. Blackbird & Countinghouse Presents: ( ) CONCLAVE OF SUPER-VILLAINS ( ) I An Academy of Super-Heroes Universe Comic I I copyright 2002 by Tony Pi I #21 - "DEAD KILLING EYE" Part II: Second Sight =========================================================================== [Peregryn, Fadeaway, Scorch, Rasputin and Ymir (in puppet form) have their limbs in a tug-of-war between red and blue lines.] =========================================================================== Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws, Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle rigt, Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite. Shakespeare - the rape of Lucrece =========================================================================== CONCLAVE OF SUPER-VILLAINS ROSTER --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BURNOUT III Carol Jackson Brown Flame Control CONFLICTO Eugene Kwan Friction & Viscosity Control MR. STRINGS Tyra Dumont Mind Control TRITON Derek Radner Electrical Generation TERRASTAR Polla Geomancy GLYPH Zephirah Reuben Magical Sigils SPIRAL Anya Kirova Telekinetic Torque KALIBAN ? Monstrous Strength MYRIAD Alpha Rho Fourteen Shapeshifting --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GUEST-STARRING --------------------------------------------------------------------------- COCKATRICE Trish Catrall Transmuting Gaze [Cyanide Blues] HELLHOUND Unknown Mystery Vigilante [Independent] LIGHT ERRANT Petra 'Irrlicht' Hollander Wispform, Hypnosis [Mercenary] SCRY Jessa Dumont Telepathy [ex-Conclave] RASPUTIN Yevgeny Sosnov Illusions [EUROPA] YMIR Erik Qvenhild Cold Projection [EUROPA] PEREGRYN Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage [ASH] SCORCH Scott Handleman Flame Projection [ASH] FADEAWAY Lana Smith Incorporealness [STRAFE] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Nov 14 - Copenhagen, Denmark] C.J. awakened with a throbbing headache. She remembered who she once was, without the puppeteer in her head humming its mad song. "My name is Carol Jackson Smith," she whispered to herself. "Smith, Carol Jackson," she repeated, and opened her eyes. There were no places seen through other eyes, only the darkened interior of a limousine. Strings was gone. Something or someone was suppressing the Tyra presence inside her head. Her immediate reaction was to grab for the limo phone, afraid that her son might think her dead. She listened for the dial tone, but it sounded like the terrible humming that made her lose her concentration and drove her crazy. She rolled down the window and threw the phone into the street. "Driver, driver!" she shouted. "Take me to the Combine consulate, now!" The humming in her ears increased, and she gripped her head in pain and cried out. A flood of voices now, invading her private thoughts. <> "Carol JACKSON SMITH!" she cried, but it didn't help. She realized too late that she was not completely free of Mr. Strings. Her last name wasn't Smith...That name belonged to Lana, the last Burnout and host to Strings. And it was Lana's son, not hers. Strings was rebuilding itself from its pieces scattered all over the world, in other people's minds. It reeled itself back into C.J.'s mind and retook its place, using the crack in C.J.'s self-identity. Her real last name was "Brown," cackled Burnout, now firmly back in String's control. She flexed her fingers and lit a cigarette. "Belay that last order, driver. To the Royal District to shop, then the airport. I've got a hot date and cold revenge in Reykjavik, and I haven't a thing to wear." Inwardly, the Tyra persona fumed. Jessa, her own sister, had tried to erase her. How she managed in the first place was a sign that Jessa's powers were on the rise, like hers. But sweet Jessamine failed and she would come to regret that error. * * * * [Nov 14 - New York City] Jessa wiped drool from her chin. The psychic backlash as she was forced away from C.J. Brown could have been far worse, had she not been so far from the host body. But it was a two-edged sword: the further away she was, the safer it was but harder to engage her sister in psionic combat. If she was to have any real chance of shutting down the Tyra entity...it made it easier to think of it as exorcising a ghost than euthanasia...she would have to physically touch Burnout. Even then, Jessa didn't know if she could totally destroy the mindleech. It had grown too strong over the past year. But her own powers were waxing as well, and there may be just one chance left to her to permanently end her sister's tyranny over others. There were a few obstacles to this, however. Even though she knew Tyra would hunt down Cockatrice in Reykjavik, she had to get there in time. She couldn't rely on Devlin Marx's resources anymore. Furthermore, she had little chance of touching Burnout physically. Unless.... A plan formed in her mind, and she made a call on a secure line