So, here we are again, after months of setbacks and delays. Hope I didn't keep you guys waiting too long. But, to be completely honest, I was actually done with this chapter a few days ago, I simply chose to delay it just a little bit further so it would coincide with the release of my very own, 100% original book.
Yes, you heard me right, old Lord-of-Change here has finally, after fucking YEARS, been able to finish his damn book! I've honestly lost count on how many times I've had to postpone the release of this damn thing, to the point that I was starting to think that I would never be able to finish it! But that's all behind me now, and my first book in what I hope will be an entire series, Wrath of the North, is finally done.
So if you're a fan of my writing (for reasons that entirely elude me), and would like to support me, then get yourself a copy this very instant (if for no other reason than to have some kindling for the fire). Available on Amazon, Kobo, and Payhip in e-book format (may take a while for it to appear in the Amazon Kindle store, slowpokes as they are).
Chapter 34: Chaos Rising pt. II
Shit was really getting stale and boring around here for Ravager. Stuck in some European base with only a horde of dimwitted goons and daddy dearest for company, Ravager was close to blowing a fuse out of boredom. She tried to spend some time at the local recreation lobby, drinking and arm wrestling the more tolerable schmooks. Alas, they proved no match for her, so now she was just lounging in a corner, nursing a beer while the other occupants huddled around a television.
If only she could be sent on a mission or something to pass the time, preferably to the US with all the capes she could brutalize. Maybe even Los Angeles in particular, so she could spend some quality time with soldier boy. It had been a while since she last saw him, after all, with so much time to catch up on. Just the thought brought a predatory grin to her lips, just imagining all the fun they could have together.
"Oi, what's wrong with the TV?" someone suddenly burst out, alerting Ravager to the fact that the television screen had suddenly turned to complete static. Power issues? Problems with the broadcast? Whatever, not her problem. But then, a voice spoke from the television. It was garbled and heavily distorted, but its words were still heard and understood.
"All units; Isstvan V. I repeat, Isstvan V," there was a moment of silence after those words, and Ravager could already tell that something was about to happen. By the time the mob of goons, loyal allies and coworkers but a second earlier, had turned towards Ravager with guns drawn, she had already leaped out of her seat and drawn both her swords. Backstabbings like this one rarely happened to her these days, and now Ravager would educate these plebians why it was so.
A single bullet had enough time to be fired, only to sail harmlessly passed Ravager's head, and then she was in amongst them with blades spinning. First target lost both arms at the elbows, second lost his head, third had her entrails spilled out onto the floor, fourth one fell screaming over with a leg short.
"DIE, YOU BITCH!" someone shouted as he fired a shotgun at Ravager. He ended up blasting apart the face of one of his comrades instead, for Ravager had already moved before he had even squeezed the trigger. Blinded by the skin and brain matter of his comrade that splattered across his face, the gunner did not notice this fact until he felt both blades enter his guts. Then, with her enhanced muscles pressed to their limits, Ravager swung her swords apart like a giant scissor and split the gunner cleanly in half.
A quick lull in fighting commenced as the survivors gawked at the gruesome display, which gave Ravager all the time she needed to bury her sword through the mouth of one traitor and out the back to skewer another traitor right behind the first while her second sword came down on another traitor's shoulder with enough force to sever both it and the arm it was attached to in one blow.
A kick that all but shattered the ribcage sent the corpses still impaled on her sword flying away, right before she leaped clear of a hail of automatic fire that ripped through dozens of traitors. Before the bastard had time to reacquire his aim, Ravager's sword went flying and nailed him screaming to the wall.
"For fuck's sake, she's just one! Kill her!" someone roared as more traitors piled in, these ones packing more heat than the mooks she had been dismembering so far.
"Come on then! All together or one at a time, I'll take you all on!" Ravager shouted as she leaped at the traitors, getting in three swings that sent three heads flying in the same amount of heartbeats. A gun was swung like a club at her, but she just casually leaned out of its reach as her boot kicked out and shattered the offender's knee while her sword skewered another through her heart. Then she leaped aside to avoid getting stabbed in the back by another traitor, who then took a face full of full auto lead which had been meant for Ravager.
Then she was next to the barely conscious traitor still nailed to the wall, where she snatched up his discarded gun and started spraying about at the clusters of traitors. Dozens fell over with bullet-riddled bodies, while others frantically dove for cover. The instant her pilfered gun clicked empty, Ravager yanked her sword free and charged at a group huddling behind the couch.
With the gunfire ceased, they poked their heads out of cover, just in time to see Ravager leaping over their cover and coming down with an overhead swing with both swords. The unfortunate victim of her attention ended up with both arms severed at the shoulders before a vicious head-butt left him out cold before he could scream.
