. Blackbird & Countinghouse Presents: ( ) CONCLAVE OF SUPER-VILLAINS ( ) I An Academy of Super-Heroes Universe Comic I I copyright 2003 by Tony Pi I #24 - VILLAIN'S APPRENTICE III "Best Man Standing" =========================================================================== [COVER: Para Magazine, February issue. Bubbles, bubbles, and more bubbles surround a disco ball. Lana Smith and Jen Kleinvogel's faces are inset into the cover, and the caption reads, "THE WOMEN OF STRAFE (AND THE VILLAINS WHO LOVE THEM!)"] =========================================================================== THE BACHELORS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRITON Derek Radner Electrical Generation THE GROOM CONFLICTO Eugene Kwan Friction & Viscosity Control CHALLENGER Robert Coulter Cybernetic Implants KALIBAN Unknown Monstrous Strength =========================================================================== THE BACHELORETTES --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SULTRY Angeline Croft Weather Control THE BRIDE GLYPH Zephirah Reuben Magical Sigils SPIRAL Anya Kirova Telekinetic Torque MYRIAD Alpha Rho Fourteen Shapeshifting TERRASTAR Polla Geomancy =========================================================================== THE PARTY-CRASHERS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer Kleinvogel Invisibility & Anti-Grav STRAFE FADEAWAY Lana Smith Insubstantiality STRAFE WHITEOUT Nigel Hume Blinding Light LIGHT BRIGADE OBLIVION Tilmann Schloss Disintegration LIGHT BRIGADE =========================================================================== By now, you all know what the newsnets tell you about the Ibiza Incident: the wanton destruction of Klub Klastik in Ibiza Town on the night of January 23rd, and the wild reports of a midnight sun. The Eurasian Union blames the Conclave of Super-Villains, of course, but that's par for the course. The truth is more twisted than that. This is a tale of doublecross. * * * * You may remember the name Kleinvogel, but likely not. It's a name meant to be forgotten, an obscure footnote in the illustrious history of the Conclave of Super-Villains. Jennifer Kleinvogel's name was part of the CSV debut broadcast, one of the three claimed to have been kidnapped by the Conclavers in December 2023. Her Magene power allows her to defy gravity and bend light around her. She is a woman meant to remain sight unseen. You *will* know Lana Smith, the first host to Mister Strings. As Burnout, her wraithlike powers made her a force to be reckoned with. Once she played host to Mr. Strings, and twisted the minds of men. Though she escaped her puppetmaster, there are many paragangers in Manhattan who still quake at the thought of her fingers phasing through their skulls and tickling their optic nerves. No longer Burnout, she now calls herself Fadeaway. They work for STRAFE, which stands for Superhuman Tactical Resources and Affiliated-Field Experts. STRAFE deciphered the rebus puzzle that I left in last issue's series of photographs, and sent Kleinvogel and Smith to rendezvous with me on the island of Ibiza, where Triton and Sultry would stage their bachelor and bachelorette parties, a stag night to end all stag nights. Under different circumstances I would not be telling you that I had intended to lure the agents of STRAFE to a clandestine meeting, to negotiate a deal to find my friends Hooks and Gimble. But this is my penance, says Triton: I must narrate my betrayal to the world. * * * * This is how it went down. The plan had been in the works for months. The guys all wanted (read: Conflicto wanted) to take Derek Radner out for a final night of 'chaste' debauchery. Sultry was insistent on the 'chaste' clause, and solicited swear-to-die promises from all the men. Believe me, she meant it. The women (including female-by-choice Myriad) would forego a bland bridal shower in favor of a similar night of carousing. The boys would paint half the island red, and the girls the other half. It took some delicate negotiations to determine where the line would be drawn, the gender line that must not be crossed on pain of death. The guys wanted to take the west side with Klub Klastik, while the gals would take Nextasie east of town. These popular rogue vogue establishments pushed the boundaries set by pre-Godmarket Ibiza clubs like Space and Amnesia, and were second only to the Berlin scene in all Eurasia. It was all in fun. Really. The set-up wasn't so easy. For weeks, Sultry had been tweaking the weather patterns in the Mediterranean. Nothing drastic that would bring undue focus on Ibiza, but nonetheless, the cumulative effects of cloud cover, errant squalls and general malaise dampened the amount of tourism that normally graced the island. The plan was to go incognito, or as incognito as possible. This proved to be a challenge for TerraStar and Kaliban, whose physical appearances were out-of-the-ordinary. In the end, it was decided that Glyph would enchant two outfits that hid the pair under simple illusions. Triton would leave his armor aboard