[Flashback]

She was drifting in and out of consciousness, regularly overwhelmed either by pain or the nigh euphoric stupor caused by the intravenous chemical feed used to quash that agony. Apparently it was essential that she be kept on the verge of perception throughout the procedure, as this allowed the woman who was overseeing the operation to reconfigure her newly augmented cardiovascular and nervous systems with the required precision. Yuriko wasn’t convinced. She had spent her life in the company of individuals – not least her father – who relished the torment of others, and she recognised casual sadism when she tasted it.

The woman attending her was as beautiful as she was alien. Her hair was the silver of finely spun moonlight, glittering like sequins with the barest movement, whilst her eyes were of breathtaking gold; this, in contrast to the fact that she possessed six arms, three on either side of her upper torso in the manner of an insect, although her body, with its high breasts and lissom hips, was otherwise unmistakably female. Yuriko found herself strangely attracted to this other – no, more than that, infatuated – but she dismissed this unsettling sensation as a side-effect of her treatment.

“I am Spiral,” the silver-haired woman said, her voice like glass chimes in the breeze. “Regain your centre. Breathe. Restore order to thoughts and being. The nutrient bath was the final stage. Your biomed transmutation has been completely successful…”

Yuriko closed her eyes, these words meaning little to her. She didn’t understand the process, clinging only to what had been promised to her by the man named Donald Pierce. A body of flesh and blood, highly trained to the peak of physical perfection, but still not enough to ensure her victory against her enemies; for that, she needed muscle and bone to be enhanced with metal and wire and pulsing energy. A cyborg; a cybernetic organism. A killing machine.

She and the woman named Spiral talked awhile, during a period of lucidity, about who she had become and what she was capable of, but her memory of this post-operative conversation was hazy. It was only later, after a brief interlude of convalescence, that she truly began to appreciate the reality of her conversion. She awoke in bed, her new body naked beneath silk sheets. Warm sunlight streamed through open windows, touching the skin of her cheek with such tenderness that she shivered. It was a significant moment, for it was then she realised not only that her scars had been healed, but that other changes had taken place; when she raised her hand to her face she saw that, in place of human fingers, there were now ten-inch-long digits of tapered steel, and that her arms and upper torso were still riddled with wires and exposed implants. She faltered, stunned.

“I could restore you fully, with more time,” a soft voice said. Yuriko turned to see Spiral standing in the doorway, dressed in a silver-blue bodysuit that left each of her six arms exposed. Four were bare, creamy flesh, whilst the other two were gleaming metal.

“There’s no need,” Yuriko murmured, frowning at the odd rasp in her voice. “As you know, I’ve no plans to remain this way. Many years ago, my father pioneered a method of grafting Adamantium onto human bone, but every last note relating to the procedure was stolen. There are two men who have undergone the process – one, known to me only as Bullseye, at my father’s own hand, and another, known as Wolverine, under circumstances as yet unrevealed to me. I seek them both. But, to survive, I need a body every bit as durable as theirs – hence why I have come to Pierce… and to your macabre Body Shop. As soon as I have slain my enemies, I shall return here for you to reverse what you’ve done to me, as promised.”

Spiral smiled, her eyes flashing. “Of course,” she whispered. “Pierce told me about your father, Lord Dark Wind. Odd, that you should risk so much in the memory of a man who abused you when he was alive…”

Yuriko scowled. “Is there something you want?”

Spiral cocked her head. “Perhaps,” she murmured. “Hold out your arm.”

The woman in the bed hesitated at first, then did as she was bidden. Spiral stepped forward and gripped her shoulder with one hand and her wrist in another. Then, with a third hand, she slid a silver dagger with a diamond-encrusted hilt from her belt and quickly drew the tip of the blade along the inside of Yuriko’s forearm, leaving a trail of blood. Yuriko hissed, her eyes flashing with anger, and attempted to pull her arm away but Spiral held her firm. Yuriko then attempted to strike her with her other hand, but Spiral grabbed her wrist and pushed her back down on the bed, leaning in close.

“Just watch,” she breathed.

Yuriko glanced across at her wounded arm and gasped as she saw the flesh begin to knit together, tiny threads of metal interlocking beneath the skin.

“Every part of you has been improved,” Spiral murmured. “Speed, endurance, resistance to harm. And, if you do incur bodily damage – anything short of a punctured heart or brain – you’ll automatically repair yourself. You aren’t indestructible, any more than I am – your augmentation is based implicitly on my own template, save for the extra arms, which were a particular quirk of the man who… changed me. But I imagine it’ll be more than enough to overcome your enemies.”

Yuriko stared up into the other woman’s eyes, a scant distance between them. She could feel Spiral’s weight against her own, a strange blend of cold, hard metal and warm flesh. “And you?” she asked. “What is your story?”

Spiral smiled, thinly. “Unlike you, I had no choice in what was done to me. But I’ve no wish to dwell on my past any more than you have, I suspect.”

Spiral released her grip on Yuriko’s arms then, but the Japanese woman made no attempt to move. Spiral presented the dagger to her, which caused her to smile.

“I’m not dangerous enough?” she said, wriggling her deadly fingers.

