Post by HoM on May 1, 2018 14:59:34 GMT -5
Whistling quietly to himself, the telepathic villain known as Psimon traced his bony fingers along the cold brick walls of Santa Prisca’s dreaded Peña Duro penitentiary, making his way to his next victim’s cell.
In the last twenty-four hours, he’d done the dirty work of the Society, and now he got what he wanted-- the opportunity to shred someone’s personality into strips and staple it back together however he wanted.
He’d done it before on transients and people that wouldn’t be missed. Hitchhikers. Idiot teens spending their spring break thumbing a ride down the US 20, 3,365 miles of practice, practice, practice.
Amanda Waller would be his masterpiece. He fantasized about the degradation, the humiliation, and when he opened the door to her cell and she wasn’t where he left her-- strapped in the electric chair he’d had one of Bane’s lackies drag from the depths of the prison-- he was utterly bemused.
And then he was smashed in the head so hard that the plastic casing that covered his brain was suddenly a spider’s web of cracks, and then again, even harder, so that the protective covering near disintegrated. He cried out in shock more than pain, but then the blows didn’t stop coming.
“Bastard--!”
Taking a breath, Waller held the busted wooden arm of the chair, a makeshift bludgeon that did its job perfectly, and looked at Psimon, twitching on the floor. She didn’t bother stopping, until she knew the job was done.
“You--!”
thud
“--Shouldn’t have--!”
thud
“-- Bought my--!”
squelch
“-- Family into--!”
squelch
“--This!”
Black blood and liquified brain ran from the gored mess that had been dead Simon Jones’ head. Those who knew him wouldn’t have recognised him, due to the unrecognisable state of his skull. He was dead. Irrevocably dead. There were no involuntarily twitches. No movement. His corpse was a message, and she’d be damned if it wasn’t the last one she left for these bastards today.
She had her broken hand tucked under her other arm, keeping it out of use from when she had shattered her thumb and beyond to escape her restraints. She was lucky. She knew that. If he’d been any less arrogant, any less presumptuous about his position in this situation, he might have been more careful, but no, for all his power Psimon was stupid, and that’s why Project: Twilight was a necessity.
“Well done, Ms Waller. Time we made our exit?” said Lex Luthor, looking on from his vantage point in his own cell.
“Keep quiet, and we may just make it out of here,” she replied, taking the keys from Psimon’s belt and unlocking his cell.
“And your friend?” he asked, gesturing to where the emaciated June Moone was locked up.
Waller nodded. “Unlock her cell. I’m not dying here, Luthor, and neither are the pair of you. And by god you need a shave.”
Amused, Luthor stroked his tangled beard, and then did as he was told to do. She wondered how long he’d been here, and her spy senses were on overdrive. Something wasn’t right but unpicking it would have to wait until later.
In agony, Batman tried to staunch the bloody stab wound in his side with his hand, but it was like sticking your finger into a dam as cracks began to form-- mostly pointless, and hell, you’re about to drown anyway. “You… what did you just say?”
Somehow, despite himself, he’d been distracted by Catman, or rather, a voice coming from Thomas Blake’s mouth that wasn’t his own. The words echoed in his head, along with the sound of his heart beating mercilessly in an attempt to pour the blood out of the hole under his rib cage:
“I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”
A familiar voice, that of Vic Sage, the Question. But how? How was that even possible?
“You heard it too?” said Catman. There was anger in his voice, but also fear. Like some secret he’d been trying to keep has suddenly been released to the world.
“What… hh…” The Dark Knight took a small tube from his utility belt and in one quick movement-- before Catman could think to slap it out of his hand-- he pushed the nozzle, no bigger than a 2B pencil lead, into the wound and pressed down on the release button, filling the injury with an epoxy that quickly filled up to prevent further blood loss.
Catman surged forward, brutally swatted Batman’s hand away from his wound, and put his hands around the Dark Knight’s throat. “Godammit, did you hear him? Did he get loud enough for you to hear?”
Dazed from blood loss, exhausted from the day he’d had without any moment of respite or rest, the Caped Crusader “What-- what’re you-- talking--”
Catman drew his bowie knife again with his right hand, swiped toward Batman’s throat with the intent to kill, only for his own left hand to grab himself by the right wrist.
“No-- what’re--? Don’t-- get offa me--? I won’t let you-- no-- not him-- stop-- no!”
Almost absurdly, almost comedically, Blake punched himself in the face full force, and toppled backward, leaving the Dark Knight confused but with a second wind he couldn’t go to waste. He restrained Catman, cuffed one hand and then the other, rolling him onto his front and shoving his knee into the back of the villain.
“What’s going on, Blake?”
“Not-- not me-- it’s him-- he’s-- he’s in my head--!” growled Catman.
“Who? Tell me-- who?” Batman wrenched him back by the hair, causing the villain to whine.
“You know who! It’s him--! It’s me, B. I’m in his head. Don’t know how. Can’t-- nnaaaaah!”
The Dark Knight grimaced, this didn’t make any sense to him, but it was a part of a puzzle that he didn’t have all the pieces to, nor the imagination to extrapolate what the jigsaw would eventually look like. It was as if he had a smattering of edge pieces, but nothing making up the centre.
Knowing there was more he needed to do, he turned-- only for the lights to turn off as-- unbeknownst to him-- the Parasite escaped the central control pod in the heart of Project: Twilight’s operations!
Lex Luthor was complaining, fiddling nervously with the pistol he’d been handed a couple of minutes before. “…Amanda, I’m just saying, these little pea-shooters we took from the guards you knocked out with that club of yours aren’t going to do anything against the muscle the Society will throw our way once they find out what you did to Psimon.”
“Don’t care. Shut up,” replied Waller, making sure-- for the third time in the last minute-- that her own weapon was loaded.
They’d come across a pair of Peña Duro’s screws, ex-prisoners who’d worked up the food chain until their roles had become reversed with those who used to guard them. Waller took the first one out thanks to the element of surprise.
The chair arm crushed the tattooed one’s orbital bone into organic dust and fractured his nasal bridge into too many pieces, meanwhile Luthor had gone for the pierced one’s knees, driving his shoulders into the back of them and driving the guard to the ground.
Waller followed up her first blow, the one that had caused the tattooed one to wet himself and start crying, with another to the back of the head, and it was successful in stopping his mewling. She looked down at Luthor, who was currently reaping the benefits of the element of surprise and punching the pierced one’s face as if it belonged to someone else entirely. She couldn’t exactly make out what he was mumbling incoherently, but it sounded like ‘allen’ and maybe ‘crypt onion’, and then things fell into place, and she felt something curdle in her stomach.
“Working through some things, Luthor?” she said.
Having beaten his target into unconsciousness, Luthor ran his bloodied hands across his bald head, leaving streaks of crimson across his temples. “We all have our things we need to get out our systems, Amanda.”
Back to the present, a woman’s voice pulled Waller out of her memory, and she turned to see June Moone lagging behind them.
“I don’t… I don’t feel well…” Moone mumbled.
The young woman was trailing behind them, her body shaking as she dragged herself against the wall. She looked pale and sickly and the Wall couldn’t help but think that whatever had separated Moone from the Enchantress had contributed to her current state.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. We just need to find--”
The trio turned a corner, and Luthor was surprised to see Deathstroke standing there. The master assassin had his back to them, his two-tone mask peeled up to reveal a goateed chin, and he was smoking a cigarette casually.
So, Lex raised his pistol and without any hesitation or a hint of nerves he emptied the entire clip of the pistol into Slade Wilson’s back-- the impact sent the Terminator spinning awkwardly over the nearby hand rail and down into the pit of the prison below without a word.
“You… do you know who that was?” asked Waller, utterly taken aback by the turn of events.
“Yes! Of course I do! Why aren’t we running?!” barked Lex, already half way down the nearest corridor away from the scene of his crime.
Dragging the restrained Catman by the hair on the back of his head, Batman turned a corner and was horrified by what he saw in the control room of Project: Twilight.
Despite himself, and more than likely due to the barely patched hole in his side and the ordeal he’d just gone through with an old friend’s voice coming from an old enemy’s mouth, he didn’t manage to hide his true feelings-- there was no mask. Just horror.
Pale as the moon and laying in a pool of his own blood-- no doubt thanks to the small hole in his chest-- the Man of Steel was currently being examined by the horrific sight of the Parasite, his gnarled fingers stroking the Kryptonian’s temples gently.
The creature formerly known as Rudy Jones was thin, his withered body covered in callouses and scar-tissue. There were horrible wounds that showed too much of his mutated innards
Like some horrific, land-based lamprey, the razor sharp rows within rows within rows of teeth in his mouth chattered, and with his eyes locked on the Dark Knight, he hungrily hissed, “About time.”
Before Batman could respond, Blake took a step forward, a manic look on his face. “Him! He did this to me! He put me in here! Wait, what’s that-- something’s coming--”
“GOT MY SECOND WIND!” howled Killer Croc, barrelling toward the Bat and the Cat, as the Suicide Squad swarmed onto the scene--!
The pair of animal-themed capes looked at each other, and then both of them dodged to either side of the doorway, allowing the newly arrived Croc to hurtle inside, and with a swift arc of his hand, a bolo taken from the back of Blake’s belt was thrown by Batman, ensnaring the reptilian beast’s ankles.
“His powers are back…” said Batman, his words coming out of his mouth accompanied by a swill of blood. He was a mess. He wasn’t holding it together. And now Killer Croc was back on the scene, back to seemingly full power after being caught by Project: Twilight’s rays?
Croc tumbled forward, his muscular mass crashing into a bank of computers, and it was all the chaos the Parasite needed to make his exit, his body beginning to fill out and the wounds on his body beginning to heal.
“I can help! Let me-- don’t trust him-- let me outta these things! Stop talking! STOP TALKING!” shouted Blake, turning so his handcuffed wrists were on show.
“Shut up,” replied Batman, trying to put that puzzle out his head for the time being.
He rushed over to the array, ignored the flare that was hissing inside the main tube, and thought he caught a glimpse of a rat’s tail in it’s bowels. Blood loss, he thought, trying to focus on the task at hand. He placed a device on the base of the device, then fell to his knees by Superman’s side, desperately trying to find a pulse.
The pads on his fingertips contained micro-computer pads, linked in with the suit’s onboard computer. It wasn’t much, but the skin contact allowed for a rudimentary medical scan, an amplification of biological signals, anything to give the Caped Crusader an idea of what was going on with his friend. He pressed a button on his chest emblem, and the battered and bullet riddled costume complied, strobing flashes of sunlight suddenly being projected from yellow sun batteries that lined his armour.
“Come on… come on…” he whispered.
Then there was a strafe of bullets by his foot, so the Dark Knight’s focus abruptly changed, but not before a boomerang struck him in the chest, shattering the projector that had been illuminating the face of the Man of Tomorrow as colour began to return to his cheeks.
“Did you miss us, mate?” asked Captain Boomerang, holding three boomerangs between his fingerless-gloved fingers.
Pained, the Dark Knight looked up and saw Croc tearing at the line around his ankles, but in front of the beast were Boomerang, Deadshot and Flagg, the first of the latter two aiming his wrist-mounted guns while the other held up his assault rifle.
“Could’a killed you then, Bats. Only reason I didn’t is the boss wants it to be slow,” said Deadshot, lowering his hands.
Flagg nodded. “Came a long way to finish this, vigilante.”
“Yet you keep missing the most obvious thing about the situation,” replied Batman.
“And what’s that?” replied Deadshot.
Batman stood, hands raised. “Firstly, and not the most obvious thing, but the man who actually attacked Waller. He’s sat right there.”
Flagg looked up his shoulder, to where Catman struggled. “It was me. I did it.”
“Don’t listen to him, Rick,” said Enchantress, appearing behind Flagg and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She whispered in his ear, and the soldier twitched and grimaced at her words. “You know it was the Bat-Man. You know who orchestrated this whole thing. It was him. Always him. Remember.”
“Boss?” said Deadshot, confused by the display.
“Heya, folks! We took care of the rest of the soldiers outside, but it feels a bit naughty beatin’ on our own, don’t ya think?” said Harley Quinn, her sledgehammer dragging behind her. “Oh, hey Bats!”
“¿Por qué no has matado ese pedazo de mierda? He’s right there!” She was accompanied by El Diablo, who was building a sphere of fire between his palms.
