Sins of Youth
Writer's Note: This is a Teen Titans/Incredibles crossover, but in this first chapter, neither will appear. But they will, don't worry. Also, the Teen Titans that appear will not be the group that appears in the show, but rather my group from many stories. But if you're new, don't worry, I'll give you a proper introduction that will let you catch up without having to read all my previous work. Though I'd much appreciate it if you did anyway, heh heh.
And one last thing. I pondered whether to give this story a T or an M rating, and in the end settled on T. However, if people feel the violence in this chapter (which will set the tone for the story) is too high for the rating, I will switch it to M. If you could give me feedback on the rating in your (hopeful) review, I'd appreciate it. In any case, enough talking, let's begin.
Prelude: Dark Night
All tales start somewhere…
Ours…begins here.
His boots were black and heavily soled, steel toes painted black to perfectly blend in with the rest of the shoe. Despite the heavy footwear, the figure's walk was almost graceful, and at least purposeful, striding down the dark, rain-blackened road. It was almost midnight, in this dark little section of the city (what city? Some city. He no longer made distinctions, all locations blending together in the quest, the quest that was finally coming to an end…)
The night is his clothes. The dark city almost seems to wrap protectively around him. But he needs no protection. Indeed, such a concept is laughable. When he needed protection, there was none to be had. And now it was too late.
So he walked, like he owned the city and all the souls within it. And in his own way, he did. They were all within his power, should he have chosen to exert it. Another time, he might have done so. But he has a quest now. And it has been going on for far too long…
His pants seemed like a cross between jeans and leather biking pants. His shirt was a strange fusion between T-shirt and spandex. His frame was draped with the classic Neo style leather trench coat, his hands covered in black fingerless gloves. His hair was long, just past his shoulders, and also as black as pitch until the end, where the dark locks suddenly end in blood red tips, a perfect dyejob, if dye it was. And his face…
Perhaps the man is handsome. Perhaps he is average. Perhaps he is ugly.
It is quite hard to tell, because his entire face is covered in tattoos. Every aspect of his face is covered, from his forehead down to the flesh around his neck, an expert weaving of macabre images. If we could pause to study it, we could see skeletal arms and skulls, dark ankhs, interweaving black wings that seemed to flow into painted marks of clawed wounds on his cheeks, as if a raven had swooped in to attack him and was somehow absorbed into his features as it struck. On his left eye, the particular design tinted ever so slightly brighter in order to stand out, is a strange symbol that looks like a backwards h; on his right eye a straight down slash, a perfect vertical line. If biblical scholars could have studied his face, they might have been shocked that within all these interlocked designs were also the etched facial markings of a few high demons as described in the bible. All of it flowed together perfectly, not a single artistic misstep, with such detail that you wonder how long it must have taken to paint the canvas of this face with such a tableau of morbidness.
And his eyes…
They were an almost pleasant purplish blue.
In appearance anyway.
In expression…
The ice of the core of Pluto could not have been as chilling as the expression with his eyes…
And yet…as he walked down the alleyway…the figure smiled slightly. His teeth were perfect, and not the shining, movie star perfect some people would pay dentists a fortune to get. His teeth seemed naturally perfect, without any enhancement at all.
That made his expression even worse, as the figure suddenly seemed to be channeling the visage of a shark, yet with a terrifying ferocity that the dead gaze of the world's deadliest fish could never muster. No…that ferocity was purely human.
Pure predator.
And pure viciousness.
They were close.
And so he walked, his coat swirling behind him, gusted by brief winds and his own determined forward momentum.
He had long learned the intricacies of fate, and he knew that some things were inevitable. But some people would just not learn their lessons. But it didn't matter. For this, he'd gladly teach them.
He'd been pursuing too long. He needed some entertainment.
He'd get that too.
He turned around the corner. The street was empty. The people of this city, for one reason or another, remained indoors.
It didn't matter, he supposed. But he did enjoy an audience at times.
