vignette Ultimate Freedom and Other Tales - May / June Vignette

[Tiffany Korta]

Freedom City has been rebooted! It's time to retell your character's origins with the hindsight of 5, 10 or even more time spent with the character. What changes? What stays the same?

 

Or

 

Imagine what it would be like if the character had been created in the Gold, Silver, Bronze or even... Iron Age. How would things change if they were written during those times. You can either ignore or embrace those aspects of the characters that would be considered problematic then, but just remember to keep things within the site rules.

 

Your reboot stories should be posted no later than the 30th June 2024.

 

(As a reminder, vignettes follow the same general rules as posts in terms of content, player character limits, and so on. You may have only one vignette per player character. Each vignette should be at least one page (~500 words) in length; if posted in your thread counts at the end of the month, it is worth 1pp for the associated character. An especially long vignette, 1000 words or more, may be worth up to 2pp. Multiple players can collaborate on a single vignette - we recommend Google Docs for this, it's very useful - but the vignette should be about one page per participating player.)

[Supercape]

Snakebite

 

In

 

Finding your teeth

 

 

On the fifth day, the fever broke.

 

Those days had been full of sweat and delirium, dreams of jungles and strange night skies full of unfamiliar stars. Several times, the doctors and nurses had been fearful for Cassandra Crow’s life as they struggled to keep her temperature up, or temperature down. The Crow family could afford for the best of care, although their relationships were not always pleasant. It had not gone unnoticed that a few choice members had been hovering around Cassandra’s bed with a glint of glee, hoping that some of the Crow’s byzantine inheritance laws my bless them upon her passing.

 

A month ago, Cassandra Crow had been deep in Amazonian Jungle, exploring the unexplored. She had located a golden snake head, about the size of a fist, with glittering emerald eyes and a malign serpents grin. Worth a fortune, to be sure, but it was glory not dollars that motivated Cassandra Crow. Caressing her prize, she heard a click… and two golden fangs stabbed into her hand.

 

If it was simply a matter of a few scars on the back of her hand, there the story would have ended. But each fang contained a shot of ancient and Eldritch poison.

Her temperature rose, her tongue coarsened and swelled. Her eyes darkened and pierced the dark. The poison was crawling around her arteries, into her muscles and skin, changing her.

 

And quite possibly killing her.

 

To get back to the Amazonian river boat was a feat of endurance that she would have, a day before, considered impossible, beyond human flesh. Lying in the boat, convulsing, shaking, was an agony she would rather forget. And then, descent into a coma, until she awoke five days ago in a Hospital in London.

 

And now, the fever had broke. She could sit on her bed, she could even walk, clutching onto her IV drip strand like a crutch. Sleep – yes, sleep. She could sleep twenty hours a day and still feel tired. But no longer was her temperature spiking. No more mysterious cold fevers. It was, as the doctors said, as if her blood could not decide whether she was hot blooded or cold blooded. All in all, she was a mystery. Her blood tests, only now resolving, were impossible to understand, and should have killed her. The ascribed her ongoing life to Ms. Crow’s remarkable fitness, what with her being an explorer used to climbing, hiking, and swimming through the harshest of Earth’s terrains.

 

Maybe that was true, but Cassandra Crow suspected other forces were at play. The Crow family were as wealthy as you could be, thanks to good fortune. But fortune was a fickle and two sided beast. Curses, Hex’s, supernatural bad luck – these too came with the Crow Raven Hair and Crow hooked nose. The Golden Snake Head had sensed something in her, it had smelled the Crow blood, and it had attacked!

 

“Uuurgh….”

 

It was a groan of livid arteries, of pounding head. Pain that morphine had muffled but not removed. Her mother and sister were at the bedside. Caring, in that Crow way. Obscured, mysterious, even narcissistic caring, but caring all the same. And Cassandra would rather have them there than some of the more obnoxious and machevellian characters in the more distant part of the family.

 

“How long?” she asked.

 

“Too long…” said her mother, he black crow hair tied, harshly, to the back of her head. “We feared the worst, you rapscallion! Although… I would not have my daughters any other way. You get poisoned, your sister falls of mountains. Tsk! Better a day a lion, eh?”

 

“Or a snake…” muttered Cassandra.

 

There followed more days in hospital, more mysterious medicine. And then a trip to the Crow family manor once she was healthy enough. In some ways, the doctors told her, she was suspiciously too healthy.

 

They were not wrong. A couple more weeks, and Cassandra was riding, swimming and running through the grounds of the Manor. She was always athletic, her long limbs used to the strain of hiking and exploring. But now she rode harder, she swam faster, and she ran for longer than ever before. Her strength was beyond her frame – tight, hot muscles able to lift a motorcycle above her head (yes, she tried). And speed, yes – faster than before, able to balance and leap like a cat competing for the cat Olympics in agility. Cassandra could feel her body writhe, stretch and bend like rubber. Like a cat.

 

Like a snake.

 

And then, there were the teeth.

 

They manifested – with an sharp electrical pain – when Cassandra was running through the nearby woods and was startled by an irritable fox. No threat, neither before her transformation or, much less so, after it, but enough to cause that little flux of adrenaline. Her canines elongates – subtle, maybe half an inch or most, but quite the shock nonetheless. And the bitter taste of poison at their tips.

 

What was she?

 

The answer surely lay in books. And the Crow family had plenty of dusty tomes in the library. Books of history, archeology, certainly. And darker, eldritch, arcane tomes of pre-history and mythology. Books documenting – in crazed words – the worlds of Atlantis, Lemuria, the lost world. And even, in some particularly hushed and warped words, of the yellow sign.

 

But even these were not enough. Cassandra turned to the British library, pulling strings to get the most obscure and forbidden texts. She spent her days away from sunshine, in the depths of the library, in a private and dusty reading room, poring over yellow paper. At least, it was usually paper. Sometimes it was hide. Sometimes it was skin.

 

There it was: Lodged between a scrawled (in blood?) ramble on the sixty six dimensions of the silver chair, and an alleged spell to bind the third eyes of the unspeakable one. A note on the golden skull  of Lemuria, its poison deadly to all but those with snake blood. A ritualistic device to prove one was a true snake person.

 

And Cassandra Crow had survived the bite. Survived the poison.

 

It made her blood run as cold as a lizards. Her sweat felt icy, her tongue felt bloated. Something was very wrong with the Crow family line. Something… inhuman. Somehow, they were not mere homo sapien, but something else. Maybe not material, maybe not genetic. But somehow, in aeons past, the Crow family had taken something of the Lemurian people. Perhaps this explained their strange fortunes, their mystic eyes, the family legacy littered with witches, shamans, sorcerers and oracles.

 

Cassandra Crow was a snake? Then so be it. An enigmatic and twisted smile creased the corner of her lips. There was more work to be done.

 

As Snakebite.

[Supercape]

Starshot in

 

The history of hunting

 

“Ow”

 

His last memory – an explosion in the Alps. Leading a team of Nazi soldiers he didn’t like to a mission he didn’t want to complete. Given a chance, he had decided to hop sides. But there was the problem – how to prop sides. Compared to the Nazi’s, the Allies were glowing angels, but that didn’t mean they had something rotten in them. That was War for you. Turned good men rotten. Would the Allies really welcome him with open arms, or would they shoot him on sight.

 

Probably something in between. Hopefully something in between.

 

But Oscar never did get his chance. He never did discover what would have happened. All he could recall was an explosion. A big one. A burning ball of purple plasma.

An electric shock brought him awake. Groggy eyes, fuzzy, fogged, opened slowly to see one of the most repulsive faces he had ever – or would ever see, peering over him.

Zaul Zeno weighed a ton, had bulbous pink flesh, four arms, and the body of an enormous slug. His face fitted the rest of him. Adipose tissue hung from every angle in his face. Tiny black eyes, a lipless cruel smile. Open pores that had an unpleasant odour.

 

A universal translator garbled the communication between them. But Oscar knew his situation was not much improved. From one tyrant to another. From Hitler to Zaul Zeno.

Zaul Zeno did not have the passionate cruelty; no devout mission to inflict his will on the other, no matter how inhumane. Instead, his was dispassionate curiosity. There was some sliver of his soul that one could admire, that of the scientist. But Zaul was callous, caring not one jot or tittle for others. There was nothing kind, nor sadistic in his motives. A dangerous man, but, as Oscar came to realise, an alien you could work with, if one was careful. The trick was to be useful. If one was useful, one was valuable, and if one was valuable one had leverage.

 

“Your mitochondria. So inefficient,” Zaul would say as he injected another genetic rewiring agent into Oscar. It wasn’t too bad. A couple of hours of fever, if he was lucky. If he was not, then rigors, confusion. Maybe unconsciousness if he was lucky. Maybe death if he was not.

 

For all Zaul’s cold experimentation, he knew his work. Oscar had never felt so healthy. The strength and endurance of three men. He could run faster, longer. Lift heavier, hit harder.

 

And he felt his old life drip away. No longer Oscar, the Terran soldier. Not quite. A new person, a new persona was forming. Starshot, the space hunter.

 

“Reflexes are sub-par. And your cellular make up is so fragile!”

 

And so began painful sequences of cybernetic implantation. Spinal vents, to stop overheating. Subdermal thermal paste wells, to stop freezing. Implanted chemical filtration units in his spleen, stomach and liver, to destroy toxins and microbes. DNA Backup coder in his lymphatic system, cutting down elongating telomeres, acting as a never ending stem supply. A prized hunter like Starshot was too much investment to let die from old age.

 

“Your hand was injured in the blast. It is not optimal,” said Zaul, readying his microcarbonite virbo-saw. Starshot had to agree – Oskar had lost one and half fingers in the blast, and his couldn’t grip effectively. He gritted his teeth. The pain did not last too long; Zaul was good at his work. And the new chrome cybernetic hand was – Starshot admitted – much stronger, more useful. Still, he lamented the lost flesh and bone.

 

Cybernetics, Genetics, this was Zaul’s mission. And Starshot was his hunter, travelling the galaxy for fresh meat. Strange and rare animal, plant and fungal life forms. And many life forms that did not fit into one of those crude categories. Zaul was not popular; a wanted criminal in several parts of the galaxy. And the reputation was rubbing off on Starshot, Zaul’s right hand man, who could track and capture – it seemed – anything.

 

His weapon – a Blaster rifle equipped with a plasma – twine snare. His helmet – equipped with the best sensor array money could buy. Starshot was pretty sure neither had been acquired legally, and even if they had, were probably not legal. At least in the more civilised part of the galaxy. He was disturbed how undisturbed he was. Starshot was enjoying his reputation as the best hunter in the galaxy. He knew his weapon like the back of his hand, how it felt, how it handled. Precisely how much juice was running through its microfusion core. How hot the ejector was getting, how stable the mag-thruster rings. He could even tell how many plasma web shells were left in the underbelly of the rifle, just from the weight.

