Chapter 1: Mace and Merciless
It was a dark quiet night that night. There was a slight breeze flowing to the east. Not much stirred. Not much moved. Until he came. It was Mace. He was walking past an old cemetery to his house, and little did he know he was being followed.
Seven men sprung out of the shadows swords unsheathed shining in the moonlight, and guns pointed in the direction of their prey. Or so they thought. However he was ready before they found him. He turned around and faced his attackers who were now visible in the cemetery. They were tall in stature and muscular wearing assassin like robes and garments. They slouched forward as they walked in menacing strides.
"Ok…1,2,3…4…5,6…6 men with katanas and colt. 45's." Mace thought as he analyzed the assailants. "Not to bad, but what do they want from me…and more importantly…who sent them."
Then they stopped. Just a few feet away from him waiting for his next move as if he was in a check mate position. He slowly put on his black leather-feather weight-steel reinforced-gloves, and stood there in a "bring it on" stance.
They charged, but in a peculiar formation. The 1st attacker dashed at Mace, and made 5 quick slashes for his life. Mace dodged 4, and countered the 5th with a backfist that sent the sword flying to the ground. Before the thought of picking up the sword even entered the 1st's mind it was canceled by the sudden pain of his jaw being dislocated by Mace's left elbow. Mace blew past the 1st and bolted like lightning toward the 2nd, who had just retrieved the 1st's fallen sword, and the 3rd who immediately started firing off rounds at him with his Colt.45. With agility unknown to his attackers he sidestepped the bullets with perfect timing which caused them to hit a few nearby tombstones as he ran, made a baseball slide underneath the 2nd's dual sabers that missed his face by a millimeter, launched off the ground, and did a backflip spin kick that knocked the Colt from the 3rd attackers hands. Instantly upon landing this virtually impossible stunt he dropped to the floor dodging two twin blades as the 2nd turned around, grabbed the stray Colt, and rose to his feet. Before the 2nd could regain his balance from his failed attempt he suddenly felt the cold steel of the Colt that had just been jammed in his mouth by Mace. Everyone Froze.
"Ok…so this is how it's gonna be." said Mace. "If any of you want your friend here to stay alive I suggest you all back off and let me be on my way."
"Hehe you must not know who we are." said the 3rd attacker as he quickly maneuvered behind the 2nd to get his gun back."
With a newfound realization of the demented villains he was facing Mace pulled the trigger, and spun around the now lifeless body only to shoot backwards putting three rounds threw it that came out the front in midfall and hit the 3rd's chest launching him backwards. As soon as he heard a solemn grunt of death from the 3rd assailant he whipped the Colt around holding it right in front of his face, and sank a bullet point blank in the 4th's shoulder which caused his sword to fly from his arm toward the 6th who deflected it with ease. The 4th and 5th assailants circled Mace picking up any stray weaponry they could find. He kept his eyes on the 5th who had yet to be wounded. He squeezed the trigger, and his gun clicked. Seeing that there was no ammo left he used the gun as a decoy as he ran toward the 5th and hurled it directly at his face. The 5th now distracted from dodging the Colt was unaware of the flying roundhouse kick that followed connecting with his skull. Mace grabbed a shining saber from the ground, and stood like a samurai warrior facing the 4th attacker who was still bleeding heavily from his shoulder. All the while he kept his eye on the 6th who was directly behind him about 10 paces back holding a peculiar weapon, and something told him there was one more…somewhere…lurking in the shadows. There was no time to identify it as the 4th crept closer growling in pain as his blood flowed constantly. When the 4th got to about 5 paces from Mace he stopped, and to his utter confusion realized that Mace was no longer in front of him where he was standing just a millisecond earlier. He had not seen where he went and was starting to get frustrated, but his thoughts soon ceased at a sudden rush a pain in his stomach. He looked down to see a silver blade extended from it, and watched in horror as it drew back slowly. It was a casual death for the 4th, and the 6th who had watched from behind had just gotten a taste of this man. This legendary man. He had just watched Mace stealthily without the slightest noise make a mad dash in an arc around his henchman hopping on and off tombstones as he went. He had seen the leaves on the ground lift in the air as Mace blew past in complete quietness, and he knew in his mind that surely if his eyes had been closed he would not have known what just happened. Because it all happened so fast, and it was clear to him now that he would have no chance of defeating this one. Still orders were orders, and he had no option but to face him. He stepped forward, and his weapon became visible away from the shadows. It was a very small Japanese samurai sword that could easily resemble a tanto or dagger.
