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EPILOGUE
Lady Cleo stood unmoving in the warehouse’s
large storeroom, arms by her sides, breathing heavily, sweat glistening
on her chest, her breasts held snug and close in her tight uniform. The
heroine was clad in black, her shapely figure encased in leather, her
top cut low, exposing the deep distracting line of her cleavage. The
trousers appeared even tighter, clinging to the perfect roundness of
her behind and laced down each leg from waist to cuff, her flawless,
alabaster skin showing through and giving the impression she wore
nothing underneath.
She looked impassively at the criminals strewn
unconscious about her and she grinned slowly. She turned and began to
move to the exit when her team communicator beeped, the bud buzzing in
her ear. “Cleo here,” she sighed. It was almost ten
o’clock and she had been in the building for almost an hour. She
was looking forward to home, a bath and sleep, but duty calls at the most annoying times, she mused.
“Cleo,” Dr. Silver’s voice came
over the communicator clearly, “what’s your status?”
“Just cleared out a Freakshow nest
in...,” she heard the telltale crackle of energy behind her and
she spun around in time to see three Freaks climbing to their feet.
“Hold on,” she smiled, lips pulled back from her clenched,
gleaming teeth, “...rez.”
“Holding,” came the reply. Silver knew
exactly what she meant. The Freakshow were more machine than man, a
gang that worshiped technology...so much so they sacrificed themselves,
grafting blades, hammers, power units and the like onto and into their
bodies. Once defeated, there was a better than average chance that
their internal systems would merely “reboot” and they would
just resurrect. The heroes had come to simply call it “rez”
and more than one rookie crime fighter had defeated a Freakshow goon
and rushed into an alley or building only to find himself attacked from
behind by the same man he had just overcome. An emergency teleport to
the hospital soon followed, accompanied by some hard learned experience.
Lady Cleo faced the three hoodlums, snapping her
arms down. Three claws jutted from the knuckles of both hands,
extending out and clicking when they reached their full length. She
shook her head back, whipping her short red hair from her face, eyes
never leaving her adversaries. “C’mon, boys...I already
kicked your asses once tonight,” she said through a menacing
smile. “Can’t we all just get along?”
The three Freaks looked at each other, sneering. The
Tank, a huge smasher, motioned with one of the enormous, mallet-like
hammers grafted to his hands, “KILL HER!” he screamed.
“KILL THAT BITCH!”
“Oh, now you’ve gone and done it,”
Cleo shook her head. “Only my friends can call me
‘bitch’,” and she launched herself at the three of
them, the joyful grimace of violence on her lips only serving to make
her more savagely beautiful.
A Metal Swiper met her head on. Where his hands had
been were now grafted huge blades of incredibly sharp steel. They
flashed at the heroine so quickly they left a trail of reflected light
in the air behind them. Over and over they slashed, down, up, overhead
and from below, trying to pierce the scrapper’s defenses.
Lady Cleo’s hard claws clanged as they blocked
the enraged man’s strikes, sparks flaring as they viciously
danced about the warehouse. An edge jutted out and scratched
Cleo’s cheek, a thin arc of blood trailing behind in the air.
“Bastard,” Cleo whispered, the cut healing almost as soon
as it bled.
The Swiper came on, emboldened when he saw the
crimson stain at the tip of his knife. He swung left and right,
spinning and twirling, finally coming down with both blades at the
heroine’s head, wanting to split her in two. Suddenly, his evil
leer turned to shock.
As the sharp appendages came toward her, Cleo
blocked with both clawed hands, stopping the blades between her talons.
She smirked at the Freakshow gangster and, with a hard flick of her
wrists, shattered the man’s knives. He screamed in agony, the
blades having been grafted into the nerve-endings of his amputated
hands, doubling over in pain and shock. As he leaned in, Cleo struck
him a hard uppercut with her elbow, lifting the criminal from his feet
and knocking him unconscious. He tumbled senseless to the concrete
floor and lay among his cold broken steel and teeth.
She felt a heavy thud behind her and somersaulted
forward, barely getting out of the way of the Tank Smasher’s huge
hammer as it cracked the concrete floor she had just occupied. As the
scrapper rolled ahead, out of the corner of her eye she saw the last of
her revived foes, a Juicer Freak, targeting her, getting ready to
unleash an electrified blast into the heroine.
Cleo reached out, scooping up a shard from the
ruined blades of the Freak Swiper bleeding on the cold floor and, as
she came up to her knee, flung the metal piece at the Freakshow goon.