"Muthafuckin-" the others did not last long either, as two had their throats opened by twin sword slashes, and the third had enough time to raise his gun before his throat was crushed with a pommel strike to the Adam's apple. A bullet suddenly ripped through Ravager's side, and she was quickly moving again to avoid the following hail.
With only a growl and gritted teeth to show that she had even noticed the wound, Ravager again swiftly closed the gap between her and the last standing enemies, her swords swinging low to sever both legs of her first victim. Then she came back with a sword thrust into the underside of another's shin, driving the blade onward until the hilt slammed into the shin and the blade had burst out of the top of the head. Her other sword meanwhile had slinked between another's ribs from the side, skewering both lungs.
And then, using both these corpses as support pillars, she swung both her booted feet upwards with the force of a jackhammer, striking her last target with enough force to shatter the jaw and knocking the head backwards with such force that the neck snapped like a dry twig. With that final blow, her last opponents collapsed to the floor as corpses, leaving Ravager the sole survivor.
"Guess this is what I get for craving more action," she grumbled to herself as she retrieved her swords. But she got the feeling that she was far from done today, so she quickly grabbed a gun and some spare ammo before beginning to explore the rest of the base. She did not have to look far before she found more corpses, many with gun- and knife wounds to the back.
"Guess not all were in on this," she observed before pushing on, having picked up on the telltale noise of battle. But once she found it, she decided that 'battle' was hardly the right word to describe the scene before her. 'Slaughter' would be a more apt description.
"Having fun, dad?" she asked as she leaned against the doorway, watching as her father decapitated the last breathing traitor while standing atop a literal carpet of dismembered and brutalized bodies. They don't call him the Terminator for nothing.
"This is more tedious than enjoyable," Deathstroke answered, a swing of his sword helping to get rid of excess blood. "I take it you've also run into these traitors,"
"Hard not to, bastards are everywhere. So, you think this is a power move or an attempt at backstabbing us?" just as Ravager made her inquiry, more of the traitors came pouring in, armed and armored for battle.
"Let's save the speculations until after we've cleaned this base out," Deathstroke said as he cracked his neck.
"Don't expect me to watch your back too much, old man, I might just be tempted to let a few of them slip past then," Ravager cheekily commented. Deathstroke did not even look at her as he answered.
"Try to keep up, brat, I don't have time to babysit you," then, they charged together at the enemies, swords at the ready and murder in their eyes.
Vandal Savage was in his office when it happened. Deep in the Himalayan Mountains, surrounded by nothing but his own underlings and Klarion, this base had often served as Vandal's primary base of operations, the one place where he did not expect trouble. Yet trouble still somehow found its way here as he was in the midst of reading through the latest reports when he heard gunshots and screaming echoing from outside.
With only a minor grumble at the interruption, Vandal rose from his chair and strode towards the doors, intent on teaching whatever fool that had found this base the meaning of pain. Then the door was kicked open, and a squad of Vandal's hired guns came rushing in. He allowed himself a moment to relax, only too late realizing that these men were not lowering their guns.
"Death to the Light!" the leader roared, and all ten of them let loose with full auto on their very much surprised former leader. It took a moment for Vandal to register the pain of hundreds of bullets ripping into his massive frame, but that pain was quickly drowned out by white hot anger. Roaring with such force that it would have made his long since extinct savage kin bow in awe, Vandal leaped at the traitors.
His fists closed around the leader's head, and squeezed until brain matter leaked out between his gloved fingers. Adrenaline was now pumping through his veins like jet fuel, and an entire assault rifle clip emptied into his side felt only like a minor pinprick to Vandal as he gave the traitor a kick strong enough to pulverize organs while his free fist struck another squarely in the face with enough force to crack the skull and send splinters ripping into the brain.
"Die already!" another screamed as she poured more bullets into Vandal, angering him further as his hand grabbed her terrified face and slammed it into the wall with enough force to leave the mangled remains embedded in it. Someone leaped onto his back and tried to stab him in the skull with a knife, but Vandal's massive fists had already grabbed the attacker's shoulders and flung him over his head and rammed the attacker head-first into the floor so that his skull ruptured like an overripe fruit.
Another was frantically trying to reload her gun, but Vandal was upon her in an instant, a single blow leaving her flat on her back before a boot came down on her chest and just smashed right through it to squash the organs sheltered within. Shotgun blasts began tearing away chunks of flesh from his left shoulder, as another traitor fired away while screaming in terror. Vandal slapped the shotgun aside like it was a child's toy before his fist closed around the throat, squeezing until there was a satisfying crack and he stopped struggling.
Vandal threw the body aside like the unwanted garbage it had become as he noticed that the survivors were trying to flee from his wrath. Fools, there was no escaping Vandal Savage. Snarling like a beast out for blood, Vandal charged them and shoulder tackled one of them into the wall. Said traitor ended up as a ruined mass of mangled flesh and bones from the blow, with most of his blood now splattered over Vandal's ruined visage.
