Interlude: The Dragon; The Performer

A dragon did not cower in the face of adversity.

And yet the man before Kenta, the villain known as Lung, scared the living hell out of him. He hadn't felt fear when he'd fought the demon of the water, Leviathan. He hadn't felt fear when the Yangban of the CUI held him captive and tried to break him. No, he'd only felt fear once before, against the suit wearing woman who had initially caused his trigger. The man with mad green eyes caused that same sort of fear.

Already the fire of his power was stoked within him, ready to be unleashed, but Lung had an odd feeling that nothing he did would phase the madman. "What do you want then?" Lung snarled at the man who had appeared within his inner sanctum.

The man grinned widely and then with a snap of his fingers, a girl of Japanese heritage stood with him, wide eyed and terror in her posture. "A gift to the mighty Dragon of Kyushu." He drawled, a mocking edge to his voice. "A parahuman of considerable might."

Lung snorted, a bit of his inner fire leaking out. "A spy."

"A gift." The man insisted. "You would have recruited her anyway, I'm just… speeding things up a bit."

That gave Lung pause. He knew the dangers of Thinkers. "Why?"

"Well now, that's a good question. Perhaps it's boredom? Some small shred left of my humanity? Or perhaps it's just my plan." The madman grinned sharply and Lung fought the urge to take a step back or bathe the man with fire. "Use my gift as you see fit. It doesn't really matter to me." He shoved the girl forward and then vanished without a trace.

Lung approached the trembling figure, slowly allowing the fire raging inside him to subside. "What can you do?"

"I'm uh, I- The guy who kidnapped me said I was a Tinker." The girl answered with fear still filling her voice. "Are… Are you going to kill me?"

Lung was half tempted out of sheer spite, but ultimately discarded the notion. "Not if you make yourself useful."

He supposed it was time to teach the heroes and Nazis again why they should fear the ABB, why they should fear Lung. Another cape would be useful for that endeavor.

Magician strolled leisurely through the small town, eyeing the carnage that surrounded him. Two dead heroes lay with their throats opened, a third was crushed beneath some rubble, three more looked like they'd been shredded, and an unidentifiable lump was probably another hero that had been melted by acid. More carnage and bodies were scattered about, civilians caught in the crossfire.

He saw it all and was struck by how… boring this all was. Pointless. Destruction for the sake of destruction was just so petty. Magician was no stranger to death and destruction of course, he was the supervillain of his time after all, but he'd always had purpose and reason behind it all.

The original supervillain of his world glanced up as he heard screams and gunshots. He kicked off the ground, briefly calling up an old flight power he'd acquired ages ago in order to take in the scene. With a vicious grin he rocketed forward and then descended like a wrathful god upon the Slaughterhouse Nine.

His first target was the one they called Hatchet Face. It served as a decent opening act, simply appearing behind the Brute/Trump and then slicing his head clean off with an arm that had been transmuted into a steel blade.

"Hello all!" Magician announced gleefully as he kicked Hatchet Face's body over. "Mind if I join the fun?"

Jack Slash, the leader of the little group of murderhobos, grinned at Magician, though there was a killer's edge to it. "Well that's one way to make an entrance. And who might you be, friend?"

Magician allowed an old Wildcard power to bubble to the surface, not a true telepathic one, instead this one enhanced his social perception a bit, made it easier to read and understand people. Another power allowed him to see Jack Slash's power, to perceive what the truest form of it was. He had to hold in a choked gasp of terror at the nightmare of crystal flesh that had taken a hold on the other man's soul and twisted him so thoroughly.

Jack Slash truly was a monster and a psychopath to the highest degree, the worst Magician had ever seen, even including Ares when the mad super had been under the sway of his out of control power. Slash just wanted to cause as much carnage and death as possible, for no other reason that it brought him some twisted sense of satisfaction. He saw the world as fundamentally broken, people as fundamentally evil, thought that anyone would be as vile as he was if pushed far enough. He wasn't even wrong to a certain extent, people were capable of truly evil and heinous acts, history attested to that. But to Magician his methodology was just… lacking. And fundamentally stupid really.

And if there was one thing Magician couldn't stand, it was sheer stupidity.

"I am but the humble Magician, purveyor of tricks and shows for all seasons." Magician introduced himself with a theatrical bow, sweeping his top hat off of his head as he did so. "I heard whispers you were all in this area and just had to come see your work for myself."

Jack Slash faltered for a moment at the faux enthusiasm, looking a little… lost. "Well it's always nice to meet a fan. If that was your idea of an introduction and asking for a place amongst our fine troop, I must say it was indeed stunning." He eyed the cooling corpse of Hatchet Face. "Though our dear friend will be missed."