Dr. Fannon Kincaid was beginning to think of certain inevitabilities as well. Though only in a dark corner of his mind. The majority was fully occupied with the screaming desires of the reptile part of his brain, the primitive part that controlled all the basic instincts, one of which was fight or flight. Dr. Kincaid's mind was fully focused on the latter aspect, even as the tiny part of his brain, unheard but still there, was informing him there was no escape. There never had been…
Kincaid was a skinny man somewhere in his fifties, with bushy gray hair and piercing green eyes. And once…he had been what had been called a Super. However, that term didn't really apply to him. He couldn't lift cement trucks with his brain or shoot beams out of his eyes. No, his power was intelligence. He was a genius, and had proudly helped other, more true Supers with gear, vehicles, and other apparatus. Then the Supers had gone underground, and Kincaid had been forced to channel his intelligence into other fields. It hadn't been easy, as he'd liked his work, but he'd managed. When the Supers had returned, he had been given an offer by the government to go back to his old job. But by then, Kincaid had hit upon something entirely new, and he needed to devote all his time and resources to it. The government had been disappointed, but they had accepted his choice, and to ensure his safety, they had assigned him a small security force. Kincaid, upon learning the reason behind the force (worry that he could be kidnapped and forced to work against them), grew a tad bit paranoid and had shored up the force with people hired from the free market. Sometimes they weren't the most reputable people, but Kincaid figured that wouldn't be a problem if he kept them in enough money. He had plenty: his genius had proven quite lucrative in the world. He'd kept working, time had passed….
And then…
He wore a dirty lab coat over his slacks and dress shirt: he hadn't had time to change in several days. As the government had worried, someone had come after him, but not from the angle they had expected. And when the attack had come…
Indeed, it was ironic. The government had been the one who theorized about an attack, and yet the only men he had left, about a dozen or so, had been men hired by him instead of assigned by the government to protect him against said possible and now happening attack. The assigned men…he didn't want to think about what had happened to them. It was beyond belief, much like his fleeing, ending up in this dark little section of some city he barely knew, and no closer to escape when he had started, and the danger was closing in…
Because his car had broken down. He knew he should have stuck with a Japanese model. For all their arrogance, Americans could be amazingly sub par when it came to their construction…
He didn't even wait for an excuse: he was opening the door and stepping out, pulling his briefcase with him, the piece of luggage containing his life's work, the reason he was being chased so doggedly, something for which his pursuer had committed atrocity after atrocity to get. Perhaps some would ask why he didn't just hand it over, but Dr. Kincaid had a very good reason. Two of them. First had been simple professional pride: this device was the closest thing he would ever have to a child. And second had been what he had learned while he had been fleeing the last several days, as he frantically tried to piece the puzzle together of why his hunter wanted the device. Through brief phone calls and e-mail messages, he had found out just how blind to the outside world he had been these last few months, as the project finally neared completion. And now that fallacy had put him on the brink of losing everything…
And how inevitable it was, if the scraps of information he had heard were true. If everything was fact, and he had no reason to believe distortion or exaggeration had slipped into the packets of information he had received, then his pursuer was unstoppable. A Super that needed a whole new class to describe him…and quite possibly a whole new branch of psychiatric medicine…
And the rumor of WHY he wanted the Kincaid RM-X…
"No time to fix the car, run!" Kincaid ordered, as doors on two other cars opened as well. The three beat up vehicles had contained him and the last of his bodyguards, and Kincaid's car had been in the lead. The road was one-way and too narrow for the other cars to drive around it, and Kincaid wasn't getting in one of the others and turning around. He had to go forward, find another car, escape…
His remaining bodyguards stood around, briefly confused. They were from all walks of life: white and black and one Mexican, some tall, some short, some muscled and some lean. Some had actual body armor, others just had normal clothes. They all had a variety of weapons. And all of them were scared, though none would admit it.
