Edited by Shane Lacy Hensley, Teller, Clint Black, Jodi Black,
Ed Wetterman, & Preston DuBose

Cover by Thomas Denmark. Design by Cheyenne Wright

Wendigo Tales is an imprint of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Necessary Evil, all logos, characters, unique creatures, locations, and creations are copyrights of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All Rights Reserved.

WWW.PEGINC.COM

Necessary Evil:

Fallen

By Shane Lacy Hensley

“Why would you call yourself ‘Red Jack?’ That’s not scary. Who’s scared of a guy named Red Jack?”

The Horseman was a creepy guy, I’ll give him that. How he spoke with no head I still don’t really understand. He was real, too. This wasn’t some weird trick or mental effect. The guy actually had no head. Scared the crap out of me.

“Well, that’s kind of the point. If you call yourself ‘Dr. Destruction’ or ‘Vermin’ or ‘Terror’ or something they expect you to be scary. Your hero gears up. He psyches himself up for a big fight. But go into a fight with a skinny guy called ‘Red Jack’ and he thinks it’s gonna be a cakewalk.”

The Horseman might have nodded thoughtfully. Honestly it was hard to tell with no head and all. Nepththys laughed beneath her skull-mask. Golem just sat there like he always does…a big lump of magical, living rock…trying to understand. But Acrobat understood. She knew exactly how deadly I could be. I’d almost finished her off when…well…I’m getting ahead of myself.

Acrobat was on the team because it was the end of the world. Or it was going to be if we didn’t fight the aliens who invaded our planet and killed off everyone who could fight back—including most all our world’s superheroes. Acrobat was one of the rare exceptions who survived. She’d been off moping while the rest were tricked and slaughtered by the scores.

Now we were all that remained. The supervillains. I relished it. I love being in the spotlight.

I looked out the side of the v’sori transport we’d stolen. The back hatch was open and I could see the alien relay station below. We’d already knocked out its defenses. Now we just had to land and deal with the guards.

“Okay, gang. You know the drill. We land the Burninator and hit them hard. No survivors. Sends the wrong message.” I smiled, knowing how much the “no mercy” thing aggravated Acrobat. She was a super strict “no kill” kind of hero. “Golem runs point, Nepththys brings the zombie horde in behind him, and the Horseman catches bullets. Our little Acrobat makes a run for the real prize—the passkey.”

“And where are you?” said Acrobat, as cynically as little Mrs. Sunshine could muster.

“Oh, I’m not going out there. I don’t have any powers. I might get hurt! You guys are the ‘special’ ones. I’m a facilitator.”

It was Acrobat’s first mission with us. She was still sore about me killing her mentor a few months back, but…alien invasions make strange bedfellows. We’d found her when we raided a v’sori caravan last week. Most of the trucks were empty, sadly, but one was carrying prisoners. At first we thought they were civilians, but there was another truck full of costumes, weapons, and other icons of our insane trade. Sally Strucker, a well-known actress in Star City, went in…Acrobat came out. Really, I should have seen it. I mean…same hair, same body shape, same breasts—and I thought I never forgot a nice rack. People make fun of the whole Clark Kent / Superman glasses thing in the comics, but you’d be surprised how far a sparkly mask and a change of demeanor go.

Not buying it? Yeah…I don’t blame you. But there it is. I’ll never make fun of our pal Jimmy Olsen again.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when Acrobat comes out of the vault spoiling for revenge on me. Forget the v’sori who had imprisoned her…forget their 7’ tall shark-like shock troops…she wanted a piece of me. If she wasn’t half-dead already I’m sure she wouldn’t have gone down so easily. Golem did most of the work, but I whacked her on the back of the head with an iron pipe a few times. When her back was turned, of course. I did my part.

“When this is over…”Acrobat said, rubbing the back of her still-bandaged head.

I ignored her. Our liberated alien craft landed hard enough to rattle my perfect white teeth. All I saw out the viewport were Quislings—humans working for the aliens. They fired some sort of assault rifles at the Burninator to little effect. I had rechristened our craft from whatever name the invaders had given it. It said so right on the side in big yellow, spray-painted letters. I had also drawn some rude pictures of v’sori and their savage servants, the k’tharen, doing things to each other that I doubt either race was very interested in actually perpetrating.

Golem exited first as ordered, hitting the ground hard enough to make the Quislings stagger. Nepththys followed, raising her arms and summoning a zombie horde from the ground, then hurling balls of necromantic energy at anyone who still didn’t have a dance partner. She was young and gorgeous. She wore a skintight costume cut in a low v to her navel with a high collar around her long black hair. She capped it off with a skull mask when we were fighting.

Nepththys’ powers are a mystery to me. This was no graveyard, so where did her zombies come from? It made no sense. She could really raise a horde in an actual graveyard, but even in an empty field she could do her thing. She only got a half-dozen or so here, but they were gross and gory and did the trick of distracting the Quislings’ fire. I’ll have to remember to ask her sometime where the stiffs come from.

