Chapter 3:
The Rise
"The world causes us to fall, why?"
"Because once we fall so far we can only Rise."
- Dwayne Varkovski and Bunker
Sean flew at about Mach 8 towards Russia, he only slowed down to catch his breath, projecting that much fire took it out of him.
Sean was a pretty scary looking guy, he had a tattoo that depicted a flaming skull and he always wore torn up blue jeans and a black street jacket. Sean stood a 'decent' 6'2'' and always wore dark reflective sunglasses, you could never tell how he was feeling.
If a certain mood struck Sean da Casta he could easily turn you into cinders.
His mother had always try to make something decent out of him, something respectable out of him. About ten years ago Darkseid invaded, and slaughtered a great deal of the "Old Guard", the heroes and villains who fought Pre-Consilium Epsilum, and their successors now had to be licensed by the Imperialists.
So now after years of fighting if you were a hero, if you survived Darkseid's invasion, and the Injustice Society's Attack, and the Plague which killed about half the remaining heroes, you had to be licensed or give up your identity. The few heroes that had survived Consilium Epsilum and refused to give up their identities were killed, with the exception of Barry Allen, Congorilla, Creeper, Tasmanian Devil, Prometheus, Zauriel, and Loose Cannon.
Barry Allen had retreated into the Speed Force after seeing his daughter killed by Superboy. Congorilla had escaped to the jungle, after killing two of the Imperialists, Bombshell and Bumblebee. Creeper had been taken to an undisclosed location to be interrogated into revealing the whereabouts of Tasmanian Devil, his partner, then escaped the safe house into the night. The Tasmanian Devil hid in the sewers of Metropolis and led a gang of rag-tag metahumans as a guerrilla fighting force. Prometheus had faked his death, but is currently at large. Zauriel had escaped capture and retreated into Heaven to gain power. Loose Cannon had barely survived, after he was captured by Sean and tortured, but later he was killed by a gang.
Sean tried not to think about New Kandor's failures. Sean needed to get his head in the game! This guy might have dressed up like a bat, but he still was no push-over.
"We have to kill all the witnesses!"
The NKOE (New Kandor Order Enforcers) officer harshly whispered.
Nick Gossamer had only had this job for two weeks, he had just been promoted, and the rookie had gotten an alien body his first field assignment.
Nick looked around the scene, it was protected by a perimeter of police tape.
The minor officer that Nick was addressing looked down at his shoes.
Nick grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, forcing the lackey to look him in the eyes.
What was in the face of the man he was about to harass was not what he was expecting.
Not at all.
The man in the clown make-up started laughing as another man stepped from behind. This other man was wearing a white hood, hiding his face and had strange markings on his visible arms, which were almost unhealthily pale, matching the Clown's face.
The Clown looked on as his winged friend killed all of the NKOE officers with what looked like a flaming sword.
A FREAKING FLAMING SWORD!
The Clown grinned at the victim in his hands, who was unsurprisingly not smiling. The Clown stopped laughing just long enough to ask him,
"Why so serious?"