from her office. "Hellhound," she said. "I need two numbers, and I need them now." A minute later, she was in a conference call with Lana "Fadeaway" Smith at STRAFE and Peregryn at ASH. "It's time," she told them. "You've got one chance to shut Mr. Strings down for good, and I'm it." "What do you need?" asked Lana. "Peregryn, Scorch, and you." * * * * [Nov 14 - Reykjavik, Iceland] "Warm enough?" Petra asked Cockatrice. "It would be ironic if you died of hypothermia." Cockatrice didn't answer her immediately, but shivered a little as she pulled the winter coat tighter about herself. She looked from their vantage point high above Reykjavik, on the observation platform atop the Hallgrimskirkja church, the tallest building in the city. "So the immersion didn't work. Maybe it was the fact that my first time was an accident which triggered my powers in the first place. Maybe we can't duplicate the effects voluntarily." "What do we do now?" asked Petra. "Give up? Come with me to Berlin. Imagine what we can do together there." Cockatrice shook her head. "I'm useless to you or Bathory without my power. No paraganger or vogue ghoul will respect me, even with my reputation." She gestured inland, towards the source of the fine ash that was still drifting down from the sky. "Feel it? This is the land of ice and fire. Roaring waterfalls, glaciers, and icebergs alongside volcanoes, boiling geysers and mudpools. We're at a nexus, Petra. There are forces reaching for me, and all I have to do is stretch my fingers far enough and I can touch them. We'll try Mount Hekla tomorrow. Even if we have to trigger an avalanche...." She paused, aware of something strange taking place around them. Slowly, the tourists around them began to hum a butchered version of John Williams's Imperial March. The hairs on the back of Cockatrice's neck stood on end. The atonal humming was Burnout's psychic signature, there was no doubt in Cockatrice's mind that the endgame was near, and she hadn't one iota of power left to fight. She exchanged a nervous glance with Petra. "She's coming," whispered Cockatrice. * * * * [November 15, elsewhere in Reykjavik] Burnout looked through fifty thousand pairs of eyes at her city. Somewhere in this kaleidoscope was Cockatrice, and sooner or later, she would find the speck and grind her into nothingness. It was growing increasingly easy to seize and command pawns, now that Rebus all but killed Anchors worldwide. Though Reykjavik suffered much during the Godmarket, there were still enough populace here to make a sweep of the world's northernmost capital city. <> she commanded. <> She took over her puppets' vocal cords simultaneously. "COCKATRICE!" her combined voices shook the city. "YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO RUN. NO ONE TO TURN TO. DESPAIR." * * * * [November 15, 20 miles to Reykjavik] "No telecommunications of any sort is coming through from Reykjavik," reported Peregryn, listening to the helijet's radio. "Rasputin and Ymir are on their way from EUROPA HQ, but their other members are still dealing with the Aegean storm rampage. They'll rendezvous with us in an hour." Jessa nodded. "It's worse than I feared. My sister's taken over the city. If she has that kind of power now...." "The whole city? how are we going to fight all of Reykjavik?" Scorch asked as he piloted the helijet. "Too many innocents." Jessa sighed. "However we can. She's so focused on revenge, I think Tyra wouldn't hesitate to kill thousands of bystanders. Be on your guard. I doubt she will risk controlling Peregryn...she doesn't like mages. Scorch, I hear you resisted her in Montreal, for whatever reason. We'll need that. Lana, you know her maybe even better than I do...and know how to fight her off. We stand the best chance. I'm more worried about Ymir and Rasputin." Lana put her hand on Jessa's. "We'll handle it. EUROPA wears these too." She lifted her right arm, and showed Jessa the bracelet that was almost too big for her thin wrist. "The warning light detects mental intrusions, so keep an eye on these." Jessa nodded. "Be prepared for anything. I can lead you straight to her, but from there on? Let's just hope my plan works." * * * * [November 15, Einar Jonsson Museum, Reykjavik] Cockatrice and Light Errant played hide-and-seek with the murderous population of Reykjavik. Only Petra's power of hypnotic suggestion deceived the puppets' eyes long enough for them to flee anew. They tried to steal a light aircraft, but Burnout had commanded the people to let the jetfuel seep out of the tanks onto the tarmac. They were deathtraps waiting for a spark. They doubled back, avoiding the lynch mobs that blanketed the streets. On the outskirts of town, they found a temporary sanctuary behind the Einar Jonsson Museum, in the tree-lined garden with twenty-six of the sculptor's bronze works, and discussed their options. "She's cut off every mode