189. The Earth Must Bleed part 4
The lobby of Pompeii was a virtual, Mediterranean sea shore. The sounds of rushing water and seagulls filled the electronic air, interrupted intermittently by rumbling, volcanic sounds. If I look to my left, I saw scores of new people at the check-in counters, eager to fill the rooms of this brand new, lavish casino. If I look to my right, I saw a fake 'beach' with hard sand carved out of polyfoam and sloaping into a body of water where a wave machine made foamy surf rush up onto the surface, recede, and rush up again. A tiny, extravagant restaurant of sorts was built on this fake shore. Tables and chatting/eating patrons clustered the hard dunes just a few feet before the lapping waves. An expert mural along the rippling waters produced the force perspective look of distance and ongoing Mediterranean seas. A fake 'sky' of blue-turning-black formed the ceiling, with pinpricks of synthetic stars casting a silver gleam across the interior.
The further I walked into 'Pompeii', the darker and gloomier things got. Like some sort of subconscious nod to Bald Mountain or the gates of Hell. I mentally told myself that it was merely a recreation of the actual volcanic disaster itself. And I found this out to be true and truer the deeper I pierced the casino. There would be 'alcoves' in the wall with forced perspective murals depicting volcanic ash billowing over mountain slopes and seas and accompanied by somehow-non-threatening puffs of dark smoke burping out of vents in the hall to give the lateral edges of the interior a hazy atmosphere.
And sooner than I realized it, I was entering the large intestine of the place and the casino tables opened before me. I saw them beyond an obvious barrier of fake Roman architecture, small stone buildings, and mountains of volcanic ash. There was a huge, circular chamber like a gladiator arena purposefully surrounding a cone-like mound of fake earth that quite respectfully imitated Mt. Vesuvius. Fake smoke and flickering flame erupted from the top of the volcano in sporadic spurts. Down the length of the synthetic mountain, a slowly revolving stage formed a 'cave entrance' in the side with a wall of stone that could recede at any moment and make the mountain complete. At that point in time, the cave was open and a lounge-style-band was playing a jazz tune as they rotated, rotated, rotated to please the frenzied audience. But the audience was never truly paying any attention to the mountain. They were engulfed instead in the myriad of gambling stations. First, there were the lines of slot machines. The loneliest of people gathered there, staring at the rolling images at each desperate heave of the lever. Then there were the roulette tables. The craps tables. Card games. People gathered in excited groves. Seventy-five percent of them sweat and groaned. A meager twenty percent of them were cheering. A lasting five percent seemed to be the living dead.
All of this transpired in a roar of clamoring voices, chiming slot machines, and monotone card dealers. The lounge music barely bled through, and sooner than naught the gambling souls' faces became clearer and clearer as did the evident placement of gray-colored, elevator doors along the far edges of the interior until I realized I was practically walking into the casino area and-
"Excuse me."
"….."
"Yo! Excuse me!"
A hand was planted against my chest.
I came to a jolting stop.
I looked up.
At the entrance of the gambling arena, three bouncers stood. Darkly dressed, heavyset guys. The centermost fellow had mean eyes, mean lips, and a mean voice as he said: "Only people aged twenty-one and up allowed in here, pal."
"…….," I blinked at him from beneath my shades.
"You got an ID or something?"
I bit my lip. Sweatdropping.
He motioned: "Then scram! Beat it!"
I took a deep breath.
Yeah……
I turned around.
Really nice casino…
I walked away from the shadowy three. I wondered to myself what two-bit thugs off the street Jacob Anderson must have hired to occupy his Pompeii. But it mattered little. At least they didn't recognize me as a Titan swordsman in a faraway City where a certain Robin died. I figured that people in the deepest bowels of Las Vegas didn't care much about the rest of the world, only the quasi-dirty oasis in which they lived off of bread in the form of doughy gambling chips. The Pope could die tomorrow and they'd only think a Mosquito bit them somewhere.
And soon I was pacing around the broad atrium of the place. Aimless. Staring at my feet through shaded black eyes and exhaling.
Now what do I do?
The Messenger went through so much trouble to spot out this place and the lower floors for me.
The elevators are obviously down there in the casino area where the bouncers are keeping me from.
I can imagine no other spot in the casino opening up to the forbidden, lower levels than those elevators.
But there's no use trying to get there with those walking mammoths in the way.
The last thing I want to do is create a row over anything.
With all the cameras hanging overhead—especially where the gambling is—Jacob Anderson or anyone else with Triangular could spot me in a second.
But I got to get downstairs.
I got to see what's brewing in this evil place.
I came to a stop by a sectioned-off display of bodies.
Bodies?
"?" I looked up.
My lips parted.
Behind a sheet of glass and covering an area of six square meters was an assortment of gray-colored bodies. All of them were either stretched out on the floor in a twitching pose of agony, or trying in vain to stand up as their torsos 'melted' up out of the ground. One or two of them lying flat out on the side had tiny rows of ivory teeth showing, as well as a necklace or two. My eyes scanned the figures and then fell over to a plaque set against the glass that supposedly explained the physical holocaust.
And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I thought they were mannequins at first, but in fact they were actual ash 'cocoons' of deceased bodies found at Pompeii. Ash that had hardened eons ago to forever preserve the shape of the instant of death. And what's more, they weren't on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius. They were here. Before me in Las Vegas. Stone corpses erected for viewing and amusement. For a moment, I wondered how in the Hell anyone—en masse or powerfully alone could possibly afford to convince historians and preservers to ship these eternal bodies here.
And I realized then the true power of Triangular. Plagued by a Parasite or not, they were real. And they were evil. And they were strong enough to defame death openly in public and get away with it.
Triangular will do anything and everything they can……even if it means fracturing the sanctity of stone souls.
What other stone bodies could they be raping right now as I stand here and mope?
Terra……
I must find Terra……
I must sneak past those damn, gorillas.
I took a deep breath.
I looked behind me.
I shuffled into the shadows.
I concentrated and summoned murk.
When in Rome.
Burn as the Romans burn.
I covered myself with a curtain of smoke.
Cloaked.
Invisible.
I stepped out and stealthily made my way towards the casino area.
Now……just where did the Messenger go?
I crept invisibly forward. I slithered past the three bouncers. I couldn't help but cast an invisible smile at the loudest of the three. But swiftly I moved on.
I passed down rows of slot machines. Past craps tables with pairs of dice tumbling and people holding their breath. Past the revolving volcano-stage of musicians. I paced myself slowly, carefully, trying my best not to bump into anyone. I knew that the moment I touched someone, the resulting jolt could shove the concentration out of me and I would be as visible as a mechanical rabbit in a Greyhound race.
I snuck until I was at the very mouths of the elevators. But…I couldn't bring myself to go in quite so soon. It dawned on me that even simple elevators like these wouldn't take me down to 'nonexistent' floors. They wouldn't take me down to the basement….unless there was someone important inside to access the necessary tools.
So I waited. As tourists filed in and out. Drunken men with twice as drunk women hooked around their shoulders and laughing. The well dressed. The even better dressed. One or two dressed with a sweating face of financial panic. And then….
My black eyes narrowed on a tall, darkly dressed fellow. In his early thirties. Black slick hair with red, tiger-stripe like highlights flaring towards the back where they ended in frizzy spikes. He had on shades and…a scar across his nose and lower brow.
I smiled.
Rule number one in thug identification. The one with the scar always has high authority.
He was growling into a cell phone as he walked right by my invisible side and towards the elevators. "Dammit! What do you mean they haven't shown up? Did they panic at the last second? What kind of fighters are that yellow?"
I eyed him. He pressed a normal button as any other person would on the elevator command console. A pair of doors opened. He shuffled in and I followed him snake-like.