Even as he spoke, Magician could see the tendrils of Jack's parasite reaching out for him, trying to get a read on the super, but failing to find purchase. Magician laughed internally. He knew there was no way a two bit Blaster with a knife power could survive so long without some sort of trump card. Slash probably didn't even know what he was doing, he was so in tune with his power that he probably just chalked it up to gut feelings and a knack for talking to parahumans and messing with their heads.

"I wouldn't call myself a fan, so much as a… disappointed audience member." Magician sighed and looked at the destruction around him, the twisted and mutilated corpses of innocent civilians. "I thought maybe there was more to your group, but all I see are a bunch of rabid animals in need of putting down."

Jack's face went cold. "Bonesaw." He commanded, taking a step back and drawing a razor off of his belt.

The monster in the body of a child made some kind of whistling noise and several shuffling, zombie-like figures came shuffling out of the surrounding buildings, spider-like machines attached to their heads.

"They're all alive and aware." Bonesaw giggled, cruelty and madness dancing in her eyes. "So play nice, OK?"

Ah, so that was their angle. They thought he was a hero, here to stop them. Fools. Magician took one look at the horde that began to converge on him, the innocent civilians that were now trapped in the grasp of a monster. He pitied them, he really did.

But that wouldn't be enough to stop him. He'd done worse in his lifetime. Far, far worse. That didn't mean he had to be cruel though.

Flames built up inside of his chest and he released it in the form of a breath of white hot fire. The flames instantly incinerated a swath of bodies and caused the visible members of the Nine to begin running, not expecting the new parahuman to be so willinging to murder civilians without hesitation.

Now where were the others?

A dark haired woman burst from a patch of fire that Magician had unleashed, the infamous pyrokinetic, Burnscar. The flame teleportation was a neat trick. Magician regretted that he couldn't take that for himself. As the woman unleashed an inferno upon him, Magician idly allowed his skin to become covered in icy armor as he called upon another power, creating a vacuum within a twenty foot radius. The remaining Bonesaw victims dropped as their lungs collapsed, the head spiders beginning to crawl off. The flames snuffed out and Burnscar backpedaled as she sent another fireball, though it too simply vanished when it got too close to him.

Then he felt something pierce his back and through his chest. A white arm patterned with black stripes. Heh, he'd been looking forward to this one. He allowed himself to become nothing but particles of light for a moment before reforming a good distance away from the Siberian and Burnscar, flesh already knitting back together.

Magician eyed the infamous killer of Hero, scanning her with an extra sensory power. There wasn't a… well, for lack of a better term, he couldn't see a soul. Rather, a tether, something linking her to something else. Or maybe someone else. Huh, that explained quite a bit. With a burst of superspeed, he appeared behind Burnscar and kicked her with enhanced strength. The blow was enough to send her flying while at the same time he ducked a clawing attack from the Siberian. Experimentally, he used an acquired power to blast a metric fuck-ton of lightning into the striped woman's face. Absolutely nothing, she just bulldozed through the electricity and tried to rip him apart again. Damn, he hated indestructible opponents. It hadn't just been his strength that made Ares a bitch and a half to fight.

Taking another leap backwards, Magician summoned up a flock of hardlight projectiles that began to rain down upon Siberian and Burnscar. A shield of glass suddenly appeared as Shatterbird made her entrance, shielding the unstoppable woman and the pyrokinetic. A blade came flying out of a nearby window and shattered against a hastily erected forcefield. Mannequin. Crawler probably wasn't far behind.

Magician was starting to get tired of their bullcrap. It was fun playing around. It was time to get serious. He'd thought that maybe there was something interesting to this group. There really wasn't.

With a thought, a handful of debris scooped off the ground became a gun. Another power granted enhanced skill and perception. Then he lept into the air, eyes scanning, and he fired a single shot. The Siberian had only an instant to look surprised before vanishing.

Burnscar hadn't been idle, taking the brief respite to start setting more fires around town to give herself more mobility. But while Burnscar was a powerful fire manipulator, Magician had consumed more pyrokinetics than he cared to remember. With a bit of willpower and concentration, every single fire in the town died instantly. Burnscar followed as Magician teleported into her personal space and drove a blade made of ice through her heart.

Mannequin, the formerly benevolent Tinker who almost took mankind to space, came at him in a whirl of spinning blades. Tinker-tech steel that could probably cut down low-level Brutes were easily dodged as Magician relied on enhanced reflexes to lean out of the way of each sharp blade. With another thought, his iconic sword-cane had fallen into his hands. Drawing it, he engaged in a brief duel, even as glass began to stream upward. No doubt Shatterbird preparing for a last ditch attack. Grinning, he snagged an ability to imbue energy into a target. Then he grabbed Mannequin, dumped power into him, and threw him straight up at Shatterbird. The following detonation ripped through the glass controller's barriers and armor. Her charred corpse hit the ground with a meaty thud.