“That’s not the obvious thing, Flagg. You’re missing the most obvious thing,” continued Batman.
“Talk, you bastard!” shouted Flagg, pointing his rifle in the Caped Crusader’s direction.
Batman smiled. “Killer Croc’s powers came back. Parasite is sloughing the abilities he stole while hooked up to that machine--” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, at the centre column where trace amounts of purple blood stained the control rods that had once held the Parasite in place. He was putting pieces together fast, trying to put at least one puzzle together while he could still stand. “-- So you know what that means?”
“…What?” said Flagg.
His rifle was suddenly red hot, and he had to drop it abruptly.
“It means my powers are back too,” said Superman the hole in his chest healed, his eyes burning red after using his heat vision on Flagg’s weapon of choice.
“Take-- them-- down--!” said Flagg--
--Only for Wonder Woman to crash through the ceiling and punch Killer Croc out with one echoing blow, and rolling to a stop next to her haggard friends. “Sorry for the delay, boys. I’ve called the others, but they’re still mopping up the breakout at Belle Reve.”
“Better late than never,” replied Superman.
Enchantress hissed and shrieked something inhuman, and Flagg’s eyes opened wide, pulsating crackling black energy. Quinn looked at Diablo, who shrugged, and then the team rushed forward, head-to-head with the trinity of superheroes.
Having flipped his body impressively over so that the handcuffs that held him fast were now at his front, Catman reluctantly knew better than to push his luck. The voice in the back of his head had become a massive liability, one he couldn’t explain even if he tried. Thing was, he thought he had it under control. He thought he’d kept it under wraps. He was just lucky that the strike team-- the ravaged Shreck and the dismantled Toyman-- hadn’t been witness to his breakdown.
“Psst. Thomas. Down here!”
Blake looked down at saw Toyman’s head mounted on his hand. That was a strange sight.
“What… what’re you doing?” he asked.
“While everyone was talking, I placed the tracer on the main array. I’ve signalled Warp. Our pick-up is coming. I even managed to get all my body parts in a nice pile in the corner. Hold up your hands.”
Blake grinned as Toyman aimed a robotic finger at the former’s handcuff’s and the tip of the digit swung off to reveal a laser pointer. The cuffs were off in seconds, and just in time too--
“HRRR… BAT… BATMAN?” growled a severely concussed Killer Croc, looking Catman’s way with tiny eyes.
“…No?” said Blake, somewhat unconvincingly.
“BATMANNNNN!” bellowed Killer Croc, swiping forward just as the vampiric Shreck, with his face somewhat grown back after its exposure to holy water, stepped between the two, and was disembowelled for his troubles.
“Oh for fu--” started Shreck, only for Harley Quinn to knock him out with a swing of her hammer.
“Naughty, naughty, can’t have you talking that kinda language, can we?” she said.
“Quinn, listen to me, this is bigger than anything you think. The Society sent us here, we’re supposed to secure that array, and get you-- as many of you-- away. Out of the government’s clutches,” said Catman.
Bemused, Harley looked down at Shreck, as he collected his intestines, then back at where El Diablo was chucking fireballs at Superman, Enchantress was trying to entangle Wonder Woman with mystical tendrils, and Batman was duelling Captain Boomerang and Deadshot at the same time. Flagg was on his knees, shaking, and here was Harley, stood in front of Catman, hearing that she might have an out for the first time since she was locked up in Belle Reve…
“…Nah,” said Harley, swinging her mallet across Catman’s jaw, ending him flying into the wall behind him.
“Oh mon Dieu,” whispered Warp, peeking out from the portal he’d formed in space. He was surveying the scene, watching as heroes fought villains, but he had one job, and one alone, and it involved lifting the Project: Twilight array out from under the government’s noses. A few seconds more, and he’d be gone, without a trace…
With his hands shaking from the adrenaline fuelled panic that came with the Project: Twilight complex going into lockdown, Doctor Leonard Starkey frantically pushed his personal pass code into the keypad next to the panic room door and sighed in relief as it swung open and he made it inside.
“Hold on, Leonard! Hold on!” shouted Acting-Director Lambert, careening down the corridor toward him.
“You shot Superman, you absolute moron! I’m not sharing this bunker with the likes of you!” replied Starkey, closing the door in Lambert’s face.
The Acting-Directory nearly fell into the sealed door, and then began pounding his hands against the cold metal that kept him from safety. There were numerous of these bunkers throughout the complex, each accessible by a specific code and a DNA swab taken via the finger, and once you were inside, you could survive nuclear Armageddon. But outside? Sufficed to say, if an angry Kryptonian wanted to find you, he could with ease.
Lambert slunk down in front of the door and began to sob. “no no no no noooo”
Inside the panic room, Starkey was quick to note that the emergency lights hadn’t activated upon his entry, which he thought was awfully strange. He groped his way across the room toward the security console, so he could see what was going on outside, but before he made it that far a soft voice whispered out of the dark…
“Hello, Doctor Starkey.”
He abruptly turned, and the room’s lights finally activated-- for a split second or more he was blinded-- but as his vision cleared-- he saw the Parasite begin to walk toward him. Jones was no longer a hollowed-out mess. He’d regained muscle mass and his teeth glinted with hungry saliva. No longer was he the energy source for the Project: Twilight array. No longer was he at Starkey’s mercies.
“Wh-what? How is this possible?!”
Leonard stumbled backwards, fell over his own feet, and then began to crawl backwards as, ever so slowly, the Parasite walked toward him, taking all the time in the world.
Parasite held up his hand and revealed thin fingers, still not restored to their previous state. “You turned my powers against me. Sucked them up into that satellite of yours. But then… Superman freed me. And after I let go of all that ill-gotten power… I got better. Sure, I’ll need some body mass to grow everything back properly, but I have a few ideas on that.”
Leonard shook his head as he bumped up against a computer node. “Please, I was only-- I was only--”
Moving in a blur, Parasite wrenched Starkey up and smiled through malformed lips.
“You wanted to know how I became a bogeyman. How I went from the addict who couldn’t keep what he took from Superman to the man every villain, every hero in the world feared.”
He jabbed his finger into Starkey’s forehead.
“I ate my way to the top of the food chain. I ate another one like me, so I could retain the powers I stole. I ate a psychic, so I could keep the memories I took without damaging my own brain.”
He leaned in and whispered into Starkey’s ear.
“Billy Batson, some orphan kid reporter from Fawcett City, is Captain Marvel.”
“Wh-what? Why are you--” gibbered Starkey.
Parasite slapped him across the face and continued to rant.
“I ate a dozen MENSA members from all corners of the world so that I was always the smartest man in the room, and yes, it left them slobbering retards, but I’m not in this to make friends, Leonard!”
He leaned in again, and whispered, “Bruce Wayne, first son of Gotham City, is the Batman.”
Sobbing, Starkey shut his eyes, trying not to look into the vast pit of the Parasite’s mouth as he spoke. “Please, please, I don’t-- I don’t want to know this--”
“Shut up. And the only time I tested myself against the superheroes, I stole the memories of a man who knew all their identities. I stole the life of the Question. And now I know enough secrets to be left alone forever… but comfortable in the fact that if I ever get hungry, or bored…”
He laughed and then whispered again, “…I can go pay a visit to Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, and become Superman when I finish eating him all the way up.”
Parasite wrenched Starkey up and with his weak-looking hand, reached toward his head. Globules of energy seemed to pass from Leonard’s face to Parasite’s fingers as he got closer, and it seemed to take on mass where there hadn’t been any previously.
Leonard screamed all the while.
Licking his scarred lips, Parasite nodded at what he was about to unleash on the man. “Shall we begin?”
“My, my. It’s here,” said Scandal, watching as Warp pulled the Project: Twilight array into the courtyard of the prison. The space was clear, ready for arrival, and the guards lining the walls above their heads all had their weapons aimed down at the event horizon of the Frenchman’s tear in space.
Stood beside her oldest friend, Talia Al Ghul nodded, but seemed uneasy. “I wanted Deathstroke to be present during the drop-off.”
“Concerned?” asked Scandal. Being the daughter of an immortal was lonely business, especially when he hated you so much. Having a friend like Talia meant a lot, and that meant when it came to leading an international criminal syndicate, you leapt at the chance if it involved a woman you considered a sister.
“Pragmatic,” replied Talia.
Scandal smiled. “Ah. The curse of being the children of immortals.”
The Twilight device landed with a thud, and through the hole in space that Warp had tunnelled through, if you were looking, you could see Batman’s eyes narrow into slits, even as he dodged Digger Harkness’ latest deluge of boomerang-based offense.
“No,” you would have heard him say, and you might have seen him point a finger-- and the device he’d placed inside the control tube earlier, would have triggered at the gesture-- just as the portal sealed shut-- and the resulting explosion--
Wordlessly, Scandal and Talia were thrown backwards as the Twilight array was fried from the inside out, and the concussive-- yet not fragmentary or incendiary explosive-- blast wave cracked the walls of Peña Duro.
Superheated metal turned to slag, and the device was rendered useless, as powerful as a scrap heap.
Caught in the pulse of the blast, Warp tumbled head over heel, only to be caught in a choke hold by Amanda Waller, who’d watched from the shadows as the events played out. Moone wept quietly, cradled by Luthor, who stared grimly at Waller, the woman who held their fate in her hands.
“Take us to wherever you dragged that machine from,” she demanded.
“ulp! vos désirs sont des ordres!” he replied, and he opened a portal that Luthor and Moone rushed through, while Amanda followed through last as Warp was knocked out by a punch to the face.
“Wh-what just happened? Tal? Talia? Are you all right?” asked Scandal, checking Ra’s Al Ghul’s head for any damage.
“I completed my end of the bargain,” replied Deathstroke, helping the two women up, as he too emerged from the fringe of the situation.
“And Luthor--?” asked Talia, patting Scandal on the shoulders for her concern.
Wilson pulled off his mask. “Back where he needs to be, as instructed.”
She looked at the wrecked device, and smiled. Some kind of concussive explosive with superhot epicentre? Probably elements of an electro-magnetic pulse involved, but that would be a question for Doctor Malthus, once they relayed the footage back to his laboratory. It was typical ingenuity from the man she called her ‘Beloved’.
“Good. Let’s retire to the board room for a debriefing,” she said, amused at the events of the evening.
“What the hell is going on here?!” bellowed Waller.
His eyes crackling with unearthly energy, Flagg looked across the chaotic fight scene, to where June was being held by Luthor. He looked at the Enchantress, who was currently tangled up with Wonder Woman, and back again.
“J-June?” he whispered.
Enchantress’ head snapped around in his direction, and she cursed in an ancient tongue. “…No!”
Wonder Woman was thrown backwards, but Superman caught her, having laid El Diablo low, and now able to focus on the sprawl of the battle in the nerve centre of Project: Twilight.
“Kill him! Kill the Bat-Man!” shouted Enchantress.
“Why… why… why would I do that?” asked Flagg, clutching his head. Shiny black insects began to pour from his ears, “what’s… what’s wrong with me…” he wretched violently, then began to uncontrollably vomit up a swarming mass of bugs and insects from his insides! The horrific horde buzzed and shrieked as they spun back into the Enchantress’ possession, who closed her hand around them and allowed them to fade from view.
“She… wants… wants to corrupt him… degrade him… making him sacrifice a good man… it’s a spell… the worst kind… of spell…” mumbled Moone, pointing weakly at Flagg then to Batman.
Hearing something that sent shivers down her spine, Waller couldn’t help but react the only way she knew how. “Take down Enchantress! She’s gone rogue!” she ordered.
“Suficientemente bueno para mi,” spat El Diablo, conjuring up more elemental fire from wherever it was that he pulled it from, and blasting at the witch with wild abandon.
While Wonder Woman sighed and threw herself back into the battle, joined by the Suicide Squad, Superman had other concerns for the moment.
He’d heard Lex Luthor’s heartbeat as soon as he entered the room, and only the momentary distraction of Diana being hurtled back and requiring a helping hand stopped him from reacting. He looked angry-- genuinely angry for the first time in a good long time-- but Batman grabbed his wrist before he could clench his fist and make a move.
“Not now. Not yet,” said Batman, quietly.
“It’s him. Everything he’s ever done to me, to us, to everyone we know… he’s here… he’s part of it… and he needs to be stopped--!” growled the Man of Steel, but the Dark Knight refused to let go of him.