“Those who aren’t scared to die are always the most dangerous opponents. But one can never be too careful. One must always be prepared. Keep it; it’s a gift. From one sister to another.”

“Sister?”

“As I said, we’re based on identical templates. We share a bond, Yuriko. An… intimacy.”

“Call me Deathstrike,” Yuriko hissed. “Lady Deathstrike. And, in return, I have a gift for you.”

She raised her head then, lips parted, but for a moment, Spiral did not respond. Then, gently, she leaned in for a kiss. Deathstrike curled her arms about the other woman’s back, her extended fingers reaching up into her hair, her sharpened nails prickling her flesh. Spiral laid six hands upon the length of Deathstrike’s body, causing her to shiver. They moved to embrace… but then Spiral froze, her golden eyes sparkling. She could feel her creation’s nails settling into a specific pattern about the lower curve of her skull.

“A punctured brain, you say?” Deathstrike murmured, eyes suddenly black and cold. “Tell me this, woman. Is this intimacy you speak of why I feel drawn to you? Why I desire you?”

“A side-effect of the process,” Spiral replied, quietly. “Your body needs time to adjust. As does mine.”

“It disgusts me.”

Spiral flinched, then her lips curled into a curious smile. “I’m the only one who can restore your humanity, and yet you feel so threatened by what you’re experiencing that you’d kill me to end it?”

“In a heartbeat.”

Spiral breathed deeply. “Well then,” she hissed. “In the face of such bitter rejection, I would suggest we endeavour to maintain a distance between us until such time as our impulses are kept in check, yes? For I promise you this, my love: if ever we find ourselves in true opposition to one another, you’ll only get this close to me a second time when I’m cradling your shattered corpse.”

And with that, Spiral wrenched herself free of the other woman’s grip and stalked away…

…leaving Deathstrike panting and heavy-lidded, and simmering with revulsion at the unfamiliar sensations assaulting her new body.

[Flashback ends]

The two women moved simultaneously, with such incredible swiftness and clinical precision it was as if they were reflections of one another, separated by the barest sheen of glass – but then, when all was said and done, each was a mirror image of her enemy, albeit inverted. Spiral was a flash of moonlight, clad in a domed helm and a bodysuit of gleaming silver-blue, save for four of her six arms which were bare, pale flesh; Lady Deathstrike was the cast of a moonless night, raven haired and attired in black and white, with the brash colour of scarlet bandana and sash about her waist. Bitter foes of steel and blood, each armed with a pair of rapier blades, their adversity was a striking sight to behold.

But only one of them could emerge from this encounter victorious.

Spiral ducked and twisted in a half-circle, four arms splayed for exquisite balance, stabbing out with both swords clenched in her remaining two hands. Each thrust was designed to impale throat and heart respectively, and no human opponent could have deflected both – but Deathstrike had not been human for so very long. With an expression of disdain the Japanese warrior arched her back and parried, her right blade flashing upwards to ward off the point directed at her neck whilst the other cut down to meet the strike at her chest with a ring of steel. She grunted, almost knocked off balance with the force of the dual attack, but recovered in a heartbeat, sweeping her right blade back and forth whilst keeping her other sword crossed protectively over her breast. Spiral parried both strikes, one with either sword, then lashed out with one of her free arms, slamming a punch into Deathstrike’s midriff and sending her staggering backwards.

The two women both whirled, as if synchronised, then came together again. Spiral flicked one blade an inch from Deathstrike’s cheek but the dark-haired woman feinted to one side then stepped to the other, thrusting with one sword and then the other towards Spiral’s heart. Spiral parried, once then twice, and then again, as Deathstrike pressed forward; she then deflected a fourth strike with one of her additional arms and cracked the Japanese woman beneath the jaw with another, brutally halting her advance with force over finesse.

Lady Deathstrike snarled, skipping backwards to put some distance between herself and her enemy. Six arms! Six! In the years since their first meeting she’d often imagined how this personal confrontation could turn out and she’d convinced herself that she could somehow hold her own. Thirty seconds into their encounter and the realist in her was screaming a truth to the contrary. She was good. But Spiral, with the advantage of extra limbs, was better. This would be a fight she couldn’t possibly win under the best of circumstances – let alone when she also had other concerns to occupy her.

Grinning with lunatic delight as she glimpsed her enemy’s hesitation, Spiral barked a command…

…and instantly Ox, Fancy Dan and Montana charged forward, fanning out to encircle their prey. When Deathstrike had faced The Enforcers before, all five of them, she had noticed how well they had worked as a team; however, the potency of their attacks had in no way complemented their expertise. They had been, after all, simply human. Not any more. Now they were quicker, stronger, and deadlier. And they were operating like cogs in an overall machine, perhaps even linked with a synchronic telepathic relay. In short, whereas Deathstrike had despatched The Enforcers with consummate ease in their previous encounter, the three who had been restored to this half-life now seemed destined to pay her back in kind.