"Come on!" Kincaid yelled, half jogging forward, desperately wanting to move but also not wanting his flank exposed. Though not loyal by nature, some of the bodyguards started jogging after him. They too, had their reasons. One was if Kincaid could escape and perfect his prototype, he had promised them all a cut of the profits, which could number in the billions. And the other was the monster chasing the doctor made no distinctions once he settled on his target: they had been in league with the doctor when he had chosen him and hence would die with him, even if they cut their ties and ran. Indeed, one of them had already tried to sell out Kincaid…and he had apparently hit a nerve in such a betrayal, as the monster had stopped his pursuit to…do…something to the traitor. All of the bodyguards were hardened men, some quite amoral, but what that thing had done…even they had been chilled. And they had just seen a tiny bit of it. They did not want to know what they had missed.
And now the one who had done such a thing was on their tails, after them.
But none of them were going to die without a fight, as they grabbed up their weapons, inserting clips, cocking hammers, and performing other preparations…
And at the back of the group, one of them finished snapping his clip into his sub-machine gun…
And then with a yelp so brief no one heard it, he was yanked back into the shadows.
"Come on!" Kincaid yelled. "These streets are a maze! Maybe we…"
CHOCK!
The sub machine guard was reintroduced to his comrades. Or at least part of him was.
As his head flew back out of the shadows and bounced along the ground before rolling to a stop.
His eyes were filled with horror.
The expression was mirrored in the face of all the men.
"Doctor…" came a calm voice from the shadows. "Let's stop this nonsense."
"AYYYAHHHHH STOP HIM!" Kincaid screamed, his word more of a terrified plea then an outright order, as he turned and sprinted away. Four of his guards followed him, perhaps in a supposed theory of protecting him, but in reality not wanting to face what had found them.
The remaining six were either braver or more foolish, as their guns all swung in the direction from which the head had come from.
The street filled with terrible noise as machine guns cut loose, tracers light up the dark street. The louder bang of a shotgun mixed with the deep throaty chatter of the automatic weapons.
The gunfire only briefly stopped when a giant belch of flame spewed out and enveloped the street, ignited the car at the back of the road, and then several small tossed objects followed.
The remaining guards retreated back down the street just before the grenades blew, blowing up the previous ignited car and causing a chain reaction as the two cars in front of it detonated themselves from the sudden intense heat. The shrapnel from the explosions caught none of the men though: they had been trained to avoid such things. Having retreated back some distance, they began slamming new ammo clips in and swinging their weapons around, looking for the threat.
They never saw it coming anyway.
As the man with the tattooed face dropped down from the sky, holding the edges of his coat, and as one of the bodyguards managed to look up the tattooed man landed behind him, even as he swung the coat out and closed it around the bodyguard.
Except it was no longer just a coat. It seemed larger, blacker, more…ORGANIC, more like a veil of muscle then a piece of attire, as it wrapped around the bodyguard. The outline of his body could be clearly seen, as it briefly thrashed, and then make a noise that MIGHT have been a scream…if it wasn't so…wet.
The other guards had turned towards the tattooed man, but all they could do was stare at the sudden new horrible sight, even as liquid began to pour out the bottom of the coat, pooling around the tattooed man's feet, as the form within the coat thrashed twice more and then went still…and then the outline vanished, even as more liquid fell at the man's feet with a splattering noise.
After several seconds, the man finally swung his coat back open.
Several things that might have been bones flew from within the coat, even as the material once again seemed to go from some kind of organic matter back to the leather of a trench coat, the tattooed man releasing his hands from the edges he had gripped.
Somehow…he'd dissolved the man. Like he had turned his clothing wrapped around the bodyguard into some kind of stomach. And worst of all…despite the mess at his feet…the man's front was pristine. As if nothing had ever happened.
"Well, that was interesting." The Tattooed Man commented.
The five remaining bodyguards finally recovered from their shock and aimed their weapons.
"Oh, do please." The Tattooed Man said.
The bullets began to fly again.
As the Tattooed Man raised his arm, his fingers aimed to the sky and his forearm pointing outward at the group, and then the limb suddenly widened out, morphing and darkening, and as the bullets flew in they suddenly met a shield, the arm having morphed into a giant wall of steel, protecting the Tattooed Man from the shots…
And then the shield shot off like it was on a spring, the arm elongating and pushing out the wall of steel, aiming it right towards one of the bodyguards, and he barely got a chance to scream before the wall slammed into him and shoved him back until his body met the hard stone of the building behind him.