Before they could argue, Enchantress sent the entire room spinning backwards, the eldritch tentacles she’d conjured slapping and whipping outward. She was throbbing with power, her skin crawling with horrors beneath the flesh, and she focused all her attention on June, who was prone on the ground, shaking with fear.
With a gesture of her hand, the Suicide Squad, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were thrown backwards and pinned to the walls of the room by their fronts, and then she began to scream and rant, “I thought I was free of you! I thought I could finally fulfil my true purpose! I even let you live! Let you survive our joining! But you won’t let me! You refuse! And for that--”
With her primal energies loosed in the room, Enchantress’ finger tips stretched to dripping, black claws, and she raised them up as she floated toward Moone. She was about to bring them down upon Moone’s throat, tearing it out and ending her once-host’s life, when Lex Luthor abruptly came between them, his body acting as a human shield.
“Leave! Her! Alone!” he demanded.
Enchantress just laughed. “Little man, I would happily tear you to shreds to get my revenge!”
“How about us?” asked the Flash, tapping her on the shoulder and drawing the Enchantress’ attention away from her intended victims.
“I’d genuinely like to see you try,” said Aquaman, hoisting up his trident, ready to throw.
But that was a feint, something to draw her attention-- Green Lantern followed up with a boxing glove construct to the jaw that rocked her concentration enough that her spell holding everyone down faltered, and everyone slid to the floor. “So, that’s what that’s like,” mused John Stewart.
“They came,” said Wonder Woman, thankful that her signal reached the Justice League’s ears. “Thank Athena, they came…”
“Of course they did,” said Superman. “Whenever we need them, we’ll always be there for each other.”
Feeling his teammate’s eyes on his back, Batman said nothing, instead he focused on Luthor, who never wavered in his defensive posture over Moone’s body. Altruism was never Metropolis’ ex-favourite son best quality, but he always knew how to talk the talk, even if it didn’t mean walking the walk.
Enchantress was ensnared in an emerald construct, and then Wonder Woman threw her lasso around her, Green Lantern allowing his prison to become intangible where the golden threads touched it. Martian Manhunter reached into the Enchantress’ mind, trying to shut her down before she could do any more damage, but with a shouted spell, a bloody wound of a portal tore into reality around her and she vanished, leaving the Justice League and Suicide Squad standing opposite each other.
“I can’t see the Parasite, he’s… damn, he’s gone,” said Superman.
Green Lantern couldn’t help but agree. “My ring isn’t picking up anything either. I’m sorry, Big Blue.”
Rudy Jones, the boogeyman of the superhero and villain-set, had once again slinked away in the chaos. Another case left unsolved, another threat still on the board. But still, there were other concerns staring them in the face.
“What… what happened?” whispered Flagg.
Waller put a hand on his shoulder and looked around the room. “I’m back, colonel. Squad, fall in. I want Catman and that so-called ‘vampire’ freak in chains. They’ve got a lot to answer for. And Justice League-- this is a government facility. You’re trespassing.”
“What about Batman? He-- I mean-- we have orders to bring him in, y’know? Shouldn’t we be doing the job yer president handed us?” asked Captain Boomerang, tilting his head back and pinching his bloodied nose.
“For her murder,” said Aquaman, pointing a finger at Waller.
“He still has to answer for it, dun’he? I mean, uh, the break and entering, or whatever?” Harkness pushed.
Batman said nothing. Instead he pressed a button on his belt, and using the link to the facility’s security system that he’d hacked upon their arrival, routed a specific piece of camera footage through the nearby computer monitors.
Catman’s voice came through loud and clear from when he and the Dark Knight had been battling it out in the corridor earlier. “Y’know, it’s not even personal. It’s business.”
“…Business?”
Batman didn’t take his eyes off Catman as their conversation was broadcast for all to hear. He’d had to be selective with his on the fly edits, because he knew that there was something in Thomas Blake’s head that he needed to keep a secret, but he also knew that trying to drag him out of Task Force X’s clutches would be like tossing a match into a pool of gasoline. He had to figure out a play. Had to figure out his next steps. And if that meant Blake remained in government captivity for the time being? Well. The Dark Knight has broken into worse places.
“Yeah, business. I was given an order by my bosses. Kill Waller while wearing your face. You’re lucky I didn’t come and take that from you to do the damn job. Business.”
Superman was astonished, but quickly caught on. “You slaved the cameras to your suit. You recorded it all.”
“Case closed,” said Amanda, begrudgingly. If it had been so easy for the vigilante to steal their cameras to his agenda, then that would have to be something they look into later. Right now, the board was set up in favour of the Justice League, and she knew in her heart that right now, no war could be won if her organisation went into battle with theirs. “But you’re still trespassing.”
The Flash laughed. “We’re trespassing? We just saved you folks from a mystical beatdown at the hands of one of your own even after Bats was framed for your murder-- a little ‘thank you’ wouldn’t be amiss.”
“Thank you. Get out,” said Waller.
Superman placed a hand around the scruff of Lex Luthor’s neck. “You’re coming with us.”
“Oh, I think I’ll be staying. Isn’t that right, Amanda?” said Lex, grinning.
She paused for a moment, then waved him off, paying more attention to her people. “…No. I don’t think so. Take him into custody, Superman. I trust he’ll be given his day in court?”
“Of course,” replied the Man of Tomorrow, pushing Luthor forward.
Lex was raving. “What? What? We just went through hell, Amanda! We went through it together!”
Waller was nonplussed. “And now we’re out. Business resumes as normal. League, you can see yourselves out. I won’t send your foundation a bill for the two holes in the roof.”
Annoyed, the Flash went to say something, but Batman nodded at Green Lantern, and the team were encased in an emerald sphere that hovered up and out of the facility, leaving.
“Did we win?” asked Boomerang.
“Shut the hell up, Harkness. No one talks until we lock this place down. Flagg, do you need a medic? Quinn, can you stop stomping on that freak of nature’s innards?”
“Sorry, boss lady!” said Harley, saluting while still grinding her heel into Shreck’s small instestine as it slowly pulled itself back into its proper place in his vampiric body.
“I’ll be… I’ll be fine…” said Flagg, as Deadshot helped him up.
Waller watched as the emerald globe faded from view overhead, as the Justice League exited. That wasn’t how she wanted this to play out. But at least… at least they made it out of there in one piece.
For less than twenty-four hours, she’d been presumed dead. Tortured for the majority of that time by a raving lunatic of a psychic. Made to relive the deaths of two of her children and her own husband. She’d killed a man and assaulted numerous others, and had managed to get back to civilisation in time to see her team be torn apart by one of their own.
The Enchantress was currently the top of Task Force X’s most wanted list. She looked at Catman, who was pinned to the ground by Killer Croc’s immense knee in his back. “You and me, Catman? We’re going to be spending a lot of time together discussing your so-called ‘Society’.”
Blake grimaced. He didn’t like the sound of that one bit, but the faceless man who lived in the back of his head? Well, he could have smiled, facial features permitting…
“What do you mean he’s innocent?”
Superman had never sounded so angry. The Justice Leaguers were taken aback by his outburst, but the Martian Manhunter sat quite still, not blinking in the face of his old friend’s rage. “You asked me to take a read from Luthor’s mind. To ascertain his involvement in the events of the last twenty-four hours. To ensure he had no machinations left to unspool. I found the truth. He has been a prisoner of the Society since it’s initial formation, when the Star Conqueror descended upon Earth*
“I’ve fought him since! He tried to buy Superboy on the black market! He used Black and Red Kryptonite to bend Supergirl to his will*! He’s a monster! He’s been a monster since-- since--!”
J’onn raised his hand. “Kal, those events are present in his mindscape, but he was not the driving force behind them. I sensed the alien influence of a powerful psychic-- the Kalanor despot known as Despero. He seems to have ravaged Luthor’s mind, and used him as a tool in his monstrous plans*.”
“Despero? But he’s trapped on Thanagar, isn’t he*?” asked the Flash.
“I wish Katar were here…*” mused Aquaman.
Wonder Woman shared the sentiment, but her voice cracked as she spoke. “Katar made his choice to walk away, Arthur. Luthor’s guilt or innocence will come to light as we move forward, but we have to focus on what happened yesterday. Bruce?”
“But Luthor--” said Superman.
“We have to trust in due process, Kal,” said Diana.
J’onn nodded. “With permission from the proper authorities, I shall continue my investigation on Luthor’s psychic state*, but until then, yes…” He turned his attention to Batman. “…Yesterday.”
Batman placed his hands on the table in front of him. “I won’t apologise. I had to do what was best for my family, for Gotham. That said… I appreciate you coming to our aid when called. I know I’m… hh. I know I’m stubborn. I know that sometimes I can be difficult to work with. But what I do, I do for the greater good. And I don’t want to drag the Justice League’s name through the dirt while I’m doing it.”
“erm, I don’t see a problem,” said the Flash, shrugging.
“Yeah, I mean… the big man said he’d sort it, and you both look like hell, but you’re alive, and your name has been cleared,” said Green Lantern.
Aquaman stood and picked up his trident from where it had been leaning on the table. “Diana and I are meeting with President Stuart tomorrow morning to give him a full debrief of the situation, but you’ve been exonerated with Catman’s confession-- and the fact that Waller is alive.”
“That bit helps the most,” said the Flash.
Superman looked down at his hands, then back at Batman. “I said it to you before, and I’ll say it again, though: If you call, we will come. And, yes, sometimes when you don’t call, we’ll still check in on you. No man is an island, Bruce.”
“I need to get back to Gotham City. There’s work to be done,” said Batman, abruptly standing and heading for the door. He turned at the threshold. “And… thank you.”
The Justice League was silent for a moment after he left, and then the Flash put his hand on his chest. “I think someone just walked over my grave.”
“Nah, that’s Batman saying ‘thanks’,” said Green Lantern. “9th wonder of the world.”
“…And the privacy nets have been erected?” asked Waller.
She’d ordered the medics to leave her alone, she felt fine, needed a square meal for sure, but now wasn’t the time to be precious. She wanted to speak to Lambert about his actions during the attack on the facility, but he’d not been seen since the Parasite escape in the main chamber. He was probably dead. Not a massive loss, but he was always good at filing his paperwork, so that would be irritating to get covered. Flagg was back on his feet but looked like he’d lost twenty pounds since they’d last walked together. But still, they had lots to talk about.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Good. We can talk freely. Parasite escaped and he knows we’re after him, and we lost the Twilight array anyway. That’s a massive blow. And now that the Justice League know we targeted them… the element of surprise is gone, so if we’re to rebuild, we need to be fast, and we need Starkey.”
“The database was completely wiped?”
“Completely,” said Waller.
“…Damn.”
“But with Starkey’s mind, we can reconstitute our losses. His keycode was used in panic room twelve. That’s just around the corner from here. He’ll be snug as a bug, while the rest of the world went to hell an hour ago. Mad.”
“Yes, but he should have come out when the all clear was given,” said Flagg, as the two headed toward the panic room. “Amanda, I just want to say--”
She wasn’t going to let him finish. “You got played, Flagg. Enchantress got her hooks in you. We don’t know how, but we’re going to have to look at ways to stop it from happening again. We’ve got Moone back, so that’s something. I’m almost disappointed the Squad went to hell in a hand basket five minutes after I handed you the reins, but I think this is best for both of us.”
“I didn’t even know…” murmured Flagg.
“None of us did. Enchantress is a wild card, and now she’s in the wind. That’s bad news. Whatever she was trying to do with you, she failed… but the fact is, she got so far. We need to be better. I’m thinking about bringing in some magic-based bastards into the next iteration of the team. Something that can put a dent in that pretty little face of hers.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“The joint chiefs have taken Task Force X away from you, Flagg. You’re back on the front lines-- not that you took the promotion sitting down. Thanks for avenging me, by the way. I read the transcripts when the medics were swarming over me. Neat little trap you sprung on the vigilante. Shame about Katana…”
“To be honest, I think she might have saved my soul. If what Enchantress was trying to make me do was predicated on killing Batman… she pulled me back from the brink.”
“Doesn’t change the fact she--” They turned a corner and came to panic room 12. “It can wait.” She input her own code and the large metal door hissed open.
An awful stench hit the duo and Flagg covered his mouth, while pulling his sidearm. Waller’s eyes became slits and she looked around the pitch-black room, trying to discern the source of the wretched smell. “Starkey?”