The sharp, broken piece embedded itself in one of the coils grafted
into the man’s shoulders.
The Juicer grinned with happy evil. The coils
jutting out of his flesh, along with the network of electrical wiring
and emitters installed within his body, allowed him to channel and
shoot great gouts of devastating electrical energy. The crackling
nimbus of white-hot voltage flowed between the two coils and with a
flourish, he threw his arms out to deliver the deadly charged torrent.
The orgasmic look of satisfaction on his face
rippled into a silent horrible scream. The metal shard stuck in the
coil over his right shoulder glowed red and a loud buzzing could be
heard above the electric hum. The jagged sliver had broken the circuit,
ceasing the flow from emitters to the Freaks hands. He could not fire
the energy bolt and the great build-up of power had nowhere to go. The
power was trapped within the man and literally fried him from the
inside out. Finally, the Juicer’s screams broke through as the
smell of burnt hair and flesh met Lady Cleo’s nostrils and she
watched emotionlessly as the Freak fell to the floor, smoke rising from
his charred form.
The scrapper heard the phut of compressed air behind
her and a moment later a small cylinder clanged to the floor, rolling
between her legs. “Dammit,” she spat and was able to take
three steps before the concussion grenade detonated. The shockwave
lifted her from her feet and sent her tumbling helplessly through the
swirling dust. Cleo struck the wall at about waist height and fell
heavily to the smooth concrete.
The heroine climbed to her hands and knees, ears
ringing, a sound like rushing water filling her senses. Her vision
clouded, a clear, tight tunnel before her, a haze of fog at her sides.
She became aware of the vibration in the floor and felt rather than saw
the metal boot of the Smasher as it fell before her. Still dazed, Cleo
looked up at the Freak, one of his hammered hands held high above his
head.
She shook her head once, desperately trying to clear
her mind. The hammer started its deadly decent, a look of insane glee
on the face of the murderous Tank. Cleo’s left hand sprung out,
claws extending in mid-strike, and she stabbed the goon through the
foot. The Tank Smasher screamed, viscous machine oil spurting and
staining the ground. The mallet continued on its way to Cleo’s
head. Raising to her knees, her right hand arced out, the claws slicing
the weapon away and with her left the heroine slashed across the
Tank’s middle. A cannister the size of a liter bottle of soda
fell sparking from the Freak, cut wires still buzzing. The Smasher
watched wide-eyed as his power core dropped away, sliding underneath a
nearby crate.
The Tank froze and wavered for a moment. Its knees
buckled and, as Lady Cleo rolled away, he fell, cracking the pavement,
then toppled over face first onto the floor.
The scrapper stood, breathing heavily, a sneer
forming on her lips. “Who’s the bitch now?” she
muttered under her breath. She moved to the exit and touched the
communicator’s ear bud. “Doc? You still there?”
“Here,” crackled the response. “Are you alright?”
“Well...yeah,” she replied, frowning
hard enough she imagined Silver could see her look of indignation. Am I alright...please, she thought, rolling her eyes.
“Good,” Silver answered. “What’s your location?”
“Freakshow nest in Brickstown.”
“Brickstown...good. I need you to do me a favor.”
Cleo raised an eyebrow. “What’s that? I was about to go home.”
“Can you check out a lab in Crey’s
Folly? It should be clear. Recon only. Ten minutes...tops.”
The heroine paused for a few seconds as she stepped
from the warehouse into the zones cool evening air. The searchlights
surrounding the Zig swept calmly in the distance and the large prison
actually looked...peaceful. Lady Cleo nodded with a sigh. “All
right...where to? I’ll report in when I’ve finished
checking it out.” The coordinates followed quickly. “Got
it. Cleo out.”
She took to the air, sailing over the worn buildings of Brickstown. This is going to be the fasted ten minute recon in history, she mused, the enticing vision of her hot bath dancing in her mind’s eye.
*****
Countess
Crey sat calmly at her large mahogany desk, the shuffling papers the
only sound in the large dark office. The desk lamp glowed softly,
highlighting only the grim frown set on her full dark lips. She faced
away from the huge floor to ceiling windows that made up the wall
behind her, ignoring the twinkling stars and lights of Paragon
City’s Steel Canyon.
All contact had been lost with Dr. Albriecht’s
lab in the Folly. Her other holdings there seemed to be operating
smoothly but reports of a most disturbing nature had begun to trickle
in and, as always, she was advised of most occurrences within the City.