"Just as well, I guess. But now it's up to yours truly to break his ass over finding NEW contenders. Dammit. What the Hell am I going to do? You know how Anderson hates it when I just drag in fodder from the streets here!"
DING!
The doors closed.
The man stood in a corner with the phone.
I stood against a wall, cloaked. Breathing gently.
"Yeah. I know. I may just have to get Anderson to contact one of the head haunchos for me," the redhaired man growled. "But nothing from Metropolis, dammit! Nobody can last a second against what freaks that city has to offer!"
He suddenly poked a finger at me.
"!" I jumped to the side as silently as I could.
Click.
His finger clicked a 'hold' button on the elevator console that was behind me just a moment ago.
"Hold on a second. I'm coming down," the man said. He propped the cell phone between his ear and shoulder while fishing around in his pockets for something. He got it. A remote control of sorts. He clicked a button on it.
Whurrr-Chtink!
A panel opened up. Three keyholes. Six buttons.
The man pulled out a key. He inserted it into the centermost keyhole. He pressed the right of the two buttons beneath it.
The elevator jerked, then slowly began to move. Down.
I took a deep breath, scrunching up into the dark corner.
"Well maybe it's because Anderson's always having the dirty bastards killed." A pause. "Yeah, I know that the crowd frickin' loves it too! But it really makes the show hard to go on! Pompeii is no longer an idea. It's a reality. People are catching wind of this little cubby hole and they're hearing stories and—quite frankly—it's scaring them away!" Another pause. "And personally, I think it's a very bad I idea. I know Anderson thinks he's gonna attract people from all over the hemisphere with this 'open Vault' promise of his, but I sometimes wonder where he's going. He'll not only get suicidal freaks, but some serious ones too. We need extra security and resources, and I don't think Luthor is pulling through as he promised he would." Another pause. "Heh….yeah. He probably wants in the Vault too. So why doesn't he just come down here and show his face? You know the guy from Gotham City has—hold on. I'll call you back." He pocketed the cell phone away.
DING!
The doors open.
A glow of light-green light.
My black eyes squint under my shades.
And….
Roaring.
Roaring crowds.
Heat and the smell of sweat.
And blood.
"Hooray!"
"Yeah!"
"Blood! Blood! Blood!"
"Woohooo!"
The man sighed, ran a hand through his red-striped hair, adjusted his suite, and walked out into the mess.
"……," I took a deep breath. Stealthily, I crept out too.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The arena.
I had this feeling of some cross between claustrophobic gladiator rings within a huge, elliptical, dry-hockey-rink. The arena floor was divided by two perfect circles of metal slabs forming the arena 'floor'. Bordering the metal battle zones were a three-story cages of criss-crossing, brown titanium. The bars were spread out enough to keep large bodies inside the fighting areas and—at the same time—give the audience a perfect view of the interiors. And just in case some fighter did feel panicky at the last second, solid sheets of bullet and fire proof plastic surrounded the bars. There were only two openings to each of the cages—for the two different fighters of a single batter to enter through. There was one last, plastic shield of transparency lining the elliptical rise of the arena border, but only reaching halfway to the ceiling. On the raised exterior of the carnage, rows upon rows of ampitheatre-style slabs gave hundreds of bloodlusting, well-suited patrons a gorgeous view of the fights. One particular side of the audience was sectioned off into what looked like ridiculously lavish dining tables and booths for the extra-wealthy of the violence-loving viewers. In the center of the lavish section was one outstanding balcony of polished silver large enough to seat four people. An ornate, medieval shield rested like an emblem on the railing of the balcony with the letters 'JA' emblazoned in prettiful font. A shadowy figure—from my distance—sat in the balcony. I had but one guess as to who it was.
I walked hesitantly into the frothing, cheering crowd. I feared a sudden jolt or a bumping of limbs that might expose me and my location. Nevertheless, I concentrated with murk and kept myself invisible as I sought out a relatively lonely spot from whence I could a bearing on exactly what the Hell was happening. I had lost sight of the red-haired, irascible fellow in the suit. My black eyes gradually wandered to the arena.
One of the empty cages had…..a cleanup crew. They seemed to be busily removing a lump of red, dripping substance from the center of the stained metal. Limping through a door on the opposite side—assisted by workers—was a suited 'gladiator' in solid red with silver crossbands, a silver mask and a crimson eyepiece on the right side of his face. He leaned on a laser rifle as a cane while getting over a minor injury. There were laser rifles on armbands that were smoking still from combat.
Digital monitors flashed and flickered a horrible 'instant replay' of the man frying to death another fighter just minutes before my arrival. A crackling announcer shouted over heavy speakers above the heads of cheering audience members: "Winner of the match! Deadshot!"
"Wooooohoo!"
"All right!"
"Yeah!"
A good number of people in the crowd were jubilant.
A somber few ripped up pieces of paper and sat cloudy and defeated.
"Bet earnings for Deadshot shall be collected outside the Arena in the Atrium. But for now, feast your eyes on the most exciting battle yet! Katarou! A martial arts master that hails from the East! And Firefly! Pyrotechnic genius and infamous rogue from Gotham City! Let the fight begin!"
A resounding roar came forth from the crowd. Arms waved, and heads turned towards the rightmost cage in the arena.
"……," I turned and looked as well.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Katarou was a thick, granite slab of a man. He was decked out in a tight black robe with red leggings, crimson sash around his waist, and a crimson crest bordering the back of his tunic's opening. He was bald with stone-hard, Asian eyes. A frown crossed his hard features as he spun a staff at ready and faced off against his opponent on the far side.
The gray-suited Firefly observed Katarou with bulbous, red eyes across his mask. His rocket pack's wings extended. Gas exhaust warbled about him in the air. He pulled a silver pistol with a large, smoking barrel and aimed it at the martial artist.
"Today, one of us dies…," Katarou mouthed. "Shall it be with honor or with bloodlust?"
"Please…," a voice emanated from Firefly's mouthless mask. "Save the poetry, you bloated samurai. All you spiritual-fighter types are just the same. Asking for death. Well wake up, pal. This is about the money. I've no time to waste on your 'chi' or whatshit."
"Rnnngh….," Katarou sneered. "You would call me samurai!" He took an angry step forward with his staff extended. "I am Chinese, filthy pig!"
"Correction…," Firefly pulled the trigger. "You're ashes."
PHWOOOOMB!
A plume of fire surged out at the man.
Katarou pole-vaulted over the plasma with his rod, twirled in the air, and sailed at Firefly with a flying kick. "RAAAUGH!"
Firefly jerked back. His rocket-pack erupted. FWOOOOSH! He soared upwards with a trail of fire.
Katarou landed. He spun around with his back against the bars and looked up at Firefly.
The pyromaniac flew backwards across the caged area. He reached into his belt, grabbed a handful of flammable pellet grenades, and tossed them down at the man.
Katarou twirled his blade and deflected the pellets. Cl-Cl-Clank!
They exploded along the rim of the cage in three fiery places.
FW-FW-FWOOOMB!
Katarou took a deep breath, ran up the metal bars of the cage, flipped off it, spun in the air, and met Firefly at waist level with a swing of his staff. "Nnngh!"
Firefly fired his flame-pistol.
PHWOOOSH!
Katarou barely dodged the flames and smacked the opponent's arm.
THWACK!
"Augh!" Firefly loss grip of his pistol.
WHUMP!
Katarou's knee flew into Firefly's chest. His body followed and the two slammed into the cage wall, then plummeted down hard towards the metal slabs of the arena floor.
WHAM! "Ugh!" Firefly landed painfully on his chest.
WHAP! Katarou landed on his feet. He wheezed from the flames and smoke, but braved a breath as he twirled his rod at ready and glared at the downed Pyromaniac. "Cheater! Do not think that your demonesque weapons of a coward are powerful enough to drown my mastery…."
