse pain was to come, the kind that caused his back to arch and the calf muscles in his legs to stiffen until it seemed as if they would rupture. The homeless man screamed, and screamed, and screamed. There were eight injections over all, in two batches of four, over a period of an hour. The agony was unremitting. At some point the man remembered that his name was Jacob – Jacob Eishorn – and he recalled the blue van with the tinted windows that he’d been lured into on the promise of a warm bed and a meal earlier that night. By the time the process was done those details would have faded from memory, and the man Jacob had been would be dead… …leaving something other in his place. A fiend called Styx. [Flashback ends] “We could run,” Slyde suggested, adjusting his goggles. Black Mamba arched an eyebrow in his direction. “Is that your answer to everything?” “Well, it just so happens to be my forte…” The man named Styx cocked his head towards the two of them, still smiling. Then, for the first time since emerging from the trees into the forest clearing where the three villains now stood, he moved – quickly. He sprinted forward, circumnavigating the edge of the pool; his arms were outstretched, long fingers wriggling, and as he ran he erupted into a gale of shrieking laughter. It was, Slyde decided in that moment, quite possibly the creepiest thing he had ever witnessed. Thus, even though he aware that he would forevermore bear Mamba’s disappointment like a stone about his neck, he proceeded to do what he was best at – swivelling his hips and kicking off against the ridges that lined the soles of his boots, he sped off in the opposite direction. Black Mamba rolled her eyes, then turned her full attention towards Styx, who was approaching her like a wailing banshee. She threw herself to one side, hitting the ground and rolling clear just as a sweep of claws passed through the air in her wake. Remembering the way the reeds had perished at Styx’s touch, Mamba shivered, wondering what effect those talons would have on human flesh. It was probably best, she mused, if she didn’t get to find out the answer to that question any time soon. Mamba whirled as Styx lunged again, spinning on one leg and kicking out with the other. The heel of her boot clocked him beneath the jaw, snapping his head back, and the man stumbled. Mamba then felt the surging tide of darkness in her head once more, desperate to be unleashed – and, this time, she offered no resistance. The air about her instantly clouded with liquid shadow, a slick of shimmering oil upon the breeze, shifting and pulsing and attempting to take shape. Darkforce. Mamba narrowed her eyes, concentrating. She worked carefully at Styx’s brain with the equivalent of a psychic scalpel, working swiftly but with precision, and the man’s memories were exposed in an instant as she peeled back the layers of his consciousness. She saw a gloomy warehouse, and a vagrant in filthy clothes strapped to an operating table. She saw a crowd of men in overalls and surgical masks. She witnessed them administering injections, their syringes full of… of… Black Mamba shivered. Cancer. These people were filling this poor man with concentrated, malignant cancer cells, in some psychotic experiment to produce not just some kind of cure but a genetic immunity to the disease. This vagrant wasn’t their first unwilling test subject, but he was certainly to be their most successful. In a sense, their efforts had been entirely triumphant; their patient had survived the process and had developed complete resistance to tumours. However, his physiology had also been radically altered, leaving him as a carrier of some new, horrific strain of cancer virus that could infect all organic matter upon touch and cause it to wither and disintegrate in a matter of seconds. Mamba shook her head in disbelief at the reckless cruelty of humanity. But this wasn’t what she needed. She probed further, grimacing, but thankfully her continued dissection did not last much longer. When she found what she was searching for she withdrew, fighting back the urge to vomit. “It seems that fear and desire are two sides of the same coin to you, Mister Styx,” she remarked, attempting to manifest a confident edge to her voice even though her experience with Bullseye had caused her to doubt the acceptability of her powers and how she utilised them. “You live to cause death; it’s all you want, all you crave. And your greatest fear? Well, that would be the exact opposite…” Under Mamba’s psionic command, the Darkforce began to coalesce, directly before Styx. The spindle-thin man – no longer smiling now, but with sunken eyes alight with hunger – attempted to sidestep so that he could lunge for Mamba once more, but the living shadow was already upon him, smothering him in a quivering cloud. Styx snarled… …but then whimpered, as images took shape within the darkness. A woman, bandaged about the head and chest, holding out her hands towards him in silent plea; a man, bleeding profusely from a bullet wound to the gut; a child, stumbling on crutches, his legs and feet raw with leprous sores. Victims, of violence and pestilence. Styx tried to recoil, but there was no escape. And so, brow furrowed with hate, he grasped out instead. His elongated fingers closed about the woman’s