“doop doop de doop,” a man sang quietly from the depths of the darkness, “doo”
Flagg was about to pull his torch out, but then the main generator in the complex finally fired up and illuminated the panic room, revealing a horrible sight if there ever was one.
Sat in a pile of his own excrement was Leonard Starkey. His body was malformed in places, his right hand was withered, one eye had shrunk in its socket, while his face drooped on one side. There was a hand print across his bare chest, burned in, and he looked like he’d aged thirty years since Waller had last seen him.
“Good God,” she whispered.
“hellooooo,” said the malformed and addled Starkey, “hellooooo”
Flagg pulled his walkie-talkie out. “We need medical assistance in panic room 12 immediately. We found Starkey. My God…”
Without a word, Amanda Waller turned away and left the panic room, a look of disgust and disappointment on her face. They’d taken everything. The Project: Twilight was dead. Now all she had left to her was a thirst for revenge she didn’t know was possible.
“Why is there a crater in the prison’s courtyard?” asked Bane.
The inner circle of the Secret Society of Super-Villains had convened. Few were happy.
Around the table they went…
Bane, the muscle-bound engine of destruction, tempered with a criminal genius matched by only a select few-- most of them stood in the room with him. His evil first taking root here, on Santa Prisca, fuelled by the super-steroid Venom. Bane kicked the habit, went cold turkey. The thing that kept him sane through his withdrawal? His need to break the Batman.
General Immortus, mysterious military leader whose origins have been lost through the ages. Once the dread nemesis of the Doom Patrol, now a key strategist for the Society.
Doctor Samuel Malthus, nebbish and cowardly, the scientific genius behind the Society's recent advances in Rogue-terrorism. Former member and foe of the Suicide Squad. Currently living in a perpetual state of fear that Task Force X lurk somewhere in the shadows of his life...
The Gambler, Hazard Sharpe, her luck manipulation powers and ability to twist fate in her favour were skills she had used for personal gain, but even with those abilities she had not yet been able to track down her father's killer. Terra-Man had stolen the identity of The Gambler. For Hazard, that could not stand.
Harlequin, Marcie Cooper, a brilliant businesswoman and master of deception, not as crazy as she sounds and possibly crazier than she realizes. With her hypnotic glasses and constant connection to the digital world, she shapes the world like a modeller shapes clay.
And then there were two…
Talia Al Ghul, 'Vanguard of the Demon'. The former lover of Batman, whose father had tried time and again to turn the hero to their side. Current leader of the League of Shadows, an elite network of assassins, mercenaries and killers, she intends to use the Society to elevate the 'Al Ghul' name back to prominence after the depths Ra's Al Ghul took it in his mad quest for Batman's destruction.
Scandal Savage, daughter of the immortal Vandal Savage. Representing her father's stake in world domination and here at the behest of her childhood friend Talia. She has her own identity to carve, her own mark to make...
Talia smiled. “While you and the others were representing our interests out in the world, Scandal and I fulfilled our end of the bargain with the man who handed us the leadership of the Society. Lex Luthor no longer has a criminal past that can be pinned on him, and it’s thanks to our hard work.”
Malthus licked his lips nervously. “Y-you mean, Psimon did the job?”
Scandal gave an eager thumbs-up in the neurotic scientist’s direction. “Oh, yeah. He cut and stitched Lex’s brain and now every naughty act he performed before and after his outing as the most super of villains looks like it was due to the psychic meddling of Despero. Somewhat close to the truth, but far enough to know the difference.”
“And the price? Did he pay it?” asked the Gambler.
Scandal grinned. “Several multi-billion black budget slush funds have been diverted to our war chest, Hazard. The Society is funded in perpetuity.”
“And the Batman?” asked Bane.
“Still unbroken,” said Talia.
“Good. Good.”
Harlequin was calm and cool in her seat. “We can roll out the new mandate then, can’t we? Make the Society even more popular with our membership and prospective membership than ever before. No more taking a cut from jobs. Members keep their full share, and we still get to cause trouble wherever we like.”
“And the black spot on our number-- Psimon-- is dead,” said Bane.
Harlequin didn’t care. “Yeah, that was one ugly scene. But good riddance to the guy. After he was caught dipping his fingers into the minds of our little club, it was only a matter of time.”
Immortus held up his hand. “That does not leave this room. To have our number fearful of Amanda Waller and what she could do to them… that does us a service. The previous leadership created one bogeyman in the enhancement of the Parasite, it is time we created our own. Amanda Waller is out there, and she wants to snatch you up for her ‘Suicide Squad’. Fear is a grand motivator.”
Amanda made it back to Belle Reve after clearing up the mess at Project: Twilight. It was a new day, but there were loose ends from the days before that needed to be tied off. She was surprised by how happy her staff looked to have her back, but then again, when your boss’ corpse bursts like a piñata and causes a prison break, her not being dead is sometimes a plus.
She swiped her way down two reinforced doors, went down a private elevator, and then nodded at the guards on the final check before her intended location. She entered slowly, and began to walk down the quiet cell block, where currently only two cells were occupied.
“You’re probably wondering where you are,” she said.
“Prison, probably,” replied the elder of the two men.
“A smart mouth will get you far when you eventually pay a visit to gen-pop, prisoner 58-01-42.”
“I think I’m more than capable of holding my own.”
“Regardless, this is the pit. Where the worst of the worst in Belle Reve go.”
“Lawyer,” said the younger of the two.
“Oh, there’ll be no lawyers. You’re not even officially here, prisoner 311-01-63.”
“I’ve got out of worse places than this, Waller.”
“Sure you have, Mister Blake. Sure you have. And let me assure you, that’ll be the last name you’ll hear someone use that name in this place. You’re no longer the person you were before this day. You’re a number. In my ledger. To do with as I please. By the time we’re done, you’ll tell me every dirty little secret the Society has to offer.”
Catman thrashed about in the reinforced straitjacket that held his arms in place. Earlier, h’d tried popping his shoulder out, but the material that held him fast seemed to adjust to his escapist intentions, so then he was left with a dislocated shoulder he needed to put back into place.
“And what do you expect from me, Waller? All the secrets I have in my head from my time in Checkmate?”
“58-01-42. You betrayed your country. My people took you down because you leaked secrets to the other side. Imagine if I had actually been murdered by the man you told was being hunted. Imagine if that betrayal had come to pass. No, for you, there’ll be no further conversation. Solitary confinement. One meal a day. No interaction with anybody but the voices in your head.”
Behind Thomas Blake, a figment of his imagination leaned against the wall, without a face. “Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?” said the Question, existing inside Catman’s head.
Blake grimaced. He said nothing.
“You won’t get away with this,” said Paul Kirk, aka the Manhunter. He’d been kidnapped in Washington by the Suicide Squad. Now he was in a cage.
Waller shrugged. She reached up to the seam above the bars of his cell, and dragged a shutter down with a clank, locking White King’s Bishop alone in the dark. “I think I already have.”
She took a few steps away from Manhunter’s cell, before turning her attention back to Catman. “Do you remember what you said to me, before you knocked me out?” she asked.
“…No,” said Blake.
Waller held up a tape recorded. She pressed the play button. A voice crackled out of the small speakers. “I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”
“That’s not my voice,” said Blake. He knew whose it was.
“But it came from your mouth. And all I’ve have time to do is think about it. We’ll be talking again, 311-01-63. Think on that for a while.”
“When the teleporter log said you came here instead of Gotham, I got curious,” said Superman, walking up behind Batman.
The Dark Knight was stood in front of a glass window, looking into the private ward of one of S.T.A.R. Lab’s long term patients. He had been stood in the dark, and the Man of Tomorrow had turned on the light upon entering the room.
The Caped Crusader shook his head. “I heard his voice. It came from someone else’s mouth.”
“I knew you and he were close. But that… doesn’t make any sense,” said the Man of Steel.
“Very little in this world makes sense. Sometimes you have to fight for what little sense you have.”
Beyond the pair, in the ward, lay the comatose body of Charles Szasz, aka Victor Sage. A life ago, he was the Question, hot on the trail of the Secret Society of Super-Villains*.
After confronting the Parasite in Washington, DC., he’d had his memories stolen, and the end result had been Rudy Jones knowing every secret the Question had ever learned, including the identities of every man, woman, and sometimes child who had a superhero identity. The damage had been done, and for all intents and purposes, Vic was healthy afterwards… but gradually he faded and faded until he landed here, vegetative, the only thing keeping him alive were the machines pumping life into him every minute of the day.
“His case never made sense. But I think I know what happened…” said Batman.
Superman said nothing, allowing his friend the room to talk it out.
“…Parasite attacked him. Stole his thoughts. Then attacked Catman. Did the same to him. But what if there was some… bleedthrough. When he touched Catman, he took something, but left something behind. A seed of Vic’s personality. And while it blossomed in Catman’s brain, the real thing…”
“You think that the Question is living inside Catman’s head?” offered Superman.
“Sometimes this world makes very little sense.”
“Then we need to fight to make some more,” said Superman.
Batman nodded. “You’re a good friend.”
“And so are you. Come on, let’s get a cup of coffee. You can tell me how you made your cave vanish yesterday.”
Batman cracked a rare smile. “…I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sure if you looked, it would be right where I left it…”
Without warning, the bloody wound of a portal spat her out into the dark, her skin smouldering, her body screaming in pain. She landed hard, rolled to a stop, and found herself at the feet of the one person she could trust now, even though he looked horribly unimpressed by her.
“Brother…” the Enchantress whispered, black blood bubbling from her cracked lips.
He looked down on her disdainfully. “Sister, dear sister. You have failed in your intention to bring about our moment.”
“I was discovered. All our plans… all the preparation… wasted,” she shook her head, sadly.
He looked away from her, choosing to instead take steps toward his throne. “Tell me, sister. Tell me of the four ages. Tell me why we are here, at this point, after so long.”
She climbed to her feet and gave him a pleading look. “Brother… why? I have failed… I have failed, and I must be punished. I am willing to give my all.”
“I do not want your all. Give me this story. Tell me of the four ages.” He took his place on his throne, leaned forward, and gestured a hand toward her. “Please.”
“Brother…”
His voice raised for just a moment, a sound like thunder. “The story.”
“…Of course, brother. Where should I begin?” Enchantress asked, resigned to her situation.
“The first,” he said.
She looked around, searching her memory, searching their shared history, and began to speak. Her voice was slow, considered, a far cry from her hysterical rantings earlier toward the Justice League and Suicide Squad.
“The first… there was the Age of Satya. The golden time, the first and best of all the ages. A time of total truth and utter perfection. All of humanity were saintly. There was no disease, decrepitude or fear of anything. It was the utopian ideal, and it is long past.”
“The second was the Age of Treta. The change time, when devils begin to rise from their depths. In this age, virtue diminished, and humanity began to falter from its once perfect standing. Despots and emperors rose to prominence and conquered the once peaceful lands, and wars became second nature to those who lived within it.”
“The third age was that of the Dvapara. The fall of humanity had begun in earnest. They were no longer as strong as their ancestors; their spirituality and virtue non-existent, their souls had decayed enough to allow for the arrival for the fourth and final age, that which belongs to us.”
Lord Naga, leader of the terrorist cult Kobra, smiled as he extended his hands to her. “Shurpanakha, my sister, the dread Enchantress; take your place beside me and heal. Let me tell you of the fourth age. The Kali Yuga. This dystopic age of darkness and ignorance, where sinners become slaves to their passions, where societies fall into disuse and people become liars and hypocrites, this is the age of chaos for which we were born to rule. Your plan to bring about the degradation of man through the corruption of Rick Flagg may have failed… but that’s not the end of the world, is it?”
Finally relaxing, Enchantress took her place by Lord Naga’s side, and said, “Unfortunately not.”
In the last twenty-four hours, he’d done the dirty work of the Society, and now he got what he wanted-- the opportunity to shred someone’s personality into strips and staple it back together however he wanted.
He’d done it before on transients and people that wouldn’t be missed. Hitchhikers. Idiot teens spending their spring break thumbing a ride down the US 20, 3,365 miles of practice, practice, practice.
Amanda Waller would be his masterpiece. He fantasized about the degradation, the humiliation, and when he opened the door to her cell and she wasn’t where he left her-- strapped in the electric chair he’d had one of Bane’s lackies drag from the depths of the prison-- he was utterly bemused.
