Post by Zane on Sept 23, 2017 18:54:49 GMT -5
Characters:
Pain and Paradox (aka: The Ego Trip): Super Villain team
The Lord of Pain – Don Hastings Vano (Donovan Hastings) – Leader – Strategist
Paradox – Scott Zane (Zane Scott) – Heavy/ Combat Specialist
Mr. Ego – Wallace Alan Chadwick (“Vain” Alan Wallace) – Infiltration/ Espionage specialist
Charisma King – Pierce Thomas (Travis Pierce) - Part time Actor/ Professional Con Artist
Paradox – Scott Zane (Zane Scott) – Heavy/ Combat Specialist
Mr. Ego – Wallace Alan Chadwick (“Vain” Alan Wallace) – Infiltration/ Espionage specialist
Charisma King – Pierce Thomas (Travis Pierce) - Part time Actor/ Professional Con Artist
Prison Personnel
Warden Dr. Leeber/ Josh Hans Leeber (Hans Lieberjosch)
Deputy Warden Vincent “Vines” Dexter (Dexter Vines)
Security Commander Robert Louis Oley (Robert Ooley)
Deputy Warden Vincent “Vines” Dexter (Dexter Vines)
Security Commander Robert Louis Oley (Robert Ooley)
Other Characters:
Peter Owenson (Owen Peterson) - Lord of Pain’s Manservant
Lawrence (Larry) – Paradox’ Personal Assistant
Wellington Simons (Simon Wellington) – Mr. Ego’s friend and advisor
Roger Wright Carter (Robert Cartwright) - Charisma King’s personal biographer
Lawrence (Larry) – Paradox’ Personal Assistant
Wellington Simons (Simon Wellington) – Mr. Ego’s friend and advisor
Roger Wright Carter (Robert Cartwright) - Charisma King’s personal biographer
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Part One: Spectacles
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Warden Dr. Josh Hans Leeber stared out of his office window and frowned. The super freaks were brawling in and above his beloved city. Again. It further rankled him that their battle was above his prison, a prison where he lorded over male and female freaks just like them and kept them in their place. The entire vision made his stomach boil with fury, as if they were fighting where they were for the express purpose of directly mocking him. His hands ground into the window sill as he felt the heat in his face intensify. He knew that he shouldn’t let his loathing for these arrogant and destructive creatures get the better of him, but he couldn’t stop himself. He saw no difference between the supposed heroes and the villains. They all brought destruction to his city. They all killed regular people like him whether they intended to or not and it made no difference to him that innocents died because the villains did something to cause it.
It wasn’t so much that he cared about the common people of his city. Only the wealthy and powerful mattered. The rest of the citizenry were just annoying details to him. As long as they kept paying the taxes that funded his prison and helped him to fill his substantial offshore bank account, he didn’t care if they dropped dead from eating too many cheeseburgers, or because some deluded moron in a red bodysuit wasn’t competent enough to stop a bus from being dropped on them by an equally moronic mountain of muscle in a different strange looking outfit. They were nothing but chattel as far as he was concerned. Only their money mattered.
As it was, the entire downtown segment of his city, Unified Metropolis, had been destroyed and now lay in a smoldering pile of rubble. He surmised that the smoke plume from which could be seen for miles. He was certain that hundreds, if not thousands of people had been injured and killed in the melee. He that thought didn’t bother him much. What really perturbed him about the entire disaster was how many hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars it would take to repair the shattered buildings. What really galled him was that his favorite restaurant, Patsy’s, was downtown and he was certain that it and his favorite theater were both no more than craters.
“Worthless bastards.” He sneered at them through the glass.
He watched as the idiot who called himself Red Fusion, the apparent leader of the Fusion Friends, traded punches with the one who laughably called himself “Charisma King”. Warden Leeber couldn’t help but chuckle at how by some weird chance the B movie actor under the bland gray body armor with the navy blue piping had turned himself into a feared criminal. “There truly is no accounting for the depths of human stupidity”, he mused to himself. At this moment arrogance won over stupidity as the a second image of “Charisma King” suddenly materialized out of nowhere and Red Fusion paused in his attack for just long enough that his opponent could drop him with a well-timed kick to the crotch.
It was somehow oddly reassuring to know that an old school shot to the junk was still effective.
If so called “superheroes” were supposed to save the people and the city from harm, then the four clowns in the “Fusion Friends” must have skipped that day of superhero class. Well, three idiots and the guy who looks like a Rorschach Test had climaxed on his face. He got the impression that he wasn’t really a member of this JV cheer-squad of a team, but that he’d somehow foolishly allowed himself to get mixed up in their business. Or maybe he was just bored and helping the three Halloween attired rejects amused him. Warden Leeb didn’t know what his deal was.
He also didn’t much care.