The last two emptied their last few bullets into Vandal, who barely noticed the pain as his fist ended up buried deep within the guts of one of them, before giving a vicious tug that ripped out nearly every intestine kept inside. The last one made a desperate flight for the door, but Vandal was faster, grabbing the traitor by the arms, and then tore them straight out of their sockets and ripping them off his body. His pathetic wails of agony did not last for long as Vandal's gore-covered boot came down upon his skull, shattering it like porcelain.
With all foes bested, Vandal finally calmed down from his adrenaline fueled rampage. And that was when he finally registered the pain of countless bullet wounds. He collapsed to his knees with a pitiful groan of pain as countless bullets were slowly, and painfully, pushed out of his rapidly healing body. Soon enough, he was kneeling in a circle of blood soaked bullets while the last bits of skin and tissue knitted itself back together into pristine condition again.
Finally, with a relieved exhale of breath, Vandal stood back up again, his shredded and blood-soaked longcoat the only sign that he had even been wounded at all. With a sneer, he removed the few threads still somehow clinging to his frame and tossed the ruined coat aside, leaving his massive physique bare from the waist up.
"Someone will pay dearly for this," he vowed as he stalked out of his office in search of whoever had the gall to try and cast him down like this. A sudden chorus of terrified screams, coupled with a high pitched cackle, alerted him of at least one who had hopefully not turned traitor. Or maybe he had, and those screams belonged to those still loyal to Vandal, you honestly could not tell with that brat sometimes.
In the end, he did not need to wonder for long, as a whole mob of hired thugs came barreling around the corner, fleeing like the devil himself was nipping at their heels. When a mutated cat monstrosity the size of a horse suddenly leapt atop one of them and proceeded to rip the fool into tiny pieces, Vandal found that maybe it had been an apt description.
"Yo, Vandal! Still alive and kicking in this mess, I see!" the nasal voice of Klarion the Witch Boy greeted him, right before said Witch Boy came strolling around the corner himself, magical energy crackling around his fingers. Then, that energy leapt out from his fingers and arced towards their targets like bolts of blood-red lightning. First target was literally flayed alive, swiftly collapsing to the floor to wail in agony for the last few moments of his life. Second one began to swell up like a balloon before popping like one, decorating everyone and everything around him in blood and viscera.
Third one had all the flesh burnt away until only the skeleton remained, still standing in defiance to gravity for a few more seconds to let out a silent scream before it too crumbled to dust. Fourth one screamed and cried as his muscles swelled until they ripped apart his skin, leaving behind a mindless creature of muscle and fury that began ripping apart his former comrades. And finally, the fifth one simple had a massive hole blown straight through his chest.
"A little anti-climactic with that last one," Vandal could not help but comment over the screaming and the sound of bodies being ripped apart.
"Cut me some slack, will you. It's not easy thinking up creative ways to kill people on the fly," Klarion retorted as he flung another bolt of energy at another target, who ended up being turned inside and out. "So, what's going on anyway? Things are normally not this much fun around here,"
"It would seem someone is making a power play against us," Vandal answered while his fist lashed out and utterly pulverized a traitor skull as it tried to sneak past him.
"Oh, goody! Means I get to zap even more of these losers!" Klarion gleefully cackled while rubbing his hands together.
"Indeed. But for now, head to the hangar bays and secure them, I will make sure that our command center is still under control," Vandal commanded.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Klarion just grumbled as he opened a portal, his familiar and mutated monster falling in line behind him as they stepped through.
"Mark my words, there will be a reckoning for this treachery," Savage growled as he began stalking down the halls again.
"Brave talk from someone who's already lost," a painfully familiar voice suddenly commented from behind. And suddenly it all made sense to Vandal.
"I must have sired a hundred thousand offspring, you'd think one of you would show me some respect," Vandal stated as he turned to face his daughter, dressed in battle armor and her signature claws already at the ready.
"Maybe one of us would, if we thought you deserved it," Scandal sneered at him.
"Shall I assume then that this is your attempt at taking my place in the Light?" Vandal inquired as he glared at yet another disappointment in his life. But to his surprise, Scandal just threw her head back and laughed at him.
"Fuck the Light! Even as we speak, they're all getting butchered by my allies," she boasted.
"Then what's your reason for this? What could possibly make you think taking me on was a wise idea?" Vandal found himself asking out of genuine curiosity.
"You know why," she stated, hatred burning in her eyes. No, not hatred, anguish. And suddenly it dawned on him.
"I see. So you're still holding a grudge over that," he muttered.
"I told you back then that I would never forgive you for what you did, for what you took from me," Scandal growled at him, faint tears threatening to burst out as bitter memories resurfaced.
"It was a necessary act to ensure the Light's plan proceeded. Our partners would never have aided us should they have learned of the deserter's presence," Vandal answered, annoyed more than anything by his daughter's pathetic attachments.