Skyhaven above, and wear a forcefield belt studded with fun gadget extras. Even Conflicto toned down his look a notch to blend in with the crowd, adopting a garish look that screamed 'hick Combine tourist'. Yet there was one thing that Derek had forgotten in the midst of running a country, and that was the choice of best man. "To tell you the truth, it completely slipped my mind," he had confessed a month earlier. Eugene begged, begged, and begged (read, *annoyed*) until we weren't sure if he wasn't threatening to go back to the old, manic Conflicto persona that we all love and fear. That night, just before we were about to transport ourselves through our glyph portal, Derek snapped his fingers. "I've got it. We'll let the bachelor's night decide. Whoever is left standing and marginally sober will win the honors." "That's hardly fair!" cried Eugene. "You know how bad I wanna be one of them guys who gets piss-drunk at a stag party and wakes up in a strange, older woman's bed...." Derek cut him off. "Enough with the childish antics, Eugene. Where's the real man who's been helping me run the world's greatest threat? I need a man of true caliber to stand beside me. History will remember my wedding as the day I am completed. Will you show the world that you are worthy of my trust?" Eugene growled and straightened his phosphorescent cowboy hat. "I hate it when you pull that card, boss man. Fine!" Then, we took the portal and left Skyhaven. * * * * Surf-and-turf gorging and two strip clubs later, we staggered into Klub Klastik, dead drunk. Correction: I had filtered out the alcohol with my internal cybers, and only pretended to be drunk. I still had to make contact with the STRAFErs at Klastik! Kaliban was mostly sober too: he could hold his liquor better than us all. Klastik was all you imagine it to be, holo-glitz, soap bubbles, and gorgeous bodices, but at a quarter capacity due to Sultry's machinations. Too bad you won't get a chance to see it, now. But even the five hundred or so people in the arena-sized club filled the space with vibrant energy. "This!" shouted Derek, raising his martini glass high. "This is my last taste of paradiiiiiiiiiiise!" "I've drunk to that!" said Eugene, with a slurring of his words. "And to her! And her!" He eyed another girl on the dance floor. "And eshpecial her!" He slid onto the dance floor, through the bubbles and came to a halt in front of her. Words and innuendoes seemed to be exchanged between them. We watched the slap. And the next. And the next. "Poor kid," I commented. I looked across the dance floor at some women in front of a phoenix ice sculpture. "'Scuse me, guys...I'm gonna lasercut some bas-relief myself, scan?" Derek winked. "Go to it, buddy." So I made my way to the sculpture, where I made inane conversation with the women, they soon left me to stand embarrassed and alone. That was my intention, of course. My intention was not to find a date, but rather hoped that an enemy of Khadam would take the opportunity to contact me. * * * * "Mr. Coulter," said an unseen voice next to my ear. "This is a highly unorthodox place for a rendezvous." "Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" I asked. I could sense some distortion in the images picked up in my cybernetic eye. Probably, there was an invisible person directly before me. "Agent Kleinvogel, perhaps? I've read your file." "You got it. Agent Smith is covering me, so don't try anything funny." I could not see Fadeaway, but likely she was phased and watching. "Had enough of playing villain? What is it you want?" "Three things, actually." I played it cool, and sipped my glass of white wine. "First, I need you to locate Hooks and Gimble. Radner wants them, but they're my friends and I'm concerned for their safety. Besides, I trust only Gimble to disarm anything Radner had put inside me during my 'upgrade'. Second, I want amnesty and protection for all three of us." "We figured as much. And the third?" "Tell me...exactly what qualifications do you need to become an Affiliated-Field Expert?" I smiled, and wished I could see the look on her face. After a long pause, Kleinvogel followed with a question of her own. "Why would you want to join STRAFE?" I shrugged. "It seems like a common career path for CSV expatriates. One that ensures a slightly longer lifespan than just walking away, at least. Wouldn't you say, Agent Smith?" I heard Lana Smith reply from within the ice sculpture. "He's got a point. You don't exactly write a letter of resignation to Triton, Jen, unless you're Tiara. Death, capture, conversion to light, or unexplained disappearances...but never just walk away." "Even IF...what could you offer us in return?" asked Kleinvogel. Before I could answer, everything suddenly went brilliant white. * * * * There were screams everywhere. Half a thousand people, already disoriented by fevered dancing...and Machine knows what drugs...were pushing their way towards exits they had nearly no chance of finding in their new blindness. We were being pushed this way and