"So are you going to tell me who sent you and why I'm being attacked, or am I going to have to defeat you as well?" said Mace with a hint of sarcasm. Somehow he knew the answer, but he wanted to break the silence.
"…my name is Shen the Illusionist…and I've been sent to kill you…that is all…"
"I figured as much." said Mace. "Well then let's get this over with."
Mace jetted toward Shen with all he had left stirring up the leaves in his sprint. He was putting up quite a theatrical display until he reached Shen, and made a quick slash at his neck. Shen parried the attack with his dagger that he placed just above his shoulder perpendicular to Maces sword. At this Mace began tumbling and somersaulting in circles around Shen swinging his saber, and striking swift blows at him everytime he rose. Shen just kept parrying and blocking as though he was saving his energy for a special finale. It seemed as though Mace's sword was getting duller and duller until finally Mace rose, and stepped back poised for another attempt. Shen stood there patiently waiting. Then Mace lunged at Shen, faked a crooked left slash to the face, siderolled to the right, and made I slice for Shen's ribs. Mace, though prepared, was not ready for what happened next. He did not expect Shen to not only counter the attack with his dagger, but also as the swords locked silently pull out a concealed silver Desert Eagle from his robe. Before either opponents heart beat Shen began blasting the Eagle at Mace who miraculously pushed off of Shen, and started doing backflips in the other direction dodging bullets in each jump. On the last backflip Mace landed he heard another bullet zip by his face, and dodged yet another by leaning back in a crablike position. Suddenly he thought he saw a faint flash in the distance where Shen was standing. He squinted in the darkness to get a better look, but before he could identify it he jerked his head back at the sudden sight of the tip of what looked like Shen's dagger shimmering inches from his face. It had now become a football field long saber extended across the graveyard. For a split second Mace was perplexed. Amazed even. Then after that split second he siderolled to the left, and sprinted across the field with the speed of a wildcat. He found a nearby oak tree, and started to run up its side. Within seconds he was high up in the tree jumping from branch to branch that were either sliced into shreads by Shens enchanted sword, or blown away in a flurry by his Desert Eagle. Shen violently slashed through the air in wide arcs cutting branches, and exploded shells from the powerful blasts of the Eagle that was a large cannon-like handgun. Mace was too fast for Shen's efforts, and was starting to really feel a rush when the whole tree started falling. When he realized Shen had just cut the trunk of the tree he used the momentum from the fall to propel him toward Shen holding his sword upward in front of his face in defense ready to counter anything that might come his way. However for some reason Shen didn't quite notice Mace in the tornado of leaves that surrounded him, and only saw him at the last second. Mace took advantage of this distraction, and at the last second burst through the leaves and made a giant sideslash. The swing was so powerful and tremendous that it actually cut a wide gash through the air, and sent Shen backward from the sound waves it created. Shen flew to the ground, and Mace quickly made a death stab to his chest before he could recover. Then all was quiet, and Shen looked up at Mace in surrender.
"…for the last time…WHO SENT YOU!" yelled Mace through a stifled breath.
"You will soon…find out…" gasped Shen as he died.
"Great…" thought Mace. "Now how am I gonna get the info I need? There's no freakin' survivors left to interrogate…why does it always have to be like this? Wait…whats that sound?"