All he knew was that someone had to put a stop to this lethal foursome and it didn’t look as if the trio of overly excited teenagers and the guy who looked like he’d taken a Bic shot to the face was going to get it done. If the current situation was any indication, the “Fusion Friends” were not long for the world of superhero absurdity. The two young women of the group, who looked like they’d just graduated from the “Doctor Imbecile’s Freak Farm”, were barely faring against Mr. Ego, the team infiltration and espionage specialist and Paradox, their very powerful and destructive heavy.
Silverheart had been faring decently against Mr. Ego, although it would have been more than a stretch of the truth to call her performance “equal” to his. In fact, it looked as if Mr. Ego was just toying with her. She’s launch a barrage of fists and feet at him and he’d merely swat them away. Every time she appeared ready to use one of her “powers” on him, he’d merely sidestep her. It was one of these missed uses of her power that gave Paradox, who looked like he’d also been toying with his prey, the equally inexperienced Radiant Light, the opening that he’d been looking for to put her away.
Silverheart had tried to blast Mr. Ego with some kind of energy expulsion and badly missed as he deftly stepped to the side and kicked her in the back of her leg. The kick had sent her off balance and she’d spun around and sent the beam of silver light (of course) speeding towards her partner. Paradox saw this happen.
The Radiant Light didn’t.
Paradox grabbed her by her right arm, spun her around so that she was facing the beam and held her up like a shield. He smiles cruelly when it hit her square in the face. The force of the impact snapped her head back and caused Paradox to slide a few inches in the pavement. Silverheart saw the impact and froze, her face a mask of regret and terror at the thought that she might have just killed a teammate. Mr. Ego took the opening, spun her around and stared directly into her eyes. Seconds later, she went stock still. Mr. Ego smiled a vicious smirk of his own, looked at Paradox and smiled.
“Batter up!” He bellowed with the voice of a god.
The evil smirk on the face of Paradox widened into a full vicious smile and he threw the still unconscious and possibly dead Radiant Light up until her legs were parallel with his face. He locked his massive hands around her ankles and assumed a batting stance. He waved The Radiant Light out before him a few times in what appeared to be “practice swings” and then nodded at his partner in crime.
Once again Warden Leeber couldn’t help but smile.
Sure, they were all super- powered freaks, but the ones in “Pain and Paradox”, or “The Ego Trip” as the citizenry tended to call them, had style.
Warden Leeber was curious as to how this would work out. He understood that his curiosity was based from a morbid desire to see which of the two pretty little things would get the worse end of the deal. He watched, noticing a twisted smile spread on his middle aged face, as Mr. Ego grabbed Silverheart by her head, smiled politely at her and then spun around and thew her at his large ally with all of his apparent strength. He watched as every muscle in the body of Paradox seemed to tense. He watched the gigantic beast of a man straighten up, raise “The Radiant Light” up by her feet so that she was straight up and down over him in his hands and then step forward towards Silverheart. He watched as SIlverheart flew forward, unable to stop her momentum. He watched as her eyes appeared to widen under her silver and pink costume.
Then the impact came.
The Warden had to admit that Paradox had a swing so level that “The Judge”, the slugger of the home town “Unified Metropolis Yankees” would likely have been proud of it, if not envious. He heard his breathing quicken and noticed the slight cloud that formed on the glass as he waited for the impact to happen. When it did he was practically pressed up face first against his window. It was at that exact moment that his gaze was pulled away by the reflection of his office door opening. He heard the impact, which reminded him of an artillery discharge, but he didn’t get the pleasure of seeing one skinny little do-gooder send the other one into orbit.
He turned and looked over his shoulder with an angry glare as his mousy Deputy Warden, Vincent “Vines” Dexter walked into the office. Warden Leeber wheeled on his left heel and snarled angrily at his second in command.
“How many times have I told you to knock before entering?!” He practically bellows.
Vines recoiled from the tone as if he’d been slapped and nearly cowered before him. Leeber looked back out the window just in time to see the leader of “Paradox and Pain”, the “Lord of Pain” deflect an attempted strike by the Rorschach test, slow him with a well-timed kick to the stomach, grab him and hoist him overhead much in the same way that Paradox had lifted the now extinguished Radiant Light. He took two steps to his right and proceeded to drop the masked weirdo head first into the hood of a car, which set the alarm off. Instead of releasing him, The Lord of Pain carried him a few feet, climbed up onto a ruins of a building and then made a proclamation of his own.
“Your defeat was always inevitable!” He appears to bellow.
The Warden watches as he promptly leaps off of the rubble pile and drives the masked hero head first into the ground. The impact sounds like a detonation and throws up a massive cloud of rubble and dust that momentarily blankets the entire battlefield. When the smoke clears, the masked man in the brown coat is a crumpled heap on the ground. “Charisma King” stands up from a nearby porch, or at least what’s left of it. He surveys the results and smiles arrogantly.