"Save your excuses for someone who cares," Scandal snarled at him as she crouched low, ready to leap at him. Vandal followed suit as he took a fighting a stance.
"I suppose then that the time for talking is over. Allow me then to reunite you with your whore," he commented, and he could see the fury overtake his daughter, a fury he had never seen before.
"This is for Knockout," Scandal whispered, and then she leaped at Vandal, roaring like a beast out for blood.
It had been a boring day for Queen Bee, nothing but paperwork after paperwork. Normally, the Light would fill in the vacuum for the dictator, but the organization had been quiet as of late. Unforeseen setbacks had demanded that all plans be temporarily postponed for a short time, leaving Bee for the first time in years with only the job of running her country, a job she had worked hard to delegate to lesser officials. There were only so many tax proposals you could stomach before you shuffled the whole mess over to someone else.
But then, the doors to her office were kicked in, and her cadre of personal bodyguards marched straight in as if they owned the place. Queen Bee could already feel a vein pulsing on her forehead in anger at their insolence.
"What are you fools doing?! Get out of here, and pray I don't have you all killed for this!" she roared at them as she rose from her chair. But to her surprise, they did not budge so much as an inch.
"Sorry, your majesty, but we're under new management as of late," the captain of the guard answered with an arrogant smirk on his face. Rather than alarmed, Queen Bee only felt her anger mounting at the brazen behavior of these mindless oafs.
"I said, get out, now!" she repeated more firmly, but this time adding her power into the mix as well to dominate these men's feeble minds. Except, they refused to obey her, and stood their ground.
"You have no idea how long we've waited for this, Queen Bitch," the captain said with a lecherous grin as he and his men began to approach. A strange feeling suddenly settled itself in Bee's stomach, one she was not familiar with.
"Do not defy me! Stand down and leave this instant, or suffer the consequences!" she screamed at them, a twinge of desperation seeping into her voice. But they just laughed at her pitiful attempts at intimidation.
"Hate to break it to you, but your parlor tricks are nothing to the Prince of Excess. He has gifted us with pleasures never even dreamt of before, and now shields us from your pitiful powers," the captain boasted as they closed in on the dictator, who was now trying to back away from her attackers.
"Stay back! Don't come anywhere near me!" Queen Bee screeched at them, frantically looking for a way out. Too late did she realize that she had allowed herself to be backed into a corner. And only now would she accept the fact that she was terrified of what should be powerless pawns under her sway.
"Ah, and finally that haughty attitude of yours melts away, to reveal the terrified little girl cowering within! Absolutely exquisite! But let's not be modest here, let's see what else you always cover up!" the captain declared, then he and his men leaped at Queen Bee.
"NO!" she kicked and screamed as they tore at her clothes, fought with all her might to preserve her dignity. Her former guards only laughed at her feeble attempts, keeping her pinned down with the same ease as if she was a toddler. Soon enough, the once ruthless dictator was stripped of all garments and forcible bent over her own desk as greedy hands pinched and slapped at every part of exposed skin they could find. And Queen Bee could do nothing but cry in shame and humiliation.
"What a lovely sight you make, your highness," the captain mocked as his fingers stroked her womanhood. "But my time among the cult of pleasure have made the simple act of intercourse a dull affair. Besides, it would be an utter travesty to simply satisfy such basic needs with a royalty of all thing. No, this is a moment that needs to savored to its fullest potential, to experience every act to its most ecstatic heights," then, he leaned over the immobilized dictator, pressing her further down on her desk until his maniacally grinning face was but inches away from her terrified and tear-streaked one.
"Lucky for you, we now have all the time in the world now to… experiment a bit," he whispered huskily, his every word sending chills of revulsion racing up and down her spine.
"Please…" she begged, her pride and dignity forgotten as her fate became more and more grim.
"Ssshhh, none of that now," the captain soothed her as he gently stroked her cheeks. "There will be plenty of time for begging later. For now, simply scream for us," then he set to work on her. And scream she did. For hours and hours, she screamed as her body was ravaged in ways that made the daemons of the Warp dance in joy. And as the once powerful dictator suffered at the hands of her former minions, her country burned in the fires of Chaos.
Infinity Island was never truly a place of calmness, what with the army of assassins training day in and day out to do their master's bidding. But there were some areas where tranquility could be found, such as Ra's al Ghul's mediation chamber. Which made it a calm and quiet day for the two Shadows standing guard outside, with strict orders to not let anyone save Talia and Sensei enter. When the master wanted to meditate, he wanted no interruptions unless it was of utmost importance.
"Did you hear that?" one of the guards suddenly asked.
"Hear what?" the other asked back.
"That noise. It sounds like… fighting," the first guard answered.
"Probably just some recruits being put through their paces by Sensei," the second one dismissed with an unconcerned shrug of the shoulders.
