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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:31:11 GMT -5
 Deus Ex Machina #4
"Land of Confusion"
Story and Art by Chaltab
Edited by Jay McIntyre [/i][/center] |
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:33:53 GMT -5
New Genesis
Supertown was the first victim. The vast airborne metropolis of the New Gods ceased to function, its power systems failing. The city fell, crashing against the lush forests of New Genesis.
Lightray slowly peaked around the corner of the ruined arch, looking out towards the crumbling Temple of the Source in the distance, standing defiantly against the darkened sky. It was a long way there on foot. Lightray willed himself to fly one last time, but found it impossible. The sickness had spread too far at this point. He still had his mind, but his body was dying.
Lightray feared what would come crawling out of the ruins of Supertown at night. After the city had fallen, it had been the animals that next succumbed—once harmless birds and rodents in the forests, great beasts on the open grassy plains. Their eyes had glowed red, burning with the flame of Anti-Life. They had grown savage, feral. Many were destroyed in the name of saving the lives of New God and Bug alike. Many more still roamed free.
He motioned to his companion that the coast was clear, and the bearded elder crept towards Lightray.
“It’s still about seven miles on foot, Highfather,” Lightray said.
“The Source preserve us,“ Highfather prayed. He stepped forward and strode on through the arch as Lightray led the way, shepherd’s staff at ready, as if fearing an imminent attack.
The Bugs had been next—invisible corruption spreading through their brains. At first it was a subtle hostility. But Anti-Life is sinister, and soon the entire species was corrupted. And after that, the New Gods succumbed too.
First, those who had participated in the massacre of Apokalips…
And lately, even those who had opposed it…
In the distance, a loud shriek echoed through the stone and steel canyons of Supertown. Frenzied cries signaled a dusk-time hunting party.
“They’re after us!” Lightray cursed. “Run for it, Highfather. I’ll hold them off.”
The two remaining New Gods darted through the streets, winding through the deserted streets that had scarcely been used since the New Gods had first learned to fly millennia ago. In the distance, Lightray could hear the terrifying chant of the hunting party.
“LIFE EQUALS DEATH— SELF EQUALS DARK SIDE!”
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:36:09 GMT -5
Keystone City
Buildings streaked by as Bart Allen zoomed up the side of a wall and into a window of a two-story brick apartment. The building had taken so much structural damage from the OMAC lasers that it was about to collapse. Bart used the Speed Force to distort time as he darted through the innards of the building searching for people trapped inside.
Behind him, Wally picked up a small child with big black eyes full of fear.
“We don't have much time left,” he said, hefting the child's weight onto his biceps. “I saw another wave coming from the south.”
Bart grimaced. Another little kid was caught under a collapsed china cabinet, a large gash in her leg from the broken glass. Bart pushed the cabinet off, taking care to stay patient. If he moved it too fast, she could get cut again.
The cabinet fell aside with a thud and the crash of broken glass, and Bart picked the bleeding child up.
“I already searched the rest of the building the last time you blinked,” Bart told Wally. “These two are the only ones left.”
“I'm way ahead of you,” Wally said. “Let's get out of here.”
Bart and Wally started running, Kid Flash and Flash, drawing on the power of the extra dimensional energy source known as the Speed Force. Wally had discovered the Speed Force four years ago after saving the world from the combined threat of Brainiac and Lex Luthor, though he and other Speedsters had been unknowingly tapping into it for far longer.
Time and space distorted as the two ran towards the exit, out the window and down the side of the building. Everything seemed to be standing still, and a brick that had come dislodged from the side of the damaged building floated in mid air. When they got to the bottom of the building, time sped back up and normal speed reasserted itself.
A couple of EMS workers ran forward to collect the two children from Flash and Kid Flash and escorted them towards and ambulance.
Bart, despite his impatience to do something about the problem, felt his mouth twitch into a light smile.
“No better feeling,” Wally said, having noticed.