Firefly grunted as he got up to his weary feet. He reached to his belt and pulled out a cylinder. FLASH! A flame sword erupted from the metal hilt. "I'm going to melt that mouth of yours CLEAN OFF!"
"Hmmph….," Katarou grinned. "So be it." He gripped his staff with both hands and showed his teeth. "The pleasure of your death shall be mine…more than the crowd's." And he charged the suited man with a shout and a swing of his staff.
Firefly stepped back, deflecting with his flame sword. FLASH! He shoved against Katarou.
The martial artist stumbled in reverse.
Firefly swung twice with his flame sword. "Nnngh! HAA!"
FLASH! FL-FLASH!
Katarou ducked and dodged the swings, then dove forward with an impacting staff.
WHACK!
Firefly gasped in pain and flew back from the strike to his ribs.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"……..," I walked the perimeter of the huge crowd. I eyed the flaming fight in the cage everynow and then, but gradually shifted my attention to the silver balcony on the far side. I walked closer and closer. And soon enough, the face of a middle-aged man could be seen in the center of the platform. An old man who looked young at the same time. A beautiful/ugly paradox. He wore a burgundy coat around a similarly red suit. His hair was black, save for two skunk spots symmetrically fixed above his temples. There was something about the shape of his nose and the curve of his lips and the holes in his eyes that struck me as familiar.
Familiar…
"……"
My lips parted.
FLASH!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
Anderson's wrinkly face cackled.
He stood in the wall panel of his frigate's lower cabin laboratory.
Wires from a metal wall stuck into the elderly man's body and sparkled as Simon Stone's android form floated apart and pieced themselves together around Cyborg's exoskeleton, forming the shortly-lived Triad.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
FLASH!
I shuddered.
I gritted my teeth.
Of course.
They were related.
But……how?
Is Jacob Anderson the late villain's brother? Cousin?
I narrowed my eyes at the closer and closer visible visage of the new man in question.
……Son?
I froze in place as I noticed the red-haired man from the elevator walk over to Jacob Anderson's side. He whispered something into the man's ear. Anderson looked his way. After a pause, he smiled and nodded. The scarred subordinate took a breath, dialed something on his cell phone, and spoke into it.
"…..," I stared.
BUMP!
I gasped as a sickly patient rushed passed me, losing vomit from his lips as he ran towards the nearest stairwell.
I was thrown out of my concentration.
The curtain of murk fell.
And…
I was exposed.
Visible.
Noir.
I took a breath……..and relaxed.
Nothing had happened.
Either nobody had noticed me, or nobody cared. Either way, I sat silently in the shadows of the upper rows of seats while the surging audience cheered and shouted at the ongoing fight.
The ongoing fight….
I looked over once again.
-T-T-T-T-T-
"HYAAA! RAAAUGH!" Katarou slapped with the end of his rod and side-kicked Firefly in the chest. WHUMP!
The man flew back and landed against the metal cage wall. Dazed.
"HAAAAAAA!" Katarou charged at him.
Firefly looked up. He raised his flame sword.
Katarou took a breath, spun, and flew a kick at Firefly's hand.
WHAP!
The sword was knocked away.
Firefly had but one last chance to breathe-
CRACK! Katarou slammed his rod into the center of Firefly's masked neck.
There was a sickly, cracking sound.
Firefly twitched, convulsed, and fell to the floor in a vaporous heat of gases.
THWUMP!
A roar of simultaneous applause and booing from the crowd.
Katarou smirked. "Hrmmph…." He leisurely strolled by Firefly's body. With his staff, he pried a flammable pellet loose from the pyromaniac's belt. He kicked the pellet up and caught in his hand. Juggling it, he strolled to the far side of the cage. He stared downwards with asian eyes shut. "The Vault contains secrets to understanding the finesse and fighting moves of such godly warriors as Red Claw, the Batman, and even the Lady Shiva herself." He spun around and glared at the downed Gothamite. "I shall not let such a prize land in the lap of a pathetic, street dog as yourself!" He held the pellet in two fingers and grinned. "May you be cremated in the same passion by which you lived, bastard!" He flicked the pellet so that it landed in the 'mouth' of Firefly's rocket pack.
Clink-Poof.
PHWOOOOOMB!
There was a muffled, half-sentient scream of agony from Firefly's body, but it was quickly engulfed in the flames much like his charred corpse as the plasma warbled upwards and upwards into the cave. Katarou laughed at the top of his lungs. He strung the rod behind his back…and bowed.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
PHWOOOOMB!
Cheers.
Bloodlusting cries.
The monitors flickered: "Victor: Katarou!"
Winners and losers moaned.
A laser light show was performed by the lighting system above the arena.
I swallowed bile down my throat and glanced up at the balcony.
Jacob Anderson was standing. And he was clapping. And he was smiling. A drunken, almost erotic smile. His eyes flared with some sort of pure ecstasy that almost made me more sick to see than to smell the burning flesh wafting across the smoky interior.
And then…my black eyes shifted left some.
And I saw the red-haired man. And the red-haired man saw me. He lowered his cell phone some and parted his lips. His eyes squinted as he came to the same, general consensus that I had felt that entire time.
I didn't belong there.
He slammed a fist over a wall-panel communicator lining the balcony and shouted into a speaker something I could not hear from the distance and madness of the crowd.
I gulped.
I turned around.
I saw two suited thugs at a stairwell cupping hands over concealed communicators in their ear. After a second or two they froze…then looked my way.
I looked further.
Down a few spaces and at another stairwell, three more darkly-dressed thugs turned my way.
Everyone—in an identical cadence—was marching my way through the thick crowd. And they had pistols raised.
I blinked. I looked up at the balcony.
Jacob Anderson was still applauding. The red-haired man was gone.
Crud.
I turned around.
I looked up.
An unguarded stairwell.
"!"
SWOOOOSH! I blurred towards it.
A shouting. The thugs scrambled in pursuit.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I gritted my teeth.
I ran down a darkly lit, metal hallway.
Echoing with the roars of the beating crowd and fights.
I passed by one of the audience members. The vomiting one. He leaned over a trashcan and wretched.
I looked for other stairwells, elevators, shafts….anything that would take me out of that place and away from scrutiny.
I glanced back behind my shoulder.
I saw the line of thugs running at me. The red-haired leader was at the front of the pack. He reached the wretching man and shoved him fiercely out of the way—CRASH—before whipping out a pistol with a silencer.
I sweatdropped.
I looked ahead.
A right turn. Down a brighter hallway.
I took a glad breath and darted down, picking up speed in a murking fashion.
The thugs charged after me.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"!" my black eyes bulged under my shades.
Damn!
I skidded to a stop.
Damn damn damn!
A dead end.
An air-conditioning vent to the underground basement floors occupied the solid wall before me.
There were doors on either side. But I couldn't possibly imagine them leading to anything but utility closets.
I spun around.
I saw the shadows and heard the stomping footsteps of Anderson's security team.
I swallowed.
What did you do here, Messenger?
What did you do here!
I spun around and desperately looked some more.
And then it hit me.
This is my quest.
My adventure.
I took a deep breath.
It's not about the Messenger.
It's about Terra.
It's about me.
The last two halves of Red Aviary's domain.
I spun one last time and faced the vent.
"……."
I smiled.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Who is this pathetic bastard?" the red-haired man grumbled to himself. "I swear to God…Anderson's inviting all sorts of shithead freaks to this place."
"Sir!"
"Hold it!" the man shouted.
The men froze. Guns raised. Eyes darting about under shades.
The man took his dark glasses off. He blinked his two eyes on either side of the scar.
Before him was the dead end. And the dark-haired stranger wasn't there.
"Pfft….frickin' jackrabbit." He pointed at half of the thugs, then pointed at the left door.