And then he was smashed in the head so hard that the plastic casing that covered his brain was suddenly a spider’s web of cracks, and then again, even harder, so that the protective covering near disintegrated. He cried out in shock more than pain, but then the blows didn’t stop coming.
“Bastard--!”
Taking a breath, Waller held the busted wooden arm of the chair, a makeshift bludgeon that did its job perfectly, and looked at Psimon, twitching on the floor. She didn’t bother stopping, until she knew the job was done.
“You--!”
thud
“--Shouldn’t have--!”
thud
“-- Bought my--!”
squelch
“-- Family into--!”
squelch
“--This!”
Black blood and liquified brain ran from the gored mess that had been dead Simon Jones’ head. Those who knew him wouldn’t have recognised him, due to the unrecognisable state of his skull. He was dead. Irrevocably dead. There were no involuntarily twitches. No movement. His corpse was a message, and she’d be damned if it wasn’t the last one she left for these bastards today.
She had her broken hand tucked under her other arm, keeping it out of use from when she had shattered her thumb and beyond to escape her restraints. She was lucky. She knew that. If he’d been any less arrogant, any less presumptuous about his position in this situation, he might have been more careful, but no, for all his power Psimon was stupid, and that’s why Project: Twilight was a necessity.
“Well done, Ms Waller. Time we made our exit?” said Lex Luthor, looking on from his vantage point in his own cell.
“Keep quiet, and we may just make it out of here,” she replied, taking the keys from Psimon’s belt and unlocking his cell.
“And your friend?” he asked, gesturing to where the emaciated June Moone was locked up.
Waller nodded. “Unlock her cell. I’m not dying here, Luthor, and neither are the pair of you. And by god you need a shave.”
Amused, Luthor stroked his tangled beard, and then did as he was told to do. She wondered how long he’d been here, and her spy senses were on overdrive. Something wasn’t right but unpicking it would have to wait until later.
DC2 MOST WANTED
Issue Five (of Five)
HoM / ARTTEACH
The following takes place before Justice League #41
PROJECT: TWILIGHT’S TOP SECRET BASE OF OPERATIONS:
In agony, Batman tried to staunch the bloody stab wound in his side with his hand, but it was like sticking your finger into a dam as cracks began to form-- mostly pointless, and hell, you’re about to drown anyway. “You… what did you just say?”
Somehow, despite himself, he’d been distracted by Catman, or rather, a voice coming from Thomas Blake’s mouth that wasn’t his own. The words echoed in his head, along with the sound of his heart beating mercilessly in an attempt to pour the blood out of the hole under his rib cage:
“I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”
A familiar voice, that of Vic Sage, the Question. But how? How was that even possible?
“You heard it too?” said Catman. There was anger in his voice, but also fear. Like some secret he’d been trying to keep has suddenly been released to the world.
“What… hh…” The Dark Knight took a small tube from his utility belt and in one quick movement-- before Catman could think to slap it out of his hand-- he pushed the nozzle, no bigger than a 2B pencil lead, into the wound and pressed down on the release button, filling the injury with an epoxy that quickly filled up to prevent further blood loss.
Catman surged forward, brutally swatted Batman’s hand away from his wound, and put his hands around the Dark Knight’s throat. “Godammit, did you hear him? Did he get loud enough for you to hear?”
Dazed from blood loss, exhausted from the day he’d had without any moment of respite or rest, the Caped Crusader “What-- what’re you-- talking--”
Catman drew his bowie knife again with his right hand, swiped toward Batman’s throat with the intent to kill, only for his own left hand to grab himself by the right wrist.
“No-- what’re--? Don’t-- get offa me--? I won’t let you-- no-- not him-- stop-- no!”
Almost absurdly, almost comedically, Blake punched himself in the face full force, and toppled backward, leaving the Dark Knight confused but with a second wind he couldn’t go to waste. He restrained Catman, cuffed one hand and then the other, rolling him onto his front and shoving his knee into the back of the villain.
“What’s going on, Blake?”
“Not-- not me-- it’s him-- he’s-- he’s in my head--!” growled Catman.
“Who? Tell me-- who?” Batman wrenched him back by the hair, causing the villain to whine.
“You know who! It’s him--! It’s me, B. I’m in his head. Don’t know how. Can’t-- nnaaaaah!”
The Dark Knight grimaced, this didn’t make any sense to him, but it was a part of a puzzle that he didn’t have all the pieces to, nor the imagination to extrapolate what the jigsaw would eventually look like. It was as if he had a smattering of edge pieces, but nothing making up the centre.
Knowing there was more he needed to do, he turned-- only for the lights to turn off as-- unbeknownst to him-- the Parasite escaped the central control pod in the heart of Project: Twilight’s operations!
PEÑA DURO PRISON, SANTA PRISCA:
Lex Luthor was complaining, fiddling nervously with the pistol he’d been handed a couple of minutes before. “…Amanda, I’m just saying, these little pea-shooters we took from the guards you knocked out with that club of yours aren’t going to do anything against the muscle the Society will throw our way once they find out what you did to Psimon.”
“Don’t care. Shut up,” replied Waller, making sure-- for the third time in the last minute-- that her own weapon was loaded.
They’d come across a pair of Peña Duro’s screws, ex-prisoners who’d worked up the food chain until their roles had become reversed with those who used to guard them. Waller took the first one out thanks to the element of surprise.
The chair arm crushed the tattooed one’s orbital bone into organic dust and fractured his nasal bridge into too many pieces, meanwhile Luthor had gone for the pierced one’s knees, driving his shoulders into the back of them and driving the guard to the ground.
Waller followed up her first blow, the one that had caused the tattooed one to wet himself and start crying, with another to the back of the head, and it was successful in stopping his mewling. She looked down at Luthor, who was currently reaping the benefits of the element of surprise and punching the pierced one’s face as if it belonged to someone else entirely. She couldn’t exactly make out what he was mumbling incoherently, but it sounded like ‘allen’ and maybe ‘crypt onion’, and then things fell into place, and she felt something curdle in her stomach.
“Working through some things, Luthor?” she said.
Having beaten his target into unconsciousness, Luthor ran his bloodied hands across his bald head, leaving streaks of crimson across his temples. “We all have our things we need to get out our systems, Amanda.”
Back to the present, a woman’s voice pulled Waller out of her memory, and she turned to see June Moone lagging behind them.
“I don’t… I don’t feel well…” Moone mumbled.
The young woman was trailing behind them, her body shaking as she dragged herself against the wall. She looked pale and sickly and the Wall couldn’t help but think that whatever had separated Moone from the Enchantress had contributed to her current state.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. We just need to find--”
The trio turned a corner, and Luthor was surprised to see Deathstroke standing there. The master assassin had his back to them, his two-tone mask peeled up to reveal a goateed chin, and he was smoking a cigarette casually.
So, Lex raised his pistol and without any hesitation or a hint of nerves he emptied the entire clip of the pistol into Slade Wilson’s back-- the impact sent the Terminator spinning awkwardly over the nearby hand rail and down into the pit of the prison below without a word.
“You… do you know who that was?” asked Waller, utterly taken aback by the turn of events.
“Yes! Of course I do! Why aren’t we running?!” barked Lex, already half way down the nearest corridor away from the scene of his crime.
PROJECT: TWILIGHT’S TOP SECRET BASE OF OPERATIONS:
Dragging the restrained Catman by the hair on the back of his head, Batman turned a corner and was horrified by what he saw in the control room of Project: Twilight.
Despite himself, and more than likely due to the barely patched hole in his side and the ordeal he’d just gone through with an old friend’s voice coming from an old enemy’s mouth, he didn’t manage to hide his true feelings-- there was no mask. Just horror.
Pale as the moon and laying in a pool of his own blood-- no doubt thanks to the small hole in his chest-- the Man of Steel was currently being examined by the horrific sight of the Parasite, his gnarled fingers stroking the Kryptonian’s temples gently.
The creature formerly known as Rudy Jones was thin, his withered body covered in callouses and scar-tissue. There were horrible wounds that showed too much of his mutated innards
Like some horrific, land-based lamprey, the razor sharp rows within rows within rows of teeth in his mouth chattered, and with his eyes locked on the Dark Knight, he hungrily hissed, “About time.”
Before Batman could respond, Blake took a step forward, a manic look on his face. “Him! He did this to me! He put me in here! Wait, what’s that-- something’s coming--”
“GOT MY SECOND WIND!” howled Killer Croc, barrelling toward the Bat and the Cat, as the Suicide Squad swarmed onto the scene--!
The pair of animal-themed capes looked at each other, and then both of them dodged to either side of the doorway, allowing the newly arrived Croc to hurtle inside, and with a swift arc of his hand, a bolo taken from the back of Blake’s belt was thrown by Batman, ensnaring the reptilian beast’s ankles.
“His powers are back…” said Batman, his words coming out of his mouth accompanied by a swill of blood. He was a mess. He wasn’t holding it together. And now Killer Croc was back on the scene, back to seemingly full power after being caught by Project: Twilight’s rays?
Croc tumbled forward, his muscular mass crashing into a bank of computers, and it was all the chaos the Parasite needed to make his exit, his body beginning to fill out and the wounds on his body beginning to heal.
“I can help! Let me-- don’t trust him-- let me outta these things! Stop talking! STOP TALKING!” shouted Blake, turning so his handcuffed wrists were on show.
“Shut up,” replied Batman, trying to put that puzzle out his head for the time being.
He rushed over to the array, ignored the flare that was hissing inside the main tube, and thought he caught a glimpse of a rat’s tail in it’s bowels. Blood loss, he thought, trying to focus on the task at hand. He placed a device on the base of the device, then fell to his knees by Superman’s side, desperately trying to find a pulse.
The pads on his fingertips contained micro-computer pads, linked in with the suit’s onboard computer. It wasn’t much, but the skin contact allowed for a rudimentary medical scan, an amplification of biological signals, anything to give the Caped Crusader an idea of what was going on with his friend. He pressed a button on his chest emblem, and the battered and bullet riddled costume complied, strobing flashes of sunlight suddenly being projected from yellow sun batteries that lined his armour.
“Come on… come on…” he whispered.
Then there was a strafe of bullets by his foot, so the Dark Knight’s focus abruptly changed, but not before a boomerang struck him in the chest, shattering the projector that had been illuminating the face of the Man of Tomorrow as colour began to return to his cheeks.
“Did you miss us, mate?” asked Captain Boomerang, holding three boomerangs between his fingerless-gloved fingers.
Pained, the Dark Knight looked up and saw Croc tearing at the line around his ankles, but in front of the beast were Boomerang, Deadshot and Flagg, the first of the latter two aiming his wrist-mounted guns while the other held up his assault rifle.
“Could’a killed you then, Bats. Only reason I didn’t is the boss wants it to be slow,” said Deadshot, lowering his hands.
Flagg nodded. “Came a long way to finish this, vigilante.”
“Yet you keep missing the most obvious thing about the situation,” replied Batman.
“And what’s that?” replied Deadshot.
Batman stood, hands raised. “Firstly, and not the most obvious thing, but the man who actually attacked Waller. He’s sat right there.”
Flagg looked up his shoulder, to where Catman struggled. “It was me. I did it.”
“Don’t listen to him, Rick,” said Enchantress, appearing behind Flagg and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She whispered in his ear, and the soldier twitched and grimaced at her words. “You know it was the Bat-Man. You know who orchestrated this whole thing. It was him. Always him. Remember.”
“Boss?” said Deadshot, confused by the display.
“Heya, folks! We took care of the rest of the soldiers outside, but it feels a bit naughty beatin’ on our own, don’t ya think?” said Harley Quinn, her sledgehammer dragging behind her. “Oh, hey Bats!”
“¿Por qué no has matado ese pedazo de mierda? He’s right there!” She was accompanied by El Diablo, who was building a sphere of fire between his palms.
“That’s not the obvious thing, Flagg. You’re missing the most obvious thing,” continued Batman.
“Talk, you bastard!” shouted Flagg, pointing his rifle in the Caped Crusader’s direction.
Batman smiled. “Killer Croc’s powers came back. Parasite is sloughing the abilities he stole while hooked up to that machine--” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, at the centre column where trace amounts of purple blood stained the control rods that had once held the Parasite in place. He was putting pieces together fast, trying to put at least one puzzle together while he could still stand. “-- So you know what that means?”
“…What?” said Flagg.