At his belt, the Flash's communicator buzzed, but it wasn't the Justice League; it was the police commissioner of Central City, the Keystone's twin across the Missouri River
.
“What's up, commish?” Flash asked.
“As if things weren't bad enough,” said the commissioner, sounding haggard. “Captain Cold has barricaded himself in the Flash Museum—he's terrorizing the area. We've already had three officers frozen solid.”
“We'll be right on it,” Flash said.
“We?!” Bart blurted, his eyes widening. “Flash, I wanna go fight the OMACs with the Teen Titans. You can handle Captain Cold yourself!”
“No way,” Wally said. “Just because I'm incredibly good looking and hilarious doesn't mean I'm stupid. Think, Bart. Captain Cold is obviously setting up a trap, which means I may need back up.”
“He picked a great time to start this grife!”
“Bart, just because they're future cuss words doesn't mean I'm going to let you use them.”
Bart scowled.
Wally nodded, starting down the street. “Now come on!” he said before blasting off at Super Speed. Bart started running too, following his mentor, his mind racing with a thousand other things he'd rather be doing than fighting Captain Cold.
Flash and Kid Flash had just made it to the bridge across the river when a blur of yellow and red slammed into Wally, a thunderous crack resounding. Wally flew backwards and Bart turned and shouted for him. But then something slammed hard into Bart’s back and sent him tumbling, and a blur of yellow and green filled his vision.
Bart looked up to see Zoom, one of Flash's arch enemies, looming over Wally. And over himself he saw Inertia, his own evil super-speedster clone standing on the bridge above them.
“Gee willikers, Wally,” Inertia said. “I think it's time to make this pair 'better heroes'.”
His tone of voice made Bart think that making them better heroes was the last thing on Inertia's twisted mind.
“Yeeessssss,” said Zoom. “Ithinkitis.”
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:37:48 GMT -5
Two pairs of hiking boots pattered down on a decaying stone walkway; red vines and violet weeds grew through the cracks. Above the walkway, a massive labyrinth twisted and grew from the rocky surface of the mountain top, with enormous statues jutting out in every direction, seemingly heedless of gravity. High at the top of the palace the massive golden figure of Zeus, tarnished and corroded, stood looming over against the backdrop of a stormy grey sky.
One pair of boots stepped forward. “Great Hera!” Wonder Girl said. “What’s happened here?”
Superboy stepped forward and stopped beside her. “This place has seen better days. Cassie, do you really think we’ll find anything here? It looks like Mount Olympus as been abandoned for ages.”
“It hasn’t.” Cassie reached down and pulled a red weed from the cracked stone path. “Something is corrupting this place. Something evil enough to drive the gods insane with anger and bring the Titans out of hiding.”
Superboy closed his eyes and listened to the air whistling through the stone tunnels of the palace, and of things slithering and crawling and marching.
“We’re not alone,” he said. “I hear movement. I hear heartbeats.”
The two continued up an enormous flight of stairs so big they had to fly up them, past a decrepit well dug deep into the side of the mountain, and baths and swimming pools full of foul-smelling liquids.
Their path led them to a golden palisade that surrounded a building high on a peak of the mountain. Superboy hovered up to fly over the barrier, and then froze. He had heard something hissing, and he glanced left and right, not seeing anything…
He started to proceed when something heavy slammed into his side and he went careening into a marble column.
“Conner!” shouted Wonder Girl.
Superboy jerked his head up to see a huge hulking monster, like a cow walking on two legs; it raised a huge silver axe above its head, about to bring it down on Cassie. Her back was turned, and she couldn’t see it.
“Cassie!” he shouted, pointing behind her. “Minotaur!”
The axe came down, but Cassie moved faster, bringing up the bracelets on her arms and catching the blade of the axe against them. Sparks flew, and Cassie broke off the guard with a parry and slugged the Minotaur in the face. Conner flew up beside her, smashing it again into the air and sending it soaring off into the distance. A loud cry rang out and suddenly hundreds of Minotaurs surrounded the two teens, alongside slithering things with lower bodies made of snakes and hair of writhing worms.