that, and I could hear people slipping on the soapy bubbles and falling to the floor. My cyber-eye's polarized filter saved me from being completely blinded like the others. While I could not see through my unmodded eye, I must have been the only one with *some* sight. I could see a white figure made of light, coalesced just above the array of spotlights and flooding the room with his blinding light. "What's going on?" whispered Fadeaway. She had been caught by the brilliant flash as well. "We're under attack," I said. "Stay close. I can still see." I reached out and took Kleinvogel's hand. "Agent Smith, I'd recommend grabbing my ankle and phasing parallel to the floor, through the bubbles. That would provide sufficient cover." Soon as I said it, I felt a ghostly hand tickling my ankle from the inside. With my cybernetic hearing, I could hear Derek's voice booming out a command to Eugene. Even blinded and hammered, Derek Radner took control. "Eugene! Neutralize the soap, now! CONCLAVERS! To me!" "Gotcha, bosh," said Eugene. He did something to the floor, and suddenly there was more traction. Perhaps THAT wasn't the best thing for Derek to shout, but it did its job. People scrambled away from Derek, while Eugene, Kaliban and I stumbled to his side, with the STRAFE agents at my heels. "Derek, Derek, Derek," a man's voice said with an English accent. "You left yourself wide open, didn't you?" "Whiteout!" Derek spat. "Is this how you treat your idols?" Whiteout, Nigel Hume. He was a super-reject from the early days of the CSV, judged unfit to be an Understudy of Crime. But as the rejects were sent on their way, Doublecross had converted them into beings made of light, and subjugated them to his control. Whiteout was one of the few in the Light Brigade who survived and escaped, instead of joining the team as Zone did. "It's a start," answered Whiteout. "Don't even consider moving a micron, ol' chap," said Whiteout. "And your belt's as good as dust here, Chancellor." I glanced at Derek's forcefield belt. It had odd holes drilled into it everywhere, like swiss cheese. "How did you sabotage my forcefield belt?" asked Derek. "Remember our old friend Tilmann Schloss, codename Oblivion?" asked Whiteout. "He had a mad-on for disintegration. We thought he didn't survive Doublecross's photonic conversion process, but we thought wrong. Poor Tilmann lost most of his mind, languishing as a cloud of ultraviolet light who mindlessly roamed the Sahara. When I escaped, I found him in the desert. He has been most receptive to my tutelage. A formidable apprentice villain, my Oblivion. Not as pathetic as your Challenger there." "Why are you here?" asked Derek. "My lord Doublecross has not forgiven what you did to him. He sent us to give you a swift death. Fortunately for you, I once held you in high esteem. *I* should have been your apprentice, Derek, but you didn't even give me a chance to be an Understudy of Crime. But I still respect you. I pleaded with him to grant you the chance to surrender, and submit to his photonic process. Join us, Triton. Or we will be forced to etch you a gravestone. Or would you prefer returning to the dust?" Derek tried a different approach. "Well put, Nigel. The kind of twencen ultimatum I admire." "Thought you might appreciate my attention to detail, sir." "But we both know you don't have it in you to actually harm me, Nige. You don't need to follow Doublecross. Join me, and together we can destroy him, and rule the world OUR way." "That's very well done, too, sir. It would sound even better, if only we were father and son. But no...there will be no place for non-photonics in the inevitable new order. And yes, I *can* look past my admiration for you, sir. Oblivion, please demonstrate my sincerity." At his command, the unseen Oblivion took action. Derek screamed. I looked in horror at his left hand. Two-thirds of his ring finger had been instantly and completely disintegrated above the knuckle. Electricity arced forth from the wound, cauterizing it, but would not cease to spark where his finger once was. There was nothing any of us could do. Kaliban's brute strength was useless against the photonics, and Eugene's power worked on matter, not energy. Myself? I suspected my limited arsenal was pretty much useless against light, unless Derek implanted something in me that I didn't know about. My forcefield was intact, so I might be able to get away alive, but then everyone else might die. I couldn't let that happen. "You want me. You've got me. We can't do a damned thing to you," said Derek, even through his pain. "But let the people go." "How noble," said Whiteout. "You ought to be knighted, Chancellor." "Noble? No. I just can't stand the thought of so many people being privy to my humiliation." "Very well. But keep in mind that Oblivion has you surrounded, so don't make a run for it. You'll be unpleasantly dusted. Oblivion, do make some exits for the scum, my good man." Though my lens did filter some of the light out, I could not see what Oblivion did to the