face first, and Styx grinned, eyes fluttering as he anticipated what was to come… but there was no channelling of the virulent cancer that existed in his own body, resulting in the accelerated decay of whatever organic material he clasped. Instead, to his utter disbelief, the woman stiffened, and trembled… and smiled. As Styx watched on in horror, the woman healed before him, her bandages falling away like feathers. “Bless you,” the woman whispered. “Bless your soul.” Styx shrieked, and pushed the woman away, back into the surrounding cloud of darkness. He thrust out his hands towards the man instead, his fingers curling about his throat – but the result was the same. The man’s wound healed, his blood trickling back in to his stomach, his flesh knitting back together and regaining a hearty pallor. The man wept with gratitude. Styx wailed. “A child,” he hissed, beside himself with anguish as he grabbed for the last of the three phantoms that assailed him. “There is nothing sweeter than the death of an innocent child. Scream for me! Scream as I did! Scream!” His fingers tore at the boy’s scalp and face, disgorging a torrent of cancerous acid… but the youth simply gazed up with love in his eyes. Beneath Styx’s touch, his putrefied flesh no longer festered but instead began to grow healthy and strong once more. “Scream,” Styx whispered, tears trickling down his cheeks. “Please. Please. All I want is for you to suffer. They made me suffer, you see. They laughed at my pain…” On the edge of the shroud of Darkforce, Black Mamba looked on in quiet loathing. “You poor, vile little man,” she breathed. “You’re not human. Not any more. I’m sorry for what those people did to you, but in the process they destroyed anything that was good in your soul. All that’s left is evil. I can’t show you any mercy. The only thing you deserve is extinction.” Directed by Mamba’s psionic command, the Darkforce began to constrict then. It thickened about Styx’s face and throat so that he could no longer see anything, not even conjured apparitions, and so that he could no longer breathe. The shadow insinuated itself into his mouth, his nose, his eyes. It paralysed him. And there it began to coagulate, and expand, stretching muscle and flesh and bone, and eliciting muffled cries of wordless torment. Styx’s lungs bloated. His jaw cracked. His eyes burst. And then, Black Mamba heard the echo of soft laughter… and a voice. Feed me, it whispered. Feed me souls of festering sin. Feed me blight and vice and malevolence. Feed me your evil! Mamba’s eyes slowly widened as she became aware of a presence in the darkness – beside her, behind her, all around her. In her mind. Its eyes glowed pyre-red, like a raging bonfire fuelled by human carcasses. She could smell roasting flesh and cooking hearts. She could hear the shriek of lost spirits, dangling from gallows overhead. And, as a massive paw punctuated with a hundred claws reached from the void towards both her and the writhing remains of the man named Styx… …so another presence, and another voice, disrupted her trance. “You know,” came the throaty snarl, “I’m beginning to think I’ve been dumped here with a whole host of you spooky shadow-freaks. And you, honey, look even more dangerous than the guy covered in spots. So, you’ll forgive me if I get rid of you first.” Black Mamba attempted to pull clear, but it was far too late. She felt fingers slide into her lush black hair and clench tight – and then she was thrust forward, down into the pool at the centre of the clearing, her head submerged and then held firmly in place even as she thrashed and flailed. “Just be glad I’m gonna kill you quick, spooky,” growled Victor Creed, the mutant otherwise known as Sabretooth, his fangs glinting as he smiled. “Normally I prefer to take my time. Just for the memories, you know? But you’ll forgive me if the thrill of the hunt just isn’t high on my agenda just now.” The fur-clad mutant raised his other clawed hand, then, ready to inflict the killing blow… …only to for a sudden weight to slam into him from behind, causing him to release his grip on his victim and stagger forward, knee-deep into the water himself. Sabretooth roared and twisted, slashing out as he did so, but a flash of passing silver informed him that his attacker was already skating clear. “See?” yelled Slyde, waving a fist at the dreadlocked mutant. “See what you made me do? That’s another daring rescue! One was enough to put her in a bad mood – what do you reckon two’s going to get me, huh? A mouthful of abuse, that’s what!” The clearing was of uneven terrain, punctuated with hillocks and scattered rocks and clumps of reeds, not to mention the odd protruding tree root, but it may as well have been fashioned from polished glass the way that Slyde was skidding over the surface of the ground. The chemical that coated his silver bodysuit was indeed a miracle, negating all friction to a microscopic level and allowing him to ride the landscape with the barest shift of his hips to maintain balance and momentum, despite the less-than-aerodynamic angularity of the human body. Using the fine ridges on his gloves and boots, the only areas of the costume not covered with that chemical, Slyde was also able to push out against obstacles with his hands and feet to alter his direction in the