Magician glanced around, feeling like he'd forgotten something.

Then Crawler, the monstrous adaptive regenerator came bursting through a hedge and slammed into Magician, trying to either eat him alive or rip him apart, one or the other. Either way, he had a very unpleasant time as claws started ripping through him and acid started eating at his clothes. He had spent a lot of money one these goddamn clothes!

With an annoyed grunt, the former Black Hat leader kicked Crawler in the chest, mustering up about a dozen Brute powers as he did so. The blowback snapped his own leg, but there was enough kinetic force behind the blow to throw Crawler away and through several houses. Grumbling under his breath, he allowed some light to spill from his fingers that began to heal the busted leg. His healing factor could also take care of it, but the extra bit helped get it going quicker.

Cycling through his catalog powers, Magician finally found one that would hopefully remove Crawler as a threat, at the very least make him someone else's headache. First he took an overcharge ability, one that simply amped up an existing power. The only reason it hadn't made him invincible, was it only worked on one power at a time and took a lot of energy to use. Then he took a simple portal making power, not a lot of distance, more line of sight. Combining the two, he created a portal straight up into the depths of space. As Crawler came charging at him again, Magician dodged and then struck him with the same dozen Brute powers as before, sending the regenerator straight through and into nothingness. The portal closed, trapping him in the void.

Taking flight, Magician glanced around, looking for Jack Slash and Bonesaw. He spotted them down the road, trying to speed away in their stolen camper as quickly as the engine could take them. He opened his palm and allowed a small bead of energy to form into existence. He whispered instructions to it, then let it free. It streaked through the air before striking the right side of the vehicle, sending it flipping end over end before it crashed to the ground, a flaming wreck. He approached it warily, only to grunt in pain and take a step back as a flashing blade lanced out from the wreckage and pierced his eye. Slash came out charging, blade in each hand, face full of anger and desperation. It was child's play to dash forward with a burst of speed and grab Slash by the neck, lifting him up off his feet. Precise telekinetic bursts shattered the man's joints, leaving him thrashing in Magician's grasp.

"Any last words, Jacob?" Magician smirked. "Or are you going to end your life just as much a disappointment as it started?"

Jack Slash opened his mouth to say something, but once again Magician could see the tendrils of parahuman influence reaching out towards him. Idiot. Without letting him utter another word, Magician snapped his neck, then immolated the body with plasma.

"JACK!" Bonesaw wailed, sprinting out of the wreckage. Her face was a picture of agony and despair, making Magician feel just the hints of pity. Her eyes danced about wildly, looking for any hint of her former comrades. "You… you… you big jerk! You killed all my friends! My family!" Her face darkened with murderous intent. "I'm going to have fun playing with your corpse!"

Darts jetted out of her finger tips, covered in a potent venom that could kill a whale. Vials of acid were thrown straight at him, strong enough to eat through solid steel. None of it touched Magician as he simply activated a basic forcefield power around himself. Without her support base, Bonesaw was… Well ok, she was probably fairly deadly, but nothing against Magician. Another stolen power allowed him to lock her in place as he strolled up to her.

"Bonesaw… I've heard tales of your exploits." Magician eyed her critically. He'd have to get rid of the tacky pseudo-costume Jack had put her in, but a good magician could always use an assistant and her power in particular was of use. "Let's have a walk down memory lane."

A psychic probe lanced out into Bonesaw's mind as Magician got a speedrun of her life. While the basics could be found online, the truth of it all was much more complicated. He could see how Jack had manipulated and twisted the girl into a monster, the horror of it all. It turned even Magician's stomach. That wouldn't do at all. He needed her power, not a monster willing to unleash diseases that could end all human life. With all the psychic subtlety that he could muster, he erased her time with the Nine. He left as much of her tinkering knowledge as he could, but the memories of slaughter and mayhem, of murder and torture, all of it was ripped away.

When he was done, Riley, the innocent girl, not Bonesaw the monster, opened her eyes. "W-Where am I mister? What happened?"

Magician grinned. "My name is Arlen little one. And I'm going to help you be a superhero! Do you like superheroes?"

"Yeah…" Riley glanced around. "Where are my parents at? They told me not to talk to strangers."

"Well they asked me to take care of you. They had to go on a trip of sorts." Magician lied easily, using a charm power to make his words more… persuasive. "I promise, it'll all be OK. I just need your help… and your power." He held out his hand. "Just a bit of time and then you'll see your parents again dear. What do you say?"

Riley, reduced to the mentality of a six year old, nodded happily and took Magician's hand. They vanished and far, far away, a madman laughed in utter delight.

The chaos would be wonderful.
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