It was much like a bug on a windshield.
"You don't give up, do you?" The Tattooed Man said as he withdrew the arm, even as the steel wall morphed back into a human limb (and though no one seemed to notice, the Tattooed Man seemed to grow a little taller, though if one had looked closely, that would have been due to the ground underneath him seemingly pushing him up just a tad…).
Perhaps the Tattooed Man's last sentence didn't seem so strange…if not for the fact that while he had said it, one of the bodyguards had gotten around his steel wall guard and opened fire on his body. And was still shooting.
But the bullets, when they struck, did not tear muscle and break bone, puncture organs and spill blood. Indeed, it seemed like they were striking sand, the projectiles hitting their target and having no effect as they sank into the Tattooed Man's body and disappeared, even as the Tattooed Man finished returning his arm to normal from the shape he had made it form and turned to fully face the shooter, even as said shooter ran out of ammo.
The Tattooed Man smirked with one corner of his mouth, and then aimed his palms up at the shooter…even as holes opened up within the flesh.
"You dropped these."
And the bullets spewed out from the Tattooed Man's palms, as if fired by a gun themselves. Their second trip proved to be far more effective, even as the bullets bit the hand that had fed them. Blew them off, to be more accurate.
The Tattooed Man stepped over the mess that had once been a man and found himself facing another one of the guards. Why none of them had run away by now was a question lost to time, as the latest guard cocked and aimed his shotgun at the Tattooed Man.
"Think you can?" The Tattooed Man asked.
The shotgun boomed, as the packet containing the steel fragments shot out and exploded, firing out the fragments in an expanding wave of destruction designed to rip and tear organic material to pulp…
Which the Tattooed Man no longer was, as his body suddenly faded and then disappeared into a misty fog. The pellets flew right through the mist without any effect.
The same couldn't be said of the mist, as it did something so quick that human eyes couldn't track it. A brief flick of motion, and then suddenly the mist was on the other side of the man, in mid-cock to fire another shot, as the fog congealed and then formed back into the Tattooed Man.
The most recent guard did not turn around to face him. He stood stock-still.
Before his shotgun fell apart, perfectly split down the middle.
As was the man. His falling apart was considerably messier then the shotgun's.
"No you can't. The Little Engine is very disappointed." The Tattooed Man said.
Fire bathed him, a raging inferno belching forth from the barrel of a large weapon, the wielder yelling loudly, half in a battle cry and half in insane fear. The fire consumed the Tattooed Man, and for a moment it seemed to be working, as he danced among the flames, his coat splitting apart and falling off in flaming shreds…
And then he stopped, and then, as if he had been sprayed and was still being sprayed with warm water rather then flaming napalm, he strode towards the attacking man. The flamethrower kept his burst of fire on the entire time, before the Tattooed Man approached him and knocked the belching nozzle to the side.
"I liked that coat." He said. "You'll have to replace it."
And his hand thrust forward, the fingers slamming up and against the bodyguard's forehead and upper cheeks.
The bodyguard began to scream, as his eyes rolled up the back of his head, and then his face began to dissolve, the skin and muscle melting and then being SUCKED off the bone, the once-flesh flowing across the Tattooed Man's arm and down his back, and even as the man's remaining skin and muscle began to liquidfy and be sucked off his body the material began to form around the Tattooed Man. As the organs went too, it began to solidify.
And reformed into a perfect copy of the Tattooed Man's coat, even as a perfectly dry skeleton wearing clothes and a flamethrower fell into a pile of bones at the Tattooed Man's feet.
"Thanks." The Tattooed Man said.
And then the handgun was pressing against the side of his head.
"You're dead, monster!" The seventh bodyguard snapped.
And he squeezed the trigger…
The gun exploded in the man's hand, taking most of the limb with it.
The bodyguard could only stare at the ruin of his digits, too shocked to feel the pain, as the Tattooed Man turned to face him, the last of the titanium he had turned his head into reforming back to his black hair.
