An Ancient Evil! - Part 4
"I seriously misjudged you, Storm Shadow," Cobra Commander said, as he sat beside him on the ground next to the partially ruin tomb doorway, scared shitless. Road Pig stood above them and gripped his sledge hammer in his hand. "Your feelings about this place were sincere!"
"This is no time for a reprieve, Commander," Storm Shadow said. Road Pig raised his hammer above his head and Storm Shadow knew he was about to strike. "Move!" And pushed Cobra Commander out of the way--and he rolled away--as Road Pig's hammer came down on the very spot they had been.
The impact was so intense that the tomb entryway crumbled further, debris falling at Road Pig's feet. The tomb entryway was now half uncovered. The possessed Dreadnok growled angrily and turned to poise for another attack with his sledge hammer against his enemies.
A moan came from underneath a litter of dead bodies and it caught Road Pig's attention. This gave Storm Shadow the opportunity he needed to attack Road Pig unimpeded. Storm Shadow jumped in the air and latched onto Road Pig's back, his arms underneath Road Pig's chin and his legs interlocked around his chest, or what is commonly referred to as a Sleeper Hold. With this maneuver he tried to put the big man asleep without having to harm him. He didn't want to kill him, merely incapacitate him. Road Pig was only being used as a host, and the eruption of evil intention Storm Shadow sensed in the Dreaknok wasn't coming from him but from the spirit that now possessed him.
Storm Shadow flexed his muscles to enlarge them to cut off Road Pig's air supply and squeezed his legs tightly to extract all the air out of his lungs. Road Pig flared his arms around trying to rip Storm Shadow off, but the ninja would not move. He even head butted Storm Shadow in the face, but Storm Shadow would not relent.
Finally the massive Road Pig dropped to one knee and then to the other and then collapsed unconscious on top of a pile of debris in the cavern. Storm Shadow continued to hold on for a few moments longer even after Road Pig was out for the count just to make sure it wasn't a ploy. Then he detached himself from Road Pig and rolled away, getting to his feet.
"We're safe now," Storm Shadow said assured. "I think."
"No Tommy, you're still in great danger!" the female spirit said. "My master has left the man's body and has now traveled to another."
"But who? There is no one else…" Then he looked at Cobra Commander and Cobra Commander looked at him. "You must be kidding?"
Cobra Commander looked at his hands and then at his body. He touched his uniform and his mask, as if it was the first time he had seen himself. In fact, if the spirit was in possession of him, it was, and if that was the case, Storm Shadow was in big trouble. A spirit endowed with that much evil intention inside the evilest man in the world was not the best combination, actually it was so bad it was a recipe for disaster.
"This is a more suitable body," he said, looking himself over. "Yes, that other one was much too constrictive. I need fluent of motion to conduct myself, not bulk. And this armor, very impressive." Referring to the Battle Armor Suit Cobra Commander was wearing.
"Who are you?" Storm Shadow demanded.
He snap looked at Storm Shadow responding to his angry tone. "I am the He who inhabits this body," he said. He then looked past Storm Shadow. "Katrina, how dare you defy your master!"
"You are not my master anymore," she replied in a defiant tone. "You killed me. You killed your own wife--slaughtered me in my sleep. Why?"
"Because I thrust for blood, my dear, and you were there, convenient," he said. "But now I have been freed from my eternal prison. I hunger again. Come join me once more and we will return the world to what it once was and cover the land in a river of blood and death!"
"No, I am free!"
"You will never be free, not as long as I live."
"But you are not alive, you possess that poor man's body."
"No, my dear. He hungers for the same thing I do--power! And the world at his feet. I am merely giving him what his heart most desires. And from what I have learned by reading the man's mind, this is a brave new world and the resources he commands will bring it to us! Such thoughts this man has, they are much attune to my own. There is so much hate in this one, so much pain. I will enjoy living this man's life. And despite all he harnesses, he has a weak mind. Even now he tries to free himself from my hold on him, but he can not. I owe both his mind and body now." Suddenly he turned to Storm Shadow, the man in a white uniform. "But I sense someone will try to stop me. Will it be you perhaps?"
"Yes," Storm Shadow said back.
The Master laughed. "A mere mortal is no match for me--I hold the power of the cosmos," he said. And he extended a hand and sent a lightning bolt from his fingers at Storm Shadow. It struck the ninja square in the chest and hurled him backwards against a stone wall. "You see, Katrina, you have aligned yourself with weaklings, and for your betrayal, I will send you to the deepest, darkest region of the Netherworld, to rot for all eternality, in misery and pain!"
He raised a hand, but Storm Shadow said, "No!" in a firm tone, though he was weakened, feeling agonizing pain in his back by the impact with the wall. "You will not touch her. I am your enemy, not her. Face me!"
The Master looked at Storm Shadow and was shocked that the human was getting up from the blast he just delivered to him. Any other human would have curled up and died, but not this one. He sustained a direct attack and had survived? "I sense you are not like others of your kind, you possess a strength very few have ever possessed," he said. "I yearn to see more, but I am afraid I do not have the time."
The Master extended his hand again and used an invisible force to bring down the stone ceiling on top of Storm Shadow, burying him under tons of rubble. "Such a petty he could not have lived just a little bit longer for me to see him fight like the gladiators of old once did. It could have been amusing, but alas, I have work to do and he would only have deterred me from my appointed tasks, such as rebuilding my kingdom."
With his powers, he ripped away the rest of the tomb doorway and cleared the debris from the entrance. "Come Katrina, come with me, and rule as my wife once more," he said. "And with the Staff of Power, you can once again live again as flesh and blood, like me."
Katrina bowed her head sadly, and then looked at Tommy. His hand was hanging out of the rubble, unmoving, void of life.
"Forget him, Katrina, he is no longer among the living, I can sense his spirit has past on to the netherworld. He is no longer a threat to us."
With no one to stand up to her master, she willingly went with him, and entered the tomb, fearing the wraith her master was about to unleash upon the world.
-- tbc