of transportation," cursed Petra. "If she was this powerful, why didn't she just take over Manhattan?" "Don't ask me. It must be new. Let's try a speedboat, or something." Petra nodded. But before they could leave the garden... A burst of flames suddenly shot from the sky, and blocked their exit. Cockatrice's heart skipped a beat. A helijet had landed on the roof of the museum. Burnout had found them! But her fear turned to annoyance as a male voice called out, "Hey hotties," said Scorch. "Oops, don't let my fiancee know I called you that; it's just reflex. Come along nicely before the city comes to tar and feather you, won'tcha?" Petra scowled. "Out of the frying pan, as you Americans would say...." She pushed Cockatrice towards the museum, slipping her a pair of shades. "Just in case, wear this. Go for the helijet. I'll take care of flame boy." She pulled out a pistol and started firing at Scorch, who dodged and incinerated the bullets as they flew at him, catching a few on the titanium plate of the armored sections of his uniform. Cockatrice spared no time to acknowledge Petra, but rushed for the building. But before she could get there, a wall of ice rose from the ground. "Excuse me, miss," said Ymir, stepping off an ice slide that carried him to the top of the icewall. "You're safer with us." "That's my schtick," growled Cockatrice, and slipped on the shades. She was ready for what was next: Light Errant began a strobe pattern, one that had Ymir temporarily disoriented and shutting his eyes. Cockatrice pulled out her pistol and dashed for the museum, skirting the ice wall. Before she could climb the steps to the entrance, however, a fleet of vehicles, ranging from police cars, buses, motorcycles and even a traffic helicopter were converging upon the building. Burnout was rushing towards her in an Ihimaera Uplink, her tires smouldering and on the verge of catching fire. Burnout swung a lit branch, coming for Cockatrice. "Ashes to ashes," shouted Burnout. The motorcycle leapt onto the concrete steps, and Cockatrice cringed as the branch slashed towards her neck... ...a hand phased out of the steps beneath her and grabbed her ankle... ...the branch passed through her harmlessly, and she was pulled into the concrete steps by the ghostly grip. * * * * [Nov 15 - Harbour of Reykjavik] "They're like lemmings," shouted Rasputin to Peregryn. The two of them had teamed up to save the hundreds of citizens rushing into Reykjavik's harbor at the command of Mr. Strings. Rasputin had strapped himself onto Peregryn's back as they flew, his wheelchair destroyed by an acid-spewing paranorm native to Reykjavik half an hour ago. Together, they maneuvered some of Strings' puppets into knocking themselves unconscious against walls hidden by illusions, or into heading further into the city rather than into the water. Peregryn carried them on elemental winds, and used his magic to push the people in the water back towards shore. But they were in a losing battle. "I wish I had more favors stored up," confessed Peregryn. "But the battle with Rebus and his forces drained my reserves. I hope Ms. Dumont will make greater haste in catching her sister." "Do you mean Ms. Tyra or Ms. Jessa?" Rasputin tightened his hold on Peregryn, perhaps too tight for his comfort. In fact, Peregryn's vision was blurring, and strange demon faces warped out of thin air to mock the mage. "It makes a difference, comrade." "What..." gasped Peregryn, unable to concentrate. For a split second, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Rasputin's mental intrusion bracelet flared red. An illusion had covered its warning all this time. Rasputin was strangling him with intent to kill. Struggling for breath, Peregryn lost his control over the elemental winds. Together, they plummeted into the harbor. * * * * [Einar Jonsson Museum] A crash of doors and broken windows heralded the shift of battle to inside the Museum, on the floor above them. Jessa and Lana were in the storage room with Cockatrice, who was pointing her pistol at them. Cockatrice chuckled, seemingly in disbelief at her predicament. "What's this? A Burnout family outing, or just here to see me die?" Jessa shook her head. "No one's dying today." "My gun says otherwise." Cockatrice tilted her head up towards the commotion upstairs. "She's coming for me. If my gun fires, or misfires as she may well make it do, one of us isn't going to live." Lana took Jessa's hand. "We've got a plan, this time. Stay here, Cockatrice. I know what Tyra felt towards you, and she used me to hurt you in the past. Maybe we can fix things for good, this time." Cockatrice laughed. "If you can kill what has already once died, go ahead. I'm fresh out of ideas." Jessa looked at Lana, and they nodded to each other, and turned to face the door. They heard footsteps approaching. The sound of a match being struck. The wooden door to the