blink of an eye without sacrificing an iota of speed – and that was exactly what he did now, kicking down against a cypress trunk as he passed to send him shooting off sideways from his previous trajectory, swivelling at the waist as he did so. He was now heading back towards Sabretooth, a blur of motion that the mutant – even with his own enhanced physical reflexes – couldn’t counter. Slyde snapped out a fist as he approached like a silver rocket, touching down gently on the outside ridge of his right boot to guide him past his foe rather than directly into him. The punch smacked into Sabretooth’s face like a cannonball, lifting him back off his feet and sending him flying backwards towards the centre of the pool, where he landed with an almighty splash. Having learned from previous experience just how painful impact at high speeds could be, Slyde’s suit was cushioned with an inner lining, especially about the joints and knuckles; but, even so, the blow he struck caused him to yell out loud and cradle his hand to his chest. “That’s why running is always the best option,” he whimpered to himself as he slowed his skid, approaching the stricken body of Black Mamba. She was convulsing, coughing up water at the edge of the pool, but at least she was alive. As was Styx, as a matter of interest. The scrawny man was laying on his back a few metres away, his expression taut with fear and his fingers clutching at thin air even though Mamba’s Darkforce had dissipated. And then there was Sabretooth, splashing and snarling out in the water, swimming for the shallows. It was all a bit much, actually, Slyde mused. “Mamba!” he snapped, cupping his hand beneath her ribs. “You’ve got to get up. If you stand, I can skate you out of here, but - ” “You… came back…” Slyde sighed. “I wasn’t just going to leave you,” he muttered. “I needed to get a run up, to gather speed, so – oh, never mind. Just help me out, would you?” Mamba lifted her head, her skin decidedly pale behind the curtain of her black hair, but her lips curled into a smile. She clasped Slyde’s ridged palm, extended towards her… …but then both of them were alerted to impending danger by Sabretooth’s furious roar as the mutant launched himself out of the water, all fangs and claws and rage. Mamba screamed. Instinctively, Slyde made to push himself clear – but, even as he did so, his mind and body froze in that final second. If he moved – if he ran – Sabretooth would kill Mamba. It was a moment’s hesitation, that was all. A moment to decide whether to save himself, or not. Perhaps, ultimately, he didn’t even make the choice. Whatever, the outcome was the same. Sabretooth raked his claws through the air… and Slyde, who still had not moved, simply closed his eyes and gripped tight to Mamba’s hand. The strike, so vicious, so powerful, caught him across the midriff. The frictionless quality of his suit protected him somewhat, just as it had against Bullseye, but Sabretooth’s talons were far more deadly than shuriken; it tore open not only his costume but also the flesh and muscle of his stomach, disembowelling him to the quivering root of his spine. And, dramatically, tragically, that was that. Slyde was dead before he hit the ground. However, when he did land, the momentum of Sabretooth’s strike was displaced into his sundered body, which proceeded to shoot backwards at incredible speed, spraying blood in its wake… and dragging Mamba along for the ride, as her hand was still entwined with his. She wasn’t blessed with Slyde’s frictionless outer shell – her back was shredded cruelly upon rocks and roots, and her weight stole away the kinetic energy that, when alive, Slyde had been able to manipulate to such great effect – but it was enough that it ensured her survival. Sabretooth slashed down at her as she sped away, but missed by inches. A few second later, Slyde’s body impacted with the barrel of a tree and ricocheted sideways, flipping over and coming to rest, twisted and bloody, in a cradle of roots. Black Mamba rolled, hand slipping free, and grunted as she crashed to a halt some ten metres away, past the edge of the clearing. She glanced up, aware that her face and bare arms were awash with her companion’s blood but also knowing that there was no time to mourn – Sabretooth had already turned in her direction and, snarling, was ready to charge. Mamba’s expression twisted with grief and fury. “Bastard!” she screamed. “I’ll rip out your godless heart!” Sabretooth grinned, about to respond in kind… but Black Mamba was already unleashing her Darkforce in a veritable tide, with no thought of restraint. She had always exerted a measure of control over her power, ever since Doctor Karl Malus had overseen the genetic brain surgery that had changed her into something more than human; she had always known, instinctively, that to allow the Darkforce free reign would be far more dangerous than whatever threat she faced. But she could taste blood on her lips, and could smell death upon the air, tainting what should have been an idyllic sanctuary at the heart of the battlefield where she had been unceremoniously dumped… and, suddenly, her soul was consumed by a wild lust for violence. The Darkforce engulfed Sabretooth like an oil slick, stinging his eyes and burning his throat. He fell back, choking. Then he felt