They nodded. Guns stretched out, they marched over and formed a semi-circle around the door.
He pointed at the other half of thugs and then at the right door.
They approached it along with him.
He raised a hand. He held up three fingers. Two. One.
SLAM!
He kicked in the right door.
WHAM!
The other thugs kicked in the left door.
They rushed in, one gunman at a time.
"Freeze!"
"Freeze!"
The thugs rushed into the opposite rooms until there was nobody else in the hallway. Nobody. Nothing.
But the air conditioning vent.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
FWOOOOSH!
I teleported out of a ceiling grating and landed in a storage room on the first floor.
Kneeling, I took a deep breath.
I stood up.
I marched over towards the door on the opposite side of the dark room.
I tried the knob.
It was locked.
I gritted my teeth.
I reared back, raised a leg, and-
WHAM!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
CRACK!
The door yawned open forcibly on its hinges.
"Oh!" a well-dressed woman and well-suited man jumped back, startled.
I jerked as I saw them, startled.
They simpered and hurried along down towards the craps table.
I blinked.
Back in the casino area.
I hurriedly walked forward. Past gamblers and well dressed patrons. Towards the center where the volcano stage rotated and the roulette tables doubled.
I had used too much of my meditative focus in teleporting and scurrying up through the ventilation shafts from the basement levels to where I was now. I had no strength at the present moment to cloak myself. And besides, I was in a hurry. I had to get out of Pompeii and try reentering it on a clean slate. Especially since I finally got to see what Jacob Anderson looked like and there may have been more forbidden levels beneath the first floor to explore and there was always the Vault and-
I froze.
The line of bouncers at the exit of the casino area was extra thick. The new additions to the muscular team were wearing shades and squabbling into radios.
I bit my lip.
Ding!
I looked to my far left.
The elevator doors opened.
A crowd of familiar, well-dressed thugs led by the same red-haired scarface poured out. The man didn't need to look far to see me. He pointed at me and growled something at his subordinates. They all came speed-walking over, shoving slot machine patrons and waiters aside in their furious advance.
I gulped.
I looked ahead.
The bouncers were receding from the atrium. Marching down towards the very same center.
I backed up between two craps table surrounded by cheering patrons. I rested against the outer rim of the rotating Vesuvius and shuddered.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
Swooosh!
There was a sudden, strawberry-scented breeze that flew over my dark bangs and just as quickly died.
Accompanied by the faintest of pink lights.
"……..," I blinked.
No way.
My lips parted.
No way in Hell.
I looked around at the ceiling, black eyes narrow.
It can't be……
The thugs and bouncers closed in.
And……
….
In the meantime.
At a local craps table, the dealer prompted the patron to roll his die.
"Allright, lady luck! Here we go! Here we go!" the man cackled with a southern accent. He held two pieces of dice in his palm out towards a ridiculously pretty blonde at his side. "Here. Blow on 'em."
The girl giggled, fluttered her eyelashes, and blew on the die.
"Heh heh! That'll do it!" the wide-eyed gambler rolled the die in his hands. He took a quirky breath…and tossed them out onto the table.
Bystanders eyes rolled with them.
Then the two die rolled to a stop…they were suddenly four die. Two fuzzy, pink pieces of dice landed besides the two white ones that had been tossed.
"Huh? What in tarnation!" the gambler blinked.
The bystanders murmured.
The dealer made a face. "Uhm….," he frowned suspiciously at those surrounding the table. "All right. Who threw those?"
POW!
POW!
The pink die exploded in purple smoke.
"Aaaaie!"
"EEEEK!"
"YAAAH!"
Bystanders flew back. The gambler stumbled to the ground with the blonde collapsing awkwardly on top of him. The dealer coughed and wheezed from the Technicolor smoke.
FLASH!
Swisssssh-PLOP!
A pretty, petite figure landed from the ceiling.
The dealer looked up—misty eyed—and gasped.
I looked over, and I too was speechless.
Jinx perched atop the craps table. Short-haired as the last time I had seen her. Tiny, pink bangs crowning a pale, silveresque head. Her outfit was supremely different and new. She had long, violet boots sleekly swimming up her legs and stopping like stockings above her knees. A tight black jumpsuit stretched from her upper thighs to her torso, where it disappeared under a half-open old-fashioned coat of bright pink with white frills founding-fathers-style peaking out at the end of the long sleeves' white cuffs. An identically white neckerchief came out from where her pink jacket ultimately closed together at a white collar joined in the center by a bronze locket bearing the likeness of two missing siblings, Fate and Fortune. The new Jinx was looking something akin to a seafearing pirate from Wonderland, or George Washington's effeminate young cousin. But it couldn't be denied that—even with her short short pink hair and accentuated figure of thinness—she looked far more feminine than I'd ever seen her before.
She glanced down at the wheezing dealer with fluttering, pink cat-eyes and Cheshire catted a smile. "Sorry. This game's got a tilt now."
WHAM! Her right boot flew up the man's chin.
His body flew back through the streaming, purple smoke and slammed into three advancing thugs.
I winced.
The red-haired thug and his men stumbled, gasping.
Jinx twirled like a ballerina atop the craps table on one heel. Her jacket tail streaming, she came to a stop and stretched out two frilled hands. "HAAAAA!"
Pink glowing.
FLASH!
Two streams of hex landed in slot machines on either side of the thugs.
POW! CRACK!
The gambling machines exploded. Hundreds of gleaming chips spewed onto the bouncers. TH-TH-TH-THWAP!
"NNNGH!" "Augh!" "UGH!"
They stumbled and tripped over each other under the glittering rain.
Patrons ran every-which-way, shouting. Screaming in terror.
Two bouncers emerged—coughing—through the field of smoke.
Jinx cartwheeled off the table like a gymnast, jumped up, flipped, and landed with a boot in each of the men's chests.
WHAM!
She vaulted off them—forcing them to teeter—and reverse flipped across the casino. She landed upright with two hands outstretched. "HAAAA!" Two pink pulses tossed them through a vertically standing roulette wheel besides the Vesuvius mountain. CRASH!
I blinked. Chaos erupted on either side of me. Purple smoke from exploding pink die filled the casino like a Pompeii scene out of Candy Land.
And then-
GRIP!
A petite hand gripped my metal wrist.
"!" I looked suddenly to my side.
Jinx's cat eyes stared up at me. I could smell her breath. The strawberry evil.
And for the first time.
The first time ever.
Jinx and I had just ran into each other.
And I wasn't doing a thing to smash her face in.
And—as it turns out—neither was she.
"You stupid or something, Ghost Boy?!"
My face twisted in confusion.
"Don't you know an escape when you see one! MOVE!"
She ran ahead and tugged me along.
I scampered nervously after her.
Jinx led me charging past coughing, wheezing patrons and downed thugs towards the front atrium of Pompeii.
Behind me, the red-haired leader and a few of his subordinates recovered. They growled in our fleeing direction and raised their pistols to fire from long range across the hazy domain.
Thiift! Th-Thiift! Thiffft!
The five or six or so men gasped at tranquilizer needles landing in their chest.
The red-haired man shuddered. He looked up.
Flaaash!
The figure of a gray-suited, blonde assassin appeared above the gambling machines. She hung one-handed from a grappling hook as she turned visible. Blue eyes narrowing, Pulsade twirled her needle gun one last time, aimed, and-
THIFFT!
THAP!
One last tranquilizer stuck into the red-haired leader's neck.
He gripped it, growled forth a gurgling curse, and fell down besides his compatriots. Unconscious and drooling
Pulsade landed in a crouch and holstered the needle gun.
"Hrmmph…," she breathily grunted. "Dumb sods." She ran through the purple haze, whipping out a shotgun. FLASH! She disappeared with a golden flash and was invisible in mid-run again.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
CRACK!