It was Fancy Dan in his crumpled hat and pinstripe suit who darted in first, light upon his feet in a karate stance, chopping with one hand and then the other in a blur of motion. These were not normal hands, however, but ten-inch triangular blades that Spiral had grafted into the flesh of his amputated wrist stumps. Where once the man’s narrow face had been amusing – all beady eyes and dapper moustache beneath the brim of his fedora – it was now decidedly sinister, lacking emotion and with jaw and scalp punctuated with metal and wires. Deathstrike turned side on and countered her adversary with a single sword like an Olympic fencer, flicking her wrist with a steady rhythm and deflecting the searching blows of the hand-blades. Dan was swift, and his new body no longer subject to fatigue, but his fighting style was uninspired – this was Deathstrike’s sole advantage, and she knew that she had to somehow make it count.

The air was electric with a relentless ring of clashing metal. Deathstrike feigned and whirled, suddenly slashing out with her other sword and clipping Dan across the chest, resulting in an explosion of blood and sparks. The small man hissed and faltered. Deathstrike skipped in to deliver what she hoped would be a fatal blow…

…but then, behind her, Montana struck with one of his new steel lariats, extending in silver spools from the backs of his wrists. He lashed his enemy across the back like a whip, causing her to scream and stumble, then engaged with his other wrist-cord, attempting to snare her about the throat as if with a noose. At the last moment Deathstrike twisted away whilst threading the blade of one sword between herself and Montana’s coil just before it could tighten about her shoulders. She scooped the lash away, then ducked an attempt by the second lariat, sweeping clear in a wash of black hair as her bandana came loose. Then, without a second to catch her breath, she instinctively rolled her shoulders as Dan lunged in once more, slashing down at her face with both of his hand-blades. She slid away from him like a matador from a bull and jutted her hip…

…bumping the small man, with perfectly judged weight and angle, into Montana’s path so that the loop of the lariat curled about Fancy Dan’s neck instead!

Whereas the human Dan would have yelled and swore, the cybernetically enhanced version remained eerily silent and expressionless as he struggled to free himself. He didn’t struggle for long, however. With a grim smile dancing about her lips, Deathstrike skipped forward and plunged her right blade into her enemy’s mouth and out through the back of his head; the edge punctured his brain and splintered his skull, before finally sliding between two steel plates with a shriek of metal, sending his hat spinning through the air. Fancy Dan’s mouth flew wide and erupted in a shower of sparks and a disquieting spatter of black goo that was a mixture of congealed blood and oil. One of his new eyes came loose in its socket as Deathstrike pulled her blade free, trailing down his oily cheek on a wire thread. Dan squawked and fell backwards, dragging at Montana’s coil… but Lady Deathstrike failed to see what happened next, as a metal fist the width of a housebrick slammed down between her shoulder blades, pitching her forward into the trunk of a tree with a sickening crack!

Deathstrike rebounded, losing her grip on one of her swords as she tumbled, her legs splayed. Before she could catch her breath, her assailant – the rampaging Ox – lumbered forward and grabbed her by the legs, lifting her bodily into the air and swinging her against the tree once more so that her head impacted with an echoing crunch. Deathstrike screamed and attempted to twist free, but Ox was holding on too tightly. He threw her to the ground and stamped on her back, right on the lower curve of her spine. Then he grabbed her right arm and wrenched it sideways at the elbow, splintering the joint and causing her to drop her other sword, whilst simultaneously attempting to dislocate her head from her neck.

It was a truly savage attack. Again, a normal human would have been dead long before; as it was, the damage inflicted on this body of flesh and bone augmented with cybernetic technology was still significant. But Yuriko Oyama was no makeshift construct like these foes, hastily built for the sole purpose of tearing her limb from limb; she was Spiral’s masterpiece, manufactured in accordance with her creator’s own intricate template. She was stronger. More durable. And when she screamed and writhed beneath Ox’s brutal assault it was not only through pain but also through rage.

As Ox leaned in to land another blow, Deathstrike reared up against him with a vigour born from fury and snapped her undamaged elbow back into her attacker’s metal-grafted face. She then shrugged free of his grasp as Ox faltered, flinging back her head against his jaw with a satisfying crunch, and spun on one leg, whipping the other out to kick him square in the midriff. The big man grunted and staggered, clutching at himself, but then found himself prostrate on his back as the heel of Deathstrike’s boot lashed him across the face then stamped down on the outside of his right knee, splintering his leg. It was then that his attacker set out to prove that, even without her sword, she was anything but unarmed. She flexed her fingers – those ten-inch steel claws – and launched in with a bloodlust, ripping hunks of flesh and wire from Ox’s chest and arms, all the while spitting and snarling like a cornered cat.

The air was instantly clouded with blood and oil… and then, a punctured heart, torn whole from its cavity. For a moment, everything was still: a tableau of destruction. Ox gasped. Deathstrike’s eyes glowed beyond her black fringe, her lips curled in an icy smile. And then she clenched her fist and squeezed the heart until it burst in a spray of bloodied pulp.

Twitching and choking, the big man scrabbled desperately at his wounds, but only for a moment or two. Then, for the second time that day, he died.