The Horseman stepped out onto the earth and screamed that freaky banshee wail thing of his. A moment later, a ghostly mare formed beneath him, rising his form up in the air. He raised his headsman’s axe and tore into the guards, cutting bloody swathes while catching tons of automatic fire that did nothing but shred the spirit’s black leather armor. (Another weird metaphysical thing. In a few hours, most of the bullet holes would be gone. Not all…but most. Just weird. There are cosmic rules to all this stuff, but damn if I understand ‘em.)

“Now you, movie star,” I said to Acrobat. She glared holes through me. Fortunately, I have thick skin. “The bunker to the right. Golem will make you a door.”

Acrobat stood and stepped toward the gangplank. She got right in my face. I smelled garlic. She’d eaten the cold pizza I’d left her this morning after all. That was progress. I was going to earn her trust and then…well…you’ll see.

“I’m going to kill you,” said garlic breath.

“We need to work on your dialogue, sweetie. That’s trite. Legacy did better. He begged me to spare you before he died, and the speech he gave…oh…it brought tears to my eyes. Or maybe that was blood. Hard to tell…there was so much of it. Whatever. It was wet. There was sadness. He died.”

Fire burned in her eyes bright as supernovas.

I kicked her out of the Burninator. She landed on her feet. Acrobat wasn’t just her alias. The aliens call the craft a “m’buna.” That must mean “armored repulsorlift outfitted with two laser cannons” in v’sori. Ours only had one laser cannon though, because our pet techie couldn’t get one of them working again after we shot it down and salvaged it.

Chapter Two

“That went well,” hissed Horseman.

It really had. Like clockwork, for the most part.

“Smooth as coffin silk,” Nepththys echoed. She was still working on lines she thought fit with her idiom. Sometimes she got lucky. This wasn’t one of them. I gave her a red grin. I like to encourage the young up-and-comers.

The m’buna landed at our hideout in the ruins of the old Wentworth Memorial Hospital in Tempest, the southeastern arm of Star City. In case you haven’t seen it, our city is an almost perfect eight-pointed star. It was actually created by a cosmic being called the Outsider in May, 1984. Long story. Doesn’t really matter. This tale is about me.

Each point of the island had a name. The hospital was in Tempest, one of the worst parts of town. The v’sori hammered it hard during the war—then just quit before it was leveled for some reason. The aliens knew we were here somewhere but couldn’t figure out exactly where. By the time they did—probably a couple of weeks—we’d move somewhere else.

Half of the hospital’s eight floors stood above ground—ripped open and exposed thanks to a v’sori in the early stages of the war. We had a tech who constructed a signal jammer that masked the m’buna’s energy trail and an image-generating camo net to hide it.

I smiled from ear to ear as we returned to our home in the lower levels—near the morgue where I originally found Nepththys, chilling with the corpses. The wide grin was a talent I had. I was thin, agile, and absolutely mad. I wore a black tuxedo that went quite well with my red skin. I looked like the devil. I won’t deny it was intentional. These days, at least.

Yes, I have red skin. Born that way. Go figure. My social worker said it’s why I turned out so bad. “Look like a devil, act like a devil,” she said. Sadly, I had no other special powers. Just bright red, devil-colored skin. But I was smart and ruthless and I made it work for me.

“It was too easy.” Acrobat wasn’t joining in the good times. “Not a fin in sight.” Fins are the k’tharens I mentioned before, the shark-like killing machines the v’sori use as their shock troops. They’re about 300 pounds of muscle, teeth, and bad attitude.

The Horseman turned toward Acrobat, which was weird, ‘cause again, no head. Why did it matter which way he was turned when he didn’t have ears? “Sometimes you get lucky like that. This one time in Angola…”

“Angola? I thought you were all Sleepy Hollow?” I pried. None of us had known each other three weeks ago.

“Uh…not…exactly…”

I think he shrugged. His shoulders moved anyway.

“You’re all fools. They gave you the passkey,” Acrobat hissed.

“Why would they do that?” said Nepththys as she juggled hissing balls of ice-blue necromantic energy from hand to hand. Her mask was off and I admired her beautiful black hair and strong Egyptian features. I had a thing for her despite her proclivity for playing with the dead. Don’t judge. She was the necromancer, not me.

“We smash,” Golem spoke after thoughtful deliberation.

Acrobat stood, slowly. She was still pretty broken up inside from her capture and Golem’s beating. I think I heard something crunch. She arched her back and stretched, moaning the whole time. It was quite a show. She was still gorgeous despite all we’d done to her. Sally took off her mask and looked around at us with tired eyes. “Don’t you get it? You’re all losers. You never win.”

Nepththys stood and charged up her energy balls, ready to strike at the insult.

“Nepththys, I’d never even heard of you before this. What are you, twelve?”

The Egyptian, who is actually 19, hurled sizzling necrotic energy at Acrobat, but true to her name and despite her pain, Sally ducked and the bolt exploded harmlessly against the wall. Her power had no effect on inorganic material.