Jinx blew a door open with her hex. She dragged me out onto a dark, abandoned level of a still-being-constructed parking garage to the west side of the Pompeii resort. We both ran to a dark corner—scarcely filtered by rays of noonday light. We both panted for a few seconds.
And then she looked over at me with thin, tired cat eyes. "Fancy meeting you here…."
I had an exhausted simper. I wiped the sweat off my brow.
"Do you have any idea….any idea what's going on in this Town, ghost boy?"
"……"
"Better yet," she leaned cutely against a wall and gestured with a frilled sleeve. "Do you have any clue what just happened?"
I stared at her. Waiting…
She stuck her tongue out. "Plblblblb! You've just been saved, sillyhead! And you should be thanking us!"
I raised an eyebrow. A beat. I shrugged and mouthed: 'Thank you?'
FLASH!
A golden light beside me.
Prick!
The sting of a needle in my side.
"!" I swung an arm back.
WHAP!
Pulsade deflected with the length of a shotgun. She frowned, her other hand shoving a tranquilizer needle into me. "You're welcome…," she grunted. WHAM! She slammed the back of my skull with the shotgun's hilt.
"!"
THUD!
I landed hard on the floor of the parking garage. My whole body winced. I would normally have just vaulted back up with a pulse of murk and ripped their ovaries out with Myrkblade or something….but nothing was normal at that moment in time. A horrendous dizziness overcame me, along with a dizziness that I could not fight back. And soon, my world was being encased with a layer of black that my eyes couldn't find light in.
Unconsciousness.
"Nighty night, ghostboy! Hee hee hee!"
And I was gone.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"I swear. We should just kill him. We should always have killed him. But it's always you saving his pathetic arse. I swear, Jean. Sometimes I wonder if you think about him like you once thought about Slade."
"Oh please, Leslie. Stop bringing that up. It has nothing to do with this. Besides…after what we've learned, it'd be rather pointless to kill him. That's what Red Aviary wants!"
"Yeah. Pity that. I truly loathe this whole bloody ordeal."
"Hey! You hopped on the wagon yourself! It was your choice!"
"Because I was scared out of my knickers over what would happen to you if I didn't do anything!"
"And the rest—"
"Horses for courses. That all developed later. Wait till all of this is over. I'll split his bloomin' skull in two."
"Hehehehe……just what did he ever do to you?"
"He was born."
"Feh. As one-track as ever."
"And proud of it."
"Any word from 'J'?"
"Wildebeest is in position. And furthermore, the cute little bugger tapped into the security mainframe of Pompeii. None of the surveillance cameras were rolling when Mr. Longshanks here decided to poke his hairy head into the Arena Level. Our whole operation here was almost blown to the Spanish Armada by this sod!"
"You know he's here for a reason. And it won't be easy to turn him back. Not after what happened with Dagger in his City. Not after what happened to his……his team."
"Then what do we do with him? If we can't whack 'em and we can't hold him back, what is there left to do?"
"He's a good kid. Hehehe…a 'namby pamby' in his own sort of way. Right, Leslie?"
"Watch it."
"Ahem. Ghost Boy is a goody-goody-two-shoes. If we make him think that we have the upper hand on things……we might be able to draw him away."
"How do you mean? A threat?"
"A bluff, Leslie. A bluff. We tell him that we have her."
"I see. We let him think that we have the girl's statue……"
"And that it's actually here. That it's in the Vault! We'll tell him that 'J' found out somehow."
"And if he interrupts with our scheme……then he'd be threatening the greatest chance there is to open the Vault."
"Exactly! He'll stay in the sidelines……at least until Wildebeest gets into position, wins Jacob Anderson's favor, and allows 'J' the window of opportunity to digitally dig in and to his stuff."
"What about afterwards?"
"We'll find Terra, Leslie. And we'll find her faster than Ghost Boy can do anything about it."
"Well then, Jean. I'll leave the brilliance to you on this one. A bluff it is. I sure hope it's the best card of your sleeve."
"Hey! Viva Las Vegas! Hehe……now…how long till he comes to?"
They weren't the only ones bluffing.
I was awake half of the time.
And….
I had heard everything.
Sitting somewhere, hands bound, legs tied…
I kept my head and neck tipped over.
It was the only way I could hide my smile.
I had the worst poker face in the world right then.
But they didn't have to know that.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Wakey wakeyyyyy!"
"……"
"Time to get up, sleepy headdddd!"
"….."
"Hey! Open your damn eyes!" Whap! Jinx elbowed my ribcage.
I acted a believable wince, shook all over, and tilted my head up.
I was blindfolded. I couldn't see a single shred of light, which meant I was blindfolded very well. No doubt the craftsmanship of Pulsade, a mistress of light herself.
But I did have my spatial sense. A slight, invisible fluctuation of murk across the surrounding domain told me enough. I was inside a small room lined with racks of tools and wooden tables and humming electrical equipment in the corner. The ceiling was just as flat as the walls and floor, and on the far end of the rectangular interior was a gaping world lined with rough shingling. Like the rooftop of something. I felt warm desert air wafting in. The distant roar of cars and pedestrians filtering in. We were somewhere high. Somewhere hidden. Like a nest of sorts.
Jinx's petite body was to my left. The new threads hung off her still. I detected Pulsade's thin and undecorated body to the right. She had a gun trained on me. And from her casual posture, I knew that she knew that I knew that.
"The main potency of the tranquilizer has left you," the British assassin mouthed. "But don't be clever dick so soon. One step out of that chair—even if you were to teleport—and you'll be vomiting before you even taste the bile on your tongue. Best to stay strapped in where you are, chum. Oh…and I have an AK-47 trained on that lovely chest of yours too."
I smirked sarcastically.
"We know why you're here…," Pulsade continued her role as captor. "You're trying to be the hero. The cross-country ranger of goodness. There's a sweet damsel in distress that you're giving your heart and soul towards saving as if it'll somehow pull together your pathetic team of sobbing young blokes."
I frowned, eyeing her blindly.
Her voice hummed onward: "You should have stayed put, Mr. Noir. It would have done both you and your friends a lot of good. No doubt you know a lot about Red Aviary by now…."
"……."
"Well, perhaps you don't know enough. Red Aviary doesn't care if you're stationary or if you're moving around arse over elbow at a hundred kilometers an hour over the sand and canyons of this wretched desert heap. He will have his way with those on his hit list. He'll have his way…unless something so unexpectedly foreign and surprising sweeps his target off its feet before he even has a chance to blink his flaming skull eyes."
"We know you're trying to be a big help to your Titans, Ghost Boy…," Jinx's body trotted over. "It's cute! It really is! After the last time you butted heads like the big, lovable oaf you are with Wildebeest and 'J', it became obvious how protective you were over your buddies! But you must realize….," she knelt in front of me. The smell of strawberries. "…we have to interfere. It's for….the better good…."
Admittedly, I made a face.
The better good?
"Robin's death could not be prevented….," Pulsade spoke over Jinx's shoulder. "But then again, we were never really planning on trying to save him. We knew about Dagger's interests in the City. Even when Jinx was saved by Red Aviary's bomb in the Omega Wing, we knew that Dagger was moving to cause a breakout of the supervillains at the same time. Every time Red Aviary has made a move, so has Dagger. And vice versa. The two are working together…..though….they are not working with each other. At the same time, both of their goals are similar if not equally heinous. Rather than stick around to keep dealing with the present, we spent time preparing for the future. We realized that Terra was the goal of Triangular's and Red Aviary's aims long before Robin ever factored, even if he was a piece of the whole. But it's that grand, disastrous whole that Jean and I here are trying to prevent from taking shape. Yes, Mr. Noir, we are villains. Petty thieves and murderers and hackers and freaks all alike. But what is there worth to fight for—whether you're good or bad—when there's no world left to grab from? Red Aviary seeks total destruction. Triangular seeks total domination. Both parties feed off of each other with Red Aviary eventually coming to heads as the empowering Parasite. Togther—with their combined madness and bloodlust—they'll take whatever was once sane and level in this domain and utterly demolish it. The Balance of Morals will flip over a burning wasteland. The earth will bleed and the sky will turn red. There'll be nothing to fill the bloody cage, leather winged or feather winged."