 

He was grim. And grim at how grim he had become. A tough guy, a mercenary, a warrior. Had the genetic and cybernetic tweaks carved out his soul, or was he always this empty. No matter – best not to think about it, or his enslaved status. Best to get the job done, and glean what bleak satisfaction he could out of the situation. Yes, there was the pulse of adrenaline – perhaps heightened from his synthetic adrenal glands – but delicious all the same. The thrill of the chase, the pride in the success. And even some appreciation of the scars he accumulated. No, he would not chose the dermal resythetiser for his face, nor for the jagged lines on his skin that served as reminder of his wrestles with predators. He would not have chosen the resynthesiser, even if Zaul had offered it.

 

Until one day, out of the blue, Zaul disappeared.

 

Nobody, to this day, had found Zaul, nor any solid evidence as to his whereabouts. Of course, the rumour mill went into overdrive across the Galactic channels. From the plausible (The Star Kahn had captured him to be his own scientific mad genius) to the frankly insane (He had been captured by interdimensional warp-clowns to provide amusement). Even Starshot himself, no stranger to tracking, had tried hustling and bribing his way across the galaxy to find news – to no avail. He had no desire to return to servitude, but an odd mix of loyalty and paranoia propelled him to try and nail down what had happened. You never knew; Zaul Zeno might return one day, and who could tell what mood he might be in?

 

With freedom came responsibility, and with responsibility came the impetus to change once more. Still Starshot, but now captain of Zauls old ship, the Xeno. Still a hunter, but his own master (even if he did have to bow to the occasional merchant and politician who took a “well earned” holiday on his ship). Still a hunter, still a tough guy, but perhaps – just perhaps, a shade less grim.

[Supercape]

Bloody Mess

 

In Silver Age Mess

 

It was cold, icy, but the sun shone bright. Captain Blood bounded across the frozen landscape, wearing his star spangled spandex costume. No red for this hero! This was a true patriot, fighting for truth, justice, and freedom. As mighty pumped up legs propelled him into the sky, his cape, adorned with truly patriotic stars and stripes, followed behind him.

 

Captain Blood had a mission! And he wasn’t going to make a mess of it.

 

Freddie Furlong had been picked up by the US military for brawling. A crook, it seemed, but a patriotic crook. And a valuable patriotic crook at that – a mutant, born from the atomic era. As strong as a dozen oxen, and able to manipulate blood. In this dark time of democracy vs communism, of freedom vs autocracy, of west vs east, Freddy Furlong was recruited.

 

Now, it so happened that Freddie Furlong had some eastern European ancestry. That, of course, simply would not do. Agents were immediately put on the case do manipulate the data. His father suddenly became an Irish Immigrant, not an Eastern European one. New passports, papers, and a hefty sum of money to relocate with his wife, as long as they maintained an Irish backstory.

 

Unfortunately, Mr Frederick Furlong was not the brightest spark in the book. He was, to put it bluntly (as the CIA report did), a grunt. Captain Blood was never going to be a subtle, nuanced superhero. He was going to be the sledgehammer. At least, the intelligence officers agreed, his low intelligence would allow a certain degree of leverage. In other words, his lack of perception meant he was most suitable for dirty work where a degree of tunnel vision was not only advisable, but necessary.

 

So here he was, in Siberia, bouncing across the frozen landscape, fresh out of a week long trip in a stealth sub, ready to pound the crap out of Soviet missile silo. The specifics of the technology was far beyond that of even an average man’s, much less Captain Bloods. Something about quantum. And nano. Nanoquantum, maybe. It sounded cool. Cool and dangerous.

 

The silo was in the middle of an icy plain under a white camouflage net. If not for the advanced laminar directants of the turbo encabulator spy satellite orbiting far above, it would have been missed. But clearly, in this day and age, the forces of freedom, liberty and capitalism always prevailed over the stodgy, autocratic forces of evil. Evil communism, that is. Which, it must be pointed out, is evil and furthermore, evil it what it was. This is clear and must be repeated constantly in this day and age. Who knew where undemocratic soviet sympathisers might bloom?

 

The silo had turrets with thick, brutal machine guns. Designed in typical Soviet style – to pump out as many large bullets in as short space of time as possible. But it could only spit a half dozen large callibre shots before the pumped up figure of Blood Mess landed, skidded, and collided with  the Silo, sending juddering tremors aroud the silo that cracked ice and unsettled snow.

 

In but a moment, the two hammer like fists of Blood Mess were on the turret, and bent the barrel into a bow. No more bullets today. Taking a deep breath, the Mess pulled back one of his swollen fists and punched out the trapdoor, sending it flying to the bottom of the silo, singing as it clanged against the walls.

 

With a grunt of satisfaction, he jumped down to the bottom of the base.

 

There were, of course, soldiers. But the Mess had given them only seconds to react, and a few peashooter side arms were no match for a fully powered Bloody Mess, who thundered his way through the silo, smacking soldiers aside like ragdolls.

 

But of course, the Soviets, whilst fully reprehensible and inferior to the power of the West, were not completely stupid [Editor-please check with McCarthy re: this], for they had brought one of their Super Soviet Soldiers to guard the Silo.

 

Soviet Man!

 

Dressed in shiny red spandex, complete with flared black boots and flared black gloves. His ches adorned with the hammer and sickle in resplendent gold. His hair dark and short, his eyes grey and sparkling. Soviet Man was every inch a hero, and had twice the intellect of Bloody Mess, making him entirely average in that department.

“Halt, Capatalist scum!” he yelled, hands on hips, chest puffed out, full of righteous soviet confidence.

 

Bloody Mess had brawled a hundred street fights in Freedom City before he even realised he was a mutant. He may not have been sharp in the head, but he had experience. And he didn’t fight fair, nor clean. And besides, he was just as patriotic as Soviet Man.

 

Bloody Mess didn’t waste breath with words, nor time with poses. He just charged, like a supercharged bull, straight into Soviet Man. The result was a mixed bag: Soviet Man knew his judo, his sambo, and dragged the Mess to the floor, but he was caught by the sheer speed and ferocity of the mess. This was no elegant martial art throw, but more a equivocal scramble to the concrete floor.

 

And the Mess came out on top.

 

Righty, his right fist, was raised like a hammer read to fall. Soviet Man threw his own hooks that smacked into Bloody Mess’s jaw – one, two, each one jarring the jaw, grinding the teeth. But the Mess had taken a lot worse. He spat out specks of blood into Soviet Man’s eyes (alas, whilst his super suit was shiny and red, it had neglected super goggles). Dirty, effective fighting that made Soviet Man squint and rub his eyes.

 

And made him wide open for a solitary sledgehammer punch with every ounce of power the Bloody Mess could muster. A pulsating arm holding aloft Righty came right down onto Soviet Man’s nose with an almighty wallop and crunching of cartilage.

 

“Fbghmmmm” said the mangled mouth of Soviet Man, as his eyes rolled upwards. “Fbghmmmm ilthy capatilist… ghmmm glorious communism….”

 

 A brain soaked in communist propaganda and then crunched by a superhero (capitalist) fist could only resort to such vapid, reflexive statements, before unconsciousness set in.

 

Standing up, breathing heavily, chewing on bloodied gum, the Mess slammed righty into the palm of lefty.

 

“That’s the sweet taste of Freedom, folks!” he said. “Ain’t nuthin’ going to crush da human spirit!”

 

And with his (rather short) dialogue finished, Bloody Mess set about demonstrating the humanity of capitalism by violently smashing the base and its soldiers to smithereens.

[Supercape]

Captain Cosmos in

 

Cosmos Man

 

In another dimension, in another world, Buddy Brand was – once again – a reporter. In a simpler age, a golden age.  When good guys were good, bad guys were bad, and the future gleamed with possibilities.

 

Like every Buddy Brand, in every dimension, this Buddy Brand gave a miniscule fraction of his life force to the Buddy Brand that was Captain Cosmos. So small that it was without salience, like a drop in the proverbial ocean. But a connection, all the same.

 

Maybe it was that fraction, that atom of connection, that made mild mannered reporter Buddy Brand want to do something more. He had seen too much foul play in his career, too many crooks and swindlers. Too many mad scientists and mad science.

 

It was enough to drive a man to don a silver spandex costume, red cape and mask, and seek justice. Armed with one of those mad science experiments from a good guy scientist (too old, too frail to don the cape himself). Professor Kosmo had created the incredible dimensionizer gun.

 

It looked sleek. A gold and glass pistol with a wide barrel, two flashing red lights, and a magnificent yellow fin. A weapon straight out of the cheap and wonderful sci-fi serials and films that Buddy still enjoyed. Silly, yes, but fun. Escapism, hope, heroics. They inspired Buddy to put on his splendid costume, charge up the dimensionizer, and take up the mantle of Cosmos Man!

 

OK. Maybe he felt a little silly in his costume. Maybe he was sweating more than a hero should do, trembling more than a soldier should. But this was a calling, and one he was resolved to heed. Cosmos man could do the work no other could! That’s what he told himself.

 

As Buddy Brand, investigative reporter, he knew darn well that Hammerhead Jones was a no good mobster, blackmailing the police and the law, twisting the knife of corruption into the otherwise good soul of Freedom City. Its just that nobody could prove it – or if they could, they didn’t dare too. Hammerhead Jones would soon send some ruffians round to your door and play the piano on your ribcage with a couple of baseball bats. Hell, sometimes Hammerhead Jones did it all by himself, just to “keep his hand in”, or maybe just because the thug liked to.

 

No place for Hammerhead Jones in this city, not whilst Buddy Brand could act – as COSMOS MAN!

 

Hammerhead Jones base of operation was a no-good den of sleaze in the worst part of town. Suited Cosmos-Man, at least for now. The lights were busted, it was dark, and he could slip to the back of the den with ease.

 

What next? At the back was just junk, flotsam, stench. And a brick wall. But no matter! Cosmos Man adjusted one of the five small dials on the dimensionizer. With a zim of power, the dimensionizer shone a blue-green light on the brick wall. Phasing into… ANOTHER DIMENSION!

 

Which meant it was about as solid as one breath on a winters day. Cosmos Man quickly stepped through the wall, and turned off the dimensionizer, allowing the brick wall to resolidify.

 

“Neat-o!” he muttered with a smile.

 

Swing music played from a radio-an infectious rhythm and tune that almost got Cosmos man  tapping his spandex feet. But no, he was not here to dance. At least not that kind oof dance. There was work to do!

 

As quietly as he could, grateful for the background noise, Cosmos Man crept through the den of evil. There, in the lounge, four of Jones’ goons, lounging about drinking whiskey and smoking cigars. The smoke filled the room, giving the air a sickly sweet taste that Cosmos Man thought most suspicious. Apart from all the murder, extortion, theft and violence, it seemed that Hammerhead Jones and his motley crew were, even worse, junkies as well!

