Floyd leapt from the "borrowed" bicycle and sprinted towards the first of the steeds that had been made his responsibility. He hated the things, hideous twisted parodies of the men and women they had once been, but couldn't help but pity them as well. And envy them...they could be allowed to die if they displeased their riders. The Gentle Gift of Crimson would allow Floyd no such release. He kept half an eye on the posturing between the Dark Pentad and the latest group of superguys to try to invade the Darklands as he grabbed the reins of the first steed, which had started to wander into the street. He did his best to avoid touching its flesh, which he knew would feel just like a person's skin. His own flesh crawled at the thought, and he felt the hole in his soul gape just a little bit wider. The battle continued, looking bad for the superguys, as Floyd collected the other two mounts and tied them to a street sign. There was something familiar about one of them, a man in blue and white armor, but he was too far away to be certain. He was sure he'd never seen those garish armors before, but superguys often changed costumes and gear. Besides...something felt like it was calling out to him. So he risked punishment and left the mounts, creeping closer to the fight under the cover of brown and dead shrubs and trees. The tide of battle had shifted, the heroes had figured out that fighting on the Pentad's terms was a bad idea. Floyd felt a little bit of hope flare up in the gray waste that was his spirit...maybe these heroes would win? Then he saw the shadow of a cloud pass over. Tybalt had arrived. There would be no victory for the heroes, Floyd knew, as he saw a contemptuous wave of Tybalt's hand scatter the combatants. The blue-armored man fell close enough for Floyd to make out his face, and his heart stopped. "Sig.Lad?" @>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`- \\ // -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@ .|,Coherent Comics Presents \\ // #14 - Mare Caelestis --X------------------------- E }X{ ARCHS copyright 2002 by the '|` A Superguy Tale // \\ Dvandroid (Dave Van Domelen) @>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`- // \\ -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@ Pain and anger rushed into Floyd, spurring him to action before he even realized what he had done. He had failed to save SO MANY worlds, but now he thought only of the first one, where all the other heroes had sacrificed themselves pointlessly. A world that ended in a funeral pyre, that presaged the horrors yet to come in his life. He didn't even make it within a stone's throw of Tybalt before being battered to the ground by waves of black energy. "Go back to your charges, little groom," Tybalt sneered. "I thought you'd learned that you cannot save anyone or anything," he added, an amused glint in his violet eyes. Floyd staggered back to his feet. "No. You'll have to kill me before I let you touch these heroes, damn you!" Tybalt threw back his head and laughed, a clear pealing sound that nonetheless carried the echo of death within it. "You give me far too little credit, jester! Our lord may have forbidden that any of us kill you, or even permanently damage you, but there are an infinitude of ways in which I could disable you without violating that stricture. I could simply paralyze you, although that would be dull. Perhaps I could bury you to your neck in pieces of Necropolis? That would be interesting. Or I could IGNORE YOU. There is NOTHING you can do to even slow me down, little graycoat." Tybalt continued to chuckle as he strolled towards one of the heroes, this one clad in gleaming black and midnight blue armor. A red and gold staff lay next to his outstretched hand. Floyd leapt between Tybalt and his quarry, and was rudely shoved aside for his trouble, landing next to the prone form. In anger, he grasped the staff, intending to smash it over Tybalt's head. Then he felt it. The grayness that had suffused him, damping his emotions, his thoughts, his vigor, ever since the Darklord had ripped his soul in two...was gone, obliterated in a rush of power. The hole in his soul was still there, but no longer bare and bleeding to the world. The staff flared, burning away the red lacquer that had covered it, revealing cold iron underneath. Floyd stood. "Leave him alone!" Tybalt arched an eyebrow. His expression went from mocking to evaluating, as if he sensed something new about his favorite target for verbal abuse. Then he shrugged and smirked. "Go, before I make it HURT." The power welled up inside Floyd, and he raised the staff over his head. "I said, LET THESE PEOPLE GO!" Then a twenty story tsunami rose up behind Flood and crashed against Tybalt and the Dark Pentad.... * * * * No, don't get up, Sig.Lad. We're safe for the moment, and I have a lot to say. Just rest, regain your strength. I know you're not the Sig.Lad I knew, just as I'm not the man you knew. Yes, once I was known as Constellation, but I didn't have much time to get used to that before the entire Looniverse was destroyed. It's a horrible thing to have power and not be able to use it to help others, do you know that? I've lived that pain for years now, but it all started with the crusade that swept the Looniverse. The Authors were driven into hiding or even destroyed by forces in their own world, a new Author rising to turn the entire Looniverse into a morality play...he made countless people commit suicide because our world was flawed and, well, frivolous. I went for help near the end, using my power to slip between realities, seeking allies. But the only worlds I knew were in even worse shape, dying of neglect or even active self-destruction. No one could come help, because no one could even help themselves. Eventually I returned to find a dead world, Net.ropolis a blackened ruin swept by fire. No one survived...except one, the Green Trenchcoat. Maybe if he...she had come back in time, the world would have been saved. I don't know. Neither of us really wanted to stay in that graveyard of a city. Heh. Hahahahaa...sorry. "Necropolis." Bad joke. My life's a bad joke anymore. Well, anyway, I was forbidden to enter the alternate Looniverse the Green Trenchcoat had been hiding in...oh, that was your Looniverse? Did my counterpart there ever return, as she said he would? Ah well. But anyway, another Stranger offered me a chance to get away from Authors