“Not bad.” He appears to say. “But I would have given it a little more panache.”
The Lord of Pain responds to the insult with a glare while Mr. Ego and Paradox both appear to roll their eyes. The Warden watches as Paradox shakes his head and then remembers that he has a badly mauled super- heroine in hand. He shrugs, throws her up into the air and when she drops, he leaps up and nearly takes her head off with a vicious uppercut. He watches as her limp body drops to the ground. He steps on it, driving her head even further into the ground and walks over to Mr. Ego, who stands with a deific smile on his face. Paradox walks over to Mr. Ego and smiles and the two men turn and walk together over to The Lord of Pain and Charisma King. The four men nod and look at Red Fusion as he appears to regain consciousness. He looks up and sees the four villains standing over him.
“Get over here, Vines.” Warden Leeber says, almost breathlessly. “They’re about to eliminate the goody two-shoes.”
“Vines” walks over and looks out the window with a confused look on his face.
“You mean the four we hired?” He asks.
Warden Leeber’s head thumps against the window.
“Why must I be surrounded be imbeciles?” He asks forlornly.
Vines shakes his head apologetically and walks over to the window where he stops next to his boss. The two look out the window just in time to see the four villains finish throwing the beaten body of the remaining hero around between them before they toss him to Paradox, who grabs him by his feet and begins to spin him wildly in circles. He spins and spins until he’s almost a blur until he finally releases him and sends him arcing off into the sky. Fusion flies through the air like a dart and achieves so much acceleration that he leaves a smoke trail behind him.
At least until he stops.
By slamming full on into the outer wall of Warden Leeber’s office. The Warden and Vines look out the window at the body of the flat (likely former) superhero and growls irritably.
“Somebody call buildings and grounds to clean that.” He says with an eye roll before he walks over, sits down at his desk, leans back in his desk chair and steeples his fingers in front of his mouth. Deputy Warden Dexter reaches out to turn the door handle when Warden Leeber looks up at him with an expression that’s part contempt and part boredom.
“While you’re at it, inform Security Commander Oley of our new visitor”. He says as a malignant smile suddenly forms on his face. “I’m sure that he and Lois will wish to greet our new visitor personally.”
Deputy Warden Dexter shudders at the mention of the Security Commander and “Lois” but he simply nods, steps out of the office and closes the door behind him.
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Part Two: Yahtzee
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“I’m telling you that I’d have done it with greater style than you did.”
The Lord of Pain rolls his eyes at Charisma King as the two walk side by side into what appears to be the main planning room of their secret lair and they are clearly in the midst of a very heated discussion. Mr. Ego and Paradox walk in behind them and pause in their conversation to look at each other and mutually roll their eyes. Paradox also flexes and rotates his right shoulder a few times, which draws a quizzical eyebrow raise from the perfectly sculpted features of his associate.
“It seems as if yours truly and yourself have to endure yet another circular conversation from our cohorts.” He says with a yawn. “It seems as if this squabbling will never cease between them.”
Paradox closes his eyes and shakes his head in annoyance before he opens them and casts a weary look at Mr. Ego.
“Every single mission ends like this.” He replies. “That B movie clown feels as if he has to give us ‘pointers’ on how to make more of an impression. Frankly, he’s lucky that I threw that dimwit Fusion into Spectacle Island Pen and not him.”
Mr. Ego nods in agreement as he walks over to the unnecessarily long darkly stained wood conference table and sits down. He promptly kicks his feet up and snaps his fingers. A few moments later a middle aged man with dark hair and a surly expression walks over to him.
“Yes?” He asks tersely.
Mr. Ego lifts his right hand and waves in the direction of a far door, which has a sign above it that says “Kitchen” in a pleasant shade of blue. The gentleman with the terse tone looks towards it and then scowls back at Mr. Ego. Paradox takes a chair a few seats down to his right and leans his head back as The Lord of Pain and Charisma King continue to argue at the far side of the room.
“Get your own water, Wallace.” He says. “What do I look like, your butler?”
Paradox responds to him without looking up or opening his eyes.
“Be careful, Wallace.” He chides. “Wellington might actually take a swing at you this time. Remember what happened the last time you fired a manservant. He went off on his own and formed his own team that he named “The Gentleman’s Savages”. We all know how that worked out.”
Mr. Ego lets out an irked huff and shakes his head. He looks at Wellington and smiles a radiant smile. Wellington stands and grits his teeth as he begins to turn towards the kitchen, an action which he clearly does not wish to take. Mr. Ego pours it on even further and in so doing seems to radiate a golden aura around him. Wellington holds his hands up to his head and presses them into his temple, then speaks through grit teeth.
“Very well.” He replies through grit teeth. “Just stop using your damned powers on me. You know that I hate it when you do that.”
