He remembered the man in red who ran like lightning.
He remembered he had a name once, though he had forgotten the appellation 'The Human Fly.' The technical sophistication which had allowed him to develop specialised suction cups to stick to walls, and the greed which had led to him to commit a series of notable crimes, were also forgotten.
He remembered the men with the foreign accents (though the accents would have meant nothing to him now), and their offer of greater power. He remembered the pain, the seemingly endless pain, which followed at their hands.
He remembered how to kill. He remembered that very well.
Captain X in, "London's Dark" by Michael Norwitz, after James Robinson
London, 1941.
Richard 'Buck' Braddock, the man who protected his realm under the name of Captain X, looked skyward. The sorcerer known as Merlin had offered him the skies, and his heart yearned to return there. But his presence was needed on the ground, at the moment.
"Guten tag, Captain." Captain X whirled around, enhanced perceptions alert, but he saw nothing but shadows. He drew forth his sidearm, only to see those shadows coalesce into the form of a slim man of average height, wearing a suit and top hat of antiquated style. His midnight-blue skin, pointed ears, fanged teeth, and glittering gold eyes added to the impression of demonic presence.
"What sort of Hun monster are you?" Captain X scowled, backing away from the creature's shadow which seemed to move of its own accord.
"In times past I have taken the name Nightshade," it said in German-accented English. "I am not the monster you seek. And I assure you that despite my appearance, I am as human as you. I am also not your enemy."
"More polite than the average Nazi I meet in the field, that's for sure." Captain X narrowed his eyes. "I'm supposed to believe that you're here to find common cause?"
"The Germany that bore me was not as it was when it fell under Hitler's sway," Nightshade sighed. "I am no National Socialist, but a man of sorrow. I hesitate to kill, due to my beliefs, but the long life I've led makes me quite lonely, since most of my loves and friends have died. I will not claim to be a truly good man, but I will champion a cause I see as just."
For a long moment, Captain X held his revolver pointed at Nightshade's heart, and the other did not move. Finally he sheathed the sidearm, "Common cause it is, for the moment. What do you know about the monster, then?"
Nightshade rested his chin on his hand in a thoughtful gesture. "Not a great deal. He was one of those costumed criminals who appear to have proliferated in the United States. He evidently made some sort of faustian arrangement with one of the Nazi's pet scientific teams, and ..."
He hung in the shadows, listening to the two talk. Their words were meaningless to him, though the masked one reminded him of others he had fought in the past.
There was an explosion behind him, and he barely swiveled his head. He took in the smoke and fumes which followed, and recoiled at the accompanying smell. He clambered up to the rooftops, sensitive fingertips clinging to the walls as his six limbs worked in effortless unison, and then bounded from rooftop to rooftop.
The streets were dark, not even internal houselights lit. As if by instinct, he stopped at one roof and descended to ground level. Each of his four hands took hold of the door, and with a human-sounding grunt, he tore it loose from its hinges.
He wandered through the house, dim intelligence and heightened senses guiding him to a basement door, which he also removed. He was rewarded by the sharp, clipped sound of a barking dog which ran up to meet him. The animal yelped as his two left hands grabbed ahold of it, decapitating it quickly and tossing it to the side as he passed down the stairwell.
He heard a woman's voice. "Timothy? What was that sound? I think Hopey might have hurt herself."
"I don't know Daggi, it didn't sound like an explosion. I'll go take a look." A slim, red-haired man illuminated his path with a flashlight as he followed his pet, his other hand brandishing a fireplace poker. He saw the silhouette at the top of the stairs, "Now let's see what you ... oh blimey." The light glistened off the intruder's multifaceted eyes and illuminated the ragged clothing and the grotesquely scarred skin.
The intruder tried to speak to him, but his jaw ... broken many times and reconstructed so that it opened horizontally rather than vertically, with steel-tipped mandibles which extended from the bare bones of the lower part of his face ... was no longer capable of human speech. Tim swung the poker at the intruder's head, but the other was too fast for him, and the weapon was knocked from his hands. The intruder swept him aside with force enough to concuss the man's skull as he crashed into the side wall.