 

The lounge was cramped. Battered leather furniture, a wireless, bottles of whiskey. It was not a well kempt room, either. Cosmos Man spotted more than one cockroach climbing up the walls. He turned his lips to sour disgust – typical junkies!

 

“Halt Evil-Doers!” he yelled, making all four men jump up in alarm, spill their whiskey, spit out their suspicious cigars.

 

“Who are you? Why are you dressed like that?” asked one. “We ain’t going to be halting for you, crazy man!” said another.

 

“It was not a request!” said Cosmos Man, smiling. “It was a statement!”

 

He fired another spectacular beam from the Dimensionizer, and all four men were frozen in place, including four faces with unbelieving shock painted on them!

So far, thought Cosmos Man, this heroic jaunt was going very well. An excellent debut.

 

But heroes should not rest, at least not easy. And hubris was the downfall of Cosmos Man. A baseball bat, swung hard, connected with the tip of the dimensioner, wrenching it out of the Grip of Cosmos Man. It was made of sturdy stuff, what with its drawn reciprocating dingle arm and semi-boloid laminar plates, and it would no doubt be serviceable still. But in whose hands? What if… and here your blood might run cold… what if it was in the hands of Hammerhead Jones.

 

For it was he who swung the bat. He who grinned a toothy grin, absent more than one tooth. He, with broken nose and cauliflower ear, who stood before Cosmos Man, tapping the palm of one hand with his bat.

 

And what did Captain Cosmos have? Bereft of his amazing weapon, all he had was sweat, fear, and a spandex costume.

 

And, of course, a plucky attitude. Fear? Pffft! This was an age for heroes, and heroes didn’t succumb to fear. That was for commies and crooks.

 

Besides, armed with a plucky attitude, Cosmos Man could use the most amazing super power of all. Smarts! Everyone knew that crooks weren’t smart – Crime didn’t pay, after all, so you had to be pretty stupid to be a crook.

 

Hammerhead Jones sneered. “What you got without that gizmo of yours, buster?”

 

“You mean the Dimensionizer?” replied Cosmos Man, keeping his cool despite the heat. “You shouldn’t have hit it so hard! The feedback of the variable lotus configurations will cause irretractable parabolic feedback. Your atoms will be reduced to subatomic particles! Look!”

 

It was a bold bluff of babble, but Hammerhead Jones didn’t know any better. He looked down to were the dimensionizer lay, on the floor, clearly doing nothing at all.

He didn’t have a chance to look up. WHAM! A solid suckerpunch from Cosmos Man, right to the jaw, sent Hammerhead Jones flying across the room, out cold.

 

“Never forget!” said Cosmos Man to whoever might be listening. “Evil is no match for Good. Especially with science and a solid uppercut to back it up!”

[Supercape]

Haven

 

in

 

Disco Haven

 

The Seventies. Roaring, sweaty, full of energy and some of it violent. Kids, and some of the kids were older kids, needed to burn energy. Maybe some dark and dingy punk, full of metal studs and raised fists and colourful hair.

 

Or maybe disco.

 

Disco was born, full of flashing lights and funky beats. And Disco needed electricians to keep those lights a flashing and those beats a funking.

 

Milo Mikano, fresh from Tokyo, was one of those electricians. And yes, alongside continually upgrading the light and sound system to the Bad Beat Discotheque, he did – on occasion – shake his ass on the disco floor. Not that he was a very good dancer. But he danced, all the same. To get in to the spirit of the thing.

 

He was brains, Milo Mikano. A whizz at anything electronic. He even had a grasp on computers. New fangled things that nobody quite understood, not unless you were a nerd. But Milo Mikano was from Japan, where all the fancy electrical stuff came from, so that explained why he knew so much about them.

 

He was good, really good. A genius, some said. He had rigged up the electricals of the Bad Beat to create stunning, synchronised beats and flashes, all run by some fancy programme that had a cool electronic voice, something sharp and flat at the same time, like a 60s sci-fi film.

 

It was such a shame when he died.

 

In the prime of his life, some nasty gangster by the name of Goldstep had put a bullet in Milo Mikano’s brain. Whilst the genius was working on some neuro-link programme. Sparks sure flied! The bullet went straight through the  cranial electro-cap and fried Milo’s brain. As well as most of the Bad Beat.

 

A golden bullet too. That was Goldstep’s style.

 

The murder was the talk of the city. Why had Goldstep murdered Milo? He was a gratuitously violent man, prone to apoplectic fits of rage, this was true. But… and here was the root of the problem. Goldstep was in love (as much as a man of his nature could love) with the owner of the Bad Beat, Foxy Fox. And Foxy Fox, as it happened, was in love with Milo Mikano. And Milo Mikano was blissfully unaware of the domino’s of love, being in love with his new fangled computer system.

 

In the sombre months that followed, dancers and partiers, as well as Foxy Fox herself, experienced spooky going on’s at the Bad Beat. Lights, sounds, all eerie, spectral even. It was as if Milo Mikano’s computer system had a life of its own. A groovy life.

 

Unfortunately, the murder of Milo Mikano had not sated the lust of Goldstep. He had graduated to bona fida stalker. When showers of flowers, clumsy demonstrations of wealth, and even funky dance moves all failed to move her heart – a heart hardened by Milo’s death – frustration set in. The rage of a man scorned. Increasingly, his attempts to romance turned cruel, violent, intimidating. His golden pistols were shoved in her chest, up her chin, and even up her nose, all threatening to blow her brains out if she did not fall for his irresistible charms. What a life he could give her! The life of a rich and powerful gangster. A gangsters paradise, which he had been living most of his life in.

 

One night, in the final hour of darkness before dawn, Goldstep had smashed into the Bad Beat with two of his imbecilic thugs – heavy on muscle, light on brains.

 

“Foxy! Time to end this dance, baby! You and me were meant to be!”

 

“Get lost!” shrieked Foxy, hand on hip, fingers snapping, nails manicured ready to scratch eyes out of socket. For all her cool, for all her sass, her voice was just a little to tremulous, a little to high pitched, for the illusion of control to be maintained.

 

“I ain’t ever going to get lost, Foxy,” said Goldstep, taking a few steps forward, swinging his custom golden magnum revolver around like it was a conductors baton. “You just need some sense beaten into that thick skull of yours. You’ll see…”

 

“Like hell I will!” said Foxy, who turned heel and ran.

 

Unfortunately it was not easy to run in disco platform boots, even for Foxy. She staggered, she stumbled, she fell.

 

To the sound of Goldsteps laughter, she crawled away, fighting the pain of her twisted ankle, into the discoteque’s control room. Here, Milo Mikano’s computer – some said his soul – still resided. And as she powered it up, lights and music filled the floor.

 

“That’s right baby!” yelled Goldstep. “You and me gonna boogie!”

 

“I’m calling the cops!”

 

“Baby, I own the cops!”

 

Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t. Goldstep had just enough smarts to be successful, and he knew the streets like nobody else. He was a fool, but you hard to be cunning to get away with being a fool. Foxy Fox knew that the cops wasn’t a sure thing. And besides, they wouldn’t get there in time.

 

Or would they?

 

A spectral figure, made of pulsating light, appeared on the dance floor. Bright beams of light flashed around him, like a disco ball. And then he was gone.

“What was that?” said Goldstep. His two goons shrugged, guns up, alert.

 

Another flash. The figure was clearer this time. Milo Mikano!

 

A beam of light emitted from the image of Milo, flashing right into the eyes of Goldstep, who screamed “Get him! Get him!” as he furiously rubbed his eyes.

 

The figure disappeared in the blink of an eye. And then! Behold! He blinked into existence again, right between the two thugs, who opened fire. But this was not the flesh and blood of Milo Mikano – no, that Milo was dead. This was a spectre, and illusion, a light show. The bullets passed harmless through the figure, and into the chests of the opposing thugs, who fell down dead.

 

“Get up! Get up! I said shoot him!” squealed the increasingly panicked Goldstep, who was still rubbing his eyes back to life. Half blind, he unleased his revolver. Crack-Crack-Crack, and again. All six rounds, spent.

 

“Who are you? Who are you?” he said, as the image of Milo bounced around the dance floor.

 

“You know who I am!” boomed Milo’s voice over the loudspeakers.

 

“You can’t be! You can’t be! I shot you! I killed you!”

 

“You can kill disco, Goldstep! I am alive! This is my haven. A disco Haven. And you and your thugs are not welcome!”

 

Another burst of light scattered around the room, and a boom of the speakers so loud it was deafening.

 

“Mummy! Mummy!” whimpered the blind and deaf Goldstep, who staggered around the dancefloor, groping the floor, the walls, the bar, lost, disorientated, terrified.

A bottle of whiskey put him out of his misery. Not drunk, no. Foxy Fox had taken matters into her own hands and smashed a bottle over Goldsteps head, putting him straight to sleep. Perhaps a mercy.

 

“You heard him, Goldstep! This place is a haven! A disco haven!”

 

And so it was. The electronic spirit of Milo Mikano lived on in the Bad Beat Disco, a haven from the crooks and crookedness of the city forever more. And they all boogied happily ever after.

[Supercape]

Synth

 

In

 

Across the Ice

 

It had been five days since Synth had left the facility in Sweden, and they were hungry days. Even though every cell was a masterpiece of biotechnological engineering, five days without food, running through snow and ice in arctic temperatures was taking its toll.

 

Synth was peeling; the cellular structure breaking down. Translucent skin burned in the ultraviolent sun, muscles were wated; consuming themselves to sustain basic metabolism.

 

Synth was dying.

 

But dying was better than being dead.

 

Synth was still trying to process the events. They were less than one year old – a secret project lead by a team of scientists in north Sweden. A success, in many ways – an artificial life form with unparalleled resilience, able to rearrange its own structure. Embedded with the knowledge (and possibly personalities) of the dozen scientist who had created it.

 

And then, SHADOW came knocking. The project was actually the brainchild of the neo-nazi organisation, using cells from Ultima Thule. And they had come to collect on the fruits of the project.

 

The scientists resisted; they had no knowledge of the nefarious origins of their project. Synth resisted, too, having no wish to be part of such ugly and dangerous schemes. The research was strewn with dead bodies, and burned to the ground. But somehow, through the smoke and fire and chaos, Synth had struggled free and made her way through the snow to freedom.

 

The implanted memories gave her the accumulated medical and biological science knowledge of multiple lifetimes. Synth knew they were dying. The blanket helped some – thermal layers – something she had snatched from her escape. Without it, they would be dead, surely, for the only other clothes were the thin cotton garments of the institute.

