The Campbell Chronicles Part Two
Chapter 10
Amanda Waller fell through the darkness, cold seeping into her flesh from the ice sphere encasing her. Suddenly, something shifted, and her prison smashed into an obsidian floor.
She rolled along the ground, the hiss of her prison turning to steam filling her ears as her flesh burned and the smell of sulfur filled her nose. When she finally stopped, she lay on the ground, her teeth gritted against the pain.
Part of her suit had melted to her skin, and a portion of her hair had been burned to ash, revealing patches of burned skin. Slowly, she rose to her feet with a cough, the sulfurous air burning her lungs.
She looked around, her body tense as she fought to ignore the itching of her healing wounds.
Black rock stretched as far as the eye could see underneath a red sky with purple clouds that flashed with black lightning. Rivers of lava cut through the rock in what appeared to be random intervals.
She would swear that screaming faces were in the orange and yellow liquid, but every time she focused, she saw nothing.
"What is this place?" She asked aloud.
Joseph appeared beside her, a grimace on his handsome features as his Brown eyes scanned the landscape. "I don't know, but I can feel the heat, and there are spirits here. I can feel the vibration of their screams in the air even if I cannot hear them."
"Well, you are certainly interesting, and I expected you to be a useful tool; I didn't think you would come with your own ghost."
Amanda spun to find a being sitting on a throne of obsidian rock that hadn't been there a few minutes ago.
The thing before her was 6'6" tall, with red skin, narrow features, yellow eyes, short black hair, and a thin mustache. He lounged back in a black suit with a red tie slicing down its center. Long fingers tipped in black claws drummed against one another as he stared at her.
Amanda moved forward, "Who are you, and why did you bring me here?"
One corner of the man's mouth quirked upwards, revealing pure white teeth and a pronounced canine.
"I am Mephisto, and I brought you here because you were about to lose to the mutants. Your ambition would've ended."
Amanda's hand curled into a fist. "I would've been fine, even if they had captured me. I have government connections that would've seen me freed."
Mephisto cocked his head, a pointed ear twitching, "Would they really, or would you become a tool for others like yourself to dissect and use for their own ends." He shook his head, "You may have escaped, but the power you cultivated over the years would've been gone."
"If that is the case, then why would a being such as yourself save me?"
Mephisto rose from his throne and walked down a set of stairs sprouting from the ground. His polished shoes echoed off the dark rock. "I saved you because I see potential in you."
"You see, Amanda, may I call you Amanda?" He shook his head. "I deal in souls and suffering, but I am not as powerful as I once was, so I need an agent to help me regain that power."
"So, what? You want my soul in exchange for helping me remove the mutants."
Mephisto threw back his head and released a hearty laugh that sent shivers down Amanda's spine.
After a moment, he calmed and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye, "Oh no, my dear girl, with the things you've done, your soul was already going to one hell or another, and I prefer the corruption of pure souls, or at least those that are still up for grabs."
Something inside Amanda lurched at Mephisto's words, she had known she had done some questionable things, but she had never imagined she was damning herself for the things she'd done, "So what exactly do I get by working with you?"
"By becoming my emissary, I will mark your soul, so should you ever die, you will come here. After all," he waved his hand. "Better the devil you know, and all that. I will also train you in how to use your new body. In exchange, you will bring suffering upon the world, and through that suffering, you will guide others to my service."
"Amanda," Joseph stepped in front of her, "Don't! You can still change your fate. All you have to do is turn away from your quest for control."
Amanda looked back and forth between Joseph and Mephisto. She had been fighting for so long that she had pushed everyone away. Her children wouldn't speak to her, and any old friends she had were dead or afraid of her. The fight was all she had left. Slowly, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Joseph, but I can't."
With a broad smile on his face, Mephisto offered Amanda his hand.
Amanda grasped it, and her back arched as her veins burned with orange fire.
Pain bathed her being, and through it all, Amanda vowed to find a way to get the upper hand in this deal, for she served no one.
–XX –
Six Months Later:
Nicholas grimaced as sunlight shone across his face. With a groan, he pulled the pale blue and gray sheets tighter around him.