and their games, and fight to save the remains of a dying world from the tyrant of the black tower. It seemed like a shot at redemption, so I took it. I was a fool. Oh, not to take the chance, but I blundered into a trap almost immediately, even knowing the villain of the piece could control time and space. That was foolish of me. I did manage to turn the tables on him, dragging the tyrant outside of reality with me, so I probably saved the world after all. But I could never find that reality again, nor did the Stranger arrive to guide me there, so either I had saved it or utterly doomed it. Either way, there was no reason to return, I guess. I finally found a reality somewhat like the Looniverse, and it was under assault too. I later found out it was called 970SUPERGUY. You've been there? I'm...sorry you had to see it. That was three years ago, I think. The Gentle Gift of Crimson had already enslaved Superguy himself, something I'm grateful hasn't happened yet here. I had to fight Superguy, because no one else could touch him. And I won! Dot and I'd learned a lot while wandering the realities...plus, Superguy seemed to be holding back. Even then, he almost killed us before we were able to...to kill him. He died smiling. HE DIED SMILING. Even a *few weeks* of domination by that monster in the tower were enough that when the world's greatest hero was finally freed, he was HAPPY TO DIE. And that's what's in store for everyone in this world as well! But the Gentle Gift of Crimson wouldn't let ME die. He only tore my soul in half, pulled Dot out of me and consumed her spirit while I watched, too battered from my fight with Superguy to do a damn thing! He's been dragging me around as his court jester, his whipping boy, from world to world as he devours them. And any who oppose him he subverts, slays...or both, in time. You only live now because he's toying with you, and I'm sure he'll rip my soul apart and put it back together for his amusement once he gets bored, new powers or no. Now let's get the hell out of here! * * * * Skysabre stood, placing a hand on Floyd's shoulder. "No. We can win...especially now that you're here, Constellation." "Don't call me that," Floyd shook off the hand and turned away, refusing to meet the eyes of the others. "He's right, Skysabre. He's not Constellation anymore, and it's cruel to call him that," Forgeheart stood, levering herself up with her hammer. "But he *is* one of us now, an Exarch. I was still barely conscious when that wave hit...this is more than just his old Flood powers, assuming this Floyd was ever Flood before entering the Looniverse." "Yes, I was. A pathetic villain before I was a pathetic hero," Floyd muttered. "The staff's name is Seafixer," Jack said as he pulled off the helmet of his armor and offered it to Floyd. "And this armor belongs to you now," he added. "It protects against the mental domination of the Darklord." Oakthorn grabbed Floyd by the shoulders and stared in his eyes. "Floyd, we *can* win. We MUST win. It's our only way home, and I expect it's your way home too. With five Exarchs we can beat these goons, but we need you to join us! Are you in, Seafixer?" Floyd took a deep breath and thought hard. His punishment would be greater if he continued to fight, but his *real* punishment had always been that he still lived. Nothing could be worse than that. And, if nothing else, he might anger Tybalt enough to slay him out of hand. "Fine. I'm in. But no more frontal assaults. If we're going to have even the slightest chance, we need to sneak in. And I know the Dark Tower like the back of my hand," Seafixer finally said. "Third time's the charm!" Oakthorn slapped Seafixer on the back. "Armor up!" Through this all, Katena had been silent. More than three years had passed since this Constellation had been defeated? But from what she knew... and her memory had become sharper than ever of late...this Constellation could not have met the Green Trenchcoat until after the Crysys of Ynfynyte Tyms, which had happened only months before she and the others had been hurled into the Altiverses. Was time travel involved? And who had traveled...had Constellation gone back in time as a result of that unnamed tyrant in the black tower? Or had the Exarchs gone forward? WELL, WHICH WAS IT? FORWARD OR BACK? WHAT WILL BECOME OF JACK NOW? IS THE THIRD TIME THE CHARM? Answers to some of these, and maybe a little more backstory, on the next...SUPERGUY! ============================================================================= Author's Notes: Okay, the backstory's a bit heavy on this one, but it's tied to a series you really should dig up and read. Back in the mid-90s, Paul Hardy wrote a series called the Legion of Occult Heroes, which was really good, and really really really dark. It sprang out of Retcon Hour, with a trio of mystic heroes showing up from an alternate Looniverse. In #4, the fate of this alternate Looniverse was revealed, and it was mentioned that the Constellation of that world had gone for help. In #6-7, the results of his search were shown, and he was "put on a bus" for the black tower (which I'm sure was a reference to some other project, possibly an RPG campaign, but Paul never mentioned it again on RACC). Cut to a few months ago. I was trying to figure out who the Fifth Exarch would be, and had already decided that Jack would be a red herring. But who else would fit the bill? By the rules I was using, it would have to be someone from outside the Altiverses, and there weren't a whole lot of refugees I could use. Then I remembered that there was an alternate Constellation floating around, and bang, Floyd showed up in his gray trenchcoat a few episodes back. Being part of a Paul Hardy series, he should be used to pain, eh? }-> So, one mystery down, several to go. Not sure if I'm going to continue this series past the final confrontation with the Gentle Gift of Crimson, but I hope to at least give it an ending, unlike Crazy Guy. And in case you haven't noticed it, yes, this is really more of a LNH/SG crossover series. I'm playing with a lot of LNH stuff, yet not having to worry about the current state of the LNH continuity (such as it ever is). So if you wanna nominate this series for Best LNH Title, go right ahead. And while you're at it, dig up Legion of Occult Heroes in the archives or on Google Groups (oddly, #5-6 are NOT on Google), it's worth reading. Happy New Year 2003!