“Gorgons too,” Cassie whispered.
“Geez, now I know how Kratos feels,” Superboy said.
The Minotaurs raised their weapons and charged.
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:43:30 GMT -5
Honolulu, Hawaii
Hurricane winds buffeted the space ship as it arced through the sky towards the enduring Atlas. At the controls, Robin fought to keep it on course. The ship was the T-Defender, the rust-orange vessel used by the Teen Titans, and their target was undoubtedly the most famous of all the Titans of Myth, the one who held up the sky on his shoulders.
Robin reached up and turned the intercom on. “Get ready, Starfire.”
His Tamaranean teammate had opted to stay outside the ship and catch him when he ejected, then get him the hell away from Atlas in case the plan failed. Robin reached down and flicked the last switch on, arming all the explosive weapons onboard the T-Defender and turning on the quantum oscillator, a theoretical device that would simulate the Martian Manhunter’s intangibility powers in a field around the T-Defender. Robin didn’t know if it would get the ship through Atlas’ shields, but it was their only shot. Even the Justice League was no longer able to break through the shields of the Titans of Myth. Nearly every superhero on Earth was working rescue, leaving Earth’s largely abandoned urban centers at the mercy of the ancient gods.
In Robin’s mind, that wasn’t good enough.
But their opponent wasn’t worried. Atlas continued to ignore the Teen Titans, instead continuing the mighty hurricane he had created around Hawaii and trudging through the streets of its cities, smashing buildings attacking rescue squads. The difficulty of evacuating the island was the reason Robin had chosen to use the quantum oscillator on Atlas instead of any of the other Titans of Myth.
The indicator light on Robin’s control panel flashed red, and Robin pulled the ejector lever. The glass blasted off his cockpit and his seat went flying out into the storm, the winds slamming into him and blowing him far away from the ship in a matter of seconds. Suddenly a pair of warm orange arms wrapped around him and Robin felt himself pulled the other way.
“I have you!” Starfire shouted as they arced away.
The T-Defender flashed and slammed into the magic shield around Atlas, erupting into a brilliant burst of flame.
“NO!” Robin shouted, watching as his gambit exploded into a ball of fire against the force field. He felt Starfire’s grip on him tighten, and nearby, Raven joined them, hovering by their side in the fierce winds.
“It was a long shot anyway,” Raven said. “And Cyborg’s team has almost finished evacu—”
Just then, another light flashed inside the force field, and the T-Defender, scorched and belching smoke, reappeared. Robin narrowed his eyes and smirked. A second went by, then two. Then the T-Defender slammed into Atlas’ leg, a massive explosion erupting from the crash site and sending debris and force in every direction. The force field flickered as the explosion hit it, and Atlas fell to one knee, the impact of his incredible weight sending shockwaves through the deserted city streets.
Robin pulled out his communicator. “Robin to Batman—the quantum oscillator works. I repeat, the quantum oscillator works.”
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:45:21 GMT -5
The fight between the speedsters had raged from the heart of America to the shores of the pacific in a matter of minutes, and now continued far out into the ocean—Flash and Kid Flash, Inertia and Zoom moving so fast that they stayed on the surface of the ocean, not sinking down through the salty waves. The waves themselves seemed frozen next to the speedsters' velocity, like silent stone imitations of the ocean molded by some ancient sculptor.
Wally slammed a fist into Zoom’s face with a punch of nearly-infinite mass, and the super villain went flying through the air for a mile before skidding across the water's surface. He began to sink, but immediately struck at the water with enough force to repel himself upward and away from the surface, standing up on the adamant waves and running back towards Wally. He socked the Flash in the face, then tried to plant another fist in his gut, but Flash was faster and blocked the second attack, kneeing Zoom in the chest and staggering him backward, the unmoving ocean spraying tiny droplets of water that scattered so fast they would punch holes in ships miles away.