storage room combusted spontaneously, and Burnout's silhouette appeared in the burst of ash. Lana and Jessa leapt *into* Burnout...just as Cockatrice pulled the trigger. * * * * [MENTAL CONTACT] In the split second that Jessa physically overlapped Burnout, thanks to Fadeaway's powers, she was able to make direct contact with her sister's surviving mind: Mr. Strings. Both sisters had been experiencing a power gain, but their powers were not designed for this direct contact bridged by Fadeaway's Magene. Like a psionic chain reaction or a matter-antimatter explosion, every mind in Reykjavik were thrown together, some fusing in that instant with another. [Fusion: Fadeaway and Burnout] Lana Smith and C.J. Brown's minds were forced into a gestalt, but it was not entirely new to them. They had touched minds before, and knew each other in ways no one...except Mr. Strings...could understand. ++You, Lana Smith,++ said C.J. ++You are a part of me in ways I can't express.++ --We are,-- agreed Lana. --And together we will survive her, Carol Jackson Brown.-- They reaffirmed their self-identities, and Lana taught C.J. how to rebuild herself, stronger than even Strings. Then the bullet hit C.J.'s body. [Fusion: Scorch and Light Errant] One moment, Scorch was groping blindly towards the woman who accompanied Cockatrice. The next, his head exploded with pain, and he found himself unable to control his own actions, and he was as helpless as a puppet on a string, dancing to the dictates of the puppeteer. He wasn't even in ash-shrouded Reykjavik. He is in Chicago, on a roof, looking through the scope of a railgun. He sees himself in the crosshairs, leaving Ziggy's Za. He turns the scope to train on his best friend, George "Channel" Sylvester, and takes careful aim. The metal of the gun is cold in his hands. A small bit of fear is cold in his heart, fear of what the man in the crosshairs could do to him (her?). He aims for the neck, and suppresses a chuckle as he squeezes the trigger. No more fears. ++NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!++ screamed Scorch, as he was forced to relive the assassination of his best friend...only this time, through the eyes and memory of George's killer. No longer able to contain his rage, he let his emotions overtake him, and let loose with the full strength of his power.... [Fusion: Peregryn and Jessa] Peregryn struggled to throw Rasputin off him, and when the mental blast hit, he finally succeeded...but found himself linked to Jessa 'Scry' Dumont's mind, living through a scene in her memories while his body struggled to reach the surface and draw breath. He was astride a souped-up red motorcycle, wearing a helmet shaped like a hellhound, inside a secret garage. Jessa Dumont was Hellhound. Only, she wasn't the only Hellhound in the room. Two others were taking off their helmets. Like Cerberus, this vigilante had three heads, and one of them was.... Jessa was likewise inside Peregryn's head, and there were secrets that revealed themselves to her. Volatile secrets, the kind that Devlin Marx would pay well for; the kind of secrets that ASH might punish Peregryn for. But she wasn't here to blackmail Peregryn. At least, not yet. She had to take this opportunity and strike against Tyra. Instead, she drew upon Howard's magic to fuel her final powerplay: even though she didn't know how to use Peregryn's powers, *Peregryn* did, and she was essentially Peregryn right now. She forced all that knowledge into seizing her own telepathic power and bending it to her will. A chain of mental energy was forged by his magic, and ripped out of her. She commanded the fetters to streak out between C.J.'s body and Cockatrice's body. ++I'm sorry, Tyra. I love you.++ [Fusion: Mr. Strings and Cockatrice] Tyra Dumont, aka Mr. Strings, never imagined that she would be ripped from her host by *her own sister*. One moment, the blast forced her out of C.J. yet again, but she thought she was prepared for another such attack. Backing herself up into her secondary hosts seemed to work for a fraction of a second, but then Jessa used *something* on her, and reeled in every single fragment of her Strings persona and shunted them into Cockatrice. ++YOU!++ seethed Tyra. The very thought of sharing Cockatrice's body threw her into a frenzy. ++I will not share a body with you, bitch!