walls. However, I could feel the breeze from the outside, just as the bystanders could. They flooded towards the fresh air. Oblivion and Whiteout made a formidable force. How do you fight light? An idea came to me then. It was very risky, and I didn't know if it would work. But there was little time to explain, with us soon to be stranded with just the photonic madmen. I had to act fast, while they were distracted. I activated a wrist dart gun port, on the hand that held Kleinvogel's hand, and loaded an Emp dart. Without any warning, I fired it point blank into her arm. Emp is a drug that affects paranormals, boosting their power artificially. My dart's concoction included a catalyst that sped its effects. The ensuing F/X must have seemed weird to spectators, if we had any. The group of us would have disappeared from sight, as Kleinvogel's anti-gravitic shell expanded and engulfed us matter-types. As for the light beings, they were repulsed by the light-bending sheath, and could not penetrate our little bubble. I lost visual again outside Kleinvogel's anti-grav field. For those of us inside the sheath, we levitated off the ground. "Whuh-whuh jus' happen?" asked Eugene, spinning in the zero-grav. "Manalive, how sloshed *am* I?" "Apologies, guys, and Agent Kleinvogel, but there was no time to explain," I said. "If I had shown my hand, Oblivion might have disintegrated the Emp dart before I had a chance to use it." "*Kleinvogel*?" said Derek. "*Kleinvogel*?!" "And Lana Smith," I added. "Sorry." "Great. Jen Kleinvogel AND Lana Smith. What a happy reunion. How coincidental that you decided to crash my stag night!" Derek sighed. "I'll deal with you later, Coulter, if we get out alive. So, Jen, any chance you brought Peregryn? We could really use him right now." "Maybe we should call him," suggested Kleinvogel. "If he can get here on time. Or EUROPA. But I don't know how long I can keep my boosted powers under control." I apologized again. "I took a chance. I've had a chance to look over Ms. Kleinvogel's file. Partial invisibility, tied to her anti-gravity field. I thought that if I boosted her efficiency, she would be able to deflect the photonic beings outside of her field." "Can't fault you for a quick solution, Challenger. At least it gives us a breather to think," conceded Derek. "I think a temporary truce is obligatory right now. Damn! Wish I could see." "Lana?" Eugene exclaimed. "How're ya, ol' ghosty-girl? Y'know, sweets, we missed you more'n that pyro C.J. I mean, stuffin' Drake with a nuke... tha' was classy!" Lana moaned. "Don't remind me, Eugene. I did a lot of things back then I wish I hadn't." "Now, *Strings* I don't miss," said Derek. "How's your boy, Lana? And C.J.? Is she recovering well?" "Carl's fine, Derek. And we think C.J. just needs a little time on her own," Lana said in earnest. "Congrats on the engagement, by the way. I always knew you two would end up together." "Thanks, Lana." It surprised me that they acted like old friends, even though they were nominally enemies. I suppose at some level they had become friends, though one was tempted to foist all her villainy onto Mr. Strings' machinations. Was it Stockholm syndrome? No. There were some good-hearted people who just took a wrong path, like Labyrinthe, or people forced into difficult situations like Lana or me. It frightens me that I myself was finding a kinship with my teammates. Kaliban broke my reverie and asked, "Can foes now hear what we conspire herein?" "Doubt it," said Kleinvogel. "With a field this strength, there'd be a sound barrier." "They can't hurt me," said Fadeaway. "I could phase out and get help." "But you're blinded," I pointed out. "We don't have enough time," Kleinvogel repeated. "The Emp might cause havoc with my powers and fizzle any second." "A zone o' ozone alone owns their bones?" suggested Kaliban. "Alas, I can't ionize that much oxygen here to affect Oblivion significantly," said Derek, after a moment's calculation. "Better to use smoke, if that even does anything to photonics." "Maybe I can phase us all out of here," said Lana. "But then they might still find us." "Get the girls?" asked Eugene. "Challie, you gots the comm in your cybers, natch?" Derek sighed. "What could they do, really? Only Glyph could do something if anything at all, and she wouldn't be able to get close enough or have enough time to draw on her magic. I need my suit and trident to beat the photonics. One stab with the AstroSpear's black hole tip and we'd be home free. Blast! I relied too much on my early warning satellite against photonics, and they must have taken it out somehow. Now we're screwed." "Wait," I said. "The answer's here, I know it." One thing that I had the knack for was seeing all the pieces and how they fall into place. Maybe fate was the foe this time, but it used to be the likes of Rebus. "Lana, you're not affected by gravitic fields?" "No, not while phased anyway." I muttered a thought-so. "Derek, you're the physics expert here. What would happen if Lana suddenly phased Kleinvogel? What