Kid Flash, meanwhile, darted past Inertia, running up a massive wave that seemed frozen in time. Inertia followed him, taunting him.
“Delusions of adequacy,” Inertia spat. “That's your problem, Bart.”
“No, it's just a line from a Weird Al song,” Bart shot back, leaping off the static wave, landing hard and sinking into the water like cement. He waited for Inertia to jump off the wave after him, and then darted away with a burst of speed, causing his evil clone to fall into a pit.
Bart started reaching for water droplets in the air; he hurled them back at Inertia at near light-speed, pelting the clone with stinging droplets of infinitely massive brine.
Inertia dodged between them, zipping towards Kid Flash and ramming his elbow in to Bart's throat. Bart coughed as his trachea collapsed, retaliating with a flurry of light-speed punches as he gasped for breath. Inertia kicked him in the stomach, sending him skidding across the waves towards Flash.
“This isn't working,” Flash said, grabbing Bart and pulling him to his feet. They both started running to stay atop the halcyon ocean. “And I don't know how much longer we can keep this level of speed up.”
“Behind us,” Kid Flash said, thumbing back to see Zoom and Inertia chasing after them. Behind them the combined force of their footsteps had created massive craters in the static surf which were combining into a huge trench in the ocean. Inertia reached out and grabbed the fabric of Bart's costume, jerking him backwards. Zoom jumped over them as they both tumbled into the crater.
Flash narrowed his eyes; a thought occurred to him and he smirked, giving himself a sudden burst of Speed and rocketing in front of Zoom, just as the obsessive villain reached for him, grabbing at air. Wally skidded to a relative halt several yards in front of Zoom, then began vibrating his molecules. A burst of heat slammed into Zoom, and the reverse Flash had to shield his face...
And when Zoom looked again as the heat wave dissipated... Flash was gone.
“Wwwwwhherrre didyougoFlaaaaaaaaaasssh...?” Zoom's head pivoted back and forth on his neck at lightspeed, the vertebrae on his neck nearly fusing with the violence of his motion. “Evenyou aaaaaaren't thaaaaatfast!”
Then a fist exploded from the water and clasped onto Zoom's ankle.
The reverse Flash's eyes shot wide with surprise for a split picoseconds, before the hand jerked down, pulling Zoom through the waves. And at that speed, it was as though he had been pulled through a solid block of marble. Under the waves, Flash greeted the evil speedster, slamming his fist into Zoom's face, the combined shock of pain overwhelming the Reverse Flash's brain and knocking him unconscious.
Wally surfaced to look for Bart and Inertia, only to be sprayed by a blast of salt water, a torrent of liquid being thrown around by some incredible force, and it was coming from a massive mountain of water that seemed suspended above sea level, defying gravity.
Flash ran to the top, and there he saw an enormous crater in the ocean the breadth of a football field and as deep as a stadium, two blurs, one of green and yellow and the other of yellow and red, running around the interior of the mountain. Kid Flash and Inertia. They were moving so fast Wally couldn't tell who was leading and who was following.
And then in a flash of light, Bart grabbed on to Inertia and slammed in from the middle of the crater to its base; a crackle of Speed Force energy arced out of Inertia and into Bart, and when it passed, Bart was standing, vibrating at lightspeed, his form blurry and out of sync with reality. Inertia seemed frozen in time...
Bart darted to the precipice of the crater and found Wally. “Flash, if we run around the outside of the crater, we should be able to collapse it before it forms a tidal wave.”
“What did you do to Inertia?” the Flash blinked. When had Bart ever been this on top of things? Usually he was the one taking (or more often ignoring) orders, not giving them.
“I stole his Speed. He's experiencing things in normal time now. Now quick, run with me!”
Bart took off, and Wally decided all he could do at this point was follow.