"If you say so," the first one relented, right before the unmistakable noise of gunfire began. "Since when does Sensei train in the usage of guns?"
"Since… well… you know… Actually, that's a really good question," the second one admitted. Now both were tense, indecision warring within.
"Should… should we alert the master?" the first one tentatively asked as the noise of violence steadily grew louder.
"And risk getting our heads chopped off?" the second one countered. That was when a squad of Shadows rounded the corner ahead of them, armed and armored for battle, and came marching straight towards them.
"The master will not accept visitors at this hour," the first guard stated, and promptly received a bullet to the forehead, courtesy of the lead shadow and his silenced pistol.
"Wha-" were the last letters to leave the second guard's mouth before he too shared his comrade's fate.
"Alright, let's do this quickly before the old man catches on," the leader commanded just before the doors were thrown open and the squad stormed in with guns and swords at the ready. They were met with an empty chamber, barely illuminated by the few lit candles inside.
"Where is he?" one asked.
"I thought he was supposed to be here," another said.
"Could we have been misinformed?" yet another asked.
"No, he's still here," the leader answered as he searched for his quarry. That was when he heard it, the sound of a sword sliding out of its sheath. And it was coming from… above him?
"LOOK OU-!" he shouted, right before Ra's al Ghul descended from above with a sword slice that sent his head soaring through the air.
"Shoo-!" then Ra's sword pierced another traitor's stomach before a sideway swing split it open for all the entrails to spill out while the swing continued on and split a third target's stomach wide open.
"What's happ-!" Ra's was quickly on the move again as another swing of his sword lopped an arm off before he closed in and delivered a strike that shattered the target's throat. A sword came at him from the side, but Ra's dodged underneath it before coming right back up with a thrust into the chin and into the brain while his boot lashed out to knock another potential attacker back.
"Just kill-" a traitor tried to aim his gun at Ra's, but Ra's proved faster as he leaped over the traitor, lopping his head off mid-leap in the bargain. He deftly parried a sword stroke before hooking into its crossguard and tearing it out of its owner's hands. Then, while his own sword pierced the traitor's heart, Ra's snatched the sword right out of the air and hurled it with deadly accuracy at the last standing traitor, the blade ending up deeply embedded into his skull between the eyes.
"You novices are far too young to hope to outmaneuver me," Ra's haughtily proclaimed to the gathering of corpses littering his mediation chamber.
"Father!" someone frantically called before they came rushing into the chamber. "Oh thank god you're unharmed! When we were ambushed by our own retainers, we feared the worst!"
"Worry not, Talia, these cretins posed no threat to me," Ra's dismissed his daughter's worries. "Now tell me, what is going on?"
"We don't know, but more than half our members suddenly went insane and started attacking everyone else. Sensei's trying to rally what loyalists that are still alive, and Cheshire's reporting that the landing pads have already been lost," Talia's report brought forth a sense of irritation in Ra's al Ghul, one he had not felt in a long while.
"It would seem I have let roaches infest my once pristine home. Come, my daughter, it is time we did a thorough cleansing," he declared as he calmly walked towards where the noise of fighting was still going on. He would personally teach these wretches what happened to those who crossed the Demon's Head.
"Zut alors! They're flanking us!" the Brain shouted as he fired off an energy blast that incinerated the head of another traitor. Mallah responded to the warning by turning his minigun down the hallway to the left and letting loose with a devastating fusillade of lead that shredded well over a dozen more traitors. The survivors wisely fled into cover rather than suffer their comrades' fates.
"There's too many of them, Mallah! Retraite!" the Brain warned while continuing his barrage of energy bolts, the massive heat of each shot being enough to turn flesh, bone and even metal into ash with each successful hit. And it had been such a lovely day, with plenty of experiments to conduct. Then the whole base had gone insane, the few loyalists present butchered in a matter of minutes, leaving the Brain and Mallah to fight on.
"Cover my back!" the Brain ordered as he sped down the hallway towards the blast doors at the end, Mallah steadily retreating after him while laying down a withering hail of fire back the way they had come, discouraging their pursuers to stick their head out.
"Just a moment more, mon ami, and then we'll be safe," the Brain assured him as he began working on the control panel. Someone had changed all the security codes just before the attack started, most likely the traitors, leaving the Brain with no access to his own base. But they must have been a special kind of stupid if they think that this will me more than a speed bump to moi.
"Almost there, almost there," the Brain muttered. Meanwhile, Mallah was hard at work keeping the traitors at a distance. Whether through sheer bravery, simple stupidity, or overwhelming fear of failing their new masters, the traitors had begun to hurl themselves at Mallah, dying in droves to his minigun but allowing those behind to advance just a bit closer.
"Je l'ai!" the Brain finally shouted in triumph as the blast doors swung open. To reveal even more traitors waiting for them on the other side.
