1 The Black Forest...
Elisa Maza yawned and brushed some of her dark hair back from her
face. She had been getting less and less sleep lately. It was hard to
keep normal hours, considering the type of company she was keeping. She
had come to tolerate the bags under her eyes with a sort of resignation; it
was worth it to see her friends. And besides, the night had come to hold a
sort of spell over her that she embraced happily.
She sighed as she stared out over the steering wheel of her car.
Normally, she was thankful for a night of peace, but for some reason
tonight was different. Frankly, she was bored to death, and she grimaced
at her radio, almost wanting something to come crackling over the waves.
But, nothing came, and it seemed she was doomed to this curse of nothing to
do for the night. Maybe she should call it quits early and pay a visit to
her friends?
Just as this thought occurred to her, her radio crackled it. She
chuckled, thinking someone had predicted what she was thinking. She picked
up the receiver.
"Maza, you there?" came the voice of Matt Bluestone over the speaker.
"Yeah. What's up Matt?" "You're not far from Lexington Avenue, right?"
"Yeah. What's it to you?"
"Some woman in an apartment nearby reported hearing a scream.
Probably just someone having a nightmare."
"One can always hope."
"Better check it out, just to be sure."
"Sure Matt. I'm on it."
As she drove, she looked up at the sky. The starlight night was
beautiful. Frankly, tonight just seemed to peaceful for anything truly bad
to happen. She smiled to herself. Once this was over, she would go see
her friends. That would be a good way to top off a quiet night.
She stopped below the high rise apartment building. She stepped out
of her car and looked up at it. The clouds rolled by overhead. She
narrowed her eyes. Had she seen something scrambling around on the roof?
She blinked and looked again. Probably just shadows. She shrugged and
took a walk around the building. Everything seemed quite peaceful.
She got back into her car and picked up the receiver for her radio.
She spoke into it with a sense of satisfaction. "There's nothing wrong out
here Matt. Tell her that she should just close her windows from now on,
keeps noise out."
The moment the words left her lips, the silence of the night was
pierced like a knife cleaving into flesh as the window of an apartment
three flours up exploded outward in a blast of fire and smoke. Elisa
ducked down onto the floor of her car, waiting till she was sure the blast
had not been aimed at her. She got back up in her seat. Matt was
screaming over the radio.
"Elisa? Elisa! What the hell was that?"
"Some sort of an explosion Matt. Get a firetruck down here right
away, before it sets the whole building up!" She hopped out of her car.
She headed for the entrance to the building, intending to help evacuate its
occupants, when a noise rose above the roar of the fire: laughter. It was a
high pitched, maniacal cackling. Elisa's head swung around, searching for
the source of the sound. It seemed to be coming from the roof. She
hurried around the side of the building, leapt onto the fire escape, and
squirmed up its metal latter's.
High above the lights of the city, soaring through the sky, was an
ancient warrior of unspeakable means. The purple wings spread out against
the air, carrying their owner along on currents of wind. He smiled
contently to himself as he scanned over the streets of the city. All
seemed very peaceful tonight. Perhaps he'd get to see Elisa soon.
His thoughts were interrupted by the roar of an explosion. He paused
in mid-air, and scanned around till he saw the plume of smoke rising into
the sky. He narrowed his eyes, grunted, and headed for the emergency.
Elisa Maza had seen much in the past few years that she had once
considered impossible. Since her friends had come into her life, she had
encountered a stream of robots, mutants, aliens, and fairies. She had come
to expect the unexpected, and to be more fearless than she had ever thought
possible. But she could not restrain her shock at the sight awaited her on
the roof of the building.
The man who stood on the opposite ledge was the most bizarre looking
person she had ever seen. His clothes looked formal and professional, in
spite of how dirty they were. A tattered trench-coat billowed in the wind,
joined by bandages, which lead to his mummified head. The bandages wrapped
around his whole skull, leading up to a cone shaped point over his cranium.
A pair of buggy, bloodshot eyes glared out at her crazily, staring from
above the hideous grin that also seemed to jump out from the forest of
bandages. His hands were also covered in bandages, topping off his strange
appearance. He did not seem to notice her at first, but rather his
attention was focused on the police and fire department cars that were
screeching to a halt in front of the building. Elisa approached him
carefully.
"Okay mister, just step down from there real slow..." she cautioned.
She held up her badge for him to see, hoping that he would make this easy
and just back down at the sight of her police credentials. But this was
not to bed, and instead he seemed totally unimpressed. He burst into
another round of horrible laughter, his eyes still watching the street's
below.
"Even in this world, the people are nothing but pathetic lap dogs,
whimpering at their master's heels." His voice was gravelly, rough, but
still sent a chill down Elisa's spine. She held her gun steady and tried
again to get through to him.
"Put your hands up where I can see them. Step down off that ledge..."
"But still, I could manage to do a great deal of good here..." he said,
totally ignoring Elisa. He scratched his bandage chin and grinned. "A
city that hasn't yet lost its memories; it would be so much easier to find
the truth here."
"What are you talking about? Who are you?" she demanded, her
confusion angering her. He now turned to face Elisa, focusing his insane
eyes on her. He chuckled, seeming to be amused by the sight of her.