The intruder descended into the impromptu bomb shelter, to confront a tall woman with unfashionably short hair, and a small blonde girl who screamed at the sight of the nightmare incarnated into flesh. "Be quiet Elizabeth," the woman said, and then cursed and picked up a wooden chair like a lion tamer, brandishing it at him. He pushed it aside, hands reaching forward to snap her spine. The little girl clung to her mother as he descended over her, vomiting out bile which dissolved the girl's flesh, before sucking it up through his mutilated jaw into his mouth.
When he was satiated, as night time yielded to the sun, he slept.
Captain X removed the tea strainer from the pot, pouring the scalding, bitter liquid into a pair of mugs, one of which he passed to the dark man across the impromptu table he had set up on the rooftop of Scotland Yard. "I'm surprised I've never heard of you, 'Shade."
"As you might imagine, given my appearance, I have traditionally gravitated towards the shadows. I admit there was a brief period between the wars when that was not so, the glittering jewel of Berlin in the 20's ... but I will only bore you with sordid tales, nicht war? When the National Socialists began to shape Germany into their own image, an English doctor of my acquaintance, Harald West, convinced me to come to your country." Nightshade's eyes scanned skyward, "it seems my countrymen have followed me, however."
"England endures," Captain X nodded dourly. "And in regards to your appearance, I assure you that by the standards of some of the things I have seen since become Britain's champion, you are very human."
Nightshade smiled, fangs bared, and inclined his head in a nod. "I assure you that the same applies in your case, mein Freund."
Once again the sirens woke him. The scent of the corpses surrounding him was unbelievably enticing, but he had already feasted on the remains for days, and some inner directive drove him out of his shelter in search of fresh prey.
He returned to the rooftops, looking up to see the great metallic birds dropping their deadly eggs upon the London cityscape. He remembered being loaded into a shell which later shattered open, freeing him to roam his new environment. As he looked up, he noticed something new.
A golden airplane, small and streamlined, wove through the bombers. Fire sparked from its wingtips, oftimes exploding their bombs before they hit the ground, at times disabling the larger craft one after the other. Occasionally a barrage of bullets burst forth from one of the larger planes, but the smaller craft was as difficult to catch as a leaf on the wind.
Difficult, but not impossible. He thought he heard an almost human keening as lead projectiles tore through one of golden wings, and the craft spiraled to an isolated spot on the London streets. He bounded over to observe more closely.
The masked one he had observed earlier dismounted from the aeroplane, and then turned to face it, speaking under his breath. A beam of light from the dashboard of the ship created a three-dimensional translucent image which suggested a human female, her right arm clutched to her side as if in pain. He shifted closely to hear more.
"Jenny, are you all right?" The man's voice was filled with concern.
The golden woman nodded. "The bullet hurt me, but no essential circuitry was damaged. Sorry, Richard, I ought to have been more careful."
"Think nothing of it, we did good work up there. Can I help?"
"I must return the aviator body to infraspace so it can heal. Just keep me safe."
"I always do." The woman disappeared, and the man's hand ran over the hull of the golden craft. It sparkled, and then seemed to reduce in size, eventually collapsing into the form of a lionheaded amulet which the man attached to his uniform.
The oddity of the scene only confused him, and confusion filled him with fury. He leapt forward, landing on the man's back. Captain X grunted in surprise, hand reaching for his gun. The human fly recognised the object as something which would cause him, and with a shriek, knocked it aside from Captain X's grip. The motion distracted him enough that his opponent was able to fling himself against the side of a nearby building, knocking him off.
It saw the expression of distaste on the other's face, though the emotion was meaningless to him. Captain X had faced nonhumans before, but the grotesquerie of the figure he confronted now was only accentuated by how unnatural it was. Through its shredded clothing, the surgical scars of the augmented musculature which served to allow it to use its additional limbs were clearly visible. Its face was the worst, with its smashed and reconstructed jaw, and the complex eyes which stared in all directions.
From behind him, Captain X noted the now-familiar 'bamf' sound and the scent of brimstone. "There's your Hun monster, Nightshade," he said without turning to face his ally, "horrible bleedin' thing."
"Unglaublich," whispered the other, and his shadows extended towards the creature. It recognised the implicit threat, and leapt again, landing on Nightshade before he could react and leaping over him to disappear into the night.