“Impossible,” she whispered to the dark. The Countess
stared at the report in her hand, reading the few lines of text. One of
her low level researchers had been stopped at the Crey’s Folly
gate, babbling almost incoherently about...him. The woman shook her
head as she placed the paper on her desk. “Impossible,” she
whispered again.
Countess Crey raised an eyebrow. Her hand was
casting a shadow over the page and as she looked up could see that her
office had brightened considerably. Her frown deepened, noticing now
that the light came from behind, through the window of her 85th floor
office. She turned slowly and gasped.
Tropic hovered outside the tall window, eyes glowing
behind the raging fire which escaped them. His arms were crossed over
his barrel chest, his body a hard, straight line from head to toe. The
fiery hero stared unwaveringly at the woman inside, his only movement
the tendrils of flame from his eyes as the cool wind blew past.
The Countess stood slowly, adjusting her glasses,
staring intently at the fiery hero. “Its true,” she said in
awe. Her lips pursed as she thought and she straightened, trying to
project an image of strength and superiority at the hovering man
outside her window. The woman cleared her throat and smirked at Tropic.
“So,” Countess Crey began, smoothing her dark hair from her
forehead, “the rumors have some merit, I see.”
The hero said nothing.
“I don’t know what you think you know, but there is nothing
to connect me to Albriecht and his...indiscretions.” She smiled
crookedly and sniffed haughtily. “A rogue scientist and his
underlings preforming experiments without my knowledge at one of the
many Crey facilities throughout this city. How could I possibly
know?” The Countess smiled sweetly. “And you have no proof
whatsoever of my...involvement...so why don’t you just go on
about your business before you waste any more of my time.” She
noticed his eyes flare a bit brighter and shook her head. “If
you’re entertaining any ideas about apprehending me, those
windows are a foot thick clear metal polymer recently developed by Crey
Industries. They tell me they’re able to withstand a nuclear
blast so don’t even...think...about...”
Her voice grew small as it trailed off. The hero was
coming closer, eyes still blazing, nearer to the impenetrable windows.
Arms still crossed over his chest, the man of fire pressed against the
clear surface. Countess Crey’s jaw dropped as the glass began to
bow inward with his progress. There was no fire about him but waves of
heat radiated from his form and where he met the clerestory it blacked
as he passed through, leaving behind a gaping, melted, wind-filled
hole.
Tropic hovered for a moment more, his face grim,
then gravitated down, feet gracefully touching the deep, soft carpet
below. His uncrossed his arms and they fell to his sides, hands closing
into loose fists and the man of fire spoke calmly. “I was on my
way to kill thee...but I have reconsidered,” he said, gravelly
voice scraping into the office.
He noted her amazed expression and smirked.
“It seems Crey is virtually embedded in all facets of this city.
Thy products and programs are in the businesses and homes of citizens
throughout this metropolis. You employ many. Many own pieces of your
ventures.” Tropic shook his head. “The death of Countess
Crey would sent the fortunes of the city tumbling...innocents would be
harmed, the loss of labor and wages would be...great.”
He stared at the unmoving woman, his face void of
emotion. “Therefore...to protect those innocent...I gift thee
with thy life.” The hero’s lips twisted. “Take pains
to ensure I do not regret it.”
The Countess stood unmoving, the hero’s words
filling her ears. Her face reddened with anger, her eyes flashing.
“Kill me?” she asked, her voice a shrill knife. “Gift
me my life? REGRET?” She drew herself to her full height, fists
tight, legs spread. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!? I AM COUNTESS CREY!
I OWN THIS CITY! STATESMAN HIMSELF FEARS TO STEP ON MY SHADOW!”
She screamed her fury at her unwelcome companion, almost shaking in her
rage. “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO THREATEN ME?!? ME! DO YOU KNOW
THE POWER I CAN BRING AGAINST YOU?!? YOU ARE NOTHING! AN INSECT TO BE
SQUAS...”
“Enough!”
Tropic’s face twisted with unnatural, uncontrolled rage. His
hands ignited, the red-yellow flame licking up his forearms to his
elbows. “Foolish Woman!”
He crossed the office in a flash and the Countess was able to let out a
tiny yelp of fear as the fiery hands reached for her. Before they
closed in on the sides of her face, the fire was leeched from his rough
hands and she felt their otherworldly coldness as they pulled her close.
“Stupid Woman!”