 

By starlight, Synth could navigate – eastwards, across the cold lands of Siberia. Thus far, Synth had done their best to avoid a southward angle; stay out of sight, off the grid. Mainly from SHADOW, but also from Russian eyes. There was no point to attracting any attention; who could they trust? Everything they knew had just gone up in smoke. The rug had been pulled from feet. Who knew how far SHADOW had infiltrated any organisation? Synth was not in a trusting mood right now. The Deaths had made tears in their eyes, the cold had frozen them on cheeks.

 

But there was no food, and Synth needed food. Protein, calories. Something to feed on other than their own body. Something to put some meat on their bones. This meant moving a little more southward. To tundra.

 

Berries, mushrooms, even insects and fungus. It was thin pickings, but it was something. Fortunately, their stomach, spleen and liver could digest almost anything. Poisons and diseases stood little chance against advanced, designed, synthetic flesh. Synth could scavenge precious nutrients from the thin life of the terrain, from rocks, trees, even the earth.

 

It may have been enough for sustenance on better days, but these were not such days. It would slow the starvation, not eliminate it. Richer foods were needed for failing organs to regenerate.

 

Further south, where trees started to thicken. Cover from the sun, providing burnt skin some respite. Nuts, could be found. And birds, animals. Synth climbed trees, scratching their thin skin that bled and wept. At the top, amidst snow capped branches, could be found eggs. As rich as source of protein as could be found.

Here lay some ugliness. Eggs. Could Synth eat them? This was not a technical issue – the institute had thoroughly tested her immune system and digestion. Synth could eat almost anything. But it was a moral issue. Could she eat eggs? There was no denying eggs had no sentience, but they were potential life. Could they eat them? Now, more than ever, they had an overwhelming respect for life. That was what slaughter did, they supposed. Magnified that respect for life, made life a hundred times more precious.

But their own life was in peril, and crushing hunger not easily ignored. Synth cracked the eggs open and swallowed the gloop inside. It did not taste, not feel, good. But it was necessary.

 

The first food – of any substance – in five days sat in their synthetic stomach, breaking down the proteins, absorbing them. It felt good; like a couple of staggered steps away from a cliff face. But it didn’t feel good enough. Synth had many hard weeks of travel ahead. A few eggs would not be sufficient.

 

Further south. A lake, its surface mirrored. Mosquitoes, buzzed around, a horrible threat. Synth crushed them as fast as they sucked her blood, but the swarm was endless. They stopped to look at the lakes edge, regarding their image. No longer the paragon of health; thin, emaciated, pale. Eyes hollow, bony hips and ribs. The walking dead.

Necessity once again expunged morality. The lake had fish; plenty of them. Synth’s lightning fast hands and lightning faced reflexes turned into spears. Straightened fingers plunged into icy water, plucking scaled fish out of the lake. Eaten raw. No time for fire.

 

Had to keep moving. The fish were another step to freedom, but the mosquitos were relentless.

 

Synth followed the slow river eastward. Here, mosquito activity died down. There was flora underfoot, some of which could be consumed. Slowly, the skin started to darken with melatonin, the pinpricks of bites started to close. Muscles, nerves, organs, started to kick into action. Walking pace started to quicken, lungs now able to move, inhale, exhale, processing sweet cold air. Every day was another day that SHADOW, or worse, would have to tighten the net.

 

Speed was needed. And speed needed energy. Fish, eggs, and meat. Killing another thing was reprehensible, but the lion was hungry and needed to be fed. How much more damage, death, would SHADOW be able to inflict if it harnessed Synth’s flesh. The maths was simple, its execution was hard. Rabbits, squirrels, eaten raw, every mouthful of precious protein hard to swallow. Eating a living thing. But with every revolting bite and painful swallow, Synth could run faster.

 

Almost fully healed now, meat back on the bones. Running through tundra day and night, sharp eyes able to see by moonlight, legs with a speed and endurance beyond human. Days turned into weeks, longer. Picking her way through the sparse civilisation. Wearing stolen clothes.

 

Changing.

 

Yes, changing appearance. Grizzled, worn skin. Black hair, so slow to grow. Now, with clothes and features of a peasant farmer woman, she could go further, faster, start her cautious interactions with civilisation. But cautious, still.

 

Finally, the east coast. The pacific. More reprehensible acts; pick pocketing. The first attempt did not go well. Synth had to put the man to sleep and them pilfer his pockets. Ugly, ugly-was this really necessary? Uncertainty fungated in her gut, but she stayed the path.

 

The money was not for luxury, she told herself. It was for necessity. Leaving Russia, crossing the pacific. Alaska.

 

If you wanted freedom, what better place to go than the land of the free?

[Supercape]

Diamondlights (Family)

 

In

 

The Origin of the Origin.

 

As readers know, the Zoss family made an ignoble fortune in the twentieth century. August Zoss became empowered by a Daka Crystal, becoming the hero known as Diamondlight.

 

But from whence came the crystal?

 

Read on, to find out the origin of the origin story!

 

It was the end of World War 2. The allies were advancing on the broken Nazi War Machine from all sides. Everyone could smell it – unless you were delusional or obsessed. But the gig was not yet up. Bullets and shells were still to be fired, and the blood of young men was still to be spilled. Graves still yearned for fresh worm food.

 

The wiser (but not necessarily kinder) of the Nazi elite were looking for ways out. South America, Africa, the middle east, or even more remote and exotic places. But wherever they were going, one thing was for sure. They needed money.

 

Nazi gold stored were raided, empty. The black market was alive with bargain purchases of stolen artwork and cultural treasures. But Col. Ludolf Lux had no artworks or cultural treasures to sell. What he had was far better, and far worse. He had a fully powered Daka Crystal. It was essentially priceless, but he could not sell it. What he needed was a banker prepared to store it.

 

Col Lux was a thin man, with hair and skin darker than the Aryan ideal. But he had a razor sharp mind and a crisp efficiency to him that had propelled him up the military ranks. A crack shot with a rifle and a devil with a knife, he had proved time and time again that he could get the mission done. He was not, by nature, a Nazi. He found much to admire in Africa and further abroad. The Nazi ideals hung loosely on his frame. He was an intellectual, a callous, cunning intellectual. And above all, he was a survivor.

 

His problem? To sell the Daka Crystal. It was priceless, but of course everything had a price. The buyer would have to be rich, and discrete. Willing to trade for stolen Nazi goods at the end of the War. Talk about price deflation. The options were extremely limited, to put it mildly.

 

Fortunately, Col. Lux had someone in mind. Rudolf Zoss.

 

A swiss merchant, rich, and reliable. Someone who had dealt with the Thule society, and had acted as banker for many Nazi’s. On the record, and off the record.

 

As the war engine and the bureaucracy that surrounded it collapsed in chaos, desperation – rats fighting each other to leave the sinking ship, Ludolf Lux had requisitioned a fast car and had driven to Switzerland powered with caffeine and adrenaline. His hand shook has he pulled the car up in front of the shambolic Zoss mansion by a beautiful still lake.

 

Shambolic. Good. Zoss clearly needed the money. The Mansion looked like it was worth one tenth of what it could be worth. Less, if a stiff breeze let loose on the cracked and crumbling masonry.

 

Rudolf Zoss met the Lux in the main hall. Twin staircases, cold air, dust. Suits of armour on the floor, Swiss Halberds on the wall. A servant, in slightly ragged attire, tried to stay awake.

 

Despite the evidence of hard times, Rudolf Zoss was a proud man – something Lux could see, and use. Zoss had dressed himself in a fine tailored suit, carried a polished oak cane, and had his white hair well managed. His back was stiff, his heigh undiminished.

 

“What can I do for you?” he asked in perfect German.

 

Lux paused, took off his military cap and bowed. Zoss was prideful, but intelligent. Lux would have to be careful. No simple flattery, no brute intimidation.

 

“A business proposal. I hear you are the banker to speak to in these parts.”

 

“In a manner of speaking,” said Zoss, examining his fingernails. Despite the dirt of the mansion, he made sure they were clean. “I can… hold items for you.”

 

“But not buy them?”

 

Zoss looked around his crumbling home. “You do not seem a foolish man. And you have no doubt asked about. I do not have gold or silver. What I have, is a lot of contacts, an ability to hide what is being looked for, and a reputation that I do not relegate on a deal. I have what a gentleman would call trust.”

 

“Because?”

 

“I am trusted because I am trustworthy.”

 

“Tautological,” sniffed Lux, with a sniff.

 

“Reputational,” said Zoss, parrying.

 

“You do have the reputation, Herr Zoss. I need to keep something with you, for the future. I am willing to pay for your banking services, of course.”

 

Zoss carefully studied Lux. “Normally, these negotiations would involve the barrel of a gun, or the edge of a knife.”

 

“Unsubtle.”

 

“And drained of threat. We both know the war is over. Battles to be fought, yes. Blood to be spilled. But its over. Your Furher is finished.”

 

Lux shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Zoss was right, not just about the war, but the play of power. Normally, Lux could raise an eyebrow and dissolve someone in terror.

 

“Nevertheless, I have gold. And you need gold.”

 

“It appears we can strike a deal. What do you need… storing?”

 

The answer lay outside, in the boot of Colonel Lux’s car, wrapped in a patchwork blanket.

 

A Daka Crystal. Large, with a streak of blue-purple flaw winding its way through the centre. Humming with some alien energy. Fizzing with power.

 

“I never thought I would see one…” mumbled Zoss, reaching out to touch it.

 

Colonel Lux snapped the hand away. “Careful. It bites.”

 

Zoss rubbed his chastised hand. “Where did you get it? Wait, I don’t want to know…”

 

He knew very well the origin.

 

“What I want to know, is will its owners be after it? I have no wish to have African Hunters at my door.”

 

“Let us say it was misplaced during the Furher’s African Expeditions. As far as its previous owners are concerned, it is missing. Maybe the Germans, maybe the English. Maybe the Ottomans for all I care. They have no idea where it is, but as you can see, it must remain hidden.”

 

“For how long?”

 

Colonel Lux chewed his lip. “For as long as it takes for me to find a buyer.”

 

“That may be… difficult. Especially, and forgive my impertinence, for a German.”

 

“Ah. But have you not heard. America is the land of opportunity. And I speak impeccable English.”

 

It was a fair comment, thought Zoss. Colonel Lux was clearly not one of your regular Nazi thugs. Intelligent, Cunning, even Charismatic. He might make it. He might not. Either way, it was a win for the Zoss fortunes.

 

“Very well, I will keep your treasure. Where might I find you?”

 

“You won’t,” said Colonel Lux. “I will find you. But, as it happens, I hear good things about a place called Freedom City…”

[Supercape]

Spore

 

In

 

Burning down the house

 

Harper Hale had turned into Spore the day she was infected with the spores of a burning mutant fungus, in 2020.

But what if had happened earlier? A Decade earlier? Two Decades?

 

In some part of the infinitely infinite multiverse, it did!