It was a faint sound like a whisper in the air. "zip…zip…zip…ZIP!" It was coming from the forest to the east from the cemetery. It was getting louder and louder, and faster and faster every second. "zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip!"
"…No…way…" Mace stood in disbelief.
Without warning a thousand black dots shot from the forest at once flooding the cemetery. One dot hit Shen's dead body square in the face. Mace looked down. It was a shuriken (ninja star). Mace sheathed his sword and started to run, then sprint, then buck, then jet, then burst, then bolt, then at last he was practically gliding across the field. Trillions of shuriken covered the graveyard colliding with anything and everything in there path. They hit tombstones and got stuck on trees, and as Mace glided across the field they closed in little by little. Mace jumped and sailed over the gate entrance to the graveyard, landed, and kept on gliding. He was running so fast the scenery around him began to blur. All he could see ahead was the cars he was now passing by on the freeway, and the frequent shuriken star landing here and there beside him. The shuriken broke through windshields of civilian cars around him, but he could not stop. They sank into gas tanks which exploded propelling Mace this way and that, but he had to keep going. He couldn't stop not even for a second or else…and then it seemed the thought summoned his very fears. He looked up as he speeded like a rocket down the highway and saw a black figure soaring through the sky.
"…Its him…" he thought.
In the far distance ahead of him he watched the figure land on the highway slamming its fist into the concrete. Then he saw the vehicles in the area explode in a formation toward him from the dark figures powerful blow that instantly cratered half the highway. He was going too fast now and he couldn't stop. All he could do was cross his arms in front of his face hoping it would be enough to soften the damage he was about to take.
"BOOM!" instantly he was propelled backwards from the explosion, and sky rocketed into the air. When his vision came to he unsheathed his sword and turned around to face the oncoming shuriken. They were…still…coming. In midair about a mile from the ground he thrashed his sword in all directions violently in front of his body deflecting the legions of shuriken. After what seemed like forever he began to descend back to the highway all the while still blocking, deflecting, and parrying shuriken away from him. Then the shuriken flood ceased. When his feet finally touched down on the highway they were lifted up once again by yet another blast of ultimate furry from the dark figure behind him that sent his sword flying in another direction, but this time after he was launched in the air he turned around to see the dark figure unfurl its giant wings of darkness, rise up from the distance in a burst of black smoke, and fly straight towards him. The figure became visible within seconds towering like a giant over Mace. Now they were feet away from each other in the dark sky.
"…you…" said Mace in a low voice full of hatred. "It seems I've escaped you all these years until now…"
"Hehehe MACE!" said the figure with a voice of thunder and pure animosity. "We…meet…again."
"Stay away from me and this city."
"You must be joking." said the figure with a sinister laugh. "This is my city now!"
The huge beast gripped Mace tightly around the neck, and suddenly changed in a mist of darkness into a human form wearing some sort of a black ninja outfit.
"Yes…I will have the utmost pleasure in crippling, and destroying this city. I never show mercy on the weak."
"Heh of course not." exclaimed Mace. "Hence the name…Merciless."
"You got that right."
Merciless gripped his fist tighter on Mace's throat, then pulled back, and hurled him back down to the earth toward the forest beyond the graveyard. Mace become a small dot twinkling in the sky, and then smashed into the forest in a puff of smoke. He struggled with all his might to get up, but his body would not let him. Before he knew it a colony of ninjas wearing pitch black garments were surrounding him as if dropping from the sky. Then came Merciless who dropped in a tornado of darkness opening out his wings like a parachute that closed in around the entire forest, and then letting his wings mist off as well into the night.
"I've been awaiting this moment for a long time Mace." he said in a voice of shear evil. "Your supposed to be dead…hehe…but then again you're the only one I've ever shown mercy towards. I killed your whole family one by one with my bare hands only to find you in the basement sleeping snuggly under a pile of cash. Your mother and father were pretty big in New York weren't they? Frickin' multi-billionaires Mace! They wiped their asses with money…I wonder how they'd think if they knew their son would turn out to be a street rat getting by in the worm hole of the Big Apple.