The incensed hero grasped her face, pushing her back and down until she
was kneeling before him. He leaned over her, pressing and pulling her
toward him. “Think ye in thine arrogance there be no consequence?!? Know ye not the force thou hast roused?!?” Tropic dragged the Countess closer until they were almost nose to nose. “Behold now what your machinations have wrought.”
The fire flowing from the hero’s eyes sucked back into their sockets with an audible “shrupp.”
Countess Crey stared into an inky, bottomless black marked only by two
pupils of smouldering plenipotentiary power. They burned like the
embers of spent wood in a fireplace, incandescent colors of red,
yellow, white, gold and grey churning with a terminal vehemence. Tropic
spoke again, a mere whisper, but the pictures on her walls shook and
the items on her desk rattled as the hard voice filled her ears. “I...am...a...God.”
The Lord of the Fatal Primeval threw her back
roughly and his eyes erupted once more. The Countess propped herself up
on her elbows, watching fearfully as Tropic stepped calmly away. He
neared the ruined window and turned, facing her fully. He began to
hover once more when, suddenly, he burst into flame.
He looked down upon her and pointed with his right
arm, thumb to the side and index finger extended, thick tongues of
flame licking up the length of his arm. “Come
after me and mine again and Crey shall cease to exist. There wilt be no
place on this world or in the next where thou canst hide from me. Heed
this warning well...it is thy last.”
Tropic looked down his nose at the prone woman and
slowly floated backward out of the office. Without another word he
turned and rocketed off into the night sky, a quickly dissipating trail
of fire marking his path.
Countess Crey lay unmoving on the soft carpet,
staring sightlessly out the melted glass as the glowing hero receded in
the distance. She climbed slowly to her feet, breathing deeply, calming
herself. She cleared her throat, smoothed her tight, dark purple dress
over her taut figure and sat at her desk. She pressed the intercom
button on her phone and placed her hands flat on the mahogany
desk’s surface.
“Yes, Countess?” a voice with a thick Brooklyn accent answered.
“Bertram,” the Countess said quietly. “Please listen very carefully.”
“Yes, Countess.”
“Dr. Albriecht’s project is now
discontinued. Any research or reports received from Dr. Albriecht will
be destroyed. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Countess.”
“Furthermore, any research and reports done in-house by Henderson will be destroyed.”
“Yes, Countess.”
“There will be no further inquires into this
child...ever. This order is marked zero-zero-destruct-alpha. Any future
inquires into this project will result in the...censure...of the
individual.”
The intercom was silent. Finally Bertram answered.
“Yes, Countess, I understand. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you, Bertram.”
“Countess?” the man asked before she could break the connection. “Are you...alright?”
Countess Crey smiled wanly. “Yes, Bertram,
I’m fine. Thank you,” and she clicked the unit off. She
returned her hands to the desk and sat quietly. Her hands began to
shake.
And then Countess Crey began to cry.
*****
The three
remaining heroes in the Top Ten base started in surprise as the
communicator buzz shattered the grim thoughtful silence. None had moved
since Dr. Silver’s call to Lady Cleo; SuperBrain still stood,
staring at the ominous power reports that flickered on the large
monitor; Silver and TuxedoGin still sat at the desk, lost in their own
worries.
Silver quickly pressed the communicator, toggling
the speaker so they could all hear. “Silver here...go,” he
said gruffly with a sidelong glance at Tux.
“Doc...its Cleo. I’m at that lab,”
came the familiar voice of the scrapper. “You were right...its
clear.” There was a long pause and the three men looked at each
other. “But its...”
“Status, Cleo,” Silver leaned closer to the speaker, “just tell us what you see.”
“All right,” the woman began, pausing
once more to collect her thoughts. “All right...the lab is empty.
There’s melted equipment everywhere, some burned to slag other
stuff is just...just liquified.” Her high heels clacked hollowly
over the metal flooring as she continued to explore the Crey facility.
“There are black smudges and ash on the floor and the whole place
smells like...I don’t know...ozone, I guess.” Lady Cleo
approached the entrance of the lab, preparing to exit. “And,
Doc?”
“Go ahead,” came the reply.
“This is on every level. There’s not a
thing in this place that’s not damaged.” She was silent for
several seconds. “What went through here?”
Silver looked at his two companions and chewed his
lower lip. “I don’t know. Why don’t you...”
“Ever since I entered the zone,” the
heroine interrupted, “I’ve been hearing crazy rumors
about...well...crazy...impossible...I mean...”
