#1: The Underground Pt. 1 "Recruitment Drive"

Metropolis:

The wall exploded, concrete flying every which way possible. The police were ready for anything, anyone. This was Metropolis, after all; home of Superman, home of the newly christened Special Crimes Unit, run by Maggie Sawyer and her second-in-command Nemo Jones. The elite team of officers were suited up with Steel-tech provided by John Henry Irons, ready and willing to dive into the breach, whatever the threat presented to them. <Armour primed and weapons ready.>

The man behind the explosion sprang from the smoke, and ricocheted from armour suit to armour suit. Hard-light blades disabled the weaponry before it had a chance to be used. He landed hard, all muscle and armour, pain and brains and a whole lot of wanting to be bad, and he looked up. His voice was steeped in static, inhuman to all that could hear: “You’re all dead.”

“No, son,” came a voice, and the police parted. “You’re under arrest.” The Guardian pointed his shield at the villain. “The easy way, or the fun way, your choice.”

The man amped up the energy feed to his armour. “I'm going to guess we have different definitions of fun.”

Over Hub City:

Rich Hertz had tried to be good. He had tried oh-so-hard, or as hard as could be expected for a dirty sonofabitch like him, to be a good little boy. He’d not killed anyone for weeks (Honest.) and had, instead of stealing or murdering his way across the country to get where he wanted to be, purchased his air ticket with money gifted to him by his bosses back in Gotham City. His thoughts wandered back, as they tended to, back to this new assignment, back to his briefing.

Gotham City; 24 Hours Ago:

Herz didn’t know who was going to speak first. They creeped him out, The 100. They wore all black suits with red trim and ties, gold cuff-links glinting with the symbol of their society. Their faces were obscured by shadow, as was the way of them. But they paid. They gave him the fun gigs. So he continued to listen as they spoke in their monotonous tones:

“We require you”

“to act as ‘special”

“liaison’”

“to something”

“important going down”

“in the Hub.”

“Ain’t that Intergang territory?” Rich had replied.

Then another voice joined the fray. Hertz recognised it immediately: Mr Punch stepped forward, and rearranged the red cufflinks on his wrists. This was the boss-man, the guy who called the shots. Rich nodded in recognition as he approached. “It used to be, Richard, but the times are changing and we must move with them. Black Mask is making a major move on Gotham City, and frankly, we do not care about this place. We need someone we trust up there, in Hub City, making sure things go down in the best interest of The 100.”

“Done and done, boss-man. Never quite liked Gotham anyways, too many Bat-freaks running around, making life hard.”

Over Hub City:

That was that. The memory faded back into the recesses of his mind. He focused on the task at hand. So here he was, a downright mean sonofabitch, a mean and dirty one, and he had a job to do. And he knew, rule of rules, not to draw attention to himself by playing up when the time didn’t call for it. His guns were waiting for him when he touched down, an operative of The 100 having provided him with all the ammunition and firepower he needed to kill whoever needed killing. Right now, all he had on him was the ceramic blade that was attached to his wrist. (He was never going to be left naked, you have to understand.)

Rich Hertz was Blackguard. His super-strength hit in his late teens, and the madness that came with sudden, traumatic metagene activation had stayed with him ever since. He got off on violence. It was all he knew, all he could ever know, and he had never tried to fight it. Mr Punch had suggested self control. Apparently, self control made kills all the more sweeter. As Blackguard, he'd once fought Batman. But knowing when to cut one’s losses was a lesson beaten in to him as a child, and he sacrificed some Henches and ran away. He survived to fight another day. The 100 respected survival. But what they hated was cowardice… Rich still had the scars on his back. They itched sometimes.

The plane hummed in the air. He was in first class, The 100 not sparing any expenses, and was enjoying his third martini (stirred, not shaken, to ensure the gin was not bruised) when someone sat next to him. “Can I help you?”

The man who had joined him smiled. “Rich Hertz. Do you recognise me?”

“If I recognised you, I’d either hug you or hurt you, so no, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“My card,” replied the man, as he handed him a small white piece of embossed card. He wore dark, red sunglasses, his bald head gleamed in the light of the rising sun outside, and his smile bordered on a sneer.

Hertz looked at the card, and then to the man. “Is this a joke?”