I took a deep breath.
Jinx's body stood up and folded her petite arms behind her back. "The only one who didn't really agree with our plans was 'J'. And it was a shame…cuz 'J' was what gave us our power of 'intuition' to begin with. He had the upper hand in information. He hacked his way into H.I.V.E.'s databases thanks to that code card you donated me after we last bumped elbows, Ghost Boy. He found out enough about Lexcorp, Gotham City, and Dagger to finally fill in the missing gaps of Triangular. He saw the focal point of evil being around Terra. And though he knew that Robin's death was an integral puzzle piece waiting to be filled before the rest of the Hell unfolded, the rest of us had to convince him of the true necessity at hand. But that didn't stop 'J' from trying to be the silly little angel he is. When it came time for him to infiltrate Titans' Tower and access your team's database first-hand for the last few bits of info about Dagger's whereabouts, he decided to possess Robin's body. And while doing so, he tried to—I dunno—bless Robin the last bit he could. 'J' has the power to do that, ya know. Either he'll wait inside your body like a ghost hailing a taxi, or he'll control your body without you having a say in it. Or…he'll subconsciously strip things away from you when you're sleeping. He must have stripped something out of Robin during that last week or two of the Boy Wonder's life. It must have been his….his attempt at a gift of sorts. 'J' isn't really a bad kid. He's just working with us cuz he wants the same thing, more or less."
I lowered my blindfolded face to the floor. Exhaling. Biting my lip.
I thought of….
Robin……
Going out with Starfire.
Curling on a warehouse floor and crying.
Rambling on and on about that girl.
That girl that Clayface both created and consumed.
The picture frame encircling the bus terminal snapshot.
The flashes of green light and Robin's body and the bodies of thugs collapsing every which way.
A curled hand and finger.
'J'.
I took a deep breath.
Premeditated funeral favors……
"'J' kept his head straight in the end. He combined the information he found at the Tower with that which we all stole from the rapidly crumbling H.I.V.E. 'J' traced it all here. To Las Vegas. Pompeii…a resort hotel being run by some two-bit, psychosexual freak named Jacob Anderson, cousin to the late weapons dealer and former owner of the Westhaven Opera House back east. This is where the combined, heated energies of Triangular and Red Aviary will now converged. For here is where Terra's statue has been taken. Terra is the next piece of Red Aviary's plot. But first and foremost…there is something that Triangular wants from her. Dagger, specifically. They'll take what they want. And then the focus will be on Metropolis, for Lex Luthor's part of the deal."
"But we mean to intervene before that happens…," Pulsade said. She walked over and planted the barrel of the gun coldly against my neck. "Wildebeest is going to join the lovely fight downstairs beneath Pompeii. And all of our bets are on him. We've got a witch of luck on our side…"
"Heeeeee!" Jinx cutely twirled and curtsied.
"…and we're going to make sure that nothing gets in the way of Wildebeest winning and getting into that Vault. Once Jacob Anderson opens it for the giveaway prize for the winner, 'J' will hack into the systems and freeze the building. Jinx and I will dive in. We'll take Terra's statue out of the vault. And we'll head out to a hiding place where Red Aviary will not find the frozen girl. That way, his stroke of death will be frozen. He won't terminate as he so plans. The Parasite will stumble, and Triangular will trip over him. Another Balance will be turned upside down. And it'll be up to us—and many others I do suppose—to strike at the heart of chaos."
I tried not to smile.
I knew they were lying.
Terra isn't inside the Vault.
Merely the keys to finding her are inside the Vault.
And you two……are bluffing.
You're really no further to saving the world than I am.
My flesh and metal knuckles stiffened together in their bindings.
I……
I am not about to let the Sixth Titan fall into the hands of petty rogues and computer hackers.
You're not the Titan here.
My teeth showed towards the floor, away from their sight.
I am.
Jinx tilted my face up.
I was deadpan by the time they could look on my features.
"Tried and true to the very end," Jinx said. I didn't need to see her to know that her Cheshire grin was there. "You really are a benevolent spectre, Ghost Boy. To be honest, it makes me sick. But……as much as we can and probably should, we're not gonna squash ya here on the spot."
"…..," I stared at her.
Gee, how did I know that was coming?
Pulsade grumbled: "We're going to let you go. But if you so much as show your face here in the midst of our operation again." She pressed the cold barrel of the gun deeper into my neck. "We'll be forced to put you to sleep….in a much deeper slumber than Terra has ever been in!"
I took a shuddering breath.
"Don't you see, Ghost Boy?" Jinx uttered. "We're doing this for Terra too. We're saving her so that you and everyone else don't have to! There's no reason for you to interfere!"
I took a deep breath.
You expect me to believe that you were there for Terra.
And yet, with all you knew, you were never there for Robin!
My mouth went dry.
You aren't benefactors. You're all still villains.
I exhaled.
A sore feeling in my throat.
Even 'J'………
I tilted my head back up.
So stop insisting that you're doing us a favor, you pathetic motherf-
"There's no room in this City for any more angels, Noir," Pulsade pulled the barrel of the gun back and repositioned the rifle so that the butt of it reared over my head.
Here it comes.
"Only badasses."
"Cya!"
SWOOOSH!
I was out again.
Really out.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I came to inside a dumpster somewhere.
An alley.
With red sunlight bathing down.
Blinding.
"….."
I stirred, wincing.
My shades were off.
I felt into my pocket.
I found my shades besides the harmonica.
With a metal hand, I slipped them back on.
I looked out with comfortable eyes, wincing from bumps on multiple parts of my body.
Myrkblade was still on me.
They hadn't stripped that away.
I crawled out of the dumpster and—like a silly drunkard—fell out and collapsed onto the alleyway floor.
I panted….panted….panted….
And then a gentle, boyish hand reached down towards me.
"Well look at you!" the Messenger smiled a half-jester grin. "First day of being eighteen, and already you're sneaking out for blindfolded adventures with costumed, bisexual girls! Shame on the wee man inside of you."
"…..," I blinked up at his asian face.
I wonder if he'd forgive me if I smashed his face in?
As a friend……
I took his hand and—wincing—stood up beside him. I brushed myself off and exhaled as he paced around me.
"You're not looking half bad. Pretty A-okay in my book. Especially for such a brazen trip into the depths of Pompeii….without HESITANCY!" he leaned on his toes for a second and fell back down to his heels with a smirk and two hands behind his back. "I thought I'd point you in the right direction to infiltrate Jacob Anderson's cubby hole. Not bring half the house down!"
I glared at him.
You weren't there……
A blink.
My black eyes rounded beneath my shades.
Were you?
He raised a finger: "So lemme guess…..Pulsade and Jinx were bluffing to get you to back off of Las Vegas, huh?"
I gritted my teeth.
Dag nabbit!
"A-And….," he chuckled. "Let me also guess….," he leaned forward. "They told you to stay out of from under their noses. They told you to stop looking for Terra. And they told you to stop obsessing over the very same, noble thing that brought you here. Your absolute love and commitment for your friends."
A beat.
I took a deep breath. I nodded…and walked past him forwards the red, sunsetlit street beyond.
He turned, smiled, and shot at my back: "Why do I get the feeling you don't give a rat's ass and you're gonna 'interfere' anyways?"