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:46:46 GMT -5
The head of a Gorgon went sailing through the air, its neck spraying black blood, partially cauterized by Superboy's heat vision, even as three Sirens—beasts with the head of a woman and the body of a bird—tackled the Boy of Steel and started trying to tear the flesh from his bones with their razor sharp talons. Superboy growled and slammed his fists into the nearest Siren, using his tactile telekinesis to tear apart the beast's internal organs.
Another siren bit into Superboy's arm, tearing a strip of flesh off. He snarled in pain and punched the beast as hard as he could muster in the race, smashing the front part of its skull in.
The third Siren tried to tear into his back, when a golden lasso wrapped around its neck and Wonder Girl sent a charge of electricity down the rope, shocking the Siren to death.
“Damn it,” Superboy hissed, cradling the wounded arm. “These things don't seem to realize I'm supposed to have an impregnable force field around me. I feel so... pregnable.”
“It's the magic, Conner.” Wonder Girl smashed another Minotaur in the face, then grabbed him by the horns and tossed him off Mount Olympus. “Even Superman is vulnerable to magic.”
More monsters appeared, driving the duo ever up the hill towards a palace... And Wonder Girl noticed that that palace looked somehow less decayed, less worn than the others. She flew up and made a run for it. “Follow me, Conner!”
Superboy followed, dodging more sirens and their wicked cousins, the Harpies as they flew. The entrance to the palace was huge, with a stone awning held up by marble columns the thickness of redwood trees.
A granite hallway awaited them on the inside, and Superboy and Wonder Girl ran down it, trodding over a carpet intricately-woven with images from ancient Greek lore, and past walls draped with fine silk. Finally, they reached a circular chamber and stopped dead in their tracks.
Before them were five human shapes, twelve feet tall, reclining around a podium in the middle, where an orb glowed with faint orange light, but it paled next to the light with which the figures themselves glowed. One of them stood, regarding the newcomers with pointed curiosity. Over her shoulders there was draped a golden aegis.
“Athena!” Wonder Girl gasped, kneeling in reverence. Superboy did as well, though more out of conscientiousness than any religious devotion.
“Daughter of Zeus,” she said softly. “Cassandra Sandsmark, my half sister. And her lover, Kon-El. Welcome to what remains of the splendor of Olympus.”
Beside Athena, Artemis stood, her bare feet making no sound as she strode beside the other goddess. “What has brought them here, Athena?”
“We've come to see what is driving the gods mad!” Wonder Girl said. “I thought we might find clues here. I heard from a mortal known as Raven that she saw a premonition of Olympus attacking the Rock of Eternity.”
Nearby, a bearded god stood, walking with a cane towards the orb in the center. “That Premonition was fulfilled days ago, little demigod. The Rock of Eternity was destroyed by the combined might of the gods, and its energies scattered over the mortal world.”
“I know who that is, it's Hephaestus,” Superboy said.
“Shush, Conner,” Cassie whispered.
One of the gods stirred, as if waking up, and then he was suddenly standing beside Artemis. From the wings on his helmet and sandals, he was obviously Hermes; the goddess beside him appeared to be Demeter.
“We're the only gods left,” Hermes said. “Save for maybe some of those in the underworld. We've not heard from them. We'd all be coo-coo like everyone else if it weren't for Hephaestus here.”
Demeter spoke. “Indeed, Hephaestus saved the five of us by forging the orb you see here on this pedestal.” The goddess motioned to it. “Its magic acts as a barrier to the Chaos that claws at our minds. Apollo prophesied that it would be necessary, but he succumbed to the madness before it was finished.”
“What's causing it?” Superboy asked.
“Chaos was awakened,” Athena said. “It’s a void whose cries drive the gods mad. It was sealed away by Zeus thousands of years ago in the bowels of Tartarus, but something has disturbed its rest. It will not be safe for us to leave the protection of this chamber until the void is silenced.”