“No.” The man grabbed the card, and sliced at Hertz’s throat with the edge of it. Rich gagged, choked, and doubled forward, before landing face first on his tray. The man looked at his business card; three circles with a cross intersecting them. A target. He wiped the blood off the edge of his coat, and then pressed a button on his red wrist band.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Zeiss,” said Warp, as he appeared in the window seat. “You require a pick up?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” replied the assassin known as Zeiss, just as Warp took both his hand and the hand of the deceased Blackguard, and vanished into thing air. “We’re off to a wonderful start...”

[/i]
Part One (of Six): Recruitment Drive
Written by House Of Mystery
Cover by Steve Howard
Edited by Samantha Chapman[/center]

Midway City:

Thomas Blake had been lost, when they’d ‘approached’ him. He was searching for himself, for what he used to be before he was corrupted by darkness and the Suicide Squad. He used to be a predator, but recently… he was nothing. Nothing to be feared. Apex predator to… a bottom feeder. He hated that. He resented his jailers, and vowed never to return to Taskforce X. But he had been wandering. He needed direction. Blake had never been a particular fan of being hunted. But hunted he had been, and hunted he was, so he continued to scarper through the darkness like the prey he would once have stalked-- all the while, aware that someone was on his back. This man had been on his tail since... Nepal, was it? Thomas had picked up a scent that shook him to his core-- a scent he'd encountered before and run away from in the other direction-- he hopped onto the next flight, back to America, but as soon as he landed he saw the smiling visage of the man hunting him, and knew he had to get out. That was two hours ago. This was now.

“You’re a hard man to track down, Blake.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Funny man. But I need to get this off my chest straight away, Blake. I’m a mercenary. I get paid for this stuff, I don’t do it because I want to, or like it.” Deathstroke, the Terminator had Thomas Blake held at gunpoint. “My employers, they think you’ve got some mighty fine potential to be one hell of a guy in the business they’re running. They call me in as a trouble shooter, y’see. And you… could be trouble.”

“Get the gun out of my face, Wilson,” said Blake. He was measuring chances and distance and speed in his head. Chances of surviving a head shot? (None) Distance he could get before Deathstroke shot him in the spine, if he managed to move the rifle out of his face? (None) His own speed versus the speed of Deathstroke? (Don’t make me laugh, thought Blake) “I’m asking you nicely.”

He couldn’t tell if Deathstroke was smiling underneath his mask. But he flipped his shotgun back, and rested it on his shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t want you running away.”

“What’s to stop me from running away right now?”

Deathstroke shrugged. “I’ll shoot you in the spine, then in the head. But I don’t want to do that.”

“Sounds fair. What the hell do you want from me? And who the hell are your employers?”

“To answer your first question, I want nothing. They want you to sign up. They being The Voice.”

“Never heard of them. It. Him. Whatever 'The Voice' is. ” Blake was trying his best attempt at machismo. He knew that Wilson could tell it was an act. Wilson was kind enough not to point it out.

Deathstroke pulled off his mask and tucked it into his belt, before taking a packet of cigarettes from a pouch and lighting up. “I don’t throw my hat in with every new player that comes into the game, Blake. I don’t like taking sides. We’ve got some major groups vying for power in the world, and you know what? I don’t want to be on the losing side. But I don’t like getting nothing out of something if I commit. So I made it known to the world that I’ll back whoever’s play if they pay top dollar. And, well, The Voice? He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Just like you’re doing right now.”

“You’re a fast one, Catman.”

Thomas flexed his fingers. He was wondering, again, if he could make it to Deathstroke and snap his neck before the Terminator could counter-attack. He measured distance. He felt the adrenaline in his own veins. “It’s been said. So you work for this.. Voice's... organisation. And he paid you a lot of money to come here to recruit me. Or kill me. I guess that leaves two options on the table.”

“You won’t make it out of the door before I murder you, Blake, remember that.”

“No, I don’t think that’s one of the options on the table, Slade. If you want me, I’m in. Let’s go meet the men who put a target on my head.”

“No, first off, you do something for them. That’s the deal. You do something for them, they do something for you. We’ve got to go recruit one more member of our motley crew.”

“Who?”

“That doesn’t matter. We’re going to Metropolis. The Voice will take care of the Superman element. Grab your uniform. We’re going hunting.”