"Mon dieu," he muttered before opening fire into the mass of traitors, incinerating dozens before the rest had the common sense to duck for cover.
"It would apparaître we are surrounded, Mallah," the Brain reluctantly admitted. Mallah only gave a low growl to indicate he had heard as he continued to strafe the corridor with lead. But it seemed like the traitors had brought up some extra firepower of their own, as a sudden fusillade of bullets started pouring down the corridor at the beleaguered pair. Mallah, out in the open with his bulky frame, was riddled with bullets from legs to shoulders. The great gorilla roared in pain as he fell over, and he did not get up again.
"Mallah!" the Brain shouted in dismay as he momentarily turned his attention to his loyal servant. In that short moment, one traitor dared break from cover and rushed at him with a grenade in hand. The Brain quickly made the traitor regret his choice as a single blast left him with a gaping hole where his chest was supposed to be, but not before the traitor managed to hurl the grenade. The Brain could only watch as it sailed through the air before bouncing off his shell and landing next to him.
"Merde," he grumbled, right before the grenade went off. His armored shell crumbled like cheap plastic from the force while shrapnel punched through the cupola and ripped the brain within to bits. When the dust settled, and no more return fire came, the traitors came out of hiding and approached the two unmoving figures. They found the Brain's container blasted to pieces with the Brain himself nothing more than a slimy goo splattered across the floor, while his gorilla servant lay unmoving in a pool of his own blood.
"Someone inform the Master that the Brain has been dealt with. The rest of you, ransack this base of anything of value. I doubt the other cells are having an easier time with their targets, so let's make the most of this," the apparent leader ordered, with the remaining traitors dispersing to carry out his orders.
Luthor had been completely occupied with the sudden cacophony of explosions that blossomed across the length and breadth of Metropolis, so he had failed to notice when some of his hired security had entered his office. But Mercy, ever the loyal and dependable bodyguard, had noticed them the second they stepped inside. In the end, that was what saved the billionaire's life as she yanked her very much startled boss into cover as the traitors opened fire.
The instant they ceased fire, Mercy leaped out of cover, arm already transformed into a gun that proceeded to blast a fist-sized hole in the lead traitor's stomach before a second shot removed roughly a quarter of another's head. Those still standing began fanning out and returning fire, but Mercy was quicker as she closed the distance and rammed the barrel of her energy gun down one traitor's throat and opened fire while snatching up said traitor's machine gun to bring down another two traitors with quick bursts of fire.
"Die, bitch!" the last surviving traitor roared as he charged with a knife drawn. Mercy met him in stoic silence as she knocked the knife aside and fired a blast that blew apart his knee. He was given a few seconds to scream in pain before a final shot turned his brain to ash.
"Well, seems like even my own security has gone crazy," Luthor commented as he stood back up and dusted himself off with a kind of nonchalance that you would not expect after an assassination attempt. "Oh well, it would seem that an immediate exit is in order. Mercy, if you please,"
Mercy in turn only gave a slight nod as she stepped out into the hallway, cybernetic gun primed and ready. Then she began advancing down the hall with her gun constantly scanning for threats, Luthor following close behind without a hint of worry.
"Mr. Luthor!" a guard suddenly called as he came sprinting down the hall with well over a dozen of his comrades. Mercy was already powering up for a shot, but Luthor placed a restraining hand on her and forced the barrel down.
"Perry, I hope you can shed some light on what is going on around here?" Luthor commented as the guards came to a stop before their boss.
"Truth be told, we barely know anything. Part of the staff and security all of a sudden went crazy and started killing everyone. We have them contained to the lower floors, but the streets are overrun with armed maniacs, some of whom have started trickling in and reinforcing the traitors," Perry reported, which brought a frown to Luthor's face.
"It would seem that retreat is no longer an option. Very well then, Mercy, take Perry and his team and drive these invaders out. The surveillance office is still intact on this floor? Excellent, then I will withdraw there and try to coordinate whoever's still left. Hopefully Superman will deal with the maniacs outside, so we only need to concern ourselves with those still here," never thought I would be hopeful about Superman succeeding.
"Right away, sir!" Perry saluted before rushing back the way he came. Mercy only hesitated for a short moment before she too ran to join the fighting. Luthor meanwhile continued his almost casual stroll, now deviating his course towards the surveillance office instead.
"Things are about to get lively around here," he muttered to himself.
"I must say, I was quite surprised by your invitation, considering both of our natures," a man of obvious British ancestry commented to the teenage girl seated before him. To anyone else, this girl looked completely harmless, but he knew better than that.
"Is it really though? We both share a common cause, after all, and we both understand what's truly at stake here," the girl commented as she sipped her tea.
"Be that as it may, my… partner feels it would be prudent to kill you now and save us any future trouble," the man admitted, which garnered a raised eyebrow from the girl.