His rifle was suddenly red hot, and he had to drop it abruptly.
“It means my powers are back too,” said Superman the hole in his chest healed, his eyes burning red after using his heat vision on Flagg’s weapon of choice.
“Take-- them-- down--!” said Flagg--
--Only for Wonder Woman to crash through the ceiling and punch Killer Croc out with one echoing blow, and rolling to a stop next to her haggard friends. “Sorry for the delay, boys. I’ve called the others, but they’re still mopping up the breakout at Belle Reve.”
“Better late than never,” replied Superman.
Enchantress hissed and shrieked something inhuman, and Flagg’s eyes opened wide, pulsating crackling black energy. Quinn looked at Diablo, who shrugged, and then the team rushed forward, head-to-head with the trinity of superheroes.
Having flipped his body impressively over so that the handcuffs that held him fast were now at his front, Catman reluctantly knew better than to push his luck. The voice in the back of his head had become a massive liability, one he couldn’t explain even if he tried. Thing was, he thought he had it under control. He thought he’d kept it under wraps. He was just lucky that the strike team-- the ravaged Shreck and the dismantled Toyman-- hadn’t been witness to his breakdown.
“Psst. Thomas. Down here!”
Blake looked down at saw Toyman’s head mounted on his hand. That was a strange sight.
“What… what’re you doing?” he asked.
“While everyone was talking, I placed the tracer on the main array. I’ve signalled Warp. Our pick-up is coming. I even managed to get all my body parts in a nice pile in the corner. Hold up your hands.”
Blake grinned as Toyman aimed a robotic finger at the former’s handcuff’s and the tip of the digit swung off to reveal a laser pointer. The cuffs were off in seconds, and just in time too--
“HRRR… BAT… BATMAN?” growled a severely concussed Killer Croc, looking Catman’s way with tiny eyes.
“…No?” said Blake, somewhat unconvincingly.
“BATMANNNNN!” bellowed Killer Croc, swiping forward just as the vampiric Shreck, with his face somewhat grown back after its exposure to holy water, stepped between the two, and was disembowelled for his troubles.
“Oh for fu--” started Shreck, only for Harley Quinn to knock him out with a swing of her hammer.
“Naughty, naughty, can’t have you talking that kinda language, can we?” she said.
“Quinn, listen to me, this is bigger than anything you think. The Society sent us here, we’re supposed to secure that array, and get you-- as many of you-- away. Out of the government’s clutches,” said Catman.
Bemused, Harley looked down at Shreck, as he collected his intestines, then back at where El Diablo was chucking fireballs at Superman, Enchantress was trying to entangle Wonder Woman with mystical tendrils, and Batman was duelling Captain Boomerang and Deadshot at the same time. Flagg was on his knees, shaking, and here was Harley, stood in front of Catman, hearing that she might have an out for the first time since she was locked up in Belle Reve…
“…Nah,” said Harley, swinging her mallet across Catman’s jaw, ending him flying into the wall behind him.
“Oh mon Dieu,” whispered Warp, peeking out from the portal he’d formed in space. He was surveying the scene, watching as heroes fought villains, but he had one job, and one alone, and it involved lifting the Project: Twilight array out from under the government’s noses. A few seconds more, and he’d be gone, without a trace…
PROJECT: TWILIGHT’S TOP SECRET BASE OF OPERATIONS:
With his hands shaking from the adrenaline fuelled panic that came with the Project: Twilight complex going into lockdown, Doctor Leonard Starkey frantically pushed his personal pass code into the keypad next to the panic room door and sighed in relief as it swung open and he made it inside.
“Hold on, Leonard! Hold on!” shouted Acting-Director Lambert, careening down the corridor toward him.
“You shot Superman, you absolute moron! I’m not sharing this bunker with the likes of you!” replied Starkey, closing the door in Lambert’s face.
The Acting-Directory nearly fell into the sealed door, and then began pounding his hands against the cold metal that kept him from safety. There were numerous of these bunkers throughout the complex, each accessible by a specific code and a DNA swab taken via the finger, and once you were inside, you could survive nuclear Armageddon. But outside? Sufficed to say, if an angry Kryptonian wanted to find you, he could with ease.
Lambert slunk down in front of the door and began to sob. “no no no no noooo”
Inside the panic room, Starkey was quick to note that the emergency lights hadn’t activated upon his entry, which he thought was awfully strange. He groped his way across the room toward the security console, so he could see what was going on outside, but before he made it that far a soft voice whispered out of the dark…
“Hello, Doctor Starkey.”
He abruptly turned, and the room’s lights finally activated-- for a split second or more he was blinded-- but as his vision cleared-- he saw the Parasite begin to walk toward him. Jones was no longer a hollowed-out mess. He’d regained muscle mass and his teeth glinted with hungry saliva. No longer was he the energy source for the Project: Twilight array. No longer was he at Starkey’s mercies.
“Wh-what? How is this possible?!”
Leonard stumbled backwards, fell over his own feet, and then began to crawl backwards as, ever so slowly, the Parasite walked toward him, taking all the time in the world.
Parasite held up his hand and revealed thin fingers, still not restored to their previous state. “You turned my powers against me. Sucked them up into that satellite of yours. But then… Superman freed me. And after I let go of all that ill-gotten power… I got better. Sure, I’ll need some body mass to grow everything back properly, but I have a few ideas on that.”
Leonard shook his head as he bumped up against a computer node. “Please, I was only-- I was only--”
Moving in a blur, Parasite wrenched Starkey up and smiled through malformed lips.
“You wanted to know how I became a bogeyman. How I went from the addict who couldn’t keep what he took from Superman to the man every villain, every hero in the world feared.”
He jabbed his finger into Starkey’s forehead.
“I ate my way to the top of the food chain. I ate another one like me, so I could retain the powers I stole. I ate a psychic, so I could keep the memories I took without damaging my own brain.”
He leaned in and whispered into Starkey’s ear.
“Billy Batson, some orphan kid reporter from Fawcett City, is Captain Marvel.”
“Wh-what? Why are you--” gibbered Starkey.
Parasite slapped him across the face and continued to rant.
“I ate a dozen MENSA members from all corners of the world so that I was always the smartest man in the room, and yes, it left them slobbering retards, but I’m not in this to make friends, Leonard!”
He leaned in again, and whispered, “Bruce Wayne, first son of Gotham City, is the Batman.”
Sobbing, Starkey shut his eyes, trying not to look into the vast pit of the Parasite’s mouth as he spoke. “Please, please, I don’t-- I don’t want to know this--”
“Shut up. And the only time I tested myself against the superheroes, I stole the memories of a man who knew all their identities. I stole the life of the Question. And now I know enough secrets to be left alone forever… but comfortable in the fact that if I ever get hungry, or bored…”
He laughed and then whispered again, “…I can go pay a visit to Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, and become Superman when I finish eating him all the way up.”
Parasite wrenched Starkey up and with his weak-looking hand, reached toward his head. Globules of energy seemed to pass from Leonard’s face to Parasite’s fingers as he got closer, and it seemed to take on mass where there hadn’t been any previously.
Leonard screamed all the while.
Licking his scarred lips, Parasite nodded at what he was about to unleash on the man. “Shall we begin?”
PEÑA DURO PRISON, SANTA PRISCA:
“My, my. It’s here,” said Scandal, watching as Warp pulled the Project: Twilight array into the courtyard of the prison. The space was clear, ready for arrival, and the guards lining the walls above their heads all had their weapons aimed down at the event horizon of the Frenchman’s tear in space.
Stood beside her oldest friend, Talia Al Ghul nodded, but seemed uneasy. “I wanted Deathstroke to be present during the drop-off.”
“Concerned?” asked Scandal. Being the daughter of an immortal was lonely business, especially when he hated you so much. Having a friend like Talia meant a lot, and that meant when it came to leading an international criminal syndicate, you leapt at the chance if it involved a woman you considered a sister.
“Pragmatic,” replied Talia.
Scandal smiled. “Ah. The curse of being the children of immortals.”
The Twilight device landed with a thud, and through the hole in space that Warp had tunnelled through, if you were looking, you could see Batman’s eyes narrow into slits, even as he dodged Digger Harkness’ latest deluge of boomerang-based offense.
“No,” you would have heard him say, and you might have seen him point a finger-- and the device he’d placed inside the control tube earlier, would have triggered at the gesture-- just as the portal sealed shut-- and the resulting explosion--
Wordlessly, Scandal and Talia were thrown backwards as the Twilight array was fried from the inside out, and the concussive-- yet not fragmentary or incendiary explosive-- blast wave cracked the walls of Peña Duro.
Superheated metal turned to slag, and the device was rendered useless, as powerful as a scrap heap.
Caught in the pulse of the blast, Warp tumbled head over heel, only to be caught in a choke hold by Amanda Waller, who’d watched from the shadows as the events played out. Moone wept quietly, cradled by Luthor, who stared grimly at Waller, the woman who held their fate in her hands.
“Take us to wherever you dragged that machine from,” she demanded.
“ulp! vos désirs sont des ordres!” he replied, and he opened a portal that Luthor and Moone rushed through, while Amanda followed through last as Warp was knocked out by a punch to the face.
“Wh-what just happened? Tal? Talia? Are you all right?” asked Scandal, checking Ra’s Al Ghul’s head for any damage.
“I completed my end of the bargain,” replied Deathstroke, helping the two women up, as he too emerged from the fringe of the situation.
“And Luthor--?” asked Talia, patting Scandal on the shoulders for her concern.
Wilson pulled off his mask. “Back where he needs to be, as instructed.”
She looked at the wrecked device, and smiled. Some kind of concussive explosive with superhot epicentre? Probably elements of an electro-magnetic pulse involved, but that would be a question for Doctor Malthus, once they relayed the footage back to his laboratory. It was typical ingenuity from the man she called her ‘Beloved’.
“Good. Let’s retire to the board room for a debriefing,” she said, amused at the events of the evening.
PROJECT: TWILIGHT’S TOP SECRET BASE OF OPERATIONS:
“What the hell is going on here?!” bellowed Waller.
His eyes crackling with unearthly energy, Flagg looked across the chaotic fight scene, to where June was being held by Luthor. He looked at the Enchantress, who was currently tangled up with Wonder Woman, and back again.
“J-June?” he whispered.
Enchantress’ head snapped around in his direction, and she cursed in an ancient tongue. “…No!”
Wonder Woman was thrown backwards, but Superman caught her, having laid El Diablo low, and now able to focus on the sprawl of the battle in the nerve centre of Project: Twilight.
“Kill him! Kill the Bat-Man!” shouted Enchantress.
“Why… why… why would I do that?” asked Flagg, clutching his head. Shiny black insects began to pour from his ears, “what’s… what’s wrong with me…” he wretched violently, then began to uncontrollably vomit up a swarming mass of bugs and insects from his insides! The horrific horde buzzed and shrieked as they spun back into the Enchantress’ possession, who closed her hand around them and allowed them to fade from view.
“She… wants… wants to corrupt him… degrade him… making him sacrifice a good man… it’s a spell… the worst kind… of spell…” mumbled Moone, pointing weakly at Flagg then to Batman.
Hearing something that sent shivers down her spine, Waller couldn’t help but react the only way she knew how. “Take down Enchantress! She’s gone rogue!” she ordered.
“Suficientemente bueno para mi,” spat El Diablo, conjuring up more elemental fire from wherever it was that he pulled it from, and blasting at the witch with wild abandon.
While Wonder Woman sighed and threw herself back into the battle, joined by the Suicide Squad, Superman had other concerns for the moment.
He’d heard Lex Luthor’s heartbeat as soon as he entered the room, and only the momentary distraction of Diana being hurtled back and requiring a helping hand stopped him from reacting. He looked angry-- genuinely angry for the first time in a good long time-- but Batman grabbed his wrist before he could clench his fist and make a move.
“Not now. Not yet,” said Batman, quietly.
“It’s him. Everything he’s ever done to me, to us, to everyone we know… he’s here… he’s part of it… and he needs to be stopped--!” growled the Man of Steel, but the Dark Knight refused to let go of him.
Before they could argue, Enchantress sent the entire room spinning backwards, the eldritch tentacles she’d conjured slapping and whipping outward. She was throbbing with power, her skin crawling with horrors beneath the flesh, and she focused all her attention on June, who was prone on the ground, shaking with fear.