 

Fifty years ago! In the shocking seventies.

 

And, being a different age, with different psychic and sociological flavours, the story was different, too.

 

Harper Hale was twenty three, in this story. Fresh out of university with a degree in mycology, for fungus and mushrooms had always fascinated her. True, the Hale family were primarily interested in the San Fransisco Vineyards, producing the finest independent wines on the coast. But they had a little side line. Cheese and Wine went splendidly together, and they had brought European cheese making to America. Not your processed rubber monstrosities of the new world, no. Cheese bursting with an assortment of flavours and a shapes, from soft creamy cheese that had to be eaten with a spoon, to hard cheeses that hard to be cut with a sharp knife. But Harper always found the blue cheeses most splendid. Stilton, in particular. What an opera of aroma’s! Cheese deliberately infected with a strain of fungus.

 

She fully intended to develop her own cheeses and bring America diary enlightenment.

 

The San Fransico Vineyards were expansive, bathed in golden sunlight for most of the year. Harper found few places more beautiful (perhaps her trips to Europe? The Vineyards of Paris?) and they were home. She had run through them as a child, laughing with joy.

 

And in some lonely wooden hut, bequeathed by her parents, she had set up her cheese making experiments. Whilst she was a master of mycology, her cheese making was not quite so expert. A strong amateur, she would have said, and rightly so. But this was not a drawback; she was good enough. What she needed was the right fungus, and here she tinkered with various strains.

 

In the universe we are all familiar with, ‘twas a mutated fungus that caused the disaster. Here, it was not some accident of DNA, but something much more esoteric and silver-age. Here, it was something psychic!

 

Could a fungus actually be psychic?

 

Stories and science converge to say yes! This could be true. Fungal intelligence? It may be real. And for those readers who wish a more horrific and mind-shredding titbit, how about the zombie fungus that infects ants? Spooky, to say the least!

 

Some twist of fate, some arcane twirl, perhaps. Whatever it was, one strain of fungus in the hut started becoming psychic. Intelligent, yes, but not intelligence as we know it. This was strange, unknowable, exotic intelligence. An intelligence born from lightless stars and eldritch dimensions. A consciousness that stretched over dimensions and imaginations beyond human ken.

 

And it was an intelligence that fed on every single particle of cheese in the hut.

 

On the plus side, when Spore discussed how she was built, she could say her powers were cheesey.

 

The fungal bloom had taken over the entire shed. Not just the cheese, either. It had crawled into the wood, up the walls, into the roof. Everything organic had streaks of purple fungus lancing through the flesh. The air was hazy with livid spores.

Harper was almost immediately overcome. It was like the drunkedness of wine; not unpleasant, but certainly dangerous. Her view distorted, everything out of focus, alive with every colour known to man (and several that were not). It was beautiful. There was no self.

 

Harper staggered out of the hut, fighting to maintain any sense of self amid the floral psychodelia. It was a nigh impossible. Her brain swam with fungal toxins. Her animal cells embraced the fungal intruders, creating something new, wonderful, exciting. And yet the self was lost.

 

Behind her, some fire. Some blurred part of her brain wondered how the fire had started. Electricals? Had a light blown? Or the refrigerator? Had the fungus chewed through some wire? Or had she started it? She would never know – a horrible worm like thought that would crawl around her skull for the rest of her life.

 

The fire blazed, strange smell smoking blooming into the wind. It started spreading. It was a dry month, and the vineyards were dry. Old, parched woods for the vines to grow on. A gentle breeze, enough to send embers from one patch to another.

Soon, Harper was running across blazing fields. The light of fire mutating into vivid blooms of colour – orange, purple, yellow, in front of her eyes.

 

Screams, now. Screams of her parents, burning. If it was not for the chemicals sloshing around her brain, it would have been a horror that would send her to her death, embracing the fire herself. But she stood, paralysed, watching the show. It was almost beautiful – for now. Later days would nail the horror of the image into her brain.

 

Harper fell to the floor, knees scraping the earth, hands feeling the dust beneath her fingers. The hallucinations started to recede; consciousness returned, slowly, like a glacier over aeons. She grasped the dry earth, trying to reclaim the madness. It might have been mad, but it was a shield against a deeper madness. Regardless of intent, the mere possibility of having burned your mother alive was beyond bleak.

 

So Harper Ran, across burning vineyards, away from the fire, away from the blame, until her lungs were bursting and her legs trembling. She collapsed against a tree, far from the blaze. In the distance, she could hear the signs of sirens. She felt a distant sense of relief – at least the fire would be contained. Nobody else would suffer. Nobody like her…

 

She caught sight of her hand. Purple streaks of fungus running across the skin, boils, full of blue liquid. The wood of the tree, succumbing to the fungus that continued to spread. With her eyes, narrowed, with some transcendental state of mind, she forced the fungus to retreat back into her hand. How? Because there was no fungus, there was no Harper. There was spore.

 

A bereaved spore. Determined, now, to undo the bad by doing good.

 

And thus began a journey to superhero status. Spore protected the cities, the country, and even, sometimes, the world. Crooks were found asleep, infected with soporific fungus. Or foaming at the mouth, poisoned with mycotoxins. The world came to know of Spore, the protector. Thieves, beaters, dealers and stealers – all came to fear the intervention of Spore. But at least these villains would gain some comfort from the relative kindness of Spores powers.

 

But one group of villains would tremble. They would receive no niceness, no kindness. They would receive harsh justice. Beware, for Spore had no mercy for arsonists.

[Supercape]

Rev

 

In

 

Golden Age Motorised Vehicle Madam

 

Lady Lexington “Lexi” Venn had broken three ribs, amputated her right foot, and enucleated her left eyeball.

 

And her husband was dead.

 

This is not a pleasant way to start a story, but fear not! This is a tale of love, hope, and good old fashioned revenge. With automobiles!

 

It was two months after Lady Lex had been involved in an outstandingly awful car crash. She had been driving a model T on a pleasant afternoon through the streets of Freedom City, when another similar car had hit them, side on, at the incredible top speed of 45 mph. The crash had crumpled the side of their car, killing the passenger (her husband), crushing her foot, and sending glass into one eye.

 

She had spent one month in hospital, operation after operation after darn operation, her days broken up by morphine. Each operation followed by days on post anaesthetic nausea and vomiting. And yet she faced it with gritted teeth. She elected to wear a black leather eyepatch and have a steel prosthetic foot. Every day, she forced herself through a gruelling rehabilitation programme, until she could walk, and even run, unaided.

 

See, she was driven by grief. Grief turned sour, and into malice. She had found out who had murdered her husband and crippled her body. Alfonso Cetti, one of the up and coming Mafia crooks who had a love for cars and a hatred for anyone who didn’t prostrate themselves in front of him and lick his boots. Lord Venn had done neither.

 

The next month, Lady Lex had recovered at the Len mansion; a small but elegant piece of architecture. Lord Venn was a minor European aristocrat who had come to America to improve his modest fortunes. He was running an automobile repair and customisation shop with a couple of talented mechanics he had recruited. It was Successful, and the coffers had swollen. Alfonso Cetti had “asked” Lord Venn to produce modified T-Models with hidden compartments for smuggling. Lord Venn had refused, and it was an offer that, apparently, could not be refused. He had paid with his life.

 

Whilst Alfonso terrorised the streets in his automobile, Lady Lex plotted. She had the money, the skills, and the determination. The streets needed a hero, or heroine. A woman of mystery.

 

And so began a mission. Converting a T-Model to a mechanical marvel. Customised fuel injectors: to boost the top speed to an amazing fifty five miles per hour for thirty seconds. A retractable gatling gun. Smoke emitters, caltrop droppers, rotating wheel blades. What else? An ejector seat, a flamethrower, and a hidden compartment full of everything a dashing woman of mystery would need – revolver, pipe bomb, knife, cigarillo, and bottle of sloe gin.

 

A woman of mystery needed her vices, after all.

 

The car had to be adapted, of course. She had a metal foot now. For that matter, the metal foot had to be adapted too. No mere lump of steel, this. With a click of her heels, a poison blade would spring out of the tip.

 

Beyond rehabilitation then; the ribs healed, the bruises faded, leading just the forged mettle of the soul. Exercise, to become fitter than ever. Driving – faster, surer, practicing all of the customised car’s particular modifications. And shooting. Yes, if it came to that, she would see Alfonso sporting a bullet between the eyes. The Lady was a Widow, and a Widow harbouring the bittersweet taste of vengeance.

 

But there comes a time in any woman of mystery’s career when the training is complete. Learning may be a never ending passion, but at some point it must turn to action. For what good is learning without action? (and what good is action without learning?)

 

And so, one hot winter night, with the moon under cloud, and soft rain dancing on the streets, the Lady revved up her modified black T model and drove into town. She had a tip that Alfonso would be hustling the docks, demanding protection money for the second time this month. Nobody was a fan of Alfonso – not even his mooks.

 

It took an hour – maybe two – to find Alfonso. He and a large crony (carrying a tire iron) were shaking down to dock workers. The Lady had half a mind to ram him then, and perhaps she would have, were it not the risk to the two workers. Instead she gritted her teeth, bided her time, and waited for Alfonso and his chum to climb into their own car and drive off.

 

She put her foot to the floor and felt the incredible power of her customised T-model. Ten, twenty, THIRTY miles and hour! It was fortunate that the streets were so empty at this time of night. Alfonso was no fool; he spotted the car in pursuit and tried to make his getaway.

 

The two cars roared through the streets, engines humming at the top speed of over FOURTY miles an hour. Wheels screeched against the road as corners were taking at this reckless speed. Axels threatened to unhinge themselves, pistons dared to tremble. And yet for all this speed, the Lady was the better driver, thanks to her practice of driving at such breakneck speeds. And her car had that little extra punch in the engine. FIFTY miles and hour!

 

With such lightning speed, she drew parallel to Alfonso. “Remember Me?” she shouted over the wind and rain. Alfonso merely snarled.

 

She used her cars extra juice to pull ahead and then punched the smoke button. Grey, thick and thoroughly unpleasant smoke belched from her exhaust, blinding Alfonso, who hit the brakes and wrestled with his steering wheel. Despite the juddering suspension, he managed to keep control, and sped up again, trying to ram the Lady.

But the Lady was in control. Next up, the caltrops, scattered over the road behind her, the metal tinkling against the tarmac. Then, the sound of exploding tires, ripped to shreds by the metal spikes. A horrible screeching, and sparks, flying from the grating wheels.

 

“Bastardo!” yelled Alfonso. His car was grinding forward at  barely ten miles and hour now. The Lady  slammed her own breaks and in a well-practiced and elegant manuever turned around to face Alfonso. The Gatling gun popped up from the hood of the car and let rip. Cracck-crack-crack, the sound of a round of rapidfire bullets tearing down the street. Now, Alfonso’s car was on fire, its engine pulverised. The villain emerged from his car, patting down his clothes, and pulling out a revolver.