"You shoot, you idiot." He said. "You don't talk, you act. Otherwise the other side will act first. And anyone who doesn't understand that…"
His hand shot out and clamped on the man's head.
The man's scream rang out and was abruptly cut off. His body fell at the Tattooed Man's feet.
"Has the IQ of a vegetable.
And the Tattooed Man walked on.
Leaving the man's body, untouched in any way…except from the neck up, where his head and brain had been transmogrified into a giant turnip.
As you might have guessed, it's hard to live without a brain.
And people didn't think he had a sense of humor, the Tattooed Man mused. Well, enough fun. It was time to catch the doctor.
The doctor was doing his best not to be caught, but his bodyguard's horrible deaths had only given him about a minute of running time. Against something like this…that might as well have been nothing.
"HERR DOCTOR!" Came a yell, much closer then Kincaid liked. "This is pointless! If you stop and hand it over, I promise I'll consider not killing you!"
"In here!" Yelled one of the bodyguards, as he yanked Kincaid to the side, running up to the building to the left of them and punching through a heavily graffitied door. The sudden silence in the street abruptly changed to terrible noise. Apparently, the guard had spotted an old entrance to a club that was in the area. A club that appeared to have good soundproofing.
The entire place was packed with humanity, mostly young people, dressed, painted, and pierced in a way that scared the doctor almost as much as his pursuer, dancing and thrashing to a band on stage, if it could be called that: the 'band' looked even freakier then the patrons of the club. His two largest bodyguards got in front of him and began shoving their way through the mass of humanity, while the other two closed the door behind the doctor and followed behind them. The humanity was immensely tight-knit, but the bodyguards were quite strong, as they shoved and whacked their way through the masses. Anyone who wanted to protest quickly got a better idea when they saw the rather large guns the bodyguards had.
Outside in the once again silent streets, the Tattooed Man paused in front of the club door. True, he'd have no problems going through the door and the masses within…but he had a more…interesting idea.
The bodyguards had managed to shove their way through the crowd and located a door on the other side of the club. It was locked, but one gunshot took care of that, and the five remaining men spilled into the alleyway.
"Need…car." Kincaid gasped, glad to be out of the building and its immensely hot and stifled atmosphere. He pulled away from the wall as the last of his remaining bodyguards came through the door and closed it. "Come on…"
Kincaid started down the alleyway, the four remaining guards following…
Until the one at the rear took his latest step and found himself stepping not on solid ground but on something like quicksand. He yelled as he realized it wasn't just his right leg in this sudden 'alleysand', it was his body, as the ground liquefied beneath him and he began to sink, and then as the others turned and looked in shock at this sudden change the pain hit and the guard began to scream, a scream that didn't last long as he was drawn into the ground and disappeared without a trace.
The puddle of grayish liquid, looking much like wet concrete, bubbled, and then began to rise up from the ground.
"Hi there doctor!" Came a voice, as the concrete-esque material formed into the rough shape of a head. "How was the club? I'd have asked your friend here except I accidentally CRUSHED HIM INTO PASTE!"
"RUN!" Kincaid screamed, taking off at another sprint. The three remaining bodyguards didn't even bother to shoot at the ground forming back into the Tattooed Man: they took off as well, tearing out into the most recent street, even as the material contracted up fully and continued reforming into the Tattooed Man. Yes, that had been interesting. Anyone could go through or over a building, but how many could go UNDER it?
It was a dead end. The street ended in a building with no door. Kincaid stared at it for a second, lost in the rush of horror that filled him…and then he realized that while there was no door, there was a window several feet above him.
"Get me up there!" Kincaid ordered. The three bodyguards looked at each other, and then strangely dropped their weapons to do so. Kincaid appeared to be good when it came to picking talent, as one hoisted him onto the other twos' shoulders. Kincaid smashed out the dirty glass with his briefcase and crawled in, ignoring the small cuts on his hands and arms as he fell into a dimly lit and very dusty room.