“I can get behind that,” said Catman, slowly.

Metropolis

FWANG!

James Harper’s knees buckled under the power of the blow. His forearms ached, but he held fast, the man’s fists pummelling down upon his golden shield. He was The Guardian, and he wouldn’t fall before some villain he’d never even heard of before. Harper looked up at his attacker, whose face was completely obscured by his mask. He grunted before pushing up with his shield, and then out, swinging his shield at the man’s chest, causing the villain to leap back.

“Stand down. You aren’t getting out of Metropolis,” said the super-soldier, his muscles tensed and ready. He couldn’t read his opponent, the villain’s body covered in hard-light converters, armour created at a thought.

“I am,” the villain replied, “over your dead body.”

“What?” The Guardian flew back at the strength of the villain’s blow, the fist breaking through all his defenses, and causing him to collide hard with the concrete wall behind him. Harper was dazed, black spots flickering on the edge of his vision, but he saw the man he’d been battling loom over him, his own shield in hand. “H-How?”

“Old.” The shield was made of promethium. Indestructible. Super strong. The edge of the shield went through flesh like butter. “Man.” And the Guardian screamed in unadulterated pain as it pierced his chest, his sternum, and then his heart. There was a crack as bones shattered, and blood stained the golden emblem of the Guardian’s identity. The villain leaned over and whispered in the dead man’s ear. “This was never about Metropolis. This was never about the money. This was about you. This was about your shield. And now it’s all mine.”

“Bravo,” applauded Deathstroke, flanked by Catman, as the two men approached the man who murdered the Guardian. “Nice touch with the shield. Brilliant, really.”

Catman said nothing. He noted everything about this stranger that he could. He could hear the buzz of energy converters emitted from the man’s armour, he could see the blood staining his uniform and the shield. He simply watched. And analysed.

“Deathstroke, the Terminator,” the man bowed low, and then pulled himself up. “Am I about to enter the big leagues?”

“You’re about to be hunted to the ends of the Earth by every superhero in the world, son. You’re also a cape-killer. I wasn’t expecting much from your brief, but you’ve done your brethren proud.” Deathstroke put out his hand. “You’re about to journey into the heart of darkness. What’s your name?”

The villain smiled, Catman could tell by the way his mask shifted, and he took Deathstroke’s hand. “Ravager. You can call me Ravager.”

Deathstroke’s posture shifted.

Who the Hell is Ravager? thought Catman.

Gotham City:

“Blackguard is”

“dead.”

“I’m aware of that,” replied Mr Punch. “His throat slit like a stuck pig by operatives of this… Voice. The 100 will reconvene at a later date. You may leave now, and return to your lives. I shall continue with our efforts. If this new player seeks to usurp our position of power, they shall soon discover that we are not to be treated with such disrespect.”

“Of course”

“Mr Punch.”

Ninety-nine men and women left the dark warehouse. They returned to their homes, to their lives outside The 100. They played with their children. They went shopping. They slept with their partners (or not-their-partner, or no-ones-partner-at-all) and ate and watched television. Ninety-nine men and women forgetting that they were part of an elite organisation known as The 100. Ninety-nine men and women all with the potential to remember… they had a job, a life, outside of their own.

Out Of Metropolis:

Deathstroke had provided the transport back to Hub City. Catman sat in the back of the sub-sonic jet, Ravager was next to Deathstroke. No one spoke, and the journey had been uneventful., Blake preferred to have his feet close to the ground, so flying was never the most comfortable option for him (but don’t accuse him of being scared, because he’d have words to share with you, and he wasn’t scared, it was a stated preference, don’t pry), but he accepted it. As he didn’t have anything to say, and was not the motor-mouth type, he kept quiet.

Ravager broke the silence. “Where are we headed?”

“You’ll know when we get there.” Deathstroke didn’t look at Ravager. Catman was a hunter, a predator, and as such, he knew body language. Something about this ‘Ravager’ character irked him. For a man such as Slade Wilson to lose control over something like that…

“Right. And you’re the representatives of The Voice? Sent to pick me up?”

“You know of The Voice?” Catman had approached this mission with a different mindset. Be stoic, silent, sturdy. Create an air of mystery through silence. But he wanted to know who The Voice was. He wanted to know who held his life in his hands.