“Don’t worry about it, Cleo,” the
scientist sighed. “Go home, get some rest and come to the base
tomorrow. Ok?”
“All right,” Lady Cleo said warily into
the communicator, realizing already there was something Silver
wasn’t telling her. “One other thing...the place reeks of
magic. Don’t ask me...I can just feel it. Just so you know,
right? I’ll see you tomorrow. Cleo out.”
The desk speaker clicked and Tux raised an eyebrow.
“‘Black smudges and ash’? ‘Magic’?”
He rubbed his thin beard. “What does that mean?”
Dr. Silver looked again at the power reports seeming
to glower at him from the overhead screen. Frowning at his
teammates, he pressed a button and the monitor went black. “I
think we know what happened to the lab’s personnel,” he
whispered.
Brain and Tux exchanged an odd glance.
“He...he burned them away?” Brain asked uneasily. “I
don’t believe it...I won’t believe it...He couldn’t
just...”
TuxedoGin held up his hand, quieting SuperBrain with
the gesture. “What are we dealing with, Doc?” he asked,
eyes riveted to the desk, fearing to even look at the man.
Dr. Silver ran his hand through his thick hair and
fished in his labcoat for his pack of cigarettes. “I don’t
know,” he answered, noticing the pack was empty. “But
there’s a better question...how are we going to stop it?”
He fixed his friends with worried eyes and gripped the crumpled
cigarette pack tighter.
*****
Far away and close, in the present, past and future,
in a marble castle high on the cloud shrouded top of a mountain, a
woman stood before a pool of black water so calm its surface could be
mistaken for glass. The woman was tall, near seven feet and a gold
circlet rested on her brow. Her breastplate was of intricately etched
gold and was inlaid with blood red rubies. Her well muscled abdomen was
bare and the skirt she wore was made of hard leather leaves, the type
the ancient warriors used. From the tips of her sandaled feet to the
top of her dark hair a nimbus of crackling white energy surrounded her.
Artemis dipped her fingers into the calm dark water,
disturbing its placid slumber and watched as the ripples churned out
and away. She gazed onto its surface and as it calmed, she smiled,
staring contentedly at what the scrying pool revealed.
The apartment in Founder’s Falls shimmered
into view, revealing the small bedroom and its occupant. The small,
blonde woman slept peacefully, now wearing a clean grey t-shirt, a
picture of chicks on its front with the words“Respect My
Peeps”and the covers pulled up to her waist. Her sword lay by her
side and a small white dog slept at her feet, a little doggy smile on
its face.
Artemis nodded, beatific as she watched Sister
Hecate sleep. “Well done, my most dangerous girl,” she
whispered. “Thou hast lost much this day but there will be a
reckoning and thou whilst gain all that be gone and more.”
Her hand touched the dak pool again and the scene
rippled, revealing this time a little girl asleep in her crib. She
clutched her black and white stuffed monkey close to her chest, almost
under her chin. Her red skin practically glowed in the darkness and her
jet black hair covered her innocent features.
The Goddess’s expression softened and she
reached her hand into the pool’s black water. In the crib, an
invisible hand gently brushed the hair from the child’s face.
“Sleep well, child of the Unending Inferno. Thy purpose is
unknown to thee and thine but it be greater than any yet know.”
With a sigh, the Huntress set the pool to tumult
again and the scene revealed itself once more. A large room in Talos
Island, on an upper floor, the huge statue of Talos visible through the
wall length picture window. Tropic stood there looking over the city,
clad only in black gym shorts, a tumbler of amber liquid and ice cubes
in his right hand.
Artemis smiled, watching over his shoulder as he
sipped the aged Scotch, imaging how he would savor the hot alcohol.
Suddenly, she saw the fiery hero’s head move, as if he noticed
something. She frowned and then her expression became one of shock and
horror.
Tropic looked over his shoulder and smiled at her!
The Goddess waved her hand rapidly over the scrying
pool, blotting out the image and fell back several steps.
“No,” she murmured. “By all the Gods, named and
unnamed.” Artemis covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes
saying volumes to the empty chamber on Mt. Olympus.
She turned slowly, shaking legs moving her from the
room and she said softly, fearfully, “It hasn’t ended...
“...its barely begun.”
THE END?
WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR HEROES?
IS THIS THE END OF OUR STORY?
FIND THE ANSWERS IN
FROM THE ASHES BY D HEIKES!