Without hesitation Deathstrike sprang on her haunches and rolled, anticipating the twin blades that suddenly swept down upon her from above. Spiral cursed and wheeled, four hands clenched into fists whilst the other two brandished their swords, but her enemy was already sprinting towards Montana, reducing the distance between them that he required for his long-range attacks. Claws slashed out, and a Stetson marred with bloodied flesh and clumps of hair spun through the air. Veritably scalped, like a cowpoke from a century past waylaid on the wagon trail by a murderous apache, Montana made to dive clear…

…but a bullet punch to the jaw steered him sharply into the trunk of a tree, causing a splintered branch to stab through his gut like a spear.

The construct that was once a man shrieked, a stream of electronic whine. Pinned, he pushed against the tree in vain to try and free himself, but there was no time. Hands closed about his neck and twisted. There was a pop of bone and muscle, and the screech of metal. Montana snarled, refusing to die, and raised both arms to the sky. The lariats extending from his wrists shivered like snakes. Deathstrike scowled, her arms cording with exertion as she doubled her efforts, Montana’s jaw sagged, his eyes bulging. And then… and then…

…crack! The last of three cybernetically enhanced Enforcers squealed as his neck ruptured into shards, splattering the trunk with blood… and then Montana’s body spasmed, and slumped, and fell silent.

Three enemies vanquished, but there was no indication of triumph on the part of Lady Deathstrike. She knew that her most difficult challenge was still to come, especially divested of her weapons. She moved swiftly, feinting to one flank then whirling to the other, but on this occasion Spiral anticipated her sideways shift and lunged forward with venom. Her blade hacked down into Deathstrike’s right shoulder, almost severing the arm that Ox had already broken, whilst two more of her hands grabbed her victim about the waist and spun her around. She then began slamming punches into Deathstrike’s face and chest in a blur of motion, her four free arms working in a sequence like pistons, whilst she drew back her swords to administer a dual deathblow… only to then gasp and falter on the cusp of victory, her golden eyes suddenly wide. She glanced down to see the diamond-encrusted hilt of a dagger imbedded in her gut, spilling blood and sparks.

The same dagger that Spiral had presented to her protégée so very long ago, and which she had kept about her person ever since – in this instance, tucked into the sash about her waist – as a reminder of her past

“As you once said,” Deathstrike hissed. “One can never be too careful. And one must always be prepared.”

She wriggled free of Spiral’s grip then, protecting her damaged arm, beating off a cluster of grasping hands as she went. Despite her condition, all was not lost – after all, given time, her cyborg body could regenerate itself, metal and skin knitting together and repairing any damage inflicted upon it just like that first day when she had lay in bed and her maker had sliced open her forearm with that dagger. But would she have that time?

She grimaced. Yes. Yes, it was possible. But only if she earned it…

Deathstrike dived away to her left, snatching up one of her fallen katana, then rolled clear as a blade sliced down against the ground where she been a split-second previously. Spiral lunged again, stabbing with one sword and then the other, but each time Deathstrike dodged, breathing heavily as she worked her body back and forth to avoid certain death. She whipped up her own blade then, deflecting another strike and slashing Spiral across the hip on the return arc, eliciting a cry of pain and frustration.

The two women stepped apart then, Spiral with her two swords and Deathstrike with one, their eyes locked in fierce antipathy.

“You’ve grown swift,” Spiral murmured, grudgingly. “Skilful. Fierce. You’ve put these intervening years to good use, sister.”

“Whereas you’ve become accustomed to other methods of attack?”

“Perhaps.”

“As a matter of interest, what has happened to your spellcasting?” Deathstrike remarked, flicking back a lock of her black hair with the tip of her blade. “Either you’re revelling in a fair fight – unlikely, considering your employment of new foot soldiers to try and wear me down – or you’re unable to access your powers. The Grandmaster’s handiwork?”

“I don’t need magic to end your life,” Spiral replied.

“Well, you wouldn’t think so. I mean, here’s you with six functional arms and me, currently, with just the one… hardly fair, is it?”

“And yet, still you disparage me with such confidence. Or would that be empty bluster, to hide your fear?”

Deathstrike smirked, slowly rotating her cybernetically enhanced shoulder joint as metal and flesh continued to re-knit. “You removed my fear when you took away my scars,” she said, softly. “Remember? Those who aren’t scared to die are the often the most dangerous adversaries…”

Spiral’s golden eyes burned bright beyond the fringe of her silver hair, in the shadow of her helm. “How is your arm?”

“Almost healed. You built me well.”

Spiral glanced down and saw Deathstrike’s other weapon, lying close by where it had fallen. She flicked out a boot and kicked the blade across to where her enemy stood. “I wouldn’t want to be unfair,” she breathed.

Deathstrike smiled and reached down with her right hand, her arm moving stiffly but as best repaired as it could be. When she stood once she flexed both wrists, causing her twin blades to gleam as if in anticipation.

“I’ve missed you,” Spiral said, her golden eyes suddenly brimming with sorrow. “I hate you, and I desire nothing more than to see you dead… but, still, there is something so bittersweet in seeing your beautiful face again. Do you understand?”

Deathstrike’s eyes darkened. “Actually,” she breathed, “I was just reflecting on what a withered old crone you’d become…”

Spiral flinched as if stung, then bared her teeth in rage. And then, with a shriek, she launched herself into battle, her swords flashing with light.