I froze in place. A beat. I turned and looked back at him. "………" I grinned.
"Heheheheheh," he chuckled and walked towards me. "There has never, ever been a more fitting definition to replace 'Hell yes'!" He slapped my shoulder with a gentle hand. "Where to, pal?"
I smirked. I pointed eastward.
"Yup, thought so," the Messenger dramatically saluted the buildingsides. "To the Boy Cave!"
I chuckled breathily as we both hurried off.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Inside the abandoned warehouse.
Encircled by steel skeletons of forgotten construction sites.
The Messenger and I stood.
Red sunlight filtered through the stuffy air from the desert realm outside.
It sparsely illuminated my hands as I dug through various half-abandoned tools and shards upon shards of metal junk. I was deadpan. Thinking…Thinking….
"You saw him with your own eyes….," the Messenger spoke from the shadows. "Jacob Anderson is a bloodlusting fool. Triangular has been foolish to put him in charge of the Las Vegas foothold. All he'll ever do here is pursue his own interests…while all the while using incompetent men as guards to keep an eye on the Vault and the Key inside. Lord knows what it is Anderson desires to accomplish by opening the holding place of the Key to Terra. Perhaps he's a mastermind after all, and under this huge, desert poker game…..he too may be bluffing. Who's to know? And who's to care? Apparently anyone who wins this 'fighting tournament' he's got thundering across the bowels of his basement arena. It sounds like Jinx and Pulsade have a friend of theirs on that fighting roster. Like an ace up their sleeve. With 'J''s computer finesse, Pulsade's deadly surveillance, Wildebeest's figureheaded brawn, and Jinx's hand of luck all mixing together….they've got a supreme force at work here. They've worked far too long and far too hard to let Project Counter-Red Aviary slip from their grasp. It is the ultimate gamble of their young, natural lives."
I fished through the metal mesh.
The metal mesh….
And I paused.
Teeth firm.
Dark eyes narrow.
"What do you propose to do, Noir?"
"……"
I slowly turned around. I tossed the metal mesh behind my shoulder. And I smiled.
The Messenger leaned his head to the side, eyebrows raised in curiosity over his almond eyes.
I hand-signed something that perhaps he did understand. Perhaps he didn't:
'There is always one more ace up the sleeve.'
He stared at me.
I smiled.
So did the Messenger.
"Something tells me…….," the asian teen stepped towards me and spoke, "…that Jacob Anderson is about to meet a new challenger."
I nodded, a big grin.
I reached into my back pocket. I pulled out the deck of cards I bought that morning. I juggled it once..twice…and looked at him.
He cleared his throat. "Ahem……'Hell yes'."
I chuckled breathily.
He laughed. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
I tossed the deck of cards at him and motioned towards the dusty tables full of junk.
I marched over towards a lone switch in the wall.
I flicked it on.
There was a nasty buzzing sound.
Some sparks flew.
But a rusted lightbulb suspender overhead flickered and glowed to life with a steady hum.
We've got work to do……
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Clank!
Clunk!
Strips of metal mesh were heaped on top of each other.
I sorted through the pile in the center of the dusty, amber-lit floor.
The Messenger stumbled over with a heap of metal scraps and pieces of junk in his small arms. He wheezed: "How's this?"
I motioned with my head towards the pile.
He dumped them all.
Clump!
I sorted through them, looking for….'good' metal pieces.
"Ah…nothing like a good game of rusted pix stix."
I smiled as he knelt down and joined me.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Craaash!
With a sweep of my titanium forearm, I knocked all the tools and junk off of a table and dragged it out towards the center of the warehouse.
The sunlight was fading outside and the flickering bulb overhead took over as I gathered my chosen pile of junk and dumped it all onto the table. I separated the shards from the mesh from the textiles.
The Messenger was shuffling through a rusted, abandoned locker on the far side of the building. He lifted with a pair of dark, black boots in his hand. "Hey! How are these?"
I gave them one look and then gave a thumb's up.
He tossed them at me.
Snatch!
I caught them, smiled, and put them by the metal mesh.
I then turned around and reached my hand over towards a power tool and dangling cord.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Zzzzzttt!
I had a visor over my shaded face and was busy applying a welding tool to bits and pieces of metal.
The Messenger shaded his asian eyes as he walked around me and gathered strips of leather to fasten to the insides of mesh sleeves and mesh plates.
I paused in the welding, lifted my visor, and whistled.
He looked my way.
I pointed at a pile of brass and copper strips of metal.
He rushed over and handed them to me.
I nodded, mouthed a smiling 'thanks' and then got to work on the boots.
Visor down.
Zzzztt!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Hey! Fancy this!"
I stopped welding.
Visor up.
I looked across the dimly lit room.
In a thin slit of starlight, the Messenger had found a dusty CD player sitting on a desk and dustily plugged into a grimy outlet in the warehouse wall.
"Of all the infernal marsupials in the world. Hey! I know just the thing to test spontaneity!"
And he reached into the pouch of his neon-green sweatjacket and produced—of all things—a CD jewel case. He took the CD out and popped it into the player. He hit 'start'. The speakers crackled and the sound constantly skipped, but it was very much obviously a thunderous techno track.
"Oh yeah! Woo-hoo!" he grinned and in perfectly absurd euphoria started to 'rave' right there in front of me. "How about some Paul Oakenfold for your tease! Ha HA!"
I shook my head with a breathy chuckle.
"Hey! Hey! I love this remix! Then again, I've never heard it before. HA!" he danced. "Tell me, Noir! Tell me why do they build castles in the sky!"
I couldn't stop laughing. I tried to shake it off, but instead found myself dramatically lifting my face to the ceiling and mouthing: 'Hell yes!'
"Heheheheheh. 'Hell yes!'"
Hahahahaha……gawds……
"MAD COW DISEASE IN THE BOY CAVE! UH! UH! GET DOWN!" he grabbed what existed yet of the metal mesh outfit and 'danced' with it. "Mind if I take your hand, Kate? Gee, you're looking lovely this evening. Had lots of iron in your diet? HA!" The 'two' waltzed to music that they should have been raving too.
Er……
Wait, I'm confused.
Arrghh………hahaha!
I groaned, my lips sore.
Visor down.
Zzzzttt!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
At one point—when the night was darker and quieter—we sat opposite each other across the dusty table. The Messenger had found another pair of welding material and a visor. We both shared the task of melting tiny shards of metal and then……burning them onto the edges and contours of my playing cards. What were once innocent table game pieces became deadly, razor sharp projectiles.
I finished one card.
He tossed me a ready, hot shard of metal.
I took it safely in my titanium hand, held the hot shard in position, slid the card in, and carefully melded the two into one piece while the Messenger prepared the metal for the other corners.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Okay…I got it….got it…..right. Go!"
He held to pieces of metal. Long. Encrusted with rusted bulbs.
He looked away as I knelt before him, aimed the welder away from his body, and—with visor down—melted the two halves of metal together up their length.
And soon, in our midst, a rough metal scabbard was born.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Clang!
The Messenger hammered the metal plates into place across the mesh sleeves and shoulders.
Clang!
He turned them and hammered again.
Clang!
Sweating.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Sewing.
Sewing.
Sewing.
A pull of the thread.
A jerk.
Tight.
Snap!
I took a deep breath.
I stood up and pulled the leather belt up to my shaded eyes for closer inspection.
The scraps of leather had been sewn together perfectly. Copper plates of metal made the pouches easy for popping open at a moment's fly.
Smiling to myself, I took one razor-sharp, metal-laced playing card after another and slipped them into the pockets.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Fwoomp!
I slid my torso into the metal mesh outfit. Feeling the weight of it all. My nose full of the evil rust.