"Burn…in…hell…" replied Mace trying to stabilize his breathing patterns.
"I don't think so." said Merciless. "In fact just for that…hehehe…I'm gonna make you suffer! YOU SHOULD NOT BE ALIVE MACE! I still regret not killing you when I had the chance…I never knew you would grow up to become this much of a threat…no…no not a threat…a nuisance. It's time I destroyed you."
Merciless extended both of his arms outward by his sides with his fist clenched, and gave a loud roar that was totally inhuman.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
A shroud of darkness surrounded Merciless's body surging, and pulsating with black lightning and electricity as it circled him.
"GET UP MACE! YOUR TIME IS NEAR!"
With unknown energy Mace slammed his fists into the earth beside him lifting him up from the ground in a backflip that landed him sprawled on all fours in the middle of the colony. He looked up with a newfound determination, and all could see the fire burning in his eyes. Yes…this was Mace. The true Mace.
"Bring it!" Mace roared as he smashed his fists together, and swung them outward causing four medium sized thin blades to extend from each knuckle on his steel reinforced gloves. He had saved this technique for special occasions just like this.
With wildcat-speed Mace mad dashed throughout the ninja colony slashing and clawing everything in his path. He was beyond reason, beyond pain, beyond his own mind. In other words he could not be stopped. Mace annihilated all his eyes could see, roared in the heat of battle, and reeked of blood. His demon had been unleashed, and now it seemed as if nothing would be able to stop him…nothing. Except…one without mercy. Merciless stood there watching Mace thrash, and slash, and gut, and stab, and slice, and kill patiently waiting biding his time. Mace had no idea where he was, or what he was doing. All he knew was death. The ninjas did all they could to contain him, to cage him, stop him, but that couldn't. In fact they couldn't even touch him. To a less experienced being one would think there were an army of Mace's fighting an army of ninjas by looking at this scene, but they would be mistaken due to the illusion created by his incredible velocity and speed. Still the ninjas kept coming as though endless. They dropped from the sky, and swung from the trees throwing shuriken and wielding swords that were deflected, or cut in half by Mace. When Merciless saw that his army could not defeat this raging juggernaut of a carnage beast he ordered his regiment to retreat. Instantly the ninjas shot into the air like bullets becoming small dots in the distance. The forest was now crimson red dripping with what remained of the one man war. Mace was frantic searching relentlessly for more victims.
"I understand now." said Merciless. "You really are only human. You can only do so much in that body of yours, but it's truly the beast inside you that does the work. Well then…now that I've studied your movements or should I say your beasts movements, and finally pieced together the jigsaw puzzle that you've been to me for the last 10 years I think its time I take on this beast. No more running this time Mace. I've got you right where I want you. NOW FACE ME!
Mace was still running around, drooling from his mouth, and growling every few seconds. Apparently he hadn't been listening.
"HeheheheHAHAHAHA!" Merciless laughed a evil laugh. "You really are senseless aren't you? It would really be a shame to kill you in the state of insanity that you're in now, but fortunately I don't spend much time dwelling on such thoughts. You'll just have to die trapped inside your own retched corpse Mace."
Merciless levitated of the ground, and glided toward Mace bulldozing through trees as he went. Mace turned around at the last second to see Merciless tackle him to the ground, and pummel him with his fists endlessly. After a while of continuous pounding a crater started to form as Mace kept getting pushed lower and lower into the earth.
"COME ON MACE! I KNOW YOUR IN THERE SOMEWHERE! WAKE UP AND SHOW ME YOUR POWER! IF THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE YOU ARE WORTHLESS! WORTHLESS!!"