"Follow it! Don't lose it, Nightshade! This way!"
Nightshade shook his head. "No! No, the other way!"
"Split up, then ... " Captain X leaned down to retrieve his sidearm, "back here in five, if we don't have good luck!"
Nightshade scowled, "I don't regard coming face-to-face with that monster any kind of luck but bad."
The pair separated. Nightshade paced quietly through the shadows of the night, almost invisible even without the use of his powers. He knew he ought to have trusted Captain X's enhanced perceptions, but was sure he had seen movement in this direction.
He saw something in his peripheral vision, something small and pale, and turned to face it, when he heard a sound overhead. "Ach du lieber...!" he muttered, and the bombs did fall.
Nightshade found himself in the darkness, a familiar place to him, though it felt different this time. There was another presence with him, or inside him, or part of him ... he could not tell.
"Gehen Sie raus!"
"Ich bin ein Bote des Teufels!"
"Ich bin die Ausgeburt des Bösen."
He shouted his confusion and frustration, and the two voices shouted as one.
Captain X stood over the body of his fallen ally. "Nightshade! Are you all right?" He extended a hand.
Nightshade opened his eyes to the relative light of the London streets. Disoriented, he took the proffered assistance and pulled himself to his feet, somewhat shakily. "Fine. Fine. I ... my shadow must have ... I'm fine."
Captain X saw a six-limbed silhouette appear above them. "Good, because your shadow's needed." He drew forth his sidearm once again, and a stream of flame was directed from its muzzle. The human fly emitted a fearsome scream as it felt the heat, and ran like an awkward child towards the two men.
Nightshade extended his shadow towards the monster, but it dodged too quickly and was soon at his throat. "Ach!" The mutant shouted his surprise as he struggled against his foe.
Captain X seized it by the shoulders, pulling it off his ally. It turned to face him, multiple arms bracing themselves. As if sensing a point of weakness, it vomiting out bile onto its attacker's shoulder, preparing to feed.
Captain X grunted in pain, and his force field began to spark and crackle as it resisted the acid. "Good lord, what have they done to this thing?"
"Captain," Nightshade choked out through his bruised throat, "I can ... defeat it given the chance ... give me a clear shot ... "
He nodded, and focused through the pain in his shoulder, reaching again for his sidearm. His opponent grabbed hold of his right arm with two hands, and the pair strained against one another, the monster's superior leverage balancing Captain X's strength. Finally, the Captain managed to direct flame point-blank at the other, and it jumped back, howling. It sought refuge in the shadows ...
... but the shadows were there first. It vanished from the world of men, as did the man known as Nightshade.
The human fly tried to ground itself, but could not, while floating in a terrible cold. It whimpered, shivering, as it felt its life force dissipating into the null space which surrounded him.
Nightshade watched the grotesque form blend into the darkness. "Auf Wiedersehen, Teufel." He reopened a portal to the real world, and teleported himself back to the abandoned streets.
Captain X observed Nightshade as the latter reappeared in darkness and brimstone. "What happened? What did you do with him?"
Nightshade said, "He has gone into shadow. He is no harm to anyone, now."
Captain X narrowed his eyes, but seeing Nightshade's expression, chose not to pursue the matter further. "I thank you, then. I'm not sure I could have taken down the monster on my own."
"Ja. Wir sind feuer und eis ... fire and ice," Nightshade said. "It took both together to be mightier than the monster."
Captain X looked up, to see the clear dawn rising over the London horizon. "We fought well together. Consider yourself a friend of Britain's champion, and know you are always welcome here."
"Lebe wohl und wurde, mein Freund." Nightshade smiled as he tipped his top hat, and was gone.
APPENDIX:
Captain X = Captain X of the RAF + Sir James Braddock
Nightshade = Nightcrawler + Shade, created by 'Waldo'
Human Fly = Human Fly + Human Fly
Nightshade's dialog within the darkness dimension is from the X-Men movie (courtesy of Circus Elfe).
When Storm and Jean first encounter Nightcrawler in a church, he yells:
"Gehen Sie raus!" - Get out!
"Ich bin ein Bote des Teufels!" I am the devil's messenger!
"Ich bin die Augeburt des Bösen." I am the spawn of evil.