The Lady wasted no time, and Revved her engine.

 

Crack… Crack-Crack! Alfonso got off three bullets as the Lady charged him. One hit the windscreen, shattering it. Two hit the engine, but without palpable effect. And then the Lady’s car hit him, sending his broken body flying across the street, the revolved tumbling out of his grip, his body tumbling, rolling, until finally coming to a stop in a puddle of rainwater. His limbs were bent at odd angles, his mouth was bloodied and missing several teeth, and bruises were forming on every square inch of his body.

“If you break the streets, the streets will break you!” shouted Lady Lexington. “Beware, villains! Beware the sound of my Rev!”

 

And with another fierce rev of her engine, she was off!

[MoonSimply]

La Puma Negra in

"Cry of the Puma"

 

The bullet rang out in the night in a lone alleyway, drowned out in the cacophony of sounds of Mexico City and the cheering and music of the arena nearby. Footsteps splashing in collected puddles away from the scene trailed away, leaving Carmen Alvarez clutching her stomach as blood seeped through her shirt and jacket, dripping out on the wet concrete as it soaked through. Pure agony on her face as words failed to escape her lips, as if the bullet that had passed through her body had taken the words straight out of her throat as well. Tears mixed with sweat under her luchadora mask, a white and shiney cat eared visage, reflecting back in a now reddening pool of blood and rainwater.

 

As she got on her hands and knees, holding back the tears barely holding herself up, she could only think of the warning that she had been given, the threat. If she were to fight tonight, she would die, one way or another. However, she was not to be deterred by some threat. An obstacle in her way. The mask was part of her, part of her identity and life since leaving Puerto Rico to compete in the larger and prominent Mexican organizations, and regardless she would continue down that alley time and again, wearing the mask of La Santa Gata. 

 

Carmen had always been a fighter since the day she was born, every battle another obstacle on her path to compete for the Women’s Championship belt since leaving the orphanage to join the wrestling business, adorned in the imagery of Christianity as part of her face persona, but she had never truly believed. Carmen has used it as nothing more than gimmick to be sold to people on a t-shirt. Now however was different as she muttered out a silent prayer, standing back up as she walked down the alley way in a daze of adrenaline, carrying herself by her own will power and tenacity. This was her night, her chance to make a name for herself and yet it all couldn’t have been further away as she fell once more and began to crawl.

 

Ears still rang from the shot of the bullet and Carmen’s vision was blurred. There was no one to help her as she continued muttering an old prayer in a voice of which no sound could be heard. There would be no one it appeared coming to help her as she finally fell flat to the ground, clutching her stomach with hands soaked in blood. A copper taste her last meal on this Earth, letting the tears out fully as there was no holding back now, knowing fully well that her chance to compete was over. There would be no parties, no television deals, money, fame, or love of the many anymore. It was now only a dream unfulfilled. Another warning that she hadn’t heeded. All she could do was pray and cry as her vision slowly began to fade and everything became black. 

 

“I want to live…”

 

A sound, a meow. Her eyes opened up again as a cat stood over her body, more a corpse as her skin looked deathly pale in the dim evening light. The cat, a black one, slowly began to move away from her and she was soon compelled, as if renewed in spirit to follow, dragging herself after it in pain far worse than anything she had ever felt. There was no real reasoning with why she was following it, the cat meowing at her as if to prod and push her onward and forward.

 

“I want to live…”

 

Her arm reached out, it was different. It was her arm but something was off, yet it felt so natural, like it had always been like that. A strength that was always there, natural and raw, numbing the pain as she continued to follow the cat. A coughing fit. Blood on the concrete and then there was no more, pressing forward ever so until she was then crawling on all fours and moving ever so faster as the cat continued on, repeating the same line like it was a prayer.

 

“I want to live!”

 

An unnatural cry, like an animal pierced, through the night as Carmen died only for her prayer to be answered by something else as the cat led her out of that alleyway, baptized in her own blood to something far from what she once was. A renewed faith for a remade being.

….

Julius was being followed but from what he didn’t know. He had noticed it while dining at a Gorditas place he knew not far from the arena, drinking and eating as he looked up to a television screen displaying the news. La Santa Gata, an up-and-coming luchadora had failed to appear for a title match against the current champion Condesa Sangria. Across the street he spotted a pair of eyes, cat like and piercing, watching him as he looked for his friend that was supposed to be there by now. Likely, he had to take an alternate route. Dispose of the gun and avoid the cops in case he was pursued.

 

At first, he thought that it was simply a figment of his imagination or just another stray cat of the like as there were many in this part of town, but as he paid for his dinner and left, his friend was still not there. Maybe he had gotten caught at the worst, or maybe he had just gone back home to avoid the police. What mattered was that when he stepped out of the restaurant and bar, two-tone shoes clacking along the pavement of the empty road to cross the street, those eyes were still there, stopping him cold in his tracks right in the middle of the road. Yellow eyes, ones that started right towards him, full of malice and hate from the darkness it dwelled in.

Steeling his nerves, Julius took a few steps back before turning around to walk calmly and away. He’d take the long way home tonight, maybe pick up something for his friend along the way. However, those eyes didn’t stop, continuing to see it just outside the corner of his eye, always present, as if hunting him. It was following him, whatever it was, shouting out as he had now traveled two blocks of the city.

 

“You got a problem with me!” he shouts out, turning back to it as he increases his pace. The eyes weren’t there behind him now, instead moving in on him from the shadows of alley ways and rooftops, closing in. It was then that Julius began to sprint, his resolve failing him as he ran away in terror. Whatever it was, Julius wanted none of it as he ran towards more illuminated and populated neighborhoods. Yet, even as he knocked over people walking along the street in cold terror, it followed him.

“Go away!” he shouted again, fumbling for something in his pocket as he dove through a couple walking home and knocking over a delivery man. It was a revolver, pearl gripped, pulling back the hammer with his thumb as he shot wildly behind him like a madman and causing cries of terror as people ran away from him and his pursuit of this unknown pursuer, “I’m not scared of you. Come at me!”

 

A few more shots ran out, never seeming to hit their intended target as he rounded a corner, splashing his shoes down in a large puddle as he nearly tripped himself. They were right behind him now, those yellow cruel eyes, dodging away from another shot as he fired another .32 caliber bullet. He’d turn to face a chain link fence blocking his path. He’d have to climb it, turning the yellow eyes, like a cat’s own eyes, pulling the trigger only to hear a click without a shot fired forth from its chamber. Julius had run out of ammunition and in a last-ditch effort threw it at the predatory eyes that followed him in the dark as he scrambled over it. 

 

He’d fall down the other side, pants wet as he fell into a puddle before he continued to run before what felt like a weight sent him straight back down to the ground. Pounced upon by an unseen foe. He was then picked up and turned to face the strange being, this creature, crying out in fear as he looked upon its visage before smashed into a brick wall and pinned down.

 

“Tell me what I want to know, and you’ll walk out of this alive and unscathed, unlike your friend!”

 

It’s voice, this thing growled at him, eyes slit, like a large cat’s eyes. It wanted blood, it wanted revenge, and yet, even as this feline thing’s eyes stared into his, a clawed hand glistening in what little light there was, it held back from releasing any sort of final blow. 

 

“What?! What do you want to know?!” he cries out.

 

“Who hired you both to kill me!” it growled at him and suddenly for Julius that voice was recognizable from the television, “We sho…” 

Julius was thrown against the opposite side of the alley, hitting his head against the wall in a haze. Pain filled his body, but nothing like the pain she felt as she held him aloof by his collar, “Yes… you did…”

 

“I’ll talk, I’ll talk alright, Condesa, she paid us to…”

 

“LIAR!!” 

 

Julius is slammed into another wall, “He said that too!”

 

“No no, it’s the truth!” She… she paid us, please God, she’s the one that paid us! O’ please don’t!” he cries out before this beastly figure slashes across his chest before throwing him aside, ripping and tearing his clothes with those claws shined in the dark. It was a non-fatal blow, but he’d be forever scarred not just from such an attack but the horror had experienced as the creature howled out in pain, in anger. Her revenge was not finished. Her hunt was only beginning as the police sirens could be heard.

La Santa Gata had died and something new had taken her place… La Puma Negra!

Edited June 27 by MoonSimply

[Supercape]

The Red Rat in

 

The Iron Age Termirator.

 

The sun had set, the night was born. And all was not well at Yakasuri tower. Thirty floors of prime real estate, and the top floors now filled with hostages from the evil OVERTHROW terrorists. The terrorists had already fired missiles, gas bombs, and a hail of high calibre bullets at the police at the ground level, and had twenty frightened hostages.

 

The police were powerless to act. SWAT teams went over the architectural blue prints again and again, trying to find some angle in, some plausible means of rescue. Negotiators negotiated, without success. Every hour, another hostage was shoved from the top floor, making a grisly death on the pavement below. People were even considering capitulating to the terrorists demands: the immediate release of all incarcerated members of OVERTHROW.

 

“Dammit!” yelled Lt. Powell, smacking his fist onto the blueprints, knocking his coffee over the map. “Double Dammit!” he added, lighting up a cigar to calm his nerves. “These scum got us by the googlies!”

 

“I say we just storm the place,” said Sgt. Robinson, fully kitted out in SWAT gear, his hands resting on a submachine gun by his chest. “Hostages are dead meat. All we can do is make sure we deal with the garbage.”

 

Lt. Powell was having none of it. “They are citizens, dammit! Protect and serve? Remember what you signed up for?”

 

“I signed up to kick ass,” said Robinson.

 

A sleek black truck pulled up by the tactical station, engines rumbling, dry ice fuming from the undercarriage, everything about the truck screamed “ominous coorperate technology.” Men in grey laboratory coats and black tinted goggles scurried out, preparing for the reveal…

 

“What the hell is this?” said Lt Powell.

 

One of the scientists turned to the cop. “Special delivery. Omnicybernetics at your service?”

 

“Omni what?”

 

The scientist smirked. “The future of law enforcement!”

 

With a hiss of steam and powered hinges, the back of the truck opened, releasing a cloud of cool dry ice.

 

One boot at a time, a figure stepped out. Dressed in skin-tight red Kevlar and a pair of dark glasses. A woman, short, but clearly strong.

 

“Meat Robo-Rat!” said the Scientist.

 

“What the hell?” said Robinson. “What’s this, some kinda joke?

 

“Not at all. Robo-Rat is a cyborg, most of her brain is replaced by computer technology. Enhanced reflexes, precision aim. Sub-dermal plating, internal life support. You won’t get a tougher policeman in the force. Built for counter-terrorist operations. Robo-Rat!”