Wanda let out a sleepy moan next to him, her breasts pressing into his chest as her Auburn hair tickled his skin. Green eyes flickered open and stared up at him. "Good morning," she whispered, her breath tickling his skin.
"Morning," Nicholas leaned down, kissing her lips as he wrapped his arms around her and rolled on top of her.
"So," she began, her breath hitching as he entered her, "When do you think your body will emerge from the sun?"
Moans echoed through the room as they moved as one.
"I don't know," Nicholas panted, "but my body has become encased in a layer of white energy."
A silly smile spread across Wanda's face as she locked her legs around his waist, "Well, at least you made this body realistic."
–XX –
Half an hour later, Nicholas and Wanda sat at their breakfast table, cups of coffee in their hands as they stared out over the city of foliage.
"What are your plans for the day?" Wanda asked, lowering her coffee.
"I need to go see John Henry; he was supposed to keep part of the stuff the recyclers produced for me and the people of Cradle to use."
"How are you going to explain being missing for a year?"
Nicholas stood to his feet, smoothing down his polo shirt and dusting off his khakis, "After the message Cradle gave the entire planet, he probably thinks I was terraforming this world."
Wanda raised an eyebrow, "And you're just going to let him think that?"
Nicholas moved closer to Wanda. Grabbing her hips clad in black jeans, he pulled her close. "They won't look for the others if they are focused on me."
Wanda pulled him into a passionate kiss.
When they broke apart, she stared into his eyes, "Just be careful. We don't know if you will return to your original body if you die."
"I can still feel the connection to my body in the sun; I'm pretty sure I will return to it if something happens to me."
Wanda stepped back, running a hand down his chest, "Well, until you're 100% sure, try not to die."
"Not planning on it," with a flick of his wrist, the rectangular window in their kitchen slid open, and in the blink of an eye, Nicholas vanished, becoming energy that shot into the distance.
Wanda approached the window, watching Nicholas disappear towards the earth before sliding it closed.
–XX –
Landing in an alley about a block away from Steelworks, Nicholas swept up the trash along the walls with the force of will and transformed it into a beige-colored blazer. Slipping it on as he left the alley, he made his way to the building, nodding to people as he passed.
Entering Steelworks, Nicholas approached the crescent-shaped desk in the lobby's center. Staring into the dark-haired woman's brown eyes, Nicholas smiled, "Hello, could you tell John Henry that Nicholas Campbell is here to see him?"
The woman gave him a flat, professional smile before picking up the phone. Nicholas nodded and made his way over to the metal chairs lining the walls. Sitting down, he leaned back and closed his eyes, allowing himself to feel the energy that passed through the building's wiring.
A slow smirk spread across his face as he watched an energy version of John Henry Irons press a button on his watch.
Nicholas assumed that the telepaths of the Justice League picked up his message to the world's mutants and related it to their members.
John Henry would've recognized him and told the Justice League about his business dealings with him.
He expected John Henry to call the Justice League when he arrived. Would he act, wait for the members to surround the building, or go ahead and call him up?
As if on cue, the woman behind the desk cleared her throat, and Nicholas opened his eyes and slowly rose to his feet.
"Mr. Irons will see you now; please take the elevator to the top floor."
"Thank you," Nicholas said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He then made his way to the elevator.
Stepping inside the wood-paneled box, Nicholas pressed the button for the top floor and leaned against the silver-colored railing that ran around the walls. As the elevator began moving upward, Nicholas did not look at the camera in the upper left-hand corner of the elevator. He kept his posture relaxed and slowly removed his hands from his pockets.
The Justice League may be suspicious of him, but legally, they had no reason to detain him.
The door opened with a ding, and Nicholas stepped onto the thin red carpet. The entire room seemed to be made of glass. Sunlight lit the space around him; Nicholas could feel the glass was already absorbing its energy.
A large leather couch sat against the wall to his left. An iron glass coffee table was in front of the sofa, and two matching leather chairs were at each end. A wet bar sat behind him and to the right, packed into the corner of the room near the door.
John Henry Irons sat behind a large wooden desk at the far end of the room. He rose to his feet as Nicholas approached and walked around the desk. Nicholas paused within arm's reach and took in the man he hadn't seen in over a year.