++ --Get out of my head and die like you should, deadgirl,-- shouted Cockatrice. Tyra tried, but Jessa's mental chains wrapped tight, and formed themselves into an impenetrable shield. Not only had Jessa somehow trapped her, she had also severed her from all her puppets. She was caught and sentenced to live and die inside her nemesis. Cockatrice's body let out a primal scream as the horror of their shared doom struck the two minds within. Then, the world seemed to be devoured by flames, and the museum crashed down around them. * * * * [November 16, AFTERMATH] "I should have been in control of myself," said Scorch, covering his face with his hands. There was little left to the museum besides rubble and ash. "The important part was that we survived the conflagration, with minimum casualties," consoled Ymir. "It could have been much worse." He was right. Fadeaway and Scry were still phased when the fireball hit. C.J.'s powers saved her, naturally, but the falling debris and the bullet that hit her in the shoulder almost killed her. Ymir's ice powers negated the blasts of fire, and saved Burnout's puppets from mortal injury. Peregryn managed to drag Rasputin to shore. There were civilian deaths, to be sure...but the important fact remained that Mr. Strings no longer ran rampant. "But at what cost?" asked Scorch. "Light Errant and Cockatrice are either dead or escaped, and it's still my fault." And I watched myself kill my best friend, my beloved's brother, he thought to himself. "But looks like I'm going to have to hook up with Lightfoot...Doublecross SO needs killing. And his Light Errant." "How's C.J. doing?" Scry asked Peregryn, as he lowered himself back down to earth. "And Rasputin?" "Alive, which is fortunate...considering." Peregryn looked Scry in the eye. "The whole city's suffering from partial amnesia. Same reports from elsewhere. It seems that when Strings was yanked out of their minds, he took a part of them with him. Rasputin doesn't remember his own name, or EUROPA at all. I'm not sure about C.J. She could have suffered the most...we'll know once she's out of intensive care. Luckily, the doctors here retained their medical training. We can expect to discover who was under Strings' influence by this worldwide amnesia. Lana will stay with her, while we sort out the mess here." "You blame me?" asked Scry. Howard shrugged. "My power, your will. We both have much blame to bear. Sometimes we do things for the greater good, even if it means collateral damage." Jessa knew what he wanted to discuss. "We both have secrets, Peregryn. I have yours, and you have mine." "And we can destroy each other with those secrets." Jessa nodded. "If they find your cache of artifacts...." "Or if you insist on continuing your vigilante actions with someone who should know better...." They both nodded, simultaneously. "I suggest we make a deal. If either of us goes rogue, only then do we use each other's secrets to take the other down. Agreed?" asked Jessa. "Agreed." Jessa didn't know if Peregryn was telling the truth. She had expended all her power to bind her sister's mental imprint to Cockatrice, and Peregryn knew she was powerless. "One more thing, Howard. Warn ASH that if Cockatrice still lives, so does Strings, though his strings are cut. It's a trade-off: either Strings runs amok, or he's sealed and SHIELDED FROM ALL MENTAL POWERS. He's like psi-Anchor now." She grit her teeth. "Only Cockatrice's death will eliminate Tyra forever." * * * * [Nov 18 - Berlin] Petra stood with a grey-skinned, flame-haired woman in front of a mirror. Aside for the fact of her coloring and her temporary blindness, the woman would be a dead ringer for Cockatrice. "Trust me, Trish. You'll grow into this look." "Don't call me Trish," hummed the woman. But then she spoke in a slightly lower voice. "Nor call me Tyra." Schizoid bitch, thought Petra. But she kept her thought to herself. "What should I call you two, then? How should Berlin and the world come to know you?" The woman smiled, and sang perfectly on key. Petra learned a few days ago that singing meant the two minds had made a compromise, for a shared voice. "We will soon regain our dead-killing eye, and we will be Burnout forevermore." =========================================================================== NEXT ISSUE: Sultry grows envious of Scorch and Juliana's impeding marriage, and presses Triton for a wedding of the century! Her demands can lead to nothing but trouble, CSV-style. It also means the chance of a lifetime for ace reporter Robert Coulter to cover the blessed event...but at what cost? =========================================================================== Author's Notes: This arc was a long time coming. At one stage I was going to write the story to span 28 days in the lives of twenty-eight women in Manhattan, ranging from Rani Chavez to Sister Christian. But that got too ambitious as we planned the Pyramid Scheme, to fit into the continuity at the time. :) Maybe I'll keep a few of those snippets of plot for future issues. If you haven't checked out the ASH site recently, you should look up the desktop pattern for Triton that one of our fans made up. I was impressed and now have a brand new desktop picture for my computer! Editor's Note: That fan, Wil Alambre, may be writing for the ASH universe soon, and has already put out a few installments of Marlo Vivo, a series set in a universe of his own creation, on rec.arts.comics.creative.