 

“Insert Mission Parameters.” Said the Roborat, in a dull, flat voice.

 

“Show em what you can do.”

 

Robo-Rat strode to the SWAT weapon rack, scanned the available firearms.

 

“Uzi Nine Millimeter,” she commented, picking up one submachine gun in each hand.

 

The scientist, full of pride, turned to the SWAT commander, Robinson. “Say, why don’t you test her out? Point your gun at her. Threaten her.”

 

With a sigh, Robinson pulled out his glock and pointed it at Roborat. “I’m going to shoot you,” he said, lazily.

 

The Roborat brought up both uzi’s. “Put down your weapon and surrender. You have ten microseconds to comply…” she said, and instantly opened fire. The bullets ripped through Robinson, sending him flying into a riddled pool a dozen feet away.

 

“Microseconds?” screamed the scientist. “It was ten SECONDS! Somebody is going to pay for that. I am VERY disappointed!”

 

As the shocked cops started to clean up the bloody mess that used to be Robinson, Roborat scanned the tower building.

 

“I’ll be back,” she said, and started making her way to the building. Even Powell was impressed with the cyborgs silence, stealth. She – it – was like a ninja. With guns.

 

They could follow Roborats progress through the building; a live feed from her cybernetic eyes to the tactical station in the truck. The Roborat cut through defences – electronic security systems fizzed out, ID readers beeped green.

 

“Datalink hacking,” explained the scientist. “Our unit can cut through military grade cybersystems.”

 

And conventional locks, too, it seemed. Extending out one pinky finger, a small skeleton-key system slid out from her digit and made short work of the interior locks. The Red Rat plunged to the basement. Here, the terrorists had set up explosives linked to laser wires.

 

“Infared vision,” said the scientist, pointing at the screen with a smug smile. “Roborat can bypass! Observe!”

 

The two Uzi’s swung up, and, with cybernetic precision, a single bullet was fired out of each machine gun. The synchronised bullets hit both ends of the laser trap simultaneously, shorting it out.

“100% efficiency!” said the scientist, clapping excitedly.

 

The Red Rat strode to the buildings backup generator, and fired two full clips of Uzi’s. The generator fizzed, showering the Red Rat with sparks. She did not blink, her face a stony mask. The lights went out.

 

“Now, for some real action!” said the Scientist. The police huddled closer to the screen, engrossed in the carnage. The Roborat methodically picked her way up thirty flights of stairs. The terrorists were in the dark, progressively terrified. Uzi nine millimeters blazed in the dark. When ammunition ran out, the Roborat used snake style kung fu – steel fingers jabbing into windpipes. She then picked up the weapons of the terrorists, appropriated them, and carried on, guns blazing. Every shot, pin point accuracy.

 

Finally, at the top of the tower, the terrorist leader, his hand on the trigger that would detonate a series of explosives. The explosives were not easily disarmed; for they were strapped to the twenty remaining hostages.

 

“Not another step, cop!” he said, finger on the flashing red button. “Or I blow the whole place!”

 

“Dead or alive. You are coming with me. I am the Law.”

 

She took a step forward, but paused when the terrorist started to press the button.

 

“Stalemate, cop!” laughed the terrorist. “I want a helicopter, ten million pounds, and…”

 

“I do not authorised to negotiate with terrorists. Dead it is,” said the Roborat.

 

“No… wait…” said the Terrorist, nerve failing spectacularly.

 

PEOW!

 

The Roborats Uzi flared on more, releasing a clip of fiver rounds, all delivered within a 2 millimeter square inch, straight through the skull of the terrorist, mushing the brains with a shockwave, destroying the spinal cord at the base of his skull. Even if the terrorist had decided to press the button, there was no connection between his brain and limbs to dail in the command.

 

The hostages, the police, even the scientists all erupted in applause.

 

“Say, Roborat,” said Robinson, talking into the computer microphone. “Do you have any message for the kids watching?”

 

“Stay out of trouble. Don’t do drugs. Obey the Law.”

[RocketLord]

A young man is granted great power. He sets out to use his great power to become rich and famous. He learns a harsh lesson of great responsibility. He vows to use his powers for good. He fights the good fight, even as it wears him down over the years. He loses much, before rising to ever greater heights.

 

Is that how you would expect the story to go?

 

Not this time around.

 

This time around, things are quite different, as the 28 years old Casper Church finds himself standing in a large seemingly empty room in an ASTRO Labs building.

 

Casper looks up at window that overlooks the room. Doctor Benjamin Palmer, his mentor at ASTRO Labs, are looking down at him with a smile and a thumbs up. The other researchers around Doctor Palmer seems less enthusiastic. Some offers him patronizing smiles, others are talking amongst themselves. He knows that they think he is crazy for trying to breach the walls between realities. It is impossible, it is insane, and it is dangerous, but he can’t help himself. Just imagine the possibilities, the knowledge and discoveries that he could bring back, if successful.

 

He looks down at the skintight white and grey suit that he is wearing. At first glance, it appears to be simple, clean and sleek colors, but if you look closer, you can see the tiny panels that make it up. Casper admires the work. He did not manufacture the suit, but it is his design, and it appears that the manufacturing division made it to his exact specifications. This time, at least. Each panel is designed to absorb and reflect aggressive external energies, keeping the wearer safe in an environment filled with potentially hazardous radiation, such as the so-called Z-Space that is theorized to exist as a buffer zone between realities. In theory, at least.

 

Most people call it the Ghost Suit.

 

Several cables are connected to ports on the back of the suit, providing it with energy and tethering Casper to the lab, connected to a massive machine that provides the suit the power it needs. A large circle in the middle of the room is, in theory at least, his point of entry into Z-Space. Doctor Palmer designed the portal. All they need to do is apply power, and send someone who is either brave, stupid or crazy enough to try.

 

Casper supposes that he fits at least one of those categories, but right now, he’s not sure which.

 

“Are you ready to make history, son?” Doctor Palmer’s voice is reassuring to hear.

 

Throwing the final bit of hesitation behind him, Casper pulls on the white mask and pulls up the pair of protective goggles, then returns Doctor Palmer’s thumbs up. With only the slightest bit of hesitation, he steps into the circle.

 

Turning back towards the men behind him, Doctor Palmer smiles. He says something that Casper can’t hear, but he see the others around him laugh, before the blast shields are lowered in front of the windows. They have to keep everyone without a Ghost Suit safe, just in case. Casper knows that they have a frankly crazy number of cameras inside the room, capturing every moment.

 

The circle around him begins to hum to life. Light blue energy glows under his feet. It begins to crackle in the air around him, like lightning. Faint at first, then, gradually more powerful. More random and chaotic, with each passing moment.

 

Casper knows what this is. It is how it is supposed to be. He and Doctor Palmer went through the process of what would happen. He has seen the machine in action before. He has seen things sent through. Seen them disappear, seen them come back. Some things were changed; different from when they went through the portals. The Ghost Suit should help with that.

 

The lightning crackles around him. Well, not lightning. Interdimensional energies. This is just how they appear to his naked eye.

 

He changes the setting on goggles, switching through various wavelengths on the visible spectrum. Once he his x-ray, everything around him stands out in magnificent rainbow colors. It is uncanny, and incredibly beautiful.

 

Casper lets go. He disappears into the rainbow. Before his eyes, colors stretch and explode. He is everything and nothing, all at once. Breaching walls that man were not meant to even know existed.

 

To everyone else, the light blue lightning dances around Casper’s body, as he turns translucent. He is neither here, nor there. In reality, and beyond it. Stretching, growing thin, disappearing, vanishing before their very eyes.

 

And then, the alarm blares throughout the building, as it is rocked by an explosion. The entire building shakes, as the power goes out.

 

Before Doctor Palmer can react, the machine that Casper is tethered begins to spark. Something overloads inside it, dark smoke begins to escape it. Casper screams, caught between the here and the there.

 

The people in the viewing booth barely has time to help him, before the doors are kicked open. Multiple armored and armed men rush inside, shouting angrily and screaming at them.

 

Casper is still screaming. It feels like he is being torn apart.

 

They want knowledge, they want research, they want technology. They are very specific, but it doesn’t really matter what exactly they want. Everyone does as they are told.

 

And Casper is still screaming. He can see through his hand.

 

The apparent leader pushes Doctor Palmer to his knees. The doctor is to come with them. His protest is met with a punch to the face. He falls to his knees with a broken nose. The leader barks more orders.

 

And Casper is still screaming. The rainbow colors are forming closely around him now. It is almost like he is passing through them.

 

Rifles are raised, pointing at the researchers. Doctor Palmer looks up, defiant expression on his face as he yells at them. The first shots are fired. A man screams as he falls to the floor, clutching his shoulder.

 

And like a vengeful ghost, a man clad in white appears through the wall, light blue lightning crackling around his body. He passes through the man that fired the first shot. The man screams and falls to the ground, twitching. Whirling around, almost moving in slow motion, the man in white turns to face the other attackers. They fire. Their bullets pass harmlessly through him.

 

Casper is no longer screaming. He is smiling, as he moves from one assailant to the next. A single touch is all it takes, the energy reaching into them, their nervous systems shutting down, until, finally, the man in white stands before the leader, who is, by now, holding his rifle to Doctor Palmer’s head.

 

He is still shouting. He is going to kill the doctor, or bring him along. One false move, and Doctor Palmer is dead.

 

Not exactly a reassuring thought, but Casper has another idea. With a smile under the white mask, he focuses. He did it before. Passed through the wall. Now, he instead sinks into the floor, and he is gone.

 

The man pushes from the gun at Doctor Palmer’s temple, looking around while continuing to shout threats. He is ready. He will do it, the moment he sees the man in white.

 

Of course, he doesn’t see Casper coming from below, flying up through the man, passing through him. The man screams, dropping his rifle to the floor.

 

Doctor Palmer looks up, utterly shocked, while Casper slowly manages to make contact with the floor. It isn’t easy, but he can do it. At least the doctor was right about one thing.

 

They did make history.

 

This has been Ghost in…

 

ULTIMATE GHOST

[Poncho]

The Star Child and The Living Sun

 

An Elseworld in the style of Jack Kirby in the 1970s, featuring Golden Star

 

From each Sun comes a being. 

 

So long as the Sun lives, so to does the being, and vice-versa. The Sun provides light to it’s system, the Star Child provides light to those within it. A living, breathing embodiment of the power of the Sun, the Star Child is long lived and mighty, defending his Solar System from things that would threaten it. 

 

From Helios is born Heliod, the Star Child of the Helios system. Auburn hair and eyes like the sun, he is a nuclear furnace in a body like a man, birthed with the best and the worst that those that live and die have; their positives and negatives, their triumphs and their tragedies, their superiorities and their flaws. He won’t die until his sun gives out, and will return from being killed for as long as the star shines in the sky.