Acrobat played it cool and turned to Golem. “You. You’re Al-Maalik’s last conjuration, right? You shouldn’t even be alive. You should have dissipated when he died in the North Point raid. God only knows when you’re just going to crumble.”

Golem frowned. I think she hurt his feelings.

“Horseman. Legacy put you away at least three times on his own, and did you and your cronies ever beat the White Knights? No. Not once. Did you ever get away with a single heist? No. You didn’t. And what do you want with money anyway. YOU HAVE NO HEAD! You’re dead! You’re a freaking GHOST! You can’t eat, you can’t drink, you can’t screw, and evidently you can’t even change your freaking clothes!”

Horseman, bless him, laughed.

I was almost giddy waiting for her to get to me. Literally…I was giggling like a school girl. The live kind. I couldn’t wait.

“Ooooh! Do me! Do me!”

Acrobat really disappointed me. She skipped me. Intentionally. That bitch. I’d get even for it.

She turned back to the group. “You’re being played. I don’t know why, but you tap into that satellite system with those codes and you’re going to figure it out fast.”

Nepththys frowned, thinking. Golem pouted. The Horseman said nothing.

“You really should have done me,” I deadpanned.

Chapter Three

We sat in the makeshift control room our pet scientist had set up for us and stared at the screen. Vigram Patel, formerly a graduate student at Star City University, had everything up and running. He even had a v’sori touchpad so we could enter their strange characters. All we had to do was plug in the passkey. It would be good for about another hour or so before they figured out it was missing and issued new keys.

If it worked, we’d get inside their satellite system. It was a simple communications relay, but one of Dr. Destruction’s other Omega cells had figured out how to ride the signal into the mainframe of a v’sori mothership, bypass the alien firewall…and…hell, I don’t know…do techy stuff. Supposedly it would get deep into their machines and we could go all wikileaks on them.

Dr. Destruction told us three other groups had been given the same task in hopes at least one of us would be successful. Best I could tell from the chatter I picked up on the way back, one of them had wiped, one was successful, and one turned tail and ran.

“So…do it?” Vigram asked.

“Don’t do it,” Acrobat buzz-killed.

“Do it,” Nepththys countered, mostly out of youthful resistance to caution.

“You say another group got the codes too?” said the Horseman.

I nodded, seeing where he was going. “Then let them do it. See what happens.”

“How will we know?” asked Nepththys. “We don’t even know who they are.”

“Can’t you call Destruction?” Acrobat coughed. There was blood on the hand she covered her mouth with.

Nepththys smirked. “That’s not how it works. He contacts us.”

“Easy, Nepf-. Nepththth-. –sys. Sweetie.” Her name was really hard to pronounce. “Our starlet is new to this whole terrorist thing.”

Acrobat burned a hole through me. I’d hit a nerve. It’s hard to think of yourself as a hero when you’re blowing things up. And killing. Even if they’re the invaders. Killing puts you in a whole different place. It doesn’t matter if the cause is worthy—your hands are dirty.

That was good. I wanted her to feel dirty. I wanted to tear her down and make her no better than the rest of us.

Then I’d start helping her. Give her a home. Make her feel like one of the team. She’d find her way again. Then I’d finish it in one terrible moment of sweet betrayal.

I looked at the map we’d been given by Dr. Destruction. “It was either the Violators or Team Null. All the other cells in Tempest are dead or scattered.”

“I can take a look,” said the Horseman. “It’s safest for me.”

The Horseman isn’t invulnerable. All kinds of stuff messes with him—especially magic. The v’sori have some of that in their arsenal, but not a lot. You had to be prepared for the Horseman or he’d wreck you. Of course, before the invasion the schmuck just couldn’t seem to steer clear of the few capes who had the mojo to stop him.

“All right. Do it. Be quick. We don’t want to disappoint dear Dr. Destruction.” I really didn’t. That guy was scary.

Chapter Four

“There was nothing but ruins. They’re all missing. Blood everywhere. The passkey must be a trap.”

Acrobat smirked an “I told you so.”

Vigram reached to close down the laptop when the screen suddenly blinked and Dr. Destruction’s silhouette appeared.

“Red Jack! Why haven’t you synced with the satellite yet? The window is closing, you fool!”

That may not seem all that threatening in print. I mean, supervillains in the comics call everyone “fool” every other panel. But until you’ve actually felt Dr. Destruction’s presence and heard that terrible voice, you really just can’t understand the “How high shall I jump, master?” feeling you get when you hear it.

“Our new recruit says the passkey is all Admiral Ackbar.”

Dr. Destruction said nothing. He obviously didn’t get the reference.

“It’s a trap,” I explained.

“I’ve seen Star Wars,” he grumbled. “I’m trying to decide if I want to crash a manta into you or not for your incompetence.”

“He can do that?” Nepththys whispered.