Merciless grabbed Mace's throat and lifted him up off the ground. He flew up into the air with his wings unfurled to the fullest extent across the sky blocking out the rising sun, and carried him into the city. When they got to the biggest skyscraper he could find he landed on the very top slamming Mace on the roof.
"I WANT TO MAKE THIS RICH AND SWEET! YOU HEAR ME MACE?! I'M GOING TO RELISH YOUR DEATH!"
With those boisterous words he rocketed skyward, and prepared to dive bomb. Higher and higher he went bursting through different layers of the atmosphere in his ascension as he changed into his giant beast form. Down below on the skyscraper Mace regenerated unbeknown to Merciless, got up, and rose to look at the sky. He looked back down at his hands which still had the blades sticking out slightly dulled from battle. To him he had just woken up from some sort of a comatose state, and was starting to wonder why he was here. Then he saw his adversary pile driving back down from the sky, and it all came back to him.
"ROOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRR!" Merciless bellowed with immense furry.
Mace had to think fast, and he had to think now. He plunged his fist into the cement roof, broke through and dropped down to the stairs on the inside. He started bolting down the stairs when he realized that it would take too much time so he just jumped over the railing, and plummeted down the building. When he landed and regained his balance he looked to his left at the sign that read "26th floor." He began his journey to find his way out of the building. He sped down a hallway, and made a right turn around a corner bursting through a set of double doors that ended him up inside an office of some sort. The lights were off, and everything was quiet.
"Hmm…the suns still rising outside so the people who work in this building should be coming any moment now-"
"CRASH!!"
Suddenly his thought was cancelled by a sudden ear piercing shatter from above.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!"
Merciless had finally purged through the top of the building, and was descending like a fallen airplane. Mace siderolled out of the way just in time as the huge beast zoomed past literally slicing through the skyscraper splitting it in half. When the sound settled and the smoke cleared Mace looked ahead to where the office was, and realized the other part of it was about 20 yards in front of him on the other half of the building. He stood there for a few more minutes then sat down on the edge of his half of the building. Then he thought about the events that had just occurred, and decided it would be best to leave for now. Yes it would be best to escape for now. Just like he always did. So he got up, turned around, and started running toward a nearby window on the other side of the building. Then he put both of his arms crossed in a defense position in front of his face.
"CRASH!" he broke out of the side of the building, and began running down the side from the 26th floor. He passed several windows before he finally vaulted off in a triple front flip with a 900 degree spin, and landed only to speed of into the horizon.
"GRRRRRRR…WHERE ARE YOU MACE?!" roared Merciless. "MAAAAAACE WHERE ARE YOU?" He was furious at yet another failed attempt to crush his nemesis. "DARN! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN AGAIN?! I SHOULD HAVE JUST KILLED HIM WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!" he thought. "No worries though…hehehe I'll find him soon enough." And with that he flew of into the sky.
Mace zipped across the city in a blur unknown to the pedestrians, and vehicles he passed by. He stopped at a nearby apartment complex, and punched in a code at the gate. The gate opened and he entered getting to his house with the "#9" sign on the door. He went in and closed it behind him.
"Man…its been a long day." he said to himself as he walked through the living room, and turned on the TV. "I got into yet another encounter with Merciless, and this time I lost control of my power. I've gotta find some way to freakin' control this thing. I don't know what happened in that forest. The next thing I knew I was on top of a building. I need to figure out how to reach a higher level of power. One that I've never reached before, but I need to do it without losing my mind and blacking out. I want to be aware of what I'm doing." He turned the channel to CNN, and sat down on the floor in front of the TV cross-legged Indian style.
"Citizens of New York. We have just received word that-I don't believe this-the empire state building has been split in half! I repeat the empire state building has been split-in-half! Our news helicopters are standing by as we speak!"
Mace watched the video of the building as the helicopter made a 360 around it. The scene replayed in his mind, and he turned off the TV.
"Ok…I need to get some rest." he thought.
So he did.