Catman could tell Ravager enjoyed being engaged. The man shifted in his seat, eager to share what he knew. “Yeah, I hear whispers and half-rumours. He’s the new big thing. You heard of Injustice, Unlimited? They were outfitting guys like us with the know-how and the tech to go up in the world. But The Voice, whoever they are, they’re moving a step above that. If Unlimited was about unionizing, hell, The Voice's in a whole different league...”

“Huh,” replied Catman, before leaning back in his seat. "I wonder how Injustice, Unlimited feel about that..."

New York City:

“Hhh,” he wheezed. His lungs were a mass of tumors and scar tissue, but he was a functioning, walking, talking scab, so he couldn’t stop breathing, no matter how badly it sounded like a struggle. He’d learnt how to speak Mandarin today. He was hungry, so he did what anyone with his circumstances would do. He satiated that hunger. His hands found a lonely victim, and he pulled him into a dark place from where the man would never emerge.. But he would emerge. Stronger, smarter, faster. He’d tasted lightning and light and he could never reach those pinnacles again but the quick fix would do… and with the way his life was going right now, maybe one day he’d face Superman again, or Captain Marvel

Rudy Jones was the Parasite. The first and original. He kept pets, sometimes, back home. Metahumans. He’d sap them of their powers, and he could keep them for a while, if he didn’t get too greedy. His purple, scorched skin rippled and he grunted as his flesh changed. His bone structure cracked and warped and suddenly he was someone else. Though his mind was still there. He pulled on the dress, checked his hair and applied some lipstick

Moments later, he was ready, and pushing the cart with him, knocked on the door of the hotel room. “Room service,” he said, seductively. His hand covered the peep hole

“We didn’t order any room service,” came a shout from the other side of the door.

“Um, sir, well… I have your order right here, and I can’t leave until you come out and clear it up. Please sir, I don’t… well, please…?”

A secret service agent opened the door and saw him standing there, looking beautiful. He unlatched the chain, but she could see his arm hidden behind the door. His gun was out. Not a complete idiot then. He pushed his long, blonde hair behind his ear and smiled.

“Thank you.”

“We didn’t order any room service,” the man repeated, and he smiled in understanding.

“What is it?”

“According to the order, four cheese burgers, fries, some sodas… courtesy of the hotel.”

“Well I can’t say no to that, can I?” He holstered his gun, and Rudy played along, giggling. “Come on in.”

Rudy glided past the secret service agent, and when he was in the room, grabbed him by the face, covering his surprised mouth. Rudy’s body shifted from beautiful maid to horrific scab. “Do you think I’m pretty?” Energy pulsed from the agent’s greying face into his own body, and he felt his muscles grow as the power was processed. “Thank you,” whispered Rudy, before pushing the agent to the floor, a limp bag of bones and tight skin. He cleared his throat, and spoke with the agent’s voice. “Sir, could you come out here, please?”

Senator Callahan, mid-forties, dashing and strong, stepped out of his bedroom and saw the Parasite as the villain stormed toward him. He couldn’t scream, not in time for anything to be done; instead he pulled his revolver (big and heavy, all kick and no accuracy) and fired off four shots, two hitting Rudy in the chest and the other two missing, tearing chunks out of the wall behind him. “Get away from me!”

Rudy processed the damage, wasting the energy just gained from the secret service agent into amping up his immune system, and then disarmed Callahan with a swat of his hand.

Parasite grabbed the Senator’s wrist, and the suddenly ageing man went limp. Parasite absorbed thirty years from the man, and then picked the weakening Senator up and dropped him on his bed.

“I want to tell you about my powers, Senator, and then I have a word from my employers that must be shared. I absorb your bio-energy. I feed on it, and just tasting it… mmm… it’s taken me a good few years to learn how to stop myself.” He leaned in close. “I can give and I can take energy, Senator. I could reduce you to a gibbering wreck, your mind wracked by senility and weakness, but with a spark of knowledge in your head… ‘I shouldn’t be wetting myself. I shouldn’t be unable to talk. I should be recognised by my wife and children’. I could trap you in an old man’s body just because you looked at me wrong. But I could do something else… I could take the youth of that dashing Californian in the room next door, and I could transfer it into you. You could have the strength of two men, the vigour of a surfer dude and the sex drive of a twenty year old. Blink once if you understand me.”