I shushed her. “Er, Acrobat says we got the passkey too easily. She thinks it might be a setup. And someone definitely wiped out Team Null’s base. That means they had to know we were coming. Is it possible you’ve got a mole on your end?” I’ll admit it. I gulped.

Destruction leaned down into the screen, his metal mask gleaming. “If there’s a leak, it’s one of yours. Team Null was successful. The attack on their hideout happened afterward. They weren’t careful and the v’sori followed them.”

I nodded…and shot Vigram in the head with my .22 pistol. He dropped dead.

Acrobat jumped, spattered with his blood. To her credit, she didn’t scream.

“WHY DID YOU…WHAT ARE YOU…” Dr. Destruction barked. It was weird—almost like he was mad I killed someone. I’ve seen this guy wipe out cities before. Then he got all calm. Maybe he was just concerned because techs like Mr. Patel are so hard to find.

“He was the only one who could have ratted us out,” I explained. “Golem is brainless, Horseman and Nepththys wouldn’t know how to contact the v’sori, and our charming little starlet was locked up in our cell until this morning.”

Destruction sagged a little. I could see him thinking things over, calculating the risks. Then he decided there were none. To him, anyway. “Use passkey. Link to the satellite. Download everything. Transmit it to me. Now. If its’ a trap, hold out and download as long as you can. I’ll send backup. But do it now. I want that data.”

***

Ultimately, it was impatient Nepththys who plugged in the passkey. Vigram’s system connected to something and then Destruction’s secondary program kicked in. It seemed to be working.

Less than three minutes later, the fins showed up.

I mentioned these monsters before, but let me give you a little more detail. They’re 7’ tall humanoids with the muscles of silverback gorillas. They have gray-green skin that’s darker on top and lighter on the bellies. Their heads are small with a crest running up the top. Most of their face is taken up with a big mouth full of nasty teeth. They vaguely resemble shark-men, which is why we call them “fins.” They wear this weird colorful armor that seems more ceremonial than functional and carry a variety of weapons designed to create the biggest, goriest holes in their prey.

Fins are usually led by a v’sori commander. They’re tall, thin, muscled, and have bluish skin that reminds you of the Atlanteans. Most have dark hair which they tend to wear in a braid—whether they’re little girl or boy alien invaders. They dress in stark military uniforms most of the time, but in a fight go for jet black battle armor fitted with wrist-blasters powerful enough to blow up tanks.

Tonight they were blowing up our base. Eight fins stomped through the basement door into our lab with the v’sori commander right behind them. A beam cut right through Acrobat and splattered her all over the green walls. A fin ran up to Nepththys and sliced off an arm with some kind of power blade, then another arm, then her head; all in a fluid, economical motion that I couldn’t help but applaud.

Everyone else in the Burninator seemed perturbed at my enthusiasm.

“Oh come on. They’re just zombies in our clothes.”

Nepththys’ jaw dropped as she watched the carnage through the camera we’d left behind. I think that’s the first time she realized what would happen if she actually fought a fin strike force for real.

“Did you get it?” asked Horseman. He was piloting the m’buna.

Nepththys nodded slowly. We’d set up a relay to send the data directly to our ship before we left. “We got…something. About a terabyte.”

I smiled and picked up the detonator. “I’m sure our patron can do something with it. Now…watch this!” I love explosives.

Even Acrobat couldn’t help watching Nepththys’ vid-screen as a series of charges collapsed the hospital in on the aliens. The fins panicked and ran from the detonations—until they realized they were encircled. The v’sori battle-master just crouched down and put his armored limbs around his head. Good luck with that, friend!

The last charge triggered the big one—the one we always set up when we find a new base. The Wentworth Memorial Hospital was now nothing but a memory.

“Where to now?” Acrobat sounded depressed. She hadn’t had a spare costume to put on the zombies like the rest of us. Her real one was now buried under a thousand tons of concrete. She sat on the floor of the m’buna, holding her knees and hiding herself as best she could. It wasn’t easy being near naked, near dead, and near the person in the world you hate the most.

I ignored her question and looked over her choice in undergarments disapprovingly. “Tsk, tsk. I would have expected something a little more…risqué. Legacy have a thing for granny panties?”

Again, the look.

Acrobat decided to try another tack. “What are you doing with this guy, Nepththys? You seem like a bright kid.”

“Uh, fighting the aliens who took over our world?”

The naked heroine shook her head. “Not with this guy. You can’t trust him. He likes to get you close, then kill you. That’s his thing. Some kind of mommy issue.”

A look of doubt crossed Nepththys’ face for a moment. But just a moment. “Maybe if we were back in the regular world that’d be true. But now we’re the heroes. We’re the ones saving the world. Maybe if you capes had spent more time doing your job instead of posing for cameras and making movie deals you would have figured out the v’sori’s plan before they blew everything up.”

I watched Acrobat’s face. If that hurt her, she didn’t show it. She was a hell of an actress though.