Mr. Ego tones down the smile and Wellington shakes his head in irritation. Paradox looks at Mr. Ego men as Wellington strolls away from Mr. Ego, resigned to his fate.
“It’s really not fair when you do that to him.” He says with a grin. “You know that normal people can’t resist it.”
Mr. Ego nods his head.
“Perfection Personified is aware of this.” He replies with a slight tilt of his head. “But he enjoys it so much that he can’t resist.”
Paradox grins and shakes his head. The two look over their shoulders at the Lord of Pain and Charisma Man walk past the table and into the room that’s marked “Game Room”. The two set up near the vintage “Pac Man” and continue their squabble. They somehow manage to shoehorn who will go first into the argument.
“The Lord of Pain should go first.” He states flatly. “After all, he is the one who procured it from the local ‘Chuck E. Cheese’ establishment.”
Charisma Man waves a dismissive hand at his argument.
“By ‘procured’ you mean ‘stole’.” He shoots back. “And the place was closing anyway. I could have gone in there, flashed my winning smile at them and walked out with the machine at a bargain price.”
The Lord of Pain opens his mouth to say something, something that we’ll never hear as he stops as soon as Charisma Man says ‘bargain price’, at which point his mouth snaps shut with a loud clacking of teeth and he stares incredulously at his teammate.
“What part of ‘procured’ are you having trouble with?” He asks. “That it was allegedly going to cease in its operations is irrelevant to the point. We didn’t have to pay for it my way. Your way, you would have spent money on it. ‘The Lord of Pain’ would not care one iota about that if he could be certain that you would not have taken that money from one of our numerous off-shore bank accounts.”
He pauses to take a breath as a skinny man walks over and hands him a towel. The Lord of Pain drops his black cowl and wipes the towel across his face before he raises his cowl and puts it back over his face again, as if he’s hiding his identity from his own teammate. He continues as if the entire towel part had never occurred.
“Which he isn’t.” He explains incredulously as if the statement is in and of itself an exclamation point to an irrefutable argument.
Charisma Man grits his teeth and does it so loudly that it can be heard in the next room as Mr. Ego and Paradox turn and look at each other with “ouch” expressions on their face. Paradox goes to say something when he’s stopped by a raised hand and a headshake from Mr. Ego. He nods in reply and leans back in his chair to watch the show.
“I could have brought the entire store at a severe discount and you could have not only played the game whenever you wanted to, but we could have made money off of it!” He bellows in irritation.
The Lord of Pain hip checks him out of the way and turns to look at the screen as the iconic “PAC MAN” logo fires up on it.
“The Immortal Lord’ prefers his way.” He says archly. “Yours involves too much actual work. The ‘Lord of Inevitability’ didn’t get into this career to do actual work.”
Charisma Man stomps one foot on the floor and lets out a loud snarl of irritation before he walks off to the other side of the room towards one of the candy machines. Both Mr. Ego and Paradox watch this entire exchange with crooked smiles. Paradox rolls his shoulder one more time, which yet again draws a curious glance from Mr. Ego.
“You keep rolling your shoulder.” He says. “What happened, if you don’t mind ‘The Perfect One’ asking?”
Paradox growls slightly.
“I think that little blonde bimbo caught me in the shoulder with her chin when I hit her with the uppercut.” He explains. “She has… or at least had a pointy chin.”
Mr. Ego nods.
“She had to have something going for her.” He replies. “It wasn’t being a super hero.”
Paradox laughs before a look of curiosity comes across his face.
“Speaking of your former servant.” He says. “Whatever happened to the so-called ‘Gentleman’ and his alleged ‘Savages’?”
Mr. Ego replies a quick baleful frown which is quickly replaced by an indifferent shrug.
“To the best of the knowledge of the ‘Most Incredible Being Ever’, once our great assemblage sent them whimpering into the night, they dissolved the group and went their separate ways. ‘The Gentleman’ rediscovered his passionate love for ‘The Ice Queen’ and they eloped and moved back to England. ‘The Kraken’ to Indiana and disappeared. Rumor has it that he’s a family man now with a nice job and he’s given up the super villain business. ‘Mr. Ego’ has no idea what happened to Wraith. He probably reformed his on-again, off-again romance with Princess Calamity and the two are off somewhere feeling mutually bad for themselves and each other.”
Paradox raises an eyebrow.
“Pathetic, but likely.” He replies with a shrug of his own. “You forgot one.”
Mr. Ego sits up and raises a finger to speak when they two are interrupted by The Lord of Pain and Charisma Man as their roving argument wanders back into their immediate vicinity. The game of “Pac Man” was either prematurely concluded or put on hold until the issue could be resolved.
“The Immortal Lord assures you that you could not have done it better.” The Lord of Pain asserts hotly. “In fact, it seems pretty obvious that you only insist that you’re the ‘Alpha’ Thomas because you feel as if you are clearly inferior to our recently departed comrade, ‘