With a gesture of her hand, the Suicide Squad, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were thrown backwards and pinned to the walls of the room by their fronts, and then she began to scream and rant, “I thought I was free of you! I thought I could finally fulfil my true purpose! I even let you live! Let you survive our joining! But you won’t let me! You refuse! And for that--”
With her primal energies loosed in the room, Enchantress’ finger tips stretched to dripping, black claws, and she raised them up as she floated toward Moone. She was about to bring them down upon Moone’s throat, tearing it out and ending her once-host’s life, when Lex Luthor abruptly came between them, his body acting as a human shield.
“Leave! Her! Alone!” he demanded.
Enchantress just laughed. “Little man, I would happily tear you to shreds to get my revenge!”
“How about us?” asked the Flash, tapping her on the shoulder and drawing the Enchantress’ attention away from her intended victims.
“I’d genuinely like to see you try,” said Aquaman, hoisting up his trident, ready to throw.
But that was a feint, something to draw her attention-- Green Lantern followed up with a boxing glove construct to the jaw that rocked her concentration enough that her spell holding everyone down faltered, and everyone slid to the floor. “So, that’s what that’s like,” mused John Stewart.
“They came,” said Wonder Woman, thankful that her signal reached the Justice League’s ears. “Thank Athena, they came…”
“Of course they did,” said Superman. “Whenever we need them, we’ll always be there for each other.”
Feeling his teammate’s eyes on his back, Batman said nothing, instead he focused on Luthor, who never wavered in his defensive posture over Moone’s body. Altruism was never Metropolis’ ex-favourite son best quality, but he always knew how to talk the talk, even if it didn’t mean walking the walk.
Enchantress was ensnared in an emerald construct, and then Wonder Woman threw her lasso around her, Green Lantern allowing his prison to become intangible where the golden threads touched it. Martian Manhunter reached into the Enchantress’ mind, trying to shut her down before she could do any more damage, but with a shouted spell, a bloody wound of a portal tore into reality around her and she vanished, leaving the Justice League and Suicide Squad standing opposite each other.
“I can’t see the Parasite, he’s… damn, he’s gone,” said Superman.
Green Lantern couldn’t help but agree. “My ring isn’t picking up anything either. I’m sorry, Big Blue.”
Rudy Jones, the boogeyman of the superhero and villain-set, had once again slinked away in the chaos. Another case left unsolved, another threat still on the board. But still, there were other concerns staring them in the face.
“What… what happened?” whispered Flagg.
Waller put a hand on his shoulder and looked around the room. “I’m back, colonel. Squad, fall in. I want Catman and that so-called ‘vampire’ freak in chains. They’ve got a lot to answer for. And Justice League-- this is a government facility. You’re trespassing.”
“What about Batman? He-- I mean-- we have orders to bring him in, y’know? Shouldn’t we be doing the job yer president handed us?” asked Captain Boomerang, tilting his head back and pinching his bloodied nose.
“For her murder,” said Aquaman, pointing a finger at Waller.
“He still has to answer for it, dun’he? I mean, uh, the break and entering, or whatever?” Harkness pushed.
Batman said nothing. Instead he pressed a button on his belt, and using the link to the facility’s security system that he’d hacked upon their arrival, routed a specific piece of camera footage through the nearby computer monitors.
Catman’s voice came through loud and clear from when he and the Dark Knight had been battling it out in the corridor earlier. “Y’know, it’s not even personal. It’s business.”
“…Business?”
Batman didn’t take his eyes off Catman as their conversation was broadcast for all to hear. He’d had to be selective with his on the fly edits, because he knew that there was something in Thomas Blake’s head that he needed to keep a secret, but he also knew that trying to drag him out of Task Force X’s clutches would be like tossing a match into a pool of gasoline. He had to figure out a play. Had to figure out his next steps. And if that meant Blake remained in government captivity for the time being? Well. The Dark Knight has broken into worse places.
“Yeah, business. I was given an order by my bosses. Kill Waller while wearing your face. You’re lucky I didn’t come and take that from you to do the damn job. Business.”
Superman was astonished, but quickly caught on. “You slaved the cameras to your suit. You recorded it all.”
“Case closed,” said Amanda, begrudgingly. If it had been so easy for the vigilante to steal their cameras to his agenda, then that would have to be something they look into later. Right now, the board was set up in favour of the Justice League, and she knew in her heart that right now, no war could be won if her organisation went into battle with theirs. “But you’re still trespassing.”
The Flash laughed. “We’re trespassing? We just saved you folks from a mystical beatdown at the hands of one of your own even after Bats was framed for your murder-- a little ‘thank you’ wouldn’t be amiss.”
“Thank you. Get out,” said Waller.
Superman placed a hand around the scruff of Lex Luthor’s neck. “You’re coming with us.”
“Oh, I think I’ll be staying. Isn’t that right, Amanda?” said Lex, grinning.
She paused for a moment, then waved him off, paying more attention to her people. “…No. I don’t think so. Take him into custody, Superman. I trust he’ll be given his day in court?”
“Of course,” replied the Man of Tomorrow, pushing Luthor forward.
Lex was raving. “What? What? We just went through hell, Amanda! We went through it together!”
Waller was nonplussed. “And now we’re out. Business resumes as normal. League, you can see yourselves out. I won’t send your foundation a bill for the two holes in the roof.”
Annoyed, the Flash went to say something, but Batman nodded at Green Lantern, and the team were encased in an emerald sphere that hovered up and out of the facility, leaving.
“Did we win?” asked Boomerang.
“Shut the hell up, Harkness. No one talks until we lock this place down. Flagg, do you need a medic? Quinn, can you stop stomping on that freak of nature’s innards?”
“Sorry, boss lady!” said Harley, saluting while still grinding her heel into Shreck’s small instestine as it slowly pulled itself back into its proper place in his vampiric body.
“I’ll be… I’ll be fine…” said Flagg, as Deadshot helped him up.
Waller watched as the emerald globe faded from view overhead, as the Justice League exited. That wasn’t how she wanted this to play out. But at least… at least they made it out of there in one piece.
For less than twenty-four hours, she’d been presumed dead. Tortured for the majority of that time by a raving lunatic of a psychic. Made to relive the deaths of two of her children and her own husband. She’d killed a man and assaulted numerous others, and had managed to get back to civilisation in time to see her team be torn apart by one of their own.
The Enchantress was currently the top of Task Force X’s most wanted list. She looked at Catman, who was pinned to the ground by Killer Croc’s immense knee in his back. “You and me, Catman? We’re going to be spending a lot of time together discussing your so-called ‘Society’.”
Blake grimaced. He didn’t like the sound of that one bit, but the faceless man who lived in the back of his head? Well, he could have smiled, facial features permitting…
EPILOGUE ONE:
LAPUTA:
“What do you mean he’s innocent?”
Superman had never sounded so angry. The Justice Leaguers were taken aback by his outburst, but the Martian Manhunter sat quite still, not blinking in the face of his old friend’s rage. “You asked me to take a read from Luthor’s mind. To ascertain his involvement in the events of the last twenty-four hours. To ensure he had no machinations left to unspool. I found the truth. He has been a prisoner of the Society since it’s initial formation, when the Star Conqueror descended upon Earth*
*All the way back in Justice League Vs. America
“I’ve fought him since! He tried to buy Superboy on the black market! He used Black and Red Kryptonite to bend Supergirl to his will*! He’s a monster! He’s been a monster since-- since--!”
*Both events happening in “Kon-El”, from Action Comics #37-40
J’onn raised his hand. “Kal, those events are present in his mindscape, but he was not the driving force behind them. I sensed the alien influence of a powerful psychic-- the Kalanor despot known as Despero. He seems to have ravaged Luthor’s mind, and used him as a tool in his monstrous plans*.”
*Not entirely untrue… check out Secret Society of Super-Villains #1-6
“Despero? But he’s trapped on Thanagar, isn’t he*?” asked the Flash.
*“Mystery in Space”, from Justice League #3-5
“I wish Katar were here…*” mused Aquaman.
*Hawkman left the team in Justice League #39
Wonder Woman shared the sentiment, but her voice cracked as she spoke. “Katar made his choice to walk away, Arthur. Luthor’s guilt or innocence will come to light as we move forward, but we have to focus on what happened yesterday. Bruce?”
“But Luthor--” said Superman.
“We have to trust in due process, Kal,” said Diana.
J’onn nodded. “With permission from the proper authorities, I shall continue my investigation on Luthor’s psychic state*, but until then, yes…” He turned his attention to Batman. “…Yesterday.”
*For the results, check out Green Lantern Corps #57-59
Batman placed his hands on the table in front of him. “I won’t apologise. I had to do what was best for my family, for Gotham. That said… I appreciate you coming to our aid when called. I know I’m… hh. I know I’m stubborn. I know that sometimes I can be difficult to work with. But what I do, I do for the greater good. And I don’t want to drag the Justice League’s name through the dirt while I’m doing it.”
“erm, I don’t see a problem,” said the Flash, shrugging.
“Yeah, I mean… the big man said he’d sort it, and you both look like hell, but you’re alive, and your name has been cleared,” said Green Lantern.
Aquaman stood and picked up his trident from where it had been leaning on the table. “Diana and I are meeting with President Stuart tomorrow morning to give him a full debrief of the situation, but you’ve been exonerated with Catman’s confession-- and the fact that Waller is alive.”
“That bit helps the most,” said the Flash.
Superman looked down at his hands, then back at Batman. “I said it to you before, and I’ll say it again, though: If you call, we will come. And, yes, sometimes when you don’t call, we’ll still check in on you. No man is an island, Bruce.”
“I need to get back to Gotham City. There’s work to be done,” said Batman, abruptly standing and heading for the door. He turned at the threshold. “And… thank you.”
The Justice League was silent for a moment after he left, and then the Flash put his hand on his chest. “I think someone just walked over my grave.”
“Nah, that’s Batman saying ‘thanks’,” said Green Lantern. “9th wonder of the world.”
EPILOGUE TWO:
PROJECT: TWILIGHT’S TOP SECRET BASE OF OPERATIONS:
“…And the privacy nets have been erected?” asked Waller.
She’d ordered the medics to leave her alone, she felt fine, needed a square meal for sure, but now wasn’t the time to be precious. She wanted to speak to Lambert about his actions during the attack on the facility, but he’d not been seen since the Parasite escape in the main chamber. He was probably dead. Not a massive loss, but he was always good at filing his paperwork, so that would be irritating to get covered. Flagg was back on his feet but looked like he’d lost twenty pounds since they’d last walked together. But still, they had lots to talk about.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Good. We can talk freely. Parasite escaped and he knows we’re after him, and we lost the Twilight array anyway. That’s a massive blow. And now that the Justice League know we targeted them… the element of surprise is gone, so if we’re to rebuild, we need to be fast, and we need Starkey.”
“The database was completely wiped?”
“Completely,” said Waller.
“…Damn.”
“But with Starkey’s mind, we can reconstitute our losses. His keycode was used in panic room twelve. That’s just around the corner from here. He’ll be snug as a bug, while the rest of the world went to hell an hour ago. Mad.”
“Yes, but he should have come out when the all clear was given,” said Flagg, as the two headed toward the panic room. “Amanda, I just want to say--”
She wasn’t going to let him finish. “You got played, Flagg. Enchantress got her hooks in you. We don’t know how, but we’re going to have to look at ways to stop it from happening again. We’ve got Moone back, so that’s something. I’m almost disappointed the Squad went to hell in a hand basket five minutes after I handed you the reins, but I think this is best for both of us.”
“I didn’t even know…” murmured Flagg.
“None of us did. Enchantress is a wild card, and now she’s in the wind. That’s bad news. Whatever she was trying to do with you, she failed… but the fact is, she got so far. We need to be better. I’m thinking about bringing in some magic-based bastards into the next iteration of the team. Something that can put a dent in that pretty little face of hers.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“The joint chiefs have taken Task Force X away from you, Flagg. You’re back on the front lines-- not that you took the promotion sitting down. Thanks for avenging me, by the way. I read the transcripts when the medics were swarming over me. Neat little trap you sprung on the vigilante. Shame about Katana…”
“To be honest, I think she might have saved my soul. If what Enchantress was trying to make me do was predicated on killing Batman… she pulled me back from the brink.”
“Doesn’t change the fact she--” They turned a corner and came to panic room 12. “It can wait.” She input her own code and the large metal door hissed open.