“We’ll be there in 10, guys,” interrupted Horseman. “I’m going low and slow to avoid patrols.”

Acrobat straightened her back a bit. There was that old arrogance I missed.

“Nepththys, have you ever heard the story of the scorpion and the frog?” she said. Oooh. I had. I knew where this was going and I liked it.

“You see, there’s a frog and a scorpion who both want to cross the river. The scorpion can’t swim, so he asks the frog to let him ride on his back. The frog says, ‘No way! You’ll sting me.’ So the scorpion says ‘That would just kill us both. We have a common goal, so help me across the river and I’ll be your friend.’”

Acrobat saw she had Nepththys’ attention. The beautiful Egyptian necromancer listened intently.

“So the scorpion gets up on the frog’s back and the frog starts swimming. Half way across the river, you know what happens?”

Nepththys shook her head.

“The scorpion stings the frog. The frog says ‘What the hell? Now we’re both going to drown!’ The scorpion shrugs and says ‘What did you expect? I’m a scorpion.’”

Nepththys stared at Acrobat for a moment, then slowly nodded.

Acrobat put the cherry on top. “People like him don’t change. He’ll kill you when he feels like it. For fun.”

Nepththys looked at me. I shrugged and smiled.

Acrobat had a little victory. Good. It was her first step to recovering some of her self-esteem. That’s what I wanted before I crushed her.

Chapter Five

Over the next few weeks, Dr. Destruction gave us targets and we’d take them out. We demolished v’sori supply points, hijacked a caravan of nullifier guns, and took over a television station so Destruction could send a message to the people that Omega was winning. (A complete lie.)

Acrobat made a new costume. She used to wear a sort of tight white skinsuit with a red belt and a cutout for that impressive cleavage. Now she wore leather pants, a black tank top, and a leather jacket. She changed her alias to “Mayhem.” She was becoming one of us. I picked on her enough to keep the game up, but little things here and there made her feel like part of the team. Golem was her best buddy, then the Horseman. Nepththys warmed up to her like a little sister and I pretended to be mad. Everything was going according to plan.

We only had one problem. After every attack, a v’sori strike squad was hot on our heels. They weren’t waiting for us when we got there, but they were close. It was almost like they were intercepting Dr. Destructions orders to us, but the doc said they were secure and I believed him.

That left a mole.

So I set a mole trap. I decided we’d hit a couple of k’tharen outposts on our own, and I only told Horseman where we were going. We did the raid…no strike squad.

Next I told Nepththys. Nothing. Golem was pointless. I told Acrobat, now Mayhem. Things went south quick. We hit a guard station in North Point and barely got a hundred yards before a strike team was on us.

“Get us out of here, Horseman!” I barked as the enemy m’buna bounced twin lasers off our hull.

“Faster, Horseman,” Mayhem chimed in. “Genius here shot our only tech so we can’t fix the holes they’re putting through us.”

I pretended to grimace.

A double blast caught us solid. One of the repulsorlift’s whined and sputtered. It was going to go out.

“Let me try something,” said Nepththys, holding on to her restraints for dear life. “I think I can summon something on board their craft.”

This really bugged me. “Even if you can, it just doesn’t make sense. You’re going to summon zombies on an enemy craft? Where there are absolutely no dead bodies, and no ground for them to dig themselves out of.” I wanted to argue with the cosmic Powers That Be that their rules were broken.

Nepththys smiled. “No. But I’ve been experimenting with something else lately.” She rubbed the upside-down ankh on her chest, said some Egyptian mumbo-jumbo, and closed her eyes. A pair of hideous shrieking spirits materialized in front of her…then passed through the walls of the Burninator and out into the night sky.

Nepththys continued concentrating and chanting in ancient Egyptian. Moments later, the enemy m’buna swerved erratically and dropped out of sight…then crashed in a fiery explosion against a distant hillside.

Nepththys let out a loud breath and let go of the ankh. “It worked,” she panted. The girl was young—she hadn’t realized her full potential yet.

***

Horseman took us out over the ocean. We’d do a wide circle for about an hour before slipping back into our new hiding place in South Point. That gave me lots of time to figure out how Mayhem was betraying us.

Nepththys drifted off into sleep. Travel is like a sleeping pill to kids her age. Horseman flew. Golem just stared blankly as always.

“I don’t know how you’re doing it yet, but I’ll figure it out,” I said quietly to Mayhem.

Her face was blank. “Doing what?”

“Telling the v’sori where we’re headed. You were the only one who knew our target tonight.”

“Except for you. Maybe you’re doing it to get the rest of us killed. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

I gave her a half-grin. She was right. I would. But I hadn’t. “I want to search you.”

“I bet you do.”

“If you don’t let me search you, I’m going to kill Nepththys.”

Mayhem was dumbfounded. She thought she was bad now that she’d taken part in our bloody raids, but she wasn’t even in the league that wins tickets to see my league play.

“Do it.”