John Henry stood 6'7" tall. He was broad-shouldered with thick muscles, a narrow waist, dark skin, brown eyes, and a bald head. Somehow, he seemed to have packed on more muscle since the last time Nicholas had seen him.
He wore a black suit over a gray dress shirt. A silver watch gleamed on his wrist as he leaned back against his desk.
"Nicholas," he began with a smile that seemed a little forced, "it's been a while."
"Yeah, sorry I was out of contact." Nicholas rubbed the back of his neck. "Some unavoidable circumstances pulled me away." He stared into John's eyes. "I trust the recyclers did as advertised?"
Some of the tension bled out of John Henry's shoulders, and he moved around his desk and sat down, gesturing for Nicholas to take one of the two seats in front of his desk.
Nicholas sat down and crossed one leg over the other as John Henry answered, "Better than expected. Your 10% of the recycled material quickly became too much for me to store. However, before it became an issue, a woman named Trinity contacted me and told me to sell what I couldn't store."
John Henry shrugged. "She told me she was your cousin and that you permitted her to handle your affairs while you were away. Our contract didn't react, and she had the proper paperwork, so I took her advice."
Before Nicholas's adventure into the dark multiverse, he used the quantum string powers gifted to him by his mother to write a contract between him and John Henry into reality to ensure neither one can betray the other. He wondered if the contract still existed with the changes he'd been through since then.
He probably needed to ask his mother to look into that when she could.
Nicholas inclined his head, "That's fine."
Opening a drawer in his desk, John Henry pulled out a folder, "In here, you will find what I sold the recycled materials for, the market price at the time, and the bank account where the money is stored, as well as the address where your 10% of the materials are being kept."
Nicholas reached across the desk and took the folder. As he sat back, he reached out with his mind, connecting to Eugene Donovan, Hazel's brother. He was a mutant able to teleport and ran a lucrative travel and delivery business on Cradle.
'Eugene, this is Nicholas. Can you hear me?'
Nicholas felt the mental shields installed in Eugene's mind by his sister shift, 'Yeah, I can. What's up?'
Nicholas opened the folder and flipped through a few pages. 'There are about four and a half warehouses full of materials that could be useful to Cradle. Can you drop it off at the science citadel for me?'
Eugene whistled, "That's a lot of stuff; I don't know if I could move it all today; I have to teleport the scavengers back to Cradle in about six hours."
When Nicholas awoke from his brief coma, Wanda mentioned taking stuff from junkyards or landfills and restoring it for Cradle's use or profit.
Nicholas liked the idea and wanted to run the initiative, but it wasn't feasible with everything else he had to do. With the help of the Council, they selected mutants who could do the job and gave them a startup loan.
They named themselves the scavengers and quickly paid the Council back by finding and restoring antiques or rare items.
'That's fine, as long as it all gets moved eventually. However, I won't pay you until it's all moved.'
'Half when I get half of it moved, the other half when I finish.'
'Done.'
Closing the folder, Nicholas severed the connection with Eugene and stared into John Henry's eyes, "So, Do You Want to Make Small Talk, or do you just want to have the Justice League come in?"
John Henry tensed, but Nicholas waved his hand. "Relax. If I wanted to hurt you, I would've done it the first time we met. Besides, I wouldn't want to leave a bad impression on our guests." Nicholas looked towards the couch. "Hello, John Jones. I think I have someone who would like to meet you."
The space in front of the couch shimmered, and a man 6'7" tall with green skin, a bald head, and red eyes appeared. Red straps crisscrossed his chest, a high-collared Cape flowed down his back, and blue boots adorned his feet.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, his well-defined arms crossing over his muscular chest, "How did you know I was here?"
"We all have our talents," Nicholas turned back to Irons, "Why don't you call the rest of your friends in? I'm sure they're getting anxious listening to all this."
Glancing between Nicholas and the Martian, Irons pressed a button on his desk, and the roof split down the middle and folded back.
In the blink of an eye, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Green Lantern appeared in the room.
Nicholas remained seated, his hands resting on the folder in his lap. "This is certainly not how I wanted to meet such an esteemed group of individuals," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Granted, I was hoping to put it off for a little longer."