"HOLD HIM OFF!" Kincaid screamed, as he got up and ran out the door of the room, not knowing where he was going but knowing he had to MOVE…
The three bodyguards looked at each other.
And then the Tattooed Man came out of the alleyway, finally having reformed himself. He cut the three remaining guards off from any exit. The only way they were getting out was through him.
So they did the only thing they could, as two of them snatched up their weapons and opened fire.
The bullets whizzed past the Tattooed Man as he calmly walked up the street. Some hit him, but they had no effect: they either bounced off or flattened against him and then fell to the ground. The remaining bodyguard who was not shooting was down on the ground assembling something…a mini missile launcher, which he brought up, locked on, and fired. The missile streaked down the street and slammed into the Tattooed Man, and he vanished in an explosion…
…and then walked out of it. This time, even his coat wasn't harmed.
One of the men cracked, and having run out of ammo for his machine gun he drew twin pistols and charged, screaming and shooting.
His last stand worked out as well as it had for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (or their movie versions anyway), as the Tattooed Man's right arm elongated out into a steel blade.
The crazy bodyguard ran right into it, the blade plunging through him and then yanked out, the bodyguard dropping behind the Tattooed Man as the blade returned to a normal arm.
The second bodyguard held his ground but not his nerve, as he stood stock-still and emptied his machine gun into the Tattooed Man. It didn't even seem to annoy him, as he walked towards the second bodyguard, who had frantically ejected his clip and was pawing for another.
"Take a break." The Tattooed Man said, walking past the second bodyguard and slapping him lightly on the shoulder, almost in a buddy fashion. The second bodyguard looked up in shock…and then a brief flash of light flitted over him.
Then cracks spread across his form and frozen expression, and then he shattered like glass.
As what had once been a human being clattered to the ground behind him, the Tattooed Man headed for the sole remaining bodyguard, who was frantically scrabbling to reload his own machine gun, down on his knees, his hands fumbling for the parts that should be second nature for him to install…
A shadow fell over him.
He looked up upon the Tattooed Man. He let out a very unmanly whimper.
"A pity." The Tattooed Man said. "I expected more."
"……..I surrender?" The last bodyguard said, raising his hands. The Tattooed Man looked disgusted.
"And you can't even manage a blaze of glory." He commented. "You know, for a bodyguard, you make a good corpse."
And the Tattooed Man exhaled and fire belched out from within his mouth, enveloping the last bodyguard's head and upper torso, and he screamed and danced in his agony.
"Should I…should I…" The Tattooed Man debated with himself as the man ran past him, the entire top half of his body ablaze. "Ah, what the hell. You're fired."
The man collapsed, his body burning, as the Tattooed Man looked up upon the building
Dr. Fannon Kincaid had no idea where he was, what was happening, or what he was going to do. All he knew was he'd stumbled into a room filled with old boxes covered with dust, and that it was far far too quiet for him.
A noise sounded behind him, and Kincaid whirled. He saw nothing, but he did not take his eyes from the spot, as he slowly began backing up, his briefcase clutched in his wet, trembling fingers, his eyes darting back and forth.
"You should have just stayed in place." The Tattooed Man said into Kincaid's ear.
Kincaid's scream was cut off as he whirled and found his body being enveloped in a heavy, sticky guck of some kind, as his briefcase was torn from his hands and he was shoved backwards, slammed against the wall, his torso and arms pinned by some kind of slimy gel that the Tattooed Man had transformed his arm into, even as his other arm retracted from the mess, bringing the briefcase.
"But I did enjoy the entertainment. So I suppose it wasn't all bad." The Tattooed Man said. Kincaid wanted to gasp out a protest, a scream, but he found that with the goo arm pinning him to the wall he could barely breathe.
"Hmmmm, a lock on the briefcase." The Tattooed Man said as he examined the prized object. "I'm going to assume this lock is coded. Possibly designed to destroy the device if one attempts to force the briefcase open, I assume? Nice trick." The Tattooed Man said. "Please give me the code."
The grip on Kincaid's chest loosened, and he gasped for a bit. But he did not give the Tattooed Man the code. He was too scared of the possibilities.