the psychic penetration – not a scalpel wielded with precision on this occasion, but rather a rusted saw blade performing a lobotomy without anaesthetic, levering apart the bluntly hewn halves of his skull and gouging out his deepest fears from the soft brain beyond. Sabretooth screamed… and then, he turned and saw a shape in the black, shuffling towards him, a chain in one hand and a nailed stick in the other. “Yer an animal, boy,” came the gruff voice, thick with whisky and misery; the voice of Victor Creed’s father. “A dog. Dogs needs cagin’. Dogs needs obedience. Gonna learn you some respect, boy.” Suddenly, Victor was small and frail. Suddenly, his bones showed through his ruddy, bruised skin, and tears of sorrow streamed from his eyes, leaving trails through the dirt that encrusted his cheeks. Suddenly, the chains were about his wrists and ankles and he was back there, back in the cellar, back in the dark. Hungry. Terrified. And his father was standing above him, already brandishing his stick. “Please,” Victor wept. “Daddy, please, no…” But Victor Creed’s daddy had never listened back then, and he didn’t listen now. Down came the stick, and the rusted nails bit deep into his flesh. Down, and down, and down… …and, in the darkness, those red eyes flared once more, accompanied by that same, soft laughter from before. Oh, yes, it breathed. So hungry. Feed me. Feed me this one’s tortured soul… Victor sobbed. Victor screamed. But then, just as the pain became almost too much to bear… Victor snarled. No. Not Victor. Sabretooth. The boy stood, and snatched out as the stick came sweeping down towards him one final time. A clawed fist closed about the nails, blood spurting, and then wrenched the club away. The figure in the darkness, Victor’s daddy, shivered… then vanished. “No!” Sabretooth roared. “You come back here! You come back! I’ll teach you respect! I’ll - ” “It’s so dark in here, isn’t it?” a voice whispered. “It’s no wonder we’re both so lost.” Sabretooth turned to see a man standing before him, tall and emaciated, his eyes dark and his mouth split with a wide grin. The man was dressed in a funeral suit that all but faded into the shadow that still surrounded the two of them. His hands were outstretched, and his fingers – each some ten inches long – tapered to wicked points. “You’re suffering too aren’t you?” said the man named Styx. “Just like me. Can you imagine how exquisite that is, to find one so like oneself…?” And then, Styx closed his hands about Sabretooth’s throat, sinking his nails deep into fur and flesh. Sabretooth shrieked, and instinctively moved to bury his claws in the other man’s torso… but he couldn’t. He couldn’t raise his arms; at Black Mamba’s behest, the darkness had thickened around his body like hundreds of loops of rope, so tightly that he was rendered utterly immobile. His yellow eyes shot wide, almost bursting from their sockets, as Styx’s living cancer began to flood his system, dissolving him from the inside out, his bones cracking and disintegrating, his muscles and internal organs hissing as they melted. His regeneration factor attempted to counteract the cellular damage, of course, but this was no wound it was endeavouring to heal – it was cancer. A more virulent strain of cancer than any documented in medical journals, more cruel, more devastating. Sabretooth’s mutant capabilities could slow the erosion, but not stop it. He was dying, the most agonising death imaginable. “Beautiful,” whispered Styx, trembling in rapture. And the voice of the darkness sighed in agreement. On the outside of the Darkforce, Black Mamba was beginning to lose her strength. She bowed her head, attempting to terminate the psionic flow of living shadow being released into this dimension from another – but, for the first time, the gateway did not slam shut at her insistence. And that was what it was, she remembered in that instant – her recent experience in Manhattan had taught her as much. A gateway, between worlds. A door she had always been able to open and close at will – but which now refused to respond to her commands, as if something were pushing against it from the other side. Mamba experienced a brief flicker of panic – but one that was replaced by anger just as swiftly. “No!” she snarled. “You’ll do what I tell you to. And I say enough.” She increased her concentration, fists clenched so tightly that her nails drew blood where they pressed into her palms. Ahead of her, the cloud of Darkforce shimmered then quaked. Within, Sabretooth and Styx both screamed – and, also, one other. The creature with the red eyes. “Go back!” Black Mamba demanded. The Darkforce fluctuated one more time… then, abruptly, began to disperse, drifting away on the breeze like smoke. In a matter of heartbeats, it was gone – and all that remained were two bodies, both twitching as they lay on the ground at the edge of the pool. Breathing heavily, her hair and skin damp with perspiration, Mamba approached them with caution, although there was no need for concern. All that remained of Sabretooth was a sheathe of ragged flesh about brittle bones, his features and physical structure having wasted away to ash. Somewhere in that cadaver his healing factor was perhaps still striving to keep him alive, but it was in vain. Every cell was infected with