Lady Deathstrike ducked right, then spun left, feinted, then again, weaving between her opponent’s thrusts like a bead of mercury before finally sweeping one blade around to counter a particularly savage blow whilst stabbing forward with the other. Spiral parried with ease then jabbed with the same sword, almost driving her strike home but deflected at the last by Deathstrike’s first blade. Off-balance, Deathstrike wheeled and stepped to the right, as Spiral had anticipated; three out of four fists rammed into Deathstrike’s ribs in a flurry, forcing her backwards. Spiral then whipped out her right blade in a wide arc whilst slashing upwards with the other. Deathstrike snapped her head back, grimacing as glinting steel just missed carving a deep cleft in her chin by a whisker, then parried the other strike with the flat of her steel.

Spiral danced forward, alternating thrust and slash, completely on the offensive. Deathstrike skipped and weaved, parrying each strike, but frequently leaving herself open to punches to the stomach and face. She knew that she had to even the odds, and there was only one way to do that.

Spiral flashed out another stab, and was momentarily surprised when Deathstrike chose not to deflect the blow, which scoured across her forearm and soaked her already-tattered ivory shirt with a streak of scarlet. Instead, Deathstrike brought her own blade down like an axe, cleaving through one of Spiral’s other arms at the wrist and relieving her of one of her hands. Spiral screamed and recoiled, but Deathstrike was already whipping out her other blade and severing a second hand, grunting with triumph as she did so. Again, her offensive left her open to attack; Spiral stabbed her in the thigh, spitting bile, then attempted to grab her about the throat, only to stumble as Deathstrike lunged forward rather than back, angling her head to butt Spiral in the face.

Both women staggered but recovered simultaneously, and four blades clashed with a loud ring of steel that surely must have echoed throughout every corner of the Se’dai battlefield. The ground was slick with blood, causing them both problems with their footing, and now for every unsuccessful exchange of thrust and parry and counter there was a slip and a stab and a shriek of pain, each of the two combatants enjoying brief moments in the ascendancy.

Then, suddenly, disaster struck.

A boot clipped the fallen body of one of The Enforcers – Fancy Dan – and lodged beneath his arm. The boot withdrew… only for Dan’s hand to snap out and clutch blindly at the offending ankle. He lifted his head, or rather what was left of it, his brains spilling out of his skull, along with various loops of wire and circuitry.

“What… do… to… me?” Dan rasped, his mind momentarily clear of Spiral’s augmentation, his remaining eye white and blind in its socket. “What… what…?”

And then, with a burst of sparks, he died. But by then, for the woman he had grasped by the leg, it was too late; her balance shot, she was left exposed for one terrible, fatal moment – and her opponent took immediate advantage.

A blade slashed down, penetrating a chest of flesh and metal and then the heart beyond. Another sword whipped out and sharp steel bit deep into a slender throat, severing bone and sinew. As the blade in the heart twisted, so the other withdrew and hacked again, this time removing the victim’s head cleanly from her neck. Eyes flared wide and bright. Lips parted with a bloodied gasp. The head fell clear. The body collapsed, gripped in the spasms of death, swords tumbling from clutching fingers.

And the victor stepped back with a guttural roar of survival, her weapons held aloft…

“Who is it?” The Grandmaster snapped, straining forward towards one of the last few viewing windows suspended in mid-air before him. “Who lives? Which one of them lives?”

But it was impossible for him to gauge the outcome of this clash of the titans, for a tide of living darkness was swirling about him, obscuring his vision. The Elder flailed in abject frustration, his wordless howl like claws upon glass. He caught a glimpse – the barest hint of golden eyes – but…

“Damn you!” he screamed, as the shadows thickened. “This is intolerable cruelty! I must know! This is what I live for. The only thing I live for. This is all I have. Please. Please…”

But the only response from the gathering darkness was a hauntingly familiar laughter.

The survivor stumbled deep into the forest quadrant, cursing her wounds, driven on by blind determination. Only when she reached a small clearing with a pool and a waterfall, ringed by splintered trees – and, ghoulishly, home to three ravaged corpses – did she falter. Kneeling at the edge of the pool, already stained dark with blood, the swordswoman of flesh and metal cleansed herself, her mood solemn. As she washed away the blood of her enemy – her sister – the woman gazed down at her own reflection.

There was a glint of golden eyes.

But that was merely a trick of the light.

The woman smoothed back her midnight black hair with trembling fingers of ten-inch, tapered steel, and sighed as a drone drifted down from above. Fatality confirmed, it bleeped. Deceased: Spiral. Survival confirmed. Designation: Lady Deathstrike. New probability of overall victory: 22.5 per cent.

Deathstrike bowed her head, casting her reflection in shadow.

It was almost over.

The Trapster moved carefully through the hub of the ruined tower, his caution not just to safeguard against being spotted by any enemies who may have been lurking in the vicinity but also because this area was now a veritable minefield. This was now his nest, littered with booby-traps. All he had to do was wait for his remaining adversaries to come searching.