I burrowed my right arm into the right long sleeve, and my metal arm into the short one. The mesh ended just at the top of my titanium prosthetic.
Fitting.
The black bottoms of a jumpsuit were lined along the front with metal plates of brown and gray steel, much like my shoulder and chest.
I slid the leather belt on-Fwimp!—and snapped it closed.
Then came my boots. Clasped shut with copper and brass pieces. Snap! Snap! Snap!
I forewent my bandanna, instead going for three mesh bands with dangling, metal-laced ringlets that fastened my black ponytail into a long stream dangling behind my neck and shoulders.
Sliiip!
I slung the metal scabbard over my shoulder, encrusted along the leather straps with sharp bulbs of metal.
But something was missing.
Two things, actually.
The Messenger walked up.
"…..," I glanced over at him. My obsidian optics naked.
He looked clear and twice-as-real in the darkness.
He smiled. "I'd be in love….if only I didn't like girls so frickin' much."
I smirked sarcastically and held my hand out.
Shut up and give me my damn eyes.
He handed me a pair of black metal goggles with even blacker lenses.
I took them by the leather straps. I slid them on. Two bulbous black lenses encasing my optics. I dragged Myrkblade up from the nearby table, twirled it once—THWISH!—and slid it agonizingly down my metal scabbard.
CHIIIIIIING!
I stood tall. I took a deep breath. I flexed my arms.
Metal. Metal. Metal. All engulfing me.
There was a time……
When I wished……
To the bottom of my scarred heart……
That I would never……ever feel this sensation again……
"So….," the Messenger folded his arms and smirked. "How's it feel?"
I took a deep breath. The burning body of Robin. The sobs of Starfire. The exasperated sigh of Cyborg.
I turned. I looked at him. I smiled.
'Hell yes.'
"Hehehehehehehe…..hooooo baby….," he saluted me.
I saluted him back.
He shook his grinning face. "You are going to kick SO MUCH ass."
I nodded.
He leaned forward. He whispered: "Go time."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I walked through the lobby of Pompeii that night.
Bouncers and armed thugs gathered extra-thickly around the entrance to the casino area.
The largest and most irascible of the bunch took one look at me…and frowned.
He held a hand up and marched towards me. "Only people aged twenty-one and up allowed in here, pal."
"……."
"You got an ID or something?"
WHAM! A metal-laced boot slammed unmercifully into his special area.
"!" His eyes bugged. He fell to the floor, gasping. Legs crossed. Lips howling a silent scream.
The other bouncers gasped.
Two thugs marched towards me and raised pistols at my face.
I turned. I looked at them. "….." I brandished a middle finger between the barrels of their guns.
They twitched. Sweating nervously. Perhaps disturbed by the explosive entrance of the pink witch earlier that day in the casino. Or perhaps just scared shitless the stranger standing before them.
"Hold on a second…" uttered a familiar voice.
Everyone glanced over.
Myself included.
The red-haired guard leader from earlier walked over. He stared at me, the scar splashed across his face and interrupted by an inquisitive rise in eyebrows. He looked down at the whimpering bouncer, then back up at me. A beat. He smiled. "You're here for the fight, aren't you? An answer to Anderson's call?"
I stared at him, frowning. I didn't smile. I didn't speak. Icily….I nodded.
The thugs shuddered.
"Ah….what a fine day this is," he said. "Even if it be a last day." He winked.
"…..," I stared.
"My name is Rexxin. Follow me. The next part of the tournament is about to start and we're short one roster."
I nodded. I shifted my metal shoulders.
The guards' guns shook.
I glared at them sideways through my obsidian goggles.
"……"
…and marched after Rexxin towards the elevator doors.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"And for the next round! Ladies and gentlemen! Feast your eyes on the gold cage! Wildebeest, the mysterious monstrosity of muscle and animalistic strength! Versus! Deadshot, the assassin of deadly aim and tenacity!"
The crowd roared.
The lights of the arena fixated on the cage, scattering light onto the two combatants.
"Grfff….," Wildebeest nearly snorted. His ivory-white eyes narrowed and he shook his horned, silver-helmeted crown. Arms flexing.
Deadshot stood across from him, cocking his laser rifle. Readying steaming-hot guns on his armbands.
"Heh….my luck. I get a cow."
Wildebeest glared.
"Aim your pretty face towards my boomstick," he hissed through a steel helmet. His red eyepiece glinted as he steadied the rifle against his shoulder and readied for the call to action.
Wildebeest folded his arms, still as a statue. He glanced across the arena at the other cage.
Katarou walked in, balancing his staff over and across his shoulders. His asian eyes were thin as he exhaled through his nostrils. "Pffft….this is humiliating. A true master doesn't take on two-bit recruits from the streets! I'll have Anderson's head for this….," he glanced up towards the balcony where the middle-aged man sat in burgundy silence. "….after I take the secrets out of that Vault."
"…..," Wildebeest's eyes narrowed. He then absent-mindedly glanced up towards the surging crowd up above the ellipse of the arena and its plastic shielding.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Tell him not to look in our direction…," Pulsade whispered. She and a certain sorceress perched invisibly on the metal rafters above the audience. The pulsing light power of the blonde assassin kept them cloaked. "It might give us away."
"Nobody knows we're here, Leslie."
"Do what I say," Pulsade hissed. Her blue eyes narrowed. "And don't call me 'Leslie' unless we're in private."
"Pfft. Suuuure….whatever Miss Sniper-Rifle-Up-Her-Ass!" The pink witch huffed and turned to click a morse code message to Wildebeest via remote. A beat. She looked mopefully over her shoulder. "I wuv you…."
"Save it for later…Wildebeest's time is at hand."
"After he pummeled that ninja guy yesterday….hehehehe!" Jinx giggled. "I think he has nothing to worry about."
"Yeah, well you ready that hex of yours just in case. A lot is riding on this."
"Pulsade?"
"Yes, Jinx?"
"Do you think….Noir will really hold off? I mean…he was the last one to see Glover alive and—"
"You tell me, Jinx," Pulsade looked over. Blue eyes thin. "I was never the one handcuffed to him."
"………….," the sorceress hesitated.
"Hold on a tick," Pulsade glanced down at the arena. "I think the battle's about to start."
"Ooooh!" Jinx leaned over the railings and glanced down at the other cage. "Who's the new meatbag?"
A beat.
Her cat eyes rounded, and her soft lips quivered as something pale and akin to the Third Apprentice of old bubbled to the surface of the loftily perched girl in a throttling case of deadly déjà vu.
"Oh Hecate almighty….," she murmured.
Pulsade blinked. "What is it?" she asked, concerned.
"Oh no….no no no….he wouldn't! He couldn't!"
"What the bloody hell is it!"
"Nnnngh!" Jinx slammed her frilled fists against the railing of their catwalk. "Fiddlesticks!"
"?" Pulsade looked down.
"And now! Over in the silver cage! Ladies and gentleman……."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Katarou……versus…..Wyldecarde!"
"?" Katarou looked over. A curious sheen fell over his bald head.
Plant!
One metal laced boot.
Plant!
Another.
I slid down into a crouch.
Chiiiii-iiiii-iiiiing!
Myrkblade came out of its metal scabbard.
My face lifted.
"……," I glared up.
Black metal goggles glistening.
The converging brilliance of arena lights glinting off my metal-mesh outfit, brown and gray steel plates, and a rigid sharp emblem of the letters '-W-C-' on my left breast.
"…….," Katarou grinned and readied his staff. "My my….don't you look scary…."
My lips curved.
Don't you know it, dumbass.
There was a disbelieving snort of a blinking Wildebeest in the distance.
A slight shudder and pause in the roar of the crowd.
And something that was purposefully dead and mummified inside of me rose to life again.
"LET THE FIGHTS BEGIN!"