She stood and dropped the jacket. I walked up and looked her over. Closely. I could smell her perfume. How she managed to get perfume—and keep it on—in the middle of our raids was beyond me.

Mayhem kept the indignant face, but there was chemistry. The kind of chemistry that blows up unless you get the formula just right.

“Find anything?”

“Oh yes,” I said in my best seductive voice.

She played hard to get and kneed me in the crotch. I saw it coming, but let her think she got me. There was pride in her eyes again.

“You’re clean,” I said, finding no transmitter.

“I’ll never be clean again,” she answered.

***

A day later we were nursing our wounds in the Burninator. It was our home now without Vigram to make us a new base. We had it parked under the electronic camo net beneath an overpass in the Docks. Destruction was working on a more permanent site for us but hadn’t found it yet.

Around midnight, Mayhem nudged me awake. She was kneeling beside me on all fours trying to keep her voice down. Everyone else was asleep. (It was hard to tell with Horseman, of course, but we’d learned when he was dormant by the way he hunched up and said nothing.)

I felt Mayhem’s breath in my ear. “It was Golem. Somehow, it was Golem.”

“Impossible,” I answered dismissively. He barely understands what’s going on, and doesn’t have any way of getting a message out even if he did.

“You ever team up with his creator, the Mad Arab? Al-Maalik?” she whispered. She was close. Real close. Boyfriend and girlfriend close. Stockholm syndrome close.

“No.”

“I fought them. The Arab summoned all kinds of servants. Djinn, serpents, and golems. That’s what Golem is. Some kind of super stone golem.”

“So?”

“He never told them what to do, who to attack, when to run.”

I had been a fool. It was so obvious now. “Telepathy. Al-Maalik has a telepathic link to his servants. So…”

Mayhem drew even closer. “He isn’t dead. The v’sori must have him. They’re making him listen in to us through Golem. You told me about our target right in front of him.”

“This is why I loved fighting you,” I said in the pale light of the m’buna’s instruments. “So smart. Such a challenge.” I was careful in my choice of words here. I didn’t mention Legacy. I didn’t want her to remember I’d killed him right at this moment. Not while we were getting on so famously.

“We’ve got to tell Dr. Destruction. Rescue the sorcerer.”

“Yes…” I whispered. “Then we can…” I stopped as I felt Mayhem’s lips on mine.

Chapter Six

“I’ve discovered where they’re holding Al-Maalik,” Dr. Destruction seethed over our stolen m’buna’s vidcom. “He’s in a detention compound in Beachhead, guarded by fins, drones, and a v’sori warlord.”

“Sounds like a job for Dr. Destruction,” I volunteered cheerily. That was way too much heat for our little team.

Destruction leaned in close to the camera. “Assemble your cell. You will rescue the sorcerer at precisely 4:17 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.”

I summoned up my courage. “No offense, doc, but that’s above our pay grade. If you want to kill us just do it.”

“When I want you dead, Red Jack, you will be.”

He let that settle a moment.

“There will be a distraction on the surface that should draw most of the guards. Your task is to bypass the main compound and breach the lower level where Al-Maalik is being held. I will download the schematics to your craft.”

“We’re in, Dr.” Nepththys volunteered for us. Ah, youth.

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” added Mayhem.

“I see Acrobat has taken on a new appearance.” Dr. Destruction sounded almost remorseful. What was with this guy?

“When in Rome…” Mayhem replied.

The doctor paused for a moment. “4:17 p.m. precisely,” he repeated, then signed off.

“Where’d you park Golem?” I asked Horseman. Obviously we couldn’t have the big guy present while we planned the raid.

“There’s a gravel pit down the road,” answered Horseman. “Blends right in.”

“The schematics are here,” Nepththys interrupted. “Seems simple enough. Concrete blocks hold prisoners up top. There’s a lab below where they make drones. Barracks over here. Five guard towers. Command bunker. Then there’s this little building in the corner. Not much more than a door with an elevator behind it.”

Nepththys dragged her fingers across the screen, then pinched. The schematic changed to a three-dimensional diagram of an elevator shaft running down into the guts of Star Island. Once it hit bottom, the graphic rotated and grew into an overhead map showing a series of labs, vaults, and offices.

“This is it. He’s in one of these rooms,” the kid said proudly.

“You’re getting good with this stuff,” I smiled.

Nepththys beamed for a moment, then realized who she was taking to. Mayhem was getting to her. I’d have to make my move soon.

“What about the big guy?” asked our former starlet.

I rubbed my chin and studied the diagram. “Of course we won’t tell him where we’re going. Once we get there we can add him to Dr. Destruction’s distraction. The elevator probably wouldn’t hold him anyway.”

Mayhem nodded. “Think they can do more than just look and listen through him?”

“Whattya mean?” said Horseman.

“Can they control him?”

It was a sobering thought.

Mayhem stood and pulled on a tight leather glove. “If they do, we get to the Arab as fast as we can and kill him. Golem vanishes back to whatever hell he came from.”