The Trapster had been a busy chap since his encounter with Mayhem. Whereas Whirlwind would have approached the endgame from an aggressive stance, the man who had ultimately slain him knew that the key to victory lay not in how many one could kill but in how long one could survive. So many of his fellow players had possessed either incredible abilities, or battlesuits and weaponry that were designed to facilitate offensive action, but where were they now? Dead, that’s where. The Trapster’s expertise, when all was said and done, was more defensive. That was why he had been defeated in combat so many times over the years, especially against the likes of Spider-Man. He had allowed his impetuous nature to lead him into blind alleys, again and again. But, as he had grown older and wiser, he had accepted his limitations – and now he played to his advantages, pure and simple.

By all rights, he shouldn’t have stood a chance against the sheer power of Whirlwind or Unicorn. Even Chemistro’s alchemy gun was more potent than his adhesive rifle, or his wire traps, or any of the other apparatus he carried about his body. Lady Deathstrike could have despatched him in her sleep if he hadn’t played upon her doubts. But here he was, still in the thick of conflict, and all because he knew his own strengths. And his greatest strength was his guile.

For so many years Pete Petruski had been cast in the role of the fool, often because he had lacked self-confidence in the company of The Wizard or Baron Zemo, or any of a half-dozen others whose natural charisma allowed them to dominate. All that had changed when Pete had established The Alliance, an international network that supplied information, funding and physical resources to criminal endeavours in exchange for a percentage of the profits. And there were profits to be had. For every bungled heist foiled by the likes of Daredevil or Captain America there were five special projects that actually passed off successfully without the intervention of any vigilante heroes. The newspapers never reported those stories, of course – the government and local authorities always acted quickly to quash the barest hint of the notion that super-powered criminals were slowly but surely establishing a measure of accomplishment, especially in the wake of the Stark crisis. The public had to believe there was order, else there’d be nationwide riots. However, the truth was that, in recent times, supervillains were in the ascendancy, outstripping the traditional power-base of underworld bosses such as Wilson Fisk and – mainly through the efforts of The Alliance – managing to stay one step ahead of their heroic adversaries.

In the past six months, The Trapster had accumulated greater standing in the villain community – not to mention greater wealth – than in the past six years. And that had been achieved through hard work and intelligence. Guile. The same manner of astuteness that was serving him so well in his current situation.

The traps he had set were nothing spectacular or high-tech, for when The Grandmaster had transported him here he had only furnished him with his most basic arsenal. But basic was more than enough; give him an enclosed space, and access to tripwires, sensors, pressure pads and key triggers, and he was God. He hadn’t targeted Mayhem specifically, it was just that she had wandered into his territory whilst he was laying in wait for Deathstrike and had quickly paid the price. Now it was someone else’s turn.

The Trapster squeezed through a gap between two collapsed walls, skipped across a patch of uneven flagstones, then scaled a narrow staircase that wound about inside the trunk of the shattered turret, purposefully missing out every third step. A few metres shy of a sea of rubble at what was now the crest of the tower he gazed out through a hole in the stone and smiled as he saw a figure circling through the air some fifty metres away. A lithe body sheathed in a dark green battlesuit, crouched upon a shifting cloud that presumably obscured some manner of glider, with a head fashioned from a flaming pumpkin. Jack O’Lantern. Buoyed by her victory over Boomerang and subsequently careless; now completely unaware that she was being observed. She was likely searching for another victim, her continued survival giving her an over-inflated sense of her own destiny. It appeared that a rude awakening was in order.

The Trapster unclipped from his belt a black, rectangular device, no larger than a pack of cigarettes, and threaded a six-inch lead bolt through a cavity on the underside. He then slotted the bolt, and its attachment, onto the barrel of his gun, which he twisted carefully between finger and thumb until it clicked, disengaging its customary adhesive channel. Finally, he poked the barrel through the gap in the wall, took aim… and fired.

The majority of supervillain costumes were lined with Kevlar or microscopic steel fibre weave, lightweight enough so as not to encumber freedom of movement but otherwise offering significant protection against concussive blows, blades and bullets. Jack O’Lantern’s bodysuit was no exception. Unfortunately for her, there was one thing it wasn’t defended against: electricity.

The Trapster’s bolt smacked solidly into Jack’s right hip, causing her to shriek in pain and surprise. That, however, was nothing compared to what to come. Whereas the bolt had inflicted bruising that, under normal circumstances, would take a week or more to heal, the small black device that automatically disconnected from the bolt on impact and re-attached itself to Jack’s thigh with eight tiny prongs was capable of far greater damage; fifteen thousand volts to be precise. Jack jerked and shuddered in a macabre dance of agony, her twisted body crackling with a miasma of indigo blue, then fell limp and toppled from her Disc Glider.

From his vantage point in the shadows of the ruined tower, The Trapster smiled. It really was all so simple. So many of his fellow villains operated within such strict parameters, relying exclusively on powers and gimmicks when often the direct approach reaped more reward. He was beginning to think that emerging victorious from this war would be easier than he had expected.