"…NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Kincaid gasped/screamed instead. The Tattooed Man's eyes narrowed. "I heard…rumors…what you plan to do…what you need that for! You…can't! You're toying with forces…beyond your comprehension!"
"I AM A FORCE BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION!" The Tattooed Man snarled back, as the grip tightened again, and Kincaid gasped once more, both at losing his air and at the fact that several tendrils had extracted from the goo arm around his head and formed into whirling and buzzing tools that could be used for nothing else but torture. "And if you don't give me the code, I promise you doctor, I will end any personal debate you may have between whether science or theology is correct, because I will personally make you long for the embrace of Lucifer IF YOU CATCH MY MEANING!"
The tools drew closer.
"AIYYYAHHHHHHH!"
"THE CODE."
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh…" Dr. Kincaid gasped, as his own personal ethics and fear for what he could unleash was overwhelmed by his animal desire to survive. "Ahhhhhhh…"
Kincaid slumped as the grip that held him against the wall loosened. The Tattooed Man knew body language enough to know when a man was broken.
"One." Dr. Kincaid said. The Tattooed Man began dialing in the code to the briefcase.
"Two. Three."
The Tattooed Man raised an eyebrow.
"Four…five."
"…So the code is…1-2-3-4-5?" The Tattooed Man said. "…Ok, not EVEN gonna BOTHER. TOO EASY."
The code went in, and the briefcase opened up.
"Ahhhhhhhhh…" The Tattooed Man said, as he peered into the briefcase. It was indeed what he had needed to complete his plan: the Kincaid Refraction Multiplier-X. It was the last crucial component so that the power in his own device could be properly focused and channeled. He closed the briefcase.
"Thank you Doctor. Was that so hard?" The Tattooed Man said as he let the doctor down.
"How…can you…" Kincaid muttered, still in shock over his own personal failing. "You were once…a…"
The Tattooed Man was suddenly right in the doctor's face.
"A WHAT?"
Kincaid's shock was washed away by the latest rush of fear.
"You were a…belonged to…come from…" He stammered. The Tattooed Man's eyes narrowed again.
"That was a long, LONG time ago. I've changed. In all aspects."
"You've…become a monster."
"No herr doctor, my power does not make me a monster. My power gives me complete and absolute control of every single atom in my being, as well as anything I touch! The only Alpha/Omega super power in this world! And you should know damn well why I have such power. This world has no one to blame but itself. The world…and them. And now…they'll pay."
"The…who…they…?" Kincaid said, and then realized whom the Tattooed Man was talking about. "My god. No."
"There is no god. I know that all too well."
"You…want that…to…for…them?" Kincaid said. "You…have no soul."
"Maybe not." The Tattooed Man said, and then he smiled. "Do you?"
And then the Tattooed Man's features dissolved and elongated out as his body became mist and flowed out into Kincaid's mouth and down within him.
Kincaid's eyes bulged with shock as he felt the terrible violation…a violation that only increased…
His last thoughts were a wish that he'd never invented the damn device. He'd wanted it to provide power for the world. But the world can produce some truly terrible things…
And fates…
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Dr. Fannon Kincaid exploded, his body blasting into a thousand small pieces, as the Tattooed Man reappeared where he had been standing, arms out, head down.
The Tattooed Man looked up. Despite the fact he had just transformed his body into mist, flowed down into Dr. Kincaid's body, and then expanded from within him, causing yet another huge mess, he didn't have a speck of blood on him.
After all, with his power, why would he?
"Well Doctor, I couldn't find a soul…" The Tattooed Man told what remained. "But in terms of death itself…most people believe, in the end, they say, it is better to go out with a bang."
He leapt from the window and floated down to the ground, having briefly altered his body so he was only slightly heavier then air, and touched down lightly on the ground. Briefcase in hand, he headed down the street. He'd rest for a bit and then do the tricky task of transporting his body back to his lair, where he could finally insert the RM-X and finish his device, and with that, finally settle all accounts. While teleportation wasn't hard for him (as the doctor had found out), long distances could be quite tricky. Best to…
The knife stabbed into his ankle.