Acrobat still hadn’t killed anyone herself—not even the v’sori or fins we’d been fighting over the last few weeks. She knew she was part of it and didn’t deny it, but she hadn’t actually done it with her own two hands. Would she kill Al-Maalik if she had to? I couldn’t wait to find out.

***

We hid in a cloud until 4:16 to wait for the distraction. As we waited, another m’buna circled the camp high overhead, just above the aliens’ gun range. Then the back opened and a six figures came tumbling out! No parachutes opened and they didn’t seem to be able to fly. I zoomed in with our m’buna’s optics. Each figure was handcuffed—likely with the alien nullifiers that negate most superpowers. All of the figures wore costumes and one even had a cape! I recognized him as a villain I’d partnered with in my early days called Vengeance.

Dr. Destruction was raining supervillains down on the compound! I couldn’t quite figure out what was up with the handcuffs, but as they fell, five of the six somehow broke free, which should have returned whatever powers they might have.

One didn’t though. I squinted hard and saw an electrical icon on the unfortunate fellow’s chest. It was the Dynamo. One of the other few surviving superheroes beside Acrobat. He was also one of the most noble. Whatever deal Destruction made, he didn’t take it. At least he landed hard on a fin and killed them both instantly.

Mayhem winced. There was my good girl. She wasn’t dead yet.

The other five, including Vengeance, went into action fast, making their way toward the concrete pens where other supers were held. Fire erupted from the compounds’ guns. Fins and heavily-armored drones—basically human zombies fitted with armor and weapons—came pouring out of the barracks.

“Go!” I said to Horseman.

The spirit dove straight down at the ground. I felt what was likely my last breakfast come up but I held it in. I was far too classy to be seen throwing up everywhere.

Our craft leveled out at the last instant. Horseman skimmed the wall and brought us in fast, stopping on the proverbial dime right next to the elevator entrance.

“Go! Go! Go!” My adrenaline was up. I wanted in, out, and away. This attack was going to draw serious heat fast.

Mayhem was the first out. She bounded for the elevator and entered the code we’d been given. Nepththys was right behind her, raising a pack of undead in her wake to cover our trail and delay any pursuers. Horseman put the m’buna in hover and went next. Golem stepped out and stared at the compound, looking back and forth. The v’sori were already in his head. They knew we were coming.

“They know,” I shouted. “Hurry it up.”

I patted Golem on the back, pointed toward where the other villains were fighting, and said “That way, big guy.” Fortunately a stray blast from a k’tharen hit our rocky champion square in the chest and roused his ire. He bellowed in rage and stomped off toward the offending alien.

Destruction promised the v’sori sicentists below wouldn’t be able to shut down the elevator. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but he did. We went down maybe a hundred feet…fast.

“I’ll go first,” said Horseman. The doors opened and he leapt out—his ghostly mare appearing before him as he burst forth. A few v’sori guards fired blaster rifles at him but they had no effect.

Nepththys came out next, blasting away with necrotic energy that rotted away the guards’ grayish flesh as it hit.

Mayhem charged out right behind Nepththys, dodging blasts and going to work with her fists. She got in among two guards, smashed one in its flat gray nose, then twisted his weapon arm and broke it with a snap. Sally Strucker had really turned a corner. It was frightening and sexy all at the same time.

Horseman raged on down the hall toward another patch of guards, Nepththys following after. I pointed Mayhem toward the labs in the other direction and strode quickly forward. “This way. Let’s get Al-Maalik and get out of here.”

We had enough charges to open all the doors and stun grenades to quiet down any resistance inside. The first two were empty, the third held some weird aquatic being I’d never seen before, and the third held two v’sori scientists and our dear friend, Al-Maalik. The Mad Arab was strapped to a table with wires running from his temple to a bank of monitors and other weird machines. His eyes were wide open but he wasn’t looking at us. I had the feeling he was looking through something else’s eyes—likely Golem’s—and he had been going this way for weeks.

Mayhem rushed in and unstrapped Al-Maalik. The v’sori scientists backed off to a corner. I stepped forward and put two rounds into each.

I heard Horseman’s baying mare echo down the hall. Nepththys slid into our doorway, catching herself on the frame. “Got him? Horseman’s holding off the last of them. Let’s go!” she panted.

I heartily agreed. Mayhem and I carried the dazed Al-Maalik down the corridor while Nepththys hurled necrotic energy at any remaining v’sori who showed their faces. We got to the elevator and I pushed the pad to open the doors.

KERRANGGG!!!

The entire elevator car collapsed before us in a massive crash. The four of us tumbled backward and fell sprawling. The concussion dazed us and smoke and dust from the rock walls clouded our vision. But I knew what I’d see when it cleared.

***

Golem stood in the ruins of the elevator shaft. His glowing yellow eyes burned with infernal hate as he saw his creator lying on the floor. I shot the sorcerer a glance, but his mind was far, far away. He’d been tortured for too long. His rage and pain were flowing to Golem.