That idea lasted no longer than three seconds – time enough for a figure in a distinct blue-and-violet costume to sweep in from nowhere at the last moment and snatch Jack’s body out of mid-air before what would have been a fatal impact with the ground far below. The Trapster blinked behind his faceplate, then cursed. It was Boomerang…

…or, at least, it was the individual who had been Boomerang. The Trapster paled. The figure wheeling through the air before him now was not the Fred Myers he knew and had worked with on occasion; no, this was someone – something – entirely different. The lower half of Boomerang’s face, exposed beneath his mask, was glowing with the same green hue that coloured the mist that surrounded him, igniting with emerald sparks where it curled into the path of the jets in the soles of his boots.

And then, as The Trapster watched on in silent fear, the green chemical fog that shrouded Boomerang also began to coagulate about Jack, penetrating the holographic projection of her flaming pumpkin head and seeping through the cracks of her mask. Immediately, Jack’s body twitched into consciousness, sliding free of Boomerang’s grip… but remaining suspended in mid-air, despite no longer being supported by her glider. The Trapster shook his head in disbelief. It was as if… as if…

Green fog. His eyes widened as he suddenly thought of Mayhem. The realisation that occurred to him seemed implausible in one sense, but he was a fellow who had encountered so much in his life – a man whose physiology had been transmuted on a molecular level to an approximation of living sand, a woman who boasted psionic manipulation over her own hair, and so many more – that he now accepted scientific impossibilities without question. He had miscalculated. Perhaps Mayhem wasn’t a woman whose body exuded gas; perhaps, instead, she was a gaseous spirit that inhabited a body. It was the mist, living mist, that was his enemy, not the physical outer shell. And now that mist was residing in two now hosts, Boomerang and Jack O’Lantern…

The Trapster grimaced and shouldered his gun as he watched his two foes glide towards the tower where he now standing, their bodies hunched, their limbs crooked, and their fingers having grown into claws, bursting through the tips of their gloves. Phantasms. But, crucially, still corporeal. And whatever had substance could still be trapped.

The Trapster ducked back into the shadows as Jack O’Lantern employed a fistful of copper pumpkin bombs to clear a passage through the rubble overhead; then, in eerie silence, she entered the darkened tower via the ruined crest of the turret and then began to descend the winding staircase, quickly followed by Boomerang.

“Are you hiding from me?” Jack hissed, her voice no longer her own but rather that of Mayhem. “I’ll find you. I will. And then you’ll join me.”

“I owe you a debt,” came that same voice, although this time from Boomerang, his regular Australian brogue now replaced by a gravely rasp. “Before you launched your attack on me I had no idea I could vacate my host body and take refuge in another.”

“I believed that I needed to remain, somehow, as the woman I once was.”

“But I was mistaken.”

“I can be anyone I want to be.”

“I can be everyone I want to be.”

“Do you see? I can take possession of you all. I can claim victory.”

“And do you know what I’d request as my prize?”

“Destruction. All of you.”

“I’d ask for the Earth to be cleansed of your kind.”

“No more criminals. No more villains. No more evil.”

“And the innocent and the just would be free to – ack!”

The Trapster had lost track of which of his enemies was speaking in Mayhem’s voice, at least until the strangled cry that erupted from Boomerang at that moment. The two hosts were floating above the ground, meaning that the nigh-invisible pressure pads that had been affixed to every third step were rendered redundant – until The Trapster fired another one of his lead bolts at one particular step, at the exact moment that Boomerang was passing over it. Instantly, a short, thin harpoon was released from a trigger clasp, shooting out from a convenient aperture in the wall where it had been planted. A reinforced costume was no defence against a sharp object at such close quarters; the tip of the spear penetrated Boomerang’s throat at an angle, continuing on up and out through the back of his skull with a splintering of bone, filling the air with blood and a clog of green mist.

Boomerang’s body trembled in spasm, his new claws scrabbling at his throat. Jack O’Lantern dived forward, thoroughly unconcerned with her fellow’s suffering, and The Trapster darted out from his hiding place up ahead, taking care not to trigger any of his own booby traps. Jack lunged, claws raking, but she was wild of her target. The Trapster ducked beneath a low arch then sprang away to one side, purposefully trailing a foot behind him. The toe of his boot activated a tripwire, which in turn released a flurry of lead bolts from a floor spring that assaulted Jack about the chest and shoulders, driving her backwards. The Trapster then jumped to his feet once more and wheeled, the weight of his gun resting upon his hip so that he could swivel the barrel in a wide arc.

“Hey there,” he snarled from behind his faceplate. “Get stuck in, bitch!”

And with that he jammed his finger down on the trigger and disgorged a gout of gleaming adhesive goop, covering Jack from foot to waist. Instantly, the adhesive began to harden, causing its captive to shriek.

“Resourceful wretch!” Jack rasped, writhing in distress. “But are you so formidable without your toys…?”