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:48:53 GMT -5
Beams of energy zipped by Cyborg and Starfire as the two flew closer towards the reactor core of Atlas, OMACs swarming like metaphorical antibodies to take down the invaders. Cyborg dodged left and Starfire flew up and to the right, blasting with a combination of their sonic cannon and starbolt attacks at the same OMAC. They missed the eye in the middle of its chest, though, and the energy reflected off harmlessly.
“Star, don’t shoot the ones I’m shooting,” Cyborg called.
Starfire dodged another beam. “How am I to know which ones I am not to be shooting?”
“Use your alien mind-reading powers or somethin’!”
“But I do not—”
KRAKOOM!
A column of black energy slammed into the force field around the generator. “This bickering is pointless,” hissed Raven. “Focus your fire on the reactor—even technology from the 853rd century doesn’t function without its power source.”
The reactor glowed, the transparent membrane around it thickening.
“Rae, I think it heard you,” Cyborg said.
“It’s a mindless machine,” said Raven. “If it had a consciousness, I would have felt it.”
Starfire flew up, blasting several OMACs to pieces and then sending out a massive beam of solar energy into the reactor shield.
“Raven, the potential processing power of a computer system as large as one of these Titans built with modern Earth technology is tremendous. In the 853rd century, that processing power is increased by a magnitude of 11 to the 34230574325th power. It is perfectly feasible that that the computer could interpret human intentions even without possessing a psyche.”
“Either that,” Raven said, “Or these things have a puppet master.”
The Teen Titans tore into another wave of OMACs, destroying the protectors of the core, while Raven removed a device from the shadows that formed her cloak—a second, smaller version of the phase oscillator. Attached to it was enough plastic explosive to level half of Jump City.
“Courtesy of Arsenal,” she explained. “The reactor is so advanced that the greatest minds on the planet haven’t been able to even guess at how it works. It runs on a combination of quantum mechanics and magic that make Control Freak’s techno-sorcery look like cheap parlor magic. Robin didn’t want to take any chances.”
Cyborg shrugged. “Fine by me.”
Cyborg and Starfire held off the OMACs while Raven planted the explosive—a task that was somewhat out of her field of expertise—then together the Teen Titans took off, retracing their steps through Atlas’ corridors.
As they escaped into the open air, a resounding BOOM echoed through the behemoth, followed by an earth-shattering, psyche-searing blast of confusion and light and sound, and Starfire, Raven, and Cyborg suddenly knew no more.
Down below, on the ocean and three miles away, the blast picked up Flash and Kid Flash and flung them far away.
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Post by arcalian on May 26, 2009 21:50:03 GMT -5
Diseased hands reached out and grabbed Lightray, pulling with inconceivable strength. The New God was moved off his feet and the slave to Anti-Life that grabbed him drooled acidic venom onto his skin as she prepared to whisper the Equation in his ear.
Lightray snarled and blasted her with his namesake rays of light, sending the wretch sprawling.
“Sollis, I told you not to use lethal force. They aren’t themselves.” Highfather’s words stung the young New God, and he winced, regretting his decision.
“It’s hard,” he said. “The Anti-Life is affecting me even now, even though I’m keeping my wits. I’m losing my moral resolve, Highfather. Slowly but surely, I’m losing it.”
“Then do what the heroes of Earth would do,” Highfather said. “Press on. Fight on.”
Highfather and Lightray darted towards the temple, of the source, now within running distance. Anti-Life slaves, sprinting on legs empowered by the evil will of Darkseid, ran after them, bugs and New Gods alike. Lightray turned and made photon walls to stop their advance, but even as he did so, he could feel his powers ebbing. They might hold out for a few days yet, but not much longer…
And then, before them, a red-tinged barrier appeared, and Highfather and Lightray slammed into it, beating their fists against it futilely. All around the temple of the Source, the barrier materialized, and Lightray and Highfather looked up in the sky to see its origin…
There, above the clouds, in front of the silhouette of Apocalypse, a glowing red skull hovered, imbibing the souls of mortals and using their energy to rain Anti-Life down on New Genesis.
Continued
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