living cancer, and was decaying before Mamba’s eyes; indeed, a second or two later, the man who had been born Victor Creed finally breathed his last and his remains crumbled, disintegrating into fragments. Styx was another matter. He was still alive, although currently lost in a bliss of ecstasy. Black Mamba’s expression darkened. She couldn’t help but think of Slyde. It wasn’t fair that a monster like Styx should live whilst Slyde had given his life to protect her. It was time to set that right. Mamba extended one long leg and positioned the spike heel of her boot beneath Styx’s chin, squarely on the curve of his windpipe. “I was inside your mind,” she breathed. “Only for a short while, but it was more than enough. You didn’t ask for this, but you’ve accepted it. I’ve seen what you’ve done. I know what you are. You enjoy pain and death, you sick son of a bitch? Well you can choke on this.” Gritting her teeth she stamped down, puncturing Styx’s throat with her heel. He convulsed beneath her, blood spurting over her boot, as she twisted her foot at the ankle, skewering him. His hands rose, limply… then fell away. Black Mamba stepped back, her heel slipping free with a wet shuk. Styx spasmed. Gurgled. And then, he died. Fatalities confirmed. Deceased: Slyde. Deceased: Sabretooth. Deceased: Styx. Survival confirmed. Designation: Black Mamba. New probability of overall victory: 7.7 per cent. Mamba heard the now-familiar whirr of a drone, somewhere overhead, but she didn’t even look. The likelihood was she wouldn’t have been able to focus through the tears. Hungry, a voice whispered in the back of her head. This isn’t over. Still hungry. Feed me. Black Mamba shivered, and bit down hard on her lower lip. She thought of red eyes in the shadows, and of Styx, and Sabretooth… and Slyde. And then, she thought of Bullseye. She could still feel him, like the faintest tickle at the base of her skull, somewhere in the distance. Her eyes flashed. “Don’t worry,” she hissed, her voice hoarse and alien to her ears. “Trust me, there are plenty more where these came from. Plenty more. And I know exactly where to start…” When all was said and done, Donnie Gill had always been a pretty lucky guy. Sure, he’d failed to make much of his life, but he was still youthful; there was plenty of time to discover himself and his place in the world, to be successful, to find a nice girl with a brain and the kind of smile that made the sun break through the clouds. That, of course, was the province of the young. There was always time. Right up until the moment it ran out. Before all this, Donnie had considered himself fortunate that he had never really known true physical pain; no broken limbs, no sports injuries, not even concussion from the one occasion when he’d found himself at the business end of an Iron Man repulsor ray. Therefore, what he was currently experiencing was one hell of a shock – in both senses of the word. Donnie Gill, his Blizzard suit in tatters about his bruised face and shoulders, screamed as the psychopath who was torturing him lay his hands upon his chest once more and channelled a thousand volts of electrical charge into his body. He screamed, and writhed, and burned. And the man who was administering agony beyond anything Donnie could ever have imagined simply grinned and giggled, eyes wide with delight. Eventually, after ten seconds of torment than had seemed like an hour, the man removed his hands and skipped backwards, twirling in a circle so that the bells on each spoke of his multi-coloured tri-corner hat jangled merrily. The man whooped like a bird, then turned his hands, palm upwards, towards his victim, revealing the black coils of wire embedded into the pads of his gloves. And then, he sang. “Joy buzzer! Joy buzzer! One, two, three! See Johnny dance in Ec! Sta! See!” Donnie’s head lolled, drool trickling from the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t speak. He also couldn’t move, trapped as he was beneath a pile of rubble that buried his entire lower torso and his right arm. His left arm was free, not that this did him much good; the first thing the man in the coloured hat had done upon finding him in this state was to take a wedge of stone the size of a football and shatter his elbow with a single, vicious blow. Still grinning, the man now leaned in close, his head jangling. “Would you like to hear a joke?” he breathed, dark eyes sparkling. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but it goes something like this… “Last week, a dozen officers surrounded my house and arrested me. Then they dug up my yard and found thirty-seven mutilated corpses. ‘I’ve never seen these women before in my life!’ I cried. ‘Really, sir?’ asked the officer in charge. ‘Do you expect us to believe that these are complete strangers?’ ‘Well, of course not,’ I replied. ‘They’re only partial strangers. After all, their heads and feet are all missing!’ Ahah! Ahahah!” Donnie writhed and whimpered. Jonathan Powers, otherwise known as The Jester, scowled and clucked his tongue. “Tough audience,” he muttered. “Well, newsflash, little boy. I’ve known tougher. Oh yes, I truly have…” [Flashback] O, that it had come to this…? Jonathan Powers gazed down in abject misery at the costume he was being forced to wear – a dark green smock and body-stocking, with cloth boots that curled up at the toes, and a purple and golden head-dress, with a tri-corned hat tipped with three golden bells that trilled merrily whenever he so much as breathed. It was obscene. It was intolerable. It was – “It’s a paying job, Jon,” sighed Mel, a portly, balding man in an ill-fitting suit. “Trust me, this is just a slouch. A dip. You’ll be back treading the boards before you know it.” Jonathan said nothing, although the glistening in his eyes and the tremble of his lower lip suggested he was close to tears. Mel grimaced, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Cheer up, will ya? Jeez, it’s a kids’ show. You’re a jester. You’re supposed to be the life and soul, you know?” Jonathan raised his head. His bells jangled. “I,” he said, slowly, “Am an accomplished actor. I’ve played Hamlet. I played Cyrano de Bergerac. Now I’m cast in the role of a fool on Sesame Street?” “You bombed, Jon. Your Cyrano… it was panned. And then with the drinking and the therapy, not to mention your attitude… hell, you’re lucky I got you this gig.” “My attitude? My attitude? How dare you! You! You! You… pathetic excuse for an agent! I - ” “Hey, jester!” someone barked. Jonathan whirled to see a bearded man gesturing angrily towards with him with a clipboard. “Yeah, you. Didn’t I tell you to get in goddamn position? Big Bird and Oscar ain’t used to waitin’ on goddamn extras.” Mel snorted. He couldn’t help himself. After all, it was all pretty damn ludicrous… wasn’t it? When Jonathan turned his head once more his face was contorted with such rage – such humiliation – that dark veins were positively throbbing beneath his flushed skin, and his lips were furled back from his teeth like some manner of wild animal. Mel paled and his laughter died in his throat. Jonathan Powers was typically a skinny wretch of a fellow, but in that instant there was something about him that was unspeakably fearsome. “Maybe I’ll make a splash then, hmm?” the man in the jester costume hissed. “Yes? What do you say, Mel, old friend? I mean, maybe this is a turning point in my career. Maybe I just need to be noticed. How about I give the kids a surprise? Give the audience something they won’t forget in a hurry, hmm? A carving knife, perhaps. Hidden up my sleeve. Chop, chop, chop. Give morning television a big old stab in the heart.” Mel took a step backwards, his expression disgusted. “Jesus, Jon,” he breathed. “This… you’re not right. You’re over the edge, and you need serious help. I quit. Find yourself another agent. And, Christ, find yourself a better doctor, okay?” Jonathan Powers watched the man stalk away, his mouth twisted in a livid grin, his eyes dark. Through the red mist of his rage he heard the bearded director yelling for him again. He flicked his head and heard the tingle of the bells. Jingle, jangle. Jingle, jangle. “Ah, well,” he whispered to himself. “Some people just can’t take a joke. Ahah. But enough of this – we can’t keep the children waiting, now can we…?” [Flashback ends] “Why?” Donnie croaked, as his torturer stepped away, rummaging in the satchel bag that was belted at his waist. The Jester glanced back over his shoulder, his lunatic smile now fully overwhelmed by a sneer of contempt. “Why?” he repeated, parrot-fashion. “Why? Why? Why what? Why is the grass blue? Why is the sky green? Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Why what?” Donnie grit his teeth, fighting unconsciousness. “Why… are you doing this? Kill me… if that’s what you want. Just…” “Hey, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” “What…?” “It’s a quote, dear boy!” The Jester barked. “Oh, stop your snivelling. Good lord, you obnoxious, uneducated little wretch! You mama’s boy. You wiener. I’m just teaching you to be a man, that’s all! You’ll thank me for this one day, believe me. This will all be the making of you. Now, if I can just find that blasted… ah! There it is!” When his purple-gloved hand re-emerged from the satchel, it was holding an object between thumb and forefinger: a white ping-pong ball. The Jester wiggled his eyebrows at Donnie. Then, he passed his other hand over the first with a flourish – and when he drew it away, he was now holding two such balls, the second one blue and positioned between index finger and middle finger. He then repeated the action, and a third ball appeared, this one red, between middle finger and ring finger. “One, two, three!” The Jester crooned. “Doe, ray, me! Keep an eye on your balls at all times, as my mother used to say! God rest her blackened soul…” Donnie moaned as his enemy drew close once more. He attempted to pull his head away, but it was no use; The Jester yanked him forward by the hair, then flicked his knee up hard into Donnie’s jaw, loosening a couple of teeth and splitting his lower lip. Donnie choked, and his mouth fell open, spewing blood. “Thanking you,” said The Jester, slotting the white ball past Donnie’s ruined gums then standing back. “Pop goes the weasel, the weasel, the weasel! Pop goes the weasel! And the weasel goes…” Donnie thrashed his head from side to side, whimpering as he tried to spit the ball out, but it was wedged tight. And then, it exploded. And, as he cowered back from the slick bone and flesh that peppered him like hail, The Jester laughed. “Oh,” he sighed, “Who