"Well, I do hope he at least has the prudence to not attack me here and now. I'm quite fond of this place," she stated while gesturing at the quiet café the two of them were conversing in.
"No, he has enough restraint for that at the very least," the man assured her.
"Good, then perhaps you would both be willing to hear me out first," the girl ventured, and received a nod.
"We are," the man assured her.
"Good. I hope you're at least aware of the growing disturbances around the globe,"
"Hard not to. Anyone with even a modicum of magical knowledge have noticed that something… unsettling is going on," the man answered.
"This is something far worse than just some magical tingles, this is but a prelude to something greater, something far worse. I fear this world is under threat from a daemonic invasion," the girl explained, which had the man leaning forward in his seat.
"Your father?" the man questioned sharply.
"If it were, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. No, this is something else, something that I've never encountered before." the girl declared.
"So why come to me?" the man asked.
"Because you're one of the foremost experts in the field of demonology, and I need your help," the girl answered, which garnered a raised eyebrow from the man.
"Bold of you, I must admit. My partner still insists that we kill you as a precaution, to rob your father of his precious Gem," he stated. The girl visibly tensed up the mention of the word 'Gem', but made no other move.
"In any case," the girl began again, her voice far more dry and monotone than it was before. "It is a risk I am willing to take under these circumstances, as there are few others I can turn to,"
"There's always Constantine," the man offered, and even his stoic face displayed the tiniest amount of amusement at the way the girl visibly sneered at the name.
"I would be better off trusting my own father than him," she spat out.
"I cannot fault your logic there," the man acknowledged with a small smile. The girl opened her mouth to speak, but she was cut off by a sudden explosion outside that shattered the windows and sent the both of them flying off their chairs. Pandemonium ensued as those still able fled screaming with all haste. The girl and the man meanwhile slowly managed to stand back up again with only minor scratches.
"Ow," the girl said as she flicked out a few shards of glass from her hair.
"Indeed," the man answered while brushing some dirt off of his pristine suit. Together, they made their way out of the ruined café, to find a scene of carnage outside. Terrified civilians fleeing in all direction while armed madmen ran rampant among them, killing indiscriminately.
"It would seem I'm too late," the girl said, hands tightening into fists as she glared at the rampaging cultists. For she knew that they were cultists, as her empathic powers could feel the daemonic taint clinging to each and every one of them like a foul odor.
"So it would seem," the man agreed as he surveyed the carnage, lips pulled back in disdain. "What will you do now, Raven?"
Raven did not answer the man, instead she began advancing towards the cultists, anger burning in her soul. One of them saw her approach and charged with a gleeful cackle. Raven in turn just waved her hand like she was swatting aside a pesky fly, and the cultist was hit with a bolt of black energy with enough force to send him flying across the street and straight through a concrete wall. That caught the attention of the other cultists who all turned towards this lone little girl, daring to block their path.
"Chaaaaaaaaarge!" one of them screeched with an annoyingly high-pitched voice, and they all charged headlong towards Raven. Darkness began to swell around her, tendrils of pure darkness slithering around her as ebon lightning danced about her fingers. Slowly, her civilian clothes melted away like they had never existed while the very shadows surged forward to clothe her in a black leotard, with a jeweled belt taking shape around her hips. Finally, a dark blue cloak unveiled itself from her shoulders as an equally dark blue hood obscured her furious visage.
"What I should have done a long time ago," Raven finally answered the man, sparing him only a quick glance over her shoulder before turning her full attention back to the horde of cultists before her. She took a deep breath, causing the darkness around her to constrict and compact into a solid mass of pure blackness.
"AZERATH METRION ZINTHOS!" she roared, and the darkness exploded forward as a tidal wave of pure force. The cultists only had the briefest of seconds to marvel at the power before they were hit with the force of a locomotive, sending their now broken and mangled bodies hurling through the air by the dozens.
"I'm not done yet!" Raven shouted as she thrust her fist forward, sending three tendrils of dark energy racing across the distance between her and the cultists to impale three targets straight through their hearts. But rather than stop at one kill each, the tendrils surged onward, blood-soaked tips impaling one cultist after another. They tried to run, they tried to fire back, both with the same ineffective results. Bullets bounced harmlessly off like pellets hurled at a steel wall, and the tendrils twisted and turned around obstacles like insidious snakes while moving with a speed that no normal human legs could ever match. Soon enough, countless cultists were strung along the tendrils like macabre decorations on a giant's necklace.
"Quickly, kill the witch!" one of the cultists screamed before opening fire on Raven, with more of his compatriots joining in to lay down a hail of lead. An act of futility, as an aura of darkness formed around her petite form, and bullets proceeded to harmlessly bounce off her impervious protection.
"You just brought guns to a magic fight," Raven mocked as she took to the air, hovering above the battlefield like an angel of death and darkness. Her captivating violet eyes vanished behind a pure white glow while her hand became encased in dark energy yet again.