happens to the antigrav bubble?" "Without a generating source, the field would invert...." Derek snapped his fingers. "Brilliant, Challenger! The bubble would fold-in on itself, and the suddenness would spew us out of the anti-grav bubble like a glove turned inside out. If the photonics are close by, they might get sucked in by a temporary wormhole! But the field would need to be stronger." "What happens to us?" asked Lana. "Oh, you'd be tempest-tos't, worse than us, being at the center of it all," conjectured Triton. "But phased, you should survive. As will we. How about it, Jen? A double dose of Emp?" Empowerment was a powerful drug, but it was also dangerous to the nth deg. It might cause Jen's heart to stop. Two doses may also acclimatize her body to the drug, making it forever resistant to future doses. Three was the most times a body could be affected by Emp. At least, in any sort of positive way. After some thought, she gave her answer. "Very well. I only do this, Radner, because you would be even more dangerous as a photonic." "Hugs and kisses to you too, Jen, hugs and kisses," said Derek. "Let's do this, then." I loaded the second of my three Emp darts into the dartgun, and aimed it at Jen Kleinvogel. Smith had taken her hand and prepared to phase out. "Wait! One lash ting," said Eugene. He grabbed Kleinvogel and planted a big sloppy one on her. She didn't see it coming. Slap! (*We* saw *that* coming.) Then, I fired the dart. Kleinvogel's eyes bugged out as the Emp further boosted her anti-grav field. We were being thrown this way and that inside her spinning and expanding anti-grav bubble, and Eugene was choking back his vomit. I forgot how Spiral always tortured him with spinning nausea. "Now!" shouted Derek. On his mark, Smith phased herself and Kleinvogel. The world turned inside out, and we were flung through the air over Ibiza Town. I hit the ground hard, and lost consciousness. * * * * I woke up at the glare of dawn, and found myself being nudged by Sultry's foot. "This one's still alive too," she said to Spiral. "Pity." * * * * The aftermath? Back on board Skyhaven, sensor readings indicated that Whiteout and Oblivion had been sucked into the inverted anti-grav bubble, and were propelled somewhere by the wormhole that collapsed almost instantly. Where did they come out? Derek guessed either on the other side of the sun or just shy of Alpha Centauri, depending on how Emped up Kleinvogel really was when she inverted. Derek received word that Kleinvogel and Smith are alive and well, spotted at STRAFE HQ. Apparently they didn't get flung halfway across the galaxy, to his annoyance. As for the CSV girls? They seemed to have had their own little misadventure, though I have yet to pry the details from any of them. Only a visible hickey on Spiral's neck hinted at something scandalous. Eugene tried to hide the fact that he was none too pleased, but failed miserably. * * * * Finally, the chat with the boss. Once Derek's blindness wore off, he called me into the Skyhaven meeting room. "You betrayed us, Challenger. You let two threats crash my party and cost me dearly." He stared at his missing finger, still cackling with electricity. "It feels like my finger's still there, but it isn't." He sighed. "Fortunately for you, your duplicity also saved us." "When you first invited me to join, you did ask me to betray you for your own good," I reminded him. "And so I did." "So I did, so I did," said Derek. "Would you really join STRAFE, if you decided to leave us?" "I never actually said I was leaving, did I?" "No, I guess you didn't." "Didn't you solve my photo puzzle?" I asked. "Of course," answered Derek. "Child's play." "Then why did you let the pictures go?" Derek smiled. "It was the maddening mystery you left at the end of your last article. I half-hoped you were going to give me Grind, or even Teller, as a wedding gift." I nodded. "Maybe it was a ploy on my part to find out where Hooks and Gimble really were. If STRAFE knew, I would have found out for you." "It could have been a lot of things." Derek put his right hand on my shoulder. "You're learning fast, Challenger. We'll call it even, this time. But for your little stunt, I demand two things from you." I gulped. "What?" "First, you will write an article exposing what really happened last night. "Second, you are hereby designated my best man." What have I gotten myself into? ============================================================================= Next Issue: It's an all-wedding issue with guest stars galore! Will Coulter stay with the CSV at the end of his apprenticeship? What is his surprising gift to the Radners? And will Radner and Croft _finally_ tie the knot? Find out in the landmark 25th issue of Conclave of Super-Villains! ============================================================================= Author's Note: We've recently started a discucssion group for ASH on Yahoo at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/, and we would really love to hear comments and suggestions from you.