would have thought the man to have so much blood in him…?” Although one might argue that no graveyard can be a pleasant location to suddenly find oneself, there was something particularly macabre about the cemetery that lined the northernmost border of the Se’dai battlefield, at the edge of the quadrant that had been fashioned by The Grandmaster’s hand into an approximation of abbey ruins. This gruesome quality stemmed mostly from the fact that the crypts and tombstones, although seemingly aged to the eye and to the touch, still possessed an element of the new – and because so many of the headstones were blank, the granite unadorned with the names of any who might rest there. But not all of them. As Marie-Ange Colbert passed tentatively between the aisles of stone she saw that some were carved with epitaphs – and this was the most sinister thing of all. Alannah Valasquez, one read; She Was Not Worthy. And then, Harvey Broxtel – He Was Not Worthy. MacDonald Gargan – He Was Not Worthy. Paul-Pierre Duval – He Was Not Worthy… Marie-Ange stopped reading, suddenly feeling bile rise in her chest. She didn’t know these names, but, somehow, their meaning wasn’t lost on her. She breathed deeply, then glanced about at her surroundings. There was a low mist, silvered with the reflected light of The Grandmaster’s vessel circling overhead; it curled and drifted, even though there was little wind to speak of, insinuating itself among the crypts and cypresses. This mist was thicker beyond the barrier of a rickety wooden fence that lined the perimeter of the graveyard, as if this was a boundary one must not cross under any circumstances. The cemetery itself rose at a shallow incline, up towards a building at the top of the hill, framed black against the eerie skyline. This building was not in ruins like the other sundered edifices scattered throughout this quadrant, but rather it was whole, with a sheer steeple and wide doors, and a dozen tall, narrow windows of stained glass that glowed in crimson and indigo and emerald, depicting slightly obscure religious tableaux. It was a church. It was beautiful. But, in her heart, Marie-Ange was terrified, for she knew that this was no sanctuary – if anything, it was just another tomb, awaiting the interment of fresh corpses. Identity confirmed, a mechanical voice suddenly trilled. Designation: Tarot. Probability of overall victory: 1.1 per cent. Marie-Ange, the mutant otherwise known as Tarot, whirled in surprise to see a silver drone hovering close by. Her hand disappeared inside her jacket and closed about something that was hard and familiar. The object she withdrew was a tin case, dented in places and a tad rusted about the hinge and clasp. She flicked open the lid with her thumb, revealing the contents of the case: a deck of mismatched tarot cards, worn at the edges. However, even as she removed the deck and spread it in a fan between the thumb and fingers of her other hand, the drone was already speeding away, tentacles trailing in its wake. Tarot forced herself to breathe, and to ignore the hammering of her heart. Unfortunately, a mere moment later, a far greater test of her nerve flickered into existence. Becoming aware of movement on all sides, Tarot slowly turned in complete circle where she stood, her dark eyes growing wide. In all directions, wherever there was a headstone – carved with a name or not – the mist was beginning to thicken, to glow… and to take shape. A very specific shape, in each instance. Human, with arms and legs and torso and head… but, in every case, these bodies were little more than skeletons, with strings of bloodied flesh and tatters of clothes hanging from their bones, and the heads were skulls, some of them missing eyes, or part of the jaw. Cadavers. Zombies. The living dead. Rising from the mist and emitting a terrible, mournful groan as they each reached out towards her, fingers hooking into claws… and then, slowly, they began to advance. Tarot screamed, almost dropping her cards. Panicking, she stared down at the deck, wondering which of the major Arcana she should choose to animate in accordance with her unique powers. Her fear was making it difficult for her to focus, but – Suddenly, something whistled past Tarot’s head, causing her to yelp and stagger backwards. From the corner of her eye she saw a projectile spear through the forehead of one of the encroaching cadavers – but not with any sound of impact akin to the splintering of bone. Instead, there was a stark crack as the missile embedded in the headstone beyond the fiend – which now flickered and vanished, instantly, leaving only the white haze that had come before. “Phantasms,” a female voice muttered. “No, not even that – because that implies that, somehow, they’re real. They aren’t. They’re just illusions.” Tarot turned to see a woman standing close by, dressed in a cloak the colour of blood, so long that it that pooled in wreathes at her feet; her hair was also a fiery red, falling in waves and ringlets to her shoulders, framing a sharp yet nonetheless exquisite face dominated by a pair of large eyes the colour of autumn leaves, green fractured with gold. The woman was carrying a large wooden crossbow in the crook of her arm, another eight-inch steel quarrel – like the bolt she had just fired a few seconds