She thrust out a hand then, and tendrils of green gas burst forth from her clawed fingers, smothering The Trapster before he could turn away. Such an assault would have been fatal for most, but The Trapster brazenly stood his ground, confident in the notion that his mask and all-over suit would protect him from the toxicity of the fog. However, Mayhem’s attack was not intended to incapacitate the man so much as to staunch the effectiveness of his main weapon; her gas leaked thickly into the gun’s barrel, clogging vents and funnels and disrupting internal mechanisms in a heartbeat. The Trapster’s finger closed about the trigger once more, but too late. The gun clicked and bucked in his hands, but was already thoroughly wrecked. Snarling, The Trapster threw it to one side and snatched a silver cylinder – another of his wire-traps, like the one he had used on the original Mayhem – from his belt…

…only to cry out in sudden pain, falling back, the cylinder tumbling from his grasp. There was a razor-edged projectile – a boomerang – protruding from his wrist, the cuff of his suit already soaked through with blood. The Trapster glanced up to see Boomerang himself lumbering forward, another missile in hand, and half his head and upper torso cleft to the bone where he had evidently torn free the spear that had impaled him. Then there came a familiar sound – a hiss and click of detonation as the discarded cylinder grenade’s internal timer reached zero. The Trapster immediately snapped a switch on his belt as spools of wire erupted all around him, sending out an electromagnetic counter-pulse to disable the wire’s nodes before he could be ensnared by his own trap, a precautionary measure he had never been forced to use before but which he was now thankful he had included during his latest suit modifications.

A split-second later, another Boomerang stabbed deep into his shoulder, spinning him around – and then a third, this time an explosive model, detonated against the back of his head, slamming him forward into a wall with enough force to crack his visor and almost his neck into the bargain. Groaning, The Trapster looked up to see the nightmarish visage of Boomerang towering over him, spilling blood and oozing emerald gas.

“In case you hadn’t already guessed,” the phantasm hissed, “The man whom this body once belonged to died the instant I entered him, poisoning him from the inside out. Only the shell remains. So, if you had any other little tricks in mind, you may as well forget them. After all… you can’t kill a man twice.”

The Trapster grimaced behind his faceplate – then caught sight of something beside him, and his lips curled into a smile. “Yeah,” he breathed. “You just keep thinking that, you little bodysnatcher…”

As Boomerang leaned in, The Trapster whipped out a fist – and slammed it down on the pressure pad he had fallen next to, another of his pre-arranged traps. This one was an incendiary device affixed to a nearby wall at chest-height with a moderate dab of adhesive. The pressure pad, when activated, released a tiny electronic relay that triggered the resulting detonation… and, in the blink of an eye, Boomerang was doused in some flammable chemical that then ignited, instantly transforming him into a roman candle, burning bright and fierce with a golden-green flame.

“Guess I heard right,” The Trapster murmured, wrinkling his nose at the stench of burning flesh. “Everyone says there’s nothing that an Australian likes more than a good, old-fashioned barbeque.”

Boomerang – or, to be more exact, the gaseous essence that currently inhabited the husk of his corpse – thrashed and screamed and staggered backwards, much to the despair of the similarly hollowed out Jack O’Lantern, who was still held fast in a paste cocoon… and who then erupted in flames herself as Boomerang fell against her. The Trapster scrambled to his feet, bleeding from his shoulder and wrist, then sprinted for cover as a gust of fiery backdraft swept towards him. For a moment he felt elated that he had survived. Then he saw something that stilled the triumph in his breast. Rising above the flames, untouched, and swirling with something like fury…

…the glowing green fog that was the spiritual essence of Mayhem.

“Oh, come on,” The Trapster hissed. “Can’t you just blasted die?”

The green gas coalesced, and then rushed towards him. The Trapster turned and ran, discarding his shattered visor as he went so that he could see clearly enough to avoid any more of his own traps that he had previously laid. He had no idea where he was trying to escape to – after all, where could one hide from such an enemy? – but, as he progressed through the maze of ruins with Mayhem’s fog in pursuit, he soon found himself in familiar territory, on the edge of the clearing where he had originally ambushed the woman with his wirebomb. Indeed, her body was still lying close by, wrapped in thin steel mesh, one hand poking loose. The sight caused The Trapster to falter, his eyes narrowing as his mind snapped into action.

There was a single tendril of mist extending from Mayhem’s outstretched palm, like a rope… or, more specifically, a cord. An umbilical cord, trailing out across the courtyard, and connecting to the cloud of vapour now hissing and seething close by.

“You need her…” The Trapster murmured. “Even though you can possess other bodies, you still need your original host!”

He could have been wrong, of course. That solitary cord could have meant something else entirely. But, it was a chance – and, for a determined man like Pete Petruski, one chance was enough.

He reached down to his belt and unclipped a gold cylinder. It was identical to the one that had been affixed to the wall back in the ruins – an incendiary device. The first one had worked well. This one would be the clincher. The Trapster allowed himself a smile.

“Ashes to ashes, honey,” he said, flicking a switch on the cap of the cylinder with his thumb. “All told, you were great. But, as a lot of people have discovered today – I’m better.”

He hurled the grenade at Mayhem’s prone body, just as the green fog closed in on him from above. The device detonated in a roar of flame. And, as The Trapster found himself caught between an inferno on one side and a suffocating cloud of toxic gas on the other, he didn’t know whether to laugh or scream…

To Be Continued...

Significant Issues

Important events referred to in this issue occured in the following Marvel titles:

Spiral transformed Yuriko into Lady Deathstrike in Uncanny X-Men # 205