"You lot bargained your souls away to daemons. Allow me now to educate you on the folly of such actions," Raven proclaimed, voice barely audible over the gunfire, before pointing her hand at her first target. A continuous beam of dark energy was quickly unleashed, punching straight through its target with the ease of a heated knife stabbed into butter. Then she swung her arm to the side, and the dark beam followed. Three more cultists felt her wrath as the beam cut them cleanly in half.
"PLEAAAAAAASE, send us support!" one of the cultists begged as he tried to fall back. The dark beam swung his way and he would never again beg as his head fell from his shoulders. Another tried to seek shelter behind a wrecked car. It proved no difference to Raven as the beam sliced through steel with the same ease as flesh.
"Well, who knew she could be this ruthless?" the man wondered to himself from the sidelines as he watched Raven utterly decimate the opposition.
"You look like an easier target than that witch over there," someone suddenly commented from behind him. Turning to face the voice, the man found even more cultists coming his way, all with malicious grins on their faces and fingering an assortment of vicious-looking weapons. The man was not impressed.
"Appearances can be quite deceiving," he cautioned the cultists, before he pronounced their doom. "Change, change the form of man! Free the prince forever damned! Free the might from fleshy mire! Boil the blood in heart of fire! Gone, gone the form of man! Rise the demon Etrigan!"
Hellish fire consumed the man, the form within twisting and writhing as powers beyond those of mortals reshaped the otherwise frail mortal shell into something straight out of hell itself. Grotesque muscles bulged the form, soft skin growing hard and leathery, eyes of man now burned like twin pits of fire, and a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth opened wide to let loose a roar or pure rage and bloodlust. The fires that had burned away the human now took physical shape, hardening around the daemon into a suit of knightly armor. Thus, Etrigan the Demon once again walked the Earth, and he was not amused.
"You know not the fury the daemon hath. Now for your impudence, you shall feel my wrath!" Etrigan bellowed as a sword was formed out of fire in his grasp. The now terrified cultists began backing away, but were too slow as Etrigan opened his maw and breathed fire upon them. The lucky ones simply turned to ash on the spot, the less fortunate could do nothing but dance and scream in agony as their flesh was melted off their bones.
"The Gods have forsaken us… hahaha..." one of the cultists muttered in terror as Etrigan leaped at them, coming down with a swing of his sword that split a cultist in two from brain to balls. A club harmlessly bounced off his armor, and Etrigan let out an annoyed growl while giving his attacker a backhanded slash with his sword that split her from right hip to left shoulder. A desperate cultist fired his pistol into Etrigan's chest at point blank range, and was rewarded with a fist straight to the face that shattered the whole skull while his shots merely bounced off the hell forged plate.
"I was beginning to wonder when Jason Blood would call on you, Etrigan," Raven commented from up high as she bombarded the terrified cultists below her with bolts of dark energy.
"Prisoner I may be, in this mortal form forever bound. But wherever battle is, I shall always be found," Etrigan proclaimed as his sword reaped a bloody tally amongst the cultists.
"Then I hope you have no trouble helping me deal with these vermin," Raven ventured as she waved her hand, causing a missile fired at her to violently veer off course and slam into a newly arrived car filled with more cultists. Even when knee deep in enemies, with his sword swinging back and forth to send more cultists to their foul masters, Etrigan still had enough time to turn towards Raven to give her an scrutinizing look.
"For yourself, the title of pacifist you lay claim. Yet here you stand before me, ready to kill and maim," Etrigan pointed out, never even slowing down in his massacre to converse with Raven.
"I once held firmly to those ideals, never using my powers to hurt anyone, no matter how much they may have deserved it," Unseen by all, a tear threatened to fall out of her eye, the effect of bitter memories resurfacing in her mind, but she forcefully suppressed it. "My dogmatic ideology ended up costing me more than you can possibly imagine. Now, if it means saving this world from damnation, I will stoop to any level necessary to save it,"
"You fight for a noble goal. But the touch of evil still taints your soul," Etrigan warned, completely ignoring a grenade exploding against his back even as he split two cultists in half with a single swing.
"I believe that's the pot calling the kettle black. But this is not the time to be fighting each other, not with the enemy before us. So let us put aside our differences and fight together to defeat them," Raven implored as she tightened her hands into fists, conjuring massive versions of said fists made of dark energy that squashed cultists under them like bugs.
"Fine, the Demon and the Gem shall together make the enemy break. Then, once the foe is vanquished, your life I shall take," Etrigan vowed.
"Close enough, I suppose," Raven muttered as every car and truck on the street below was encased in dark energy and hoisted into the air, and was then hurled into the onrushing mass of cultists, squashing them to paste by the dozens and scattering the rest. And yet still more cultists swarmed in from every side and rushed into the slaughter. It was going to be a long day indeed.