I reached to draw my pistol but was still too dazed. Golem stomped forward, out of the elevator shaft and into the tight corridor. He reached for my head with his massive hands.

Bolts of energy smashed into him from behind me. Nepththys. She was staggering from shock but summoning up everything she had left. She screamed something in Egyptian and threw bolt after bolt into Golem’s rock hide. It had little effect. I rolled out of the way as Golem stomped past me and watched in horror as he wrapped his huge hand around Nepththys’ tiny waist and crushed. Her spine cracked like a thunderbolt.

“NO!” It was Mayhem. She jumped up on the rock monsters’ back and pounded with all her might. She was strong, but even with all her pent-up rage—for Nepththys, for her lover, Legacy, and likely for all the hate she had at herself for becoming the very thing she despised—there was no effect.

I drew the pistol and aimed at Al-Maalik. “Sorry, buddy,” I snapped. Before I could fire Golem grabbed my hand…and crushed it. Flesh, bone, and the remains of my pistol all mashed together in pain and blood.

The sorcerer, still on his knees, turned toward me with wild, insane eyes and cackled madly. Golem raised his fist to finish me.

Horseman and his ghostly mare smashed into him. The giant reeled, staggering back into the elevator shaft. Mayhem leapt to the side and landed on her feet next to Al-Maalik. She had watched as we killed the invaders who had subjugated our world, but she’d never killed one herself. Now she had to kill another human. She had told us all she would, but as I looked into her eyes I saw the conflict had returned. Acrobat was still in there, fighting with Mayhem over what to do.

“Do it!” I screamed, holding my ruined hand with the other and crawling away from the fight between Golem and Horseman. “Or we’re all dead!”

Blasts of energy shot down the corridor. The remaining v’sori guards had regrouped. The smoke and dust obscured us but it wouldn’t be long before sheer firepower brought us down.

“Do it!” I barked at Mayhem again.

Mayhem screamed at the top of her lungs at the sky…at the cruel fates that had brought her to ally with the murderer of her lover and forced her to kill.

Then she did it. She grabbed Al-Maallik’s head and twisted his scrawny neck.

Golem crumbled into a pile of rocks with a terrible, soul-rending moan.

The next few seconds were a blur. Horseman somehow gathered up Mayhem and me on the back of his ghostly steed and ran up the elevator shaft! I’d seen him do this trick once before on the side of a skyscraper, but as we raced up the tunnel my mind reeled. The v’sori below fired up the black hole but hit nothing. In moments, we broke into daylight.

The battle was still going on. I saw the supers who had descended earlier leading prisoners to the center of the compound, fighting off k’tharens and drones from all sides. The guard towers were all smoking ruins and the m’buna that had dropped them earlier was zooming in for pickup. Somehow I knew Dr. Destruction himself piloted that craft.

Horseman dropped us and bolted into the Burninator. “Board!” he yelled as he saw a trio of fins heading our way. Bolts of energy streaked over our head and slammed into the hovering m’buna, shaking it and causing it to start spinning out of control even as it rose into the air. I was halfway in—Mayhem was right behind me. I grabbed her hand and held on with all my might as she tried to swing herself up into the craft.

The shark-like k’tharens fired at us from below—a hail of poorly-aimed energy blasts fired with more rage than skill.

This was it. This was the moment. I looked into Sally’s eyes and let my malice show in my wide, evil, smile. She knew. In that moment, she knew everything. And she was Acrobat again. I saw the hurt in her eyes. She knew I had torn her down then built her up just so I could tear her down again. She knew that night in the darkness I was laughing at her the whole time. Everything I’d done was for this final knife in the back. This final betrayal. I only had to let go and she would spin dizzily toward the earth and break her back in front of the vengeful and always hungry k’tharens.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I am a scorpion,” I replied, and released my grip.

But Acrobat didn’t fall. Mayhem looked back at me with her own cruel grin. She had lashed her belt around the m’buna’s strut. She smiled as she reached up, grabbed me by my collar, and hurled me from the rapidly ascending vessel.

I spun as if in slow motion toward the ground. The fins took shots as I fell for pure sport, hitting me at least once as I stared up at Mayhem…slowly spinning out of sight. There was no last one-liner. No pithy quote to send me to Hell. Just a satisfied smile as I plunged to my doom.

Sally was wrong about one thing though, I thought as I descended. The villains don’t always lose. I had twisted her inside out. And regardless of the cause or the necessity of it, I’d brought her to murder. Her soul was now as black as mine. Even if she and the rest of Omega defeated the aliens and reclaimed our world, she would no longer be a hero. She would forever remain a villain.

Acrobat was dead. There was nothing left but Mayhem.

I cackled madly all the way to earth.

About the Author

Shane Hensley is the founder of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and the creator of Deadlands, Savage Worlds, and many other games. He has also served as an Executive Producer on several major computer games, written multiple novels, short stories, and comic books, and designed dozens of table-top games. He lives in beautiful Arizona and is part-lizard.