 

But today, he looks out into the abyss of stars from his home on Mercury, and he watches the stars wink out. Not with their time of dying, not with the proper cycle of the universe, but instead suddenly, without warning, the stars are disappearing, one by one. 

 

For a being born from the Stars, who lives with his star, who is connected to the cycle of the universe, he can not help but feel the sense of loss; of a cycle disrupted, of the lives of such great, eternal things cut suddenly, effortlessly short. But more than that, he feels concern for his own star; for the beings that rely on it, for his own mortality. It is, in its base form, a level of fear that draws Heliod to leave his system; to travel on the waves of light to other stars, traveling across the infinite darkness of space lit only by his own light. He moves fast; faster than light would move, buoyed by solar winds and traveling under his own power, he can move until he enters Alpha Centauri, the closest system to our own. 

 

A three star system of a dwarf, a Class G, and a Class K; Helios itself was Class G, making Heliod most similar to Kentaurus, the child of that star. In the void of Alpha Centauri, Heliod entered the grand floating palace of the three stars, where they had been awaiting his arrival, for a Starchild knows when one is heading to them, leaving a trail and following a lede through the stars.

 

“Our singular cousin, why have you come to us?” asked Kentaurus, who was Heliod but larger. In a recessed period, however, Kentaurus light would dim, and he was in one of those periods now. 

“Do you see the stars going out?” 

 

“We do. But what are we to do? If it is their time, it is their time.” 

“But it is not their time; I see stars go out that should have cycles left.” responded Heliod. Toliman- the paler, smaller star, shook his head. 

 

“It is not the nature of us to venture beyond our borders, to interfere with others. We- you included, cousin- should stay within our own systems; that is our lot. To guard our systems and the people within them from outside forces.”

 

“Is this not an outside force that threatens each of us in turn?” 

 

“If such a thing is true.” Kentaurus said roughly, interrupting him. “we will deal with it when it comes to our system. You may be alone, but we are three, and I am mightier than you. Do not fear so much, Heliod; I have traced the path of the fading stars, and they will reach us before they reach you.” and he turned on his heel and left, Toliman following, for they were always together.

 

“...I fear not for me, but for others.” Heliod said to their retreating backs, but they ignored him. But wise Proxima didn’t. She was not mighty like the other three, but she was wise, and she would outlive any of them; she knew the shape of things, and she knew when to intervene. 

 

“If you fear so much, Heliod.” she said gently. “Why not ask your brother for help? Surely he would listen to you. And what could stop you and Hercules. It is a far journey, and you risk leaving your system undefended...but you are right to feel as if whatever is consuming the stars is a threat to us all.” 

 

“I suppose you are right, Proxima. I bow to your wisdom.”

 

“And I to your might, Heliod. Travel safely.” She responded before following the other two.

 

So the Son of Helios once more went out, flying across the abyss of space. A journey of trillions of kilometers, a span that would take a human more time than their lifespan to cross, even if they moved at the speed of light. Even for Heliod, such travel took time, effort, and energy. It meant time away from his system, from the light of his own sun, from his own comforts. It was not a journey many would make, to go so far from the light of safety; it was akin to striking out from one’s homeland with little more than the clothes on one’s back. But Heliod’s heart would not let him simply watch the stars go out without investigating, so he made his way on. Through the darkness and silence, through the systems of others, graciously greeting those that wished to speak, announcing his presence before entering even to those who ignored his passage. All on his way to HD 162826, and his brother, raised in the same nursery, Hercules.

 

Hercules was far more active then his brother; far more in tune to the civilizations under his watch, far more invested and active in them. He lived between their planets, a god in living form, sprawled in a lavish palace where he existed as a being beyond the scale of regular beings, of those who lived for only a hundred or even a thousand years. 

 

The appearance of a second being of such power would be cause for celebration, for parades and dances in the street, but Heliod had no time for festivals, descending into his brother’s house of leisure in an orb of gold and crimson. 

 

Hercules was larger, stronger, and brighter than Heliod. His red hair was a mane of might, his eyes burning bright and red as he reclined, muscles surging with the strength of his solar home. 

“My own brother! You’ve traveled far from your system to meet me, and without even sending word! Surely you know at least that courtesy, even living all alone on your abandoned rock.” Jovial, in good humor, but utterly and intentionally a part of the people he observed and protected, Hercules was similar but different to his brother; he cared just as much, but he was more a part of those he observed then Heliod, who preferred to intervene only in problems that were beyond the scope of those in his system. Would Hercules be considered corrupted, or overly invested? Certainly. But while that was a flaw, it also meant Heliod had the best chance of convincing him.

 

“Brother, I don’t mean to offend. I am grateful to see you.”

 

“And I you, but I assume this is not a social visit; it’s not in our nature to travel so far for no reason. We are not the kind of people who go on such journeys just to say hello.” he astutely noted.

 

“No, brother. Have you seen the stars going out?”

 

“Of course. It’s a concern, isn’t it? Some of those could be our lost siblings, our family and cousins and neighbors, their lights taken away before their time. Such things could destabilize the universe’s own equilibrium, send it spinning out of control.”

 

“I wish to investigate what’s causing this...I’d like my brother there with me. In case it’s a creature or monster that threatens the stars themselves. Our cousins are so set in their ways they’d barely leave their systems if they could help it; I’d rather be proactive.” 

 

Hercules was silent. The passage of time to the Star Children was simply different than those who lived shorter lives. A pause in speech could be hours, a moment spent in contemplation could be years, a time of meditation decades. But Hercules could never turn down a chance to prove himself, and he had the same insatiable curiosity that his brother had; the kind that set them apart from their siblings. So he grinned a rakish grin and pumped his fist.

 

“Then why do we sit here, brother? Come, let us go and see what threatens our family! We’ll give it what for.” The great Star child Hercules, after all, never lacked for confidence. He and his brother left his palace, two streaks of light, binary stars, into the eternal abyss once more, towards the gap of stars in the sky. 

 

What they met was a Sun. 

 

Living and breathing, a cyclopean eye in the middle of a heated ball of plasma and chemical reactions, solar flares for limbs; lashing wildly like an unchained mad god. Larger than either of the suns that powered Heliod and Hercules, and them only the size of a regular being, they were dwarfs, barely visible specks of insignificance to the massive giant. 

 

“WHO STANDS BEFORE SO-LAR!?” The voice echoed through the silent void of space, threatening to breach and shatter their eardrums and strip the atmosphere from planets in a wash of solar winds and radiation.

 

“Do you consume the stars!?” yelled back Heliod, his voice nothing but the whisper of an ant to the creature. But still So-Lar responded.

 

“I EAT, FOR I AM THE DEVOURER. THE TYRANT STAR, THE LIVING SUN. I EAT, BECAUSE I AM THE LORD OF ALL STARS, AND AS KING, MY SUBJECTS ARE NO MORE THAN OBJECTS FOR MY GRANDEUR.  STAR CHILDREN, YOU ARE LITTLE MORE THAN MY MEAL. AND I HUNGER.”

 

“Come then, you beast! Let us send you back to whatever darkness you crawled from!” yelled Hercules, for he had never been one for talking when there was violence to enact. If Heliod had more he wished to talk about, he had no chance, for he was rather soundly outvoted two to one to begin violence. 

 

So the stars fought across the sky, with the blast of light and heat. It was two hornets against the might of an elephant; So-Lar sent out bolts of solar flares that would consume a planet at creatures only the size of a man, forcing them to desperately dodge, striking back with beams of heat and light pulled from the very core of their own stars, which struck the beastly star as if they had done little more than poked it with a stick. At times the pair dashed into the boiling corona of the Living Sun, hitting it with fists that contained enough energy to propel an entire civilization through space for a hundred years, and it left a mark of their fists, and little more, and their reward was at times the burns of approaching a core that burned even hotter than they did. 

 

But slowly, each began to tire. Even the Star Children could only go for so long; even the seemingly inexhaustible might of their suns, when faced with beings of equal stature, would eventually run dry. But So-Lar was something new, something different. But he was not eternal either. And so a pair of ants continued to bite at the elephant, an inch from disaster at every moment, risking themselves to attempt to continue to simply annoy this mighty, seemingly invulnerable creature into conceding. It was not easy, it was not soft, and it was not quick. The lights filled the sky for years on end, dancing in what had once been the place of another sun, but slowly, So-Lar began to rock; it’s flames weakened, it’s assaults less ferocious. Even as the two Star Siblings weakened, so too did the great creature. With the washing of water at solid stone, they struck again and again, until finally, So-Lar was weak enough that he spoke again.

 

“ENOUGH, ENOUGH, STAR CHILDREN. I TIRE OF THIS! YOU HAVE PROVEN YOUR POINT. THIS GALAXY IS NOT FOR CONSUMPTION.” said the great sun, finally badgered into compliance by the solar siblings. “I WILL TAKE MY LEAVE OF YOU, AND NEVER VISIT THIS BLASTED BACKWATER AGAIN. FEEL RELIEVED, FOR THE TYRANT STAR, THE LIVING SUN, HAS DECIDED YOU ARE NOT WORTH THE EFFORT.” It declared imperiously, before turning and, to it’s word, leaving, slowly picking up speed as it began to hurtle through the cosmos. In some respects, the brothers were happy, but in other respects, it only left them confused at how suddenly this had all ended.

 

“...Did we win?” Heliod asked, his body a mass of burns and bruises, his very core expended.

 

“...Unless he turns back around suddenly, I’m going to take it as one.” responded Hercules, who looked almost as bad as his brother. “To think there are things that consume even the stars themselves.” his voice almost seemed full of wonder, as if he wished to test himself against such grand creatures.

 

“We can only hope they stay far away from us, and far away from our galaxy. It would take more than us to turn the tide against such beings, were more of them to appear.” 

 

“Surely you have more faith in the children of stars than that, brother!?” gasped the mighty Hercules. “Shall a great terror emerge, clearly we would work together to push it back.”

“Hrm, far be it from me to neglect your wisdom, brother. But perhaps I reject your idealism. I would rather not put such assumptions to the test...as much for our beloved people as my own safety.” he said, turning his gaze outwards. “If our fight has damaged any nearby civilizations, we must go and aid them and their stars, it is only right.” 

 

“So be it, brother.” 

 

For the Star children are blessed with incredible strength, fortitude, and speed. They live much longer than terrestrial beings, akin to unaging gods, though they still age and die. And with that life comes a requirement; a belief, and an obligation. They must help those below them, supporting the beings within their systems; nurturing them with the light of the sun, protecting them from outside invaders, defending them from, at times, their own mistakes. It is their joy and their burden, to nurture and shepard, to watch over the best of their beings, to prevent the worst of them. They do not ask why they were created in such a way, they simply observe, assist, and continue; cogs in an eternally shifting, eternally moving machine, always hurtling towards the end of its cycles.