"Oh, I am called many things. But you may call me Schwarzwald."
"Huh?" Elisa struggled to identify the word, but it seemed to be some
sort of foreign language. She thrust it aside and turned her attention
back to the man standing before her. "Did you cause that explosion? And
why are you dressed up in a Halloween costume?"
"This world intrigues me," he said, ignoring her questions. "Not
since Big Duo have I seen something so interesting."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded, stepping closer.
"Its not easy you know, seeking out the truth. I sought it for
years, and this is what became of me. Such a pity the same thing doesn't
happen to the likes of you." He reached into his pocket, and Elisa dropped
into a combat ready stance, prepared to open fire if she had to. She
relaxed when he produced nothing more than a cigarette lighter. He held it
up for her to see. "But then again, perhaps I can help you to see the
world in the same light I have..."
Elisa suddenly became aware of the smell of gasoline. Her eyes
flicked around for the source, and finally settled at her own feet. She
gasped when she saw the soaking bandages laying on the ground below her.
Her eyes followed the long trail of white cloth up, up to the maniac's
feet. His grin spread under his bandaged face, and he clicked the flint of
the lighter, the small flame dancing up into the night air. Elisa tried to
scream, but found she could not. She watched, horrified as he dropped the
lighter...
It happened in an instant. The flames poured down the gasoline
soaked bandages toward Elisa, but in a split second, just before the
ignited the cloth right below her feet, she found herself torn from the
roof of the building, yanked into the air. She cried out at first, till
she looked up in the familiar eyes of Goliath.
"Thanks big guy" she said, giving a sigh of relief, "I was afraid I
was going to end up a chicken McNugget for a minute."
"Who is that man?" Goliath asked her as he circled overhead. As they
watched, he leapt off of the roof of the burning building onto another,
jumping from building to building, attempting to escape as Goliath gave
chase.
"He called himself Schwarzwald" Elisa said, struggling with the
strange sounding word.
"The black forest?" Goliath said, one of his large eyebrows cocking
questioningly.
"Huh?"
"Never-mind" Goliath said, remembering Elisa had not read as
extensively as he had.
"He was babbling all these things about the truth, and a Big
something or other. Its like he just dropped out of the sky."
"He won't get far." Goliath commented. Elisa followed her
companion's gaze, and smiled to herself at the sight of Angela and Broadway
swooping down from the sky. They crashed down onto they're feet on another
roof, just as Schwarzwald leapt onto it. He screeched to a halt, kicking
up clouds of dirt. Broadway and Angela both eyed him skeptically.
"Curioser and curioser..." Schwarzwald muttered as he slowly backed
away from the two gargoyles. He spun around and attempted to leap back to
the building he had just come from, but Goliath landed in front of him,
cutting him off. Schwarswald's eyes flicked back and forth from gargoyle
to gargoyle, desperately searching for a way out.
"Who is this guy, Goliath?" Broadway asked, taking measured steps
closer to the strange looking mummy-man.
"Elisa said he calls himself..."
"I am a seeker of knowledge!" Schwarzwald interrupted, swinging his
hand into the air in a grand gesture. "I am the one who has had the
courage to try to find memories from 40 years ago! And now that I have a
world where memories still exist, I shall be loathe to surrender it!" He
reached into his coat, withdrew his balled up first, and swung it toward
Angela and Broadway. They both yelped and jumped back, at the same moment
Goliath and Elisa took a leap forward. They all hesitated, staring at each
other taking a moment to register that he had in fact thrown nothing at
them. His laughter interrupted, and they all spun just in time to see him
leap from the edge of the building. "So gullible!" his cry echoed as he
tumbled down toward the alley below.
They all hurried to leap down after him, but just as they reached the
edge, the sound of a strange crackling arose to their ears. The darkness
below was suddenly illuminated by cracks of electricity. Flashes burst in
the air, reflecting the scrambling form of Schwarzwald in the alley below.
A humming noise rose up, drowning out his panicked cries. The electricity
grew into small lighting, and finally it all rose into a monumental burst
of energy that threw all four of them onto their backs. They all blacked
out for a moment...
Elisa groaned as she sat up. She shook the cobwebs out of her head
as Goliath, Broadway, and Angela all rose as well. They quickly jumped
down into the alley, and were all stunned by the sight of the smoldering
pavement, the melted trash cans, the smoldering walls. It looked as if
there had been a small nova here in this tiny crack of New York. And
worse, Schwarzwald was nowhere to be seen.
"What was that, Elisa?" Angela asked, her level of concern obvious in
her voice.
"I don't know Angela" Elisa answered, "But I have a bad feeling about
it..."
A world away...
Alex Rosewater smiled to himself and leaned back in his chair. The
massive machine before him still smoked a little as it slowly cooled down.
Behind him, the wire-thin form of Alan Gabriel stood like a statue, his
never ending smile plastered across his grotesquely inhuman face.
"Well, it seems that the test run was a perfect success, Alan"
Rosewater said over his shoulder. "Feel prepared for a little journey?"
"A sojourn through another world" Alan responded, his voice laced
with soft chuckles, "Sounds like fun." His chuckles rose into a hideous
laughter that echoed through the huge underground complex.