Through tear drenched eyes, Callahan blinked. “Gggg…”

“I’m going to do that. I’m going to bring you back. Don’t go wetting yourself.” The Parasite vanished from the room, moving quickly. There was a sound of a door breaking, and the screams of a dying man, and then the Parasite returned, bigger, those purple, scarred muscles bubbling with excess energy. He placed a hand on Callahan’s chest and the Senator screamed, his white hair now brown again, his skin no longer tight across his body but full and red. He gasped for air, bucked underneath the Parasite’s grip, and then breathed in deeply, again and again, filling rejuvenated lungs with air. “You’re weak, give it a few minutes. Now, my employers have a word for you. You’re theirs. I can get to you at any moment, and you’ll want me to. You’ll want the kick of youth now, you’ll ask me to kill for you and I will do willingly. My employers will want favours, and you’ll grant them. Do you understand? Words, not blinks, Senator.”

“Yes, I understand… God… oh… God…”

“Good, it feels good to be young again, doesn’t it? Now, you were attacked by a supervillain, they’ll figure out it was me anyway, but I’ll be long gone. They’re on their way right now, the police. Your revolver has some kick, sir. How very clichéd of you. You tell the police on me? On my employers? You’ll die. Trapped in your suddenly aged body. I’ll make sure of it. I can get to you whenever, wherever I want. So you listen for our calls. We’ll know if you tell on us, sir. The Voice. You’re listening for The Voice.”

“Yes… yes… ok…”

Hub City:

Catman, Ravager and Deathstroke entered a domed room slowly, and then realised they were surrounded by dozens of similarly-garbed individuals. Supervillains, one and all, and they were gathered under the same roof. This was a sight that surprised Catman; the most villains he’d seen assembled at once was eight, and that was under the oversight of Amanda Waller. He leaned over to Deathstroke. “How do we know this isn’t a sting operation, Wilson? How do we know you’ve not lead us all into a trap? Thirty plus of us versus one of you, I’d put bets on someone cutting your throat before you kill us all…”

Deathstroke pulled off his mask, and wiped his brow. “Don’t you trust me, Blake?”

“I only trust myself, Wilson. You should subscribe to the same philosophy.”

“You trusted that I’d kill you if you tried to run away from me, Catman. You trusted that I wouldn’t hand you over to the SCU in Metropolis along with this… Ravager character. No, this isn’t a set up. And if it was, I’d kill whoever was behind it quite royally before they had a chance to put their head to pillow the night after.”

<Hello, my friends,> the room, previously filled with the nattering of thirty plus supervillains, suddenly fell silent. <I am The Voice. And I am here to offer you an opportunity: To be better.> The face on the large computer screen was completely white, only two eyes visible, and the outline of the head bordered by darkness. The whites of the eyes were black and even though Catman didn’t know who this man or woman was, he couldn’t help but feel in awe. <You do not know me. I believe it best this way. I will not betray you if you pledge your allegiance to me. Together, we will rule the world without anyone realising. The Justice League? The Justice Society? The Teen Titans, the Outsiders, all these groups… will mean nothing. Because united, we would be unstoppable. So I offer you opportunities. Information. Power. Protection. The world is changing. We must change with it.>

“He’s good,” whispered Catman to Deathstroke. “Hitting all the right chords with a speech like that.”

<We are some of the most powerful men and women in the world. We outnumber our enemies ten-to-one, and yet how are we not ruling this place? We need not band together, brand ourselves a Society of Evil, and storm Washington. We play the long game. And we will arise victorious.>

“Yeah, he’s good,” replied Deathstroke, “I just want to see how this plays out.”

“You aren’t the only one,” said Catman.

<If you prove your worth, you will be accepted into the ranks of the organisation. For completing one mission for me, you will be welcome with open arms. Fail… and failure becomes the worst option for you to accept. Do you wish to be part of greatness? Or to fade into mediocrity?>

The room erupted into cheers, Catman looked at Deathstroke, who pulled his mask back on. “They’re his. Well and truly. Guess this is the new world order.”

“I don’t know if I fully approve,” stated Thomas Blake, as he looked around. “This can not end well.”