before – notched in the weapon’s throat. Tarot glanced back at the skeleton-creatures that were still advancing on all sides. “Not real?” she whispered. “Are you sure?” The other woman grimaced. “They can do no harm,” she murmured. “However, I wouldn’t presume to say as much for whoever created them. In which case, I’d suggest we make for the church.” “Will it be safe there?” The woman in red looked on dispassionately. “Once upon a time – long ago – I thought that would be the case,” she breathed, her eyes flashing. “Back then, I was wrong. Now? Now, I make no guarantees. Follow me if you wish… or do not.” And with that she turned and began to stalk away, up the hill, towards the dark tower lit with windows that burned like a conflagration. Marie-Ange hesitated, but only for a moment. She glanced back at the approaching apparitions and shivered. Then, reluctantly, she turned and scurried after the scarlet woman… “Feelin’ better, now that we’re through…” Suddenly, there was no more screaming – just the music, filling the air, and the sound of creaking metal as Spiral stepped back from the operating table and arched her back. She sighed with contentment as she scrutinised her handiwork, concerned that in her haste she had neglected some vital component or threading of wires. Across the room, three pairs of newly augmented eyes revolved in her direction and fixed upon her with cold, lifeless stares. “Feelin’ better ‘cos I’m over you…” The three corpses were naked, although almost seventy per cent of the surface area of their bodies was now no longer composed of flesh but rather interlocking plates of thin, polished metal and spools of circuitry. When her creations moved, at her instruction, every flex of a joint produced a soft hiss of hydraulics and caused a shimmer of reflected light. “I’ve learned my lesson and it left a scar…” Spiral lit a cigarette and removed her helmet. Her elliptical eyes gleamed like molten gold. It was time. There had been unfinished business between her and Yuriko Oyama for so many years now, but here – finally – there was no choice but to confront the spectres of their shared past. She smiled, removing the cigarette from her lips with one hand whilst drawing one of her sword with another; she raised the silver blade to her mouth, and drew her tongue along the sharpened edge, shivering at the sensation. “And now I see how you really are… “You’re no good, you’re no good, you’re no good, baby, you’re no good…” Oh, yes. Now things got interesting. He wasn’t here. She didn’t understand how she knew that to be true – she wasn’t one for magic or telepathy or anything of a supernatural quality, even though she was well aware that such things existed – but she was convinced all the same. Whilst she was engaging in nonsensical mortal combat on a world on the far reaches of the universe, the man she loved was presumably still back on Earth, perhaps unaware that she had even been abducted. As is she wasn’t furious enough already, this realisation was enough to see Mary MacPherran, the fearsome Titania, consumed with rage. Nekra watched her snarling companion demolish yet another wall of crystal threaded with metal from a safe distance, a delighted smile playing about pale lips. The other woman’s hate emanated from her in waves that were almost tangible, and she fed upon it ravenously. She could feel her muscles cording to lead, her flesh thickening, her strength swelling. It was almost too delicious. Of course, it couldn’t last forever. The Grandmaster’s game was specifically designed to extract a singular winner from the melting pot, which meant that at some point Titania herself would have to be despatched. It was a knotty proposition – or rather, it would have been were Nekra not supremely confident in her own prowess. When the time came she would end Titania’s life with the barest exertion… and she would then go on to claim the ultimate prize. Nekra sighed, eyes flickering with a stir akin to heady lust. She could taste victory already… In the vast Court of En Dwi Gast, high above the battlefield of Se’dai, a scurry of drones suddenly flared like a flock of crows startled from the branches of a tree. Tentacles whipped and slithered, and sensors bleeped. Seated in his throne, The Grandmaster glanced up at the furore above his head, irritated. “What now?” he snapped. “Speak!” But, aside from a hubbub of binary squee, the raggle of automated spheres seemed to have nothing to report. No anomalies, no analysis. Just general disquiet. At the edges of the Court, a tide of shadow swelled, unseen. From somewhere came a sound like the sough of winter wind. The Grandmaster rose slowly from his throne, red eyes narrowed, his senses abruptly alert. Another intruder in his domain? Of a kind. But far different to the previous interloper, Spiral… There was more movement in the gathering dark now, and it attracted attention. The Grandmaster turned, uneasy. Overhead, his legion of attendant drones were shivering and clattering against one another, their tentacles entwining. “Curious,” En Dwi Gast murmured, genuinely intrigued, although the tremor in his voice betrayed his escalating anxiety as he began to suspect what was occurring in his presence. “A most unexpected development indeed. The question is… what happens now?” To Be Continued...