The pain was so sudden and shocking that the bodyguard almost got in another stab…except he didn't, as the Tattooed Man skipped away, his eyes flashing annoyance. Apparently one of the bodyguards, the one he had stabbed with his blade arm, still had some piss and vinegar left in him. Well, that could be remedied.
"…Ouch." The Tattooed Man said, as he stopped the pain impulses in his body and then sealed the wound with a thought. "It's not often I feel pain. I suppose congratulations are in order."
The Tattooed Man walked over to the bodyguard, who had managed to turn himself over onto his back (and was now getting a thought that he might have screwed up), as the Tattooed Man's leg distorted and widened out, its density increasing. As the Tattooed Man raised the limb, it finished transforming into the classic bell shape of the heavy weights cartoon strongmen were always lifting.
"So congratulations. You stepped up." The Tattooed Man said.
The weight-leg came down.
"So I did as well."
The weight became a foot and leg again, as the Tattooed Man stepped from the mess…
And heard the noise.
His arm extended out and grabbed the girl before she could move, and she shrieked as she was yanked up and pinned against the building wall, a shriek that was cut off as the Tattooed Man was suddenly in front of her.
"Well well, what have we here?" The Tattooed Man said, looking at the girl. She could have been a teen out for a good time in a place like the club he'd passed under, or a prostitute, or something else entirely. She was fairly pretty, wearing skimpy clothes and with her red hair nicely styled. The Tattooed Man didn't much care, he just wondered what she was doing hiding behind a trash can. For all his power, he couldn't read minds.
"Ah….ah…" The Redhead whimpered.
"You here to stop me too?"
"NO! NO no…" The girl moaned. "I found that man…I tried to help…but he told me to run…and then you…why…why did you have to kill him?" The redhead wept, as tears began to streak her makeup.
"Being stabbed in the ankle isn't a fair reason?" The Tattooed Man said in a reasonable tone. "In any case, he got in my way."
"Are…you going to kill me?" The girl sobbed.
"…No. No point." The Tattooed Man said, and let the girl go. She collapsed before him, still sobbing in fear. "You might want to get clear of the area. I did something that may have caused some molecular disruption, and that can be rather…unpleasant to say the least."
"…Who are you?" The girl asked.
"I have a lot of names. Most given by others." The Tattooed Man said. "If you want MY name…I prefer…the Jackal."
And the Jackal turned away from the terrified girl and walked off. He continued talking though, though whether he was still talking to the just starting to scramble away girl or to the open air was not exactly clear.
"And I'm rather tired of all this." The Jackal said. "Tired of killing people, people, Supers, everything they send against me, tired of IT ALL!" The Jackal said, with a flourish of his arms. "It was fun at first…but in the end, it was all scapegoating. The ones I really want to kill were beyond my grasp. Until now. Now…it's time for payback."
And the Jackal reached into his coat and withdrew a crumpled picture. It was old, worn, and on the verge of falling apart…but what it showed was clear.
Five people. A man, a woman, and three kids. A girl, and two boys, one just an infant. They were all wearing red outfits and black masks, and they seemed rather happy to be photographed.
The Jackal's eyes blazed.
"Time to pay for what you did to me. And it's going to be one HELL of a bang."
And then the building behind the Jackal exploded, the entire structure disintegrating in a giant blast of fire and power. Apparently Jackal had caused that disrupted molecule effect when he'd dealt with Dr. Kincaid after all.
Jackal glanced behind him at the destruction, as the falling debris began to ignite other buildings.
"I bet you thought Syndrome was bad." The Jackal said. "Believe me 'Incredibles', YOU HAVEN'T SEEN BAD."
And the Jackal turned and began walking down the street again, as the city caught fire and burned around him.
LEGEND MAKER PRESENTS…
Pixar's The Incredibles
And Legend Maker, Bobcat, and Jedi-And's incarnation of…
DC's Teen Titans…
IN
SINS OF YOUTH
To be continued.