An awful stench hit the duo and Flagg covered his mouth, while pulling his sidearm. Waller’s eyes became slits and she looked around the pitch-black room, trying to discern the source of the wretched smell. “Starkey?”
“doop doop de doop,” a man sang quietly from the depths of the darkness, “doo”
Flagg was about to pull his torch out, but then the main generator in the complex finally fired up and illuminated the panic room, revealing a horrible sight if there ever was one.
Sat in a pile of his own excrement was Leonard Starkey. His body was malformed in places, his right hand was withered, one eye had shrunk in its socket, while his face drooped on one side. There was a hand print across his bare chest, burned in, and he looked like he’d aged thirty years since Waller had last seen him.
“Good God,” she whispered.
“hellooooo,” said the malformed and addled Starkey, “hellooooo”
Flagg pulled his walkie-talkie out. “We need medical assistance in panic room 12 immediately. We found Starkey. My God…”
Without a word, Amanda Waller turned away and left the panic room, a look of disgust and disappointment on her face. They’d taken everything. The Project: Twilight was dead. Now all she had left to her was a thirst for revenge she didn’t know was possible.
EPILOGUE THREE:
PEÑA DURO PRISON, SANTA PRISCA:
“Why is there a crater in the prison’s courtyard?” asked Bane.
The inner circle of the Secret Society of Super-Villains had convened. Few were happy.
Around the table they went…
Bane, the muscle-bound engine of destruction, tempered with a criminal genius matched by only a select few-- most of them stood in the room with him. His evil first taking root here, on Santa Prisca, fuelled by the super-steroid Venom. Bane kicked the habit, went cold turkey. The thing that kept him sane through his withdrawal? His need to break the Batman.
General Immortus, mysterious military leader whose origins have been lost through the ages. Once the dread nemesis of the Doom Patrol, now a key strategist for the Society.
Doctor Samuel Malthus, nebbish and cowardly, the scientific genius behind the Society's recent advances in Rogue-terrorism. Former member and foe of the Suicide Squad. Currently living in a perpetual state of fear that Task Force X lurk somewhere in the shadows of his life...
The Gambler, Hazard Sharpe, her luck manipulation powers and ability to twist fate in her favour were skills she had used for personal gain, but even with those abilities she had not yet been able to track down her father's killer. Terra-Man had stolen the identity of The Gambler. For Hazard, that could not stand.
Harlequin, Marcie Cooper, a brilliant businesswoman and master of deception, not as crazy as she sounds and possibly crazier than she realizes. With her hypnotic glasses and constant connection to the digital world, she shapes the world like a modeller shapes clay.
And then there were two…
Talia Al Ghul, 'Vanguard of the Demon'. The former lover of Batman, whose father had tried time and again to turn the hero to their side. Current leader of the League of Shadows, an elite network of assassins, mercenaries and killers, she intends to use the Society to elevate the 'Al Ghul' name back to prominence after the depths Ra's Al Ghul took it in his mad quest for Batman's destruction.
Scandal Savage, daughter of the immortal Vandal Savage. Representing her father's stake in world domination and here at the behest of her childhood friend Talia. She has her own identity to carve, her own mark to make...
Talia smiled. “While you and the others were representing our interests out in the world, Scandal and I fulfilled our end of the bargain with the man who handed us the leadership of the Society. Lex Luthor no longer has a criminal past that can be pinned on him, and it’s thanks to our hard work.”
Malthus licked his lips nervously. “Y-you mean, Psimon did the job?”
Scandal gave an eager thumbs-up in the neurotic scientist’s direction. “Oh, yeah. He cut and stitched Lex’s brain and now every naughty act he performed before and after his outing as the most super of villains looks like it was due to the psychic meddling of Despero. Somewhat close to the truth, but far enough to know the difference.”
“And the price? Did he pay it?” asked the Gambler.
Scandal grinned. “Several multi-billion black budget slush funds have been diverted to our war chest, Hazard. The Society is funded in perpetuity.”
“And the Batman?” asked Bane.
“Still unbroken,” said Talia.
“Good. Good.”
Harlequin was calm and cool in her seat. “We can roll out the new mandate then, can’t we? Make the Society even more popular with our membership and prospective membership than ever before. No more taking a cut from jobs. Members keep their full share, and we still get to cause trouble wherever we like.”
“And the black spot on our number-- Psimon-- is dead,” said Bane.
Harlequin didn’t care. “Yeah, that was one ugly scene. But good riddance to the guy. After he was caught dipping his fingers into the minds of our little club, it was only a matter of time.”
Immortus held up his hand. “That does not leave this room. To have our number fearful of Amanda Waller and what she could do to them… that does us a service. The previous leadership created one bogeyman in the enhancement of the Parasite, it is time we created our own. Amanda Waller is out there, and she wants to snatch you up for her ‘Suicide Squad’. Fear is a grand motivator.”
EPILOGUE FOUR:
BELLE REVE PENITENTIARY, LOUISANA:
Amanda made it back to Belle Reve after clearing up the mess at Project: Twilight. It was a new day, but there were loose ends from the days before that needed to be tied off. She was surprised by how happy her staff looked to have her back, but then again, when your boss’ corpse bursts like a piñata and causes a prison break, her not being dead is sometimes a plus.
She swiped her way down two reinforced doors, went down a private elevator, and then nodded at the guards on the final check before her intended location. She entered slowly, and began to walk down the quiet cell block, where currently only two cells were occupied.
“You’re probably wondering where you are,” she said.
“Prison, probably,” replied the elder of the two men.
“A smart mouth will get you far when you eventually pay a visit to gen-pop, prisoner 58-01-42.”
“I think I’m more than capable of holding my own.”
“Regardless, this is the pit. Where the worst of the worst in Belle Reve go.”
“Lawyer,” said the younger of the two.
“Oh, there’ll be no lawyers. You’re not even officially here, prisoner 311-01-63.”
“I’ve got out of worse places than this, Waller.”
“Sure you have, Mister Blake. Sure you have. And let me assure you, that’ll be the last name you’ll hear someone use that name in this place. You’re no longer the person you were before this day. You’re a number. In my ledger. To do with as I please. By the time we’re done, you’ll tell me every dirty little secret the Society has to offer.”
Catman thrashed about in the reinforced straitjacket that held his arms in place. Earlier, h’d tried popping his shoulder out, but the material that held him fast seemed to adjust to his escapist intentions, so then he was left with a dislocated shoulder he needed to put back into place.
“And what do you expect from me, Waller? All the secrets I have in my head from my time in Checkmate?”
“58-01-42. You betrayed your country. My people took you down because you leaked secrets to the other side. Imagine if I had actually been murdered by the man you told was being hunted. Imagine if that betrayal had come to pass. No, for you, there’ll be no further conversation. Solitary confinement. One meal a day. No interaction with anybody but the voices in your head.”
Behind Thomas Blake, a figment of his imagination leaned against the wall, without a face. “Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?” said the Question, existing inside Catman’s head.
Blake grimaced. He said nothing.
“You won’t get away with this,” said Paul Kirk, aka the Manhunter. He’d been kidnapped in Washington by the Suicide Squad. Now he was in a cage.
Waller shrugged. She reached up to the seam above the bars of his cell, and dragged a shutter down with a clank, locking White King’s Bishop alone in the dark. “I think I already have.”
She took a few steps away from Manhunter’s cell, before turning her attention back to Catman. “Do you remember what you said to me, before you knocked me out?” she asked.
“…No,” said Blake.
Waller held up a tape recorded. She pressed the play button. A voice crackled out of the small speakers. “I’m sorry. This isn’t me. It’s him. I’m just along for the ride.”
“That’s not my voice,” said Blake. He knew whose it was.
“But it came from your mouth. And all I’ve have time to do is think about it. We’ll be talking again, 311-01-63. Think on that for a while.”
EPILOGUE FIVE:
S.T.A.R. LABS, NEW YORK:
The Dark Knight was stood in front of a glass window, looking into the private ward of one of S.T.A.R. Lab’s long term patients. He had been stood in the dark, and the Man of Tomorrow had turned on the light upon entering the room.
The Caped Crusader shook his head. “I heard his voice. It came from someone else’s mouth.”
“I knew you and he were close. But that… doesn’t make any sense,” said the Man of Steel.
“Very little in this world makes sense. Sometimes you have to fight for what little sense you have.”
Beyond the pair, in the ward, lay the comatose body of Charles Szasz, aka Victor Sage. A life ago, he was the Question, hot on the trail of the Secret Society of Super-Villains*.
*Secret Society of Super-Villains #1-12
After confronting the Parasite in Washington, DC., he’d had his memories stolen, and the end result had been Rudy Jones knowing every secret the Question had ever learned, including the identities of every man, woman, and sometimes child who had a superhero identity. The damage had been done, and for all intents and purposes, Vic was healthy afterwards… but gradually he faded and faded until he landed here, vegetative, the only thing keeping him alive were the machines pumping life into him every minute of the day.
“His case never made sense. But I think I know what happened…” said Batman.
Superman said nothing, allowing his friend the room to talk it out.
“…Parasite attacked him. Stole his thoughts. Then attacked Catman. Did the same to him. But what if there was some… bleedthrough. When he touched Catman, he took something, but left something behind. A seed of Vic’s personality. And while it blossomed in Catman’s brain, the real thing…”
“You think that the Question is living inside Catman’s head?” offered Superman.
“Sometimes this world makes very little sense.”
“Then we need to fight to make some more,” said Superman.
Batman nodded. “You’re a good friend.”
“And so are you. Come on, let’s get a cup of coffee. You can tell me how you made your cave vanish yesterday.”
Batman cracked a rare smile. “…I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sure if you looked, it would be right where I left it…”
EPILOGUE SIX:
FAR FROM PRYING EYES…
Without warning, the bloody wound of a portal spat her out into the dark, her skin smouldering, her body screaming in pain. She landed hard, rolled to a stop, and found herself at the feet of the one person she could trust now, even though he looked horribly unimpressed by her.
“Brother…” the Enchantress whispered, black blood bubbling from her cracked lips.
He looked down on her disdainfully. “Sister, dear sister. You have failed in your intention to bring about our moment.”
“I was discovered. All our plans… all the preparation… wasted,” she shook her head, sadly.
He looked away from her, choosing to instead take steps toward his throne. “Tell me, sister. Tell me of the four ages. Tell me why we are here, at this point, after so long.”
She climbed to her feet and gave him a pleading look. “Brother… why? I have failed… I have failed, and I must be punished. I am willing to give my all.”
“I do not want your all. Give me this story. Tell me of the four ages.” He took his place on his throne, leaned forward, and gestured a hand toward her. “Please.”
“Brother…”
His voice raised for just a moment, a sound like thunder. “The story.”
“…Of course, brother. Where should I begin?” Enchantress asked, resigned to her situation.
“The first,” he said.
She looked around, searching her memory, searching their shared history, and began to speak. Her voice was slow, considered, a far cry from her hysterical rantings earlier toward the Justice League and Suicide Squad.
“The first… there was the Age of Satya. The golden time, the first and best of all the ages. A time of total truth and utter perfection. All of humanity were saintly. There was no disease, decrepitude or fear of anything. It was the utopian ideal, and it is long past.”
“The second was the Age of Treta. The change time, when devils begin to rise from their depths. In this age, virtue diminished, and humanity began to falter from its once perfect standing. Despots and emperors rose to prominence and conquered the once peaceful lands, and wars became second nature to those who lived within it.”
“The third age was that of the Dvapara. The fall of humanity had begun in earnest. They were no longer as strong as their ancestors; their spirituality and virtue non-existent, their souls had decayed enough to allow for the arrival for the fourth and final age, that which belongs to us.”
Lord Naga, leader of the terrorist cult Kobra, smiled as he extended his hands to her. “Shurpanakha, my sister, the dread Enchantress; take your place beside me and heal. Let me tell you of the fourth age. The Kali Yuga. This dystopic age of darkness and ignorance, where sinners become slaves to their passions, where societies fall into disuse and people become liars and hypocrites, this is the age of chaos for which we were born to rule. Your plan to bring about the degradation of man through the corruption of Rick Flagg may have failed… but that’s not the end of the world, is it?”
Finally relaxing, Enchantress took her place by Lord Naga’s side, and said, “Unfortunately not.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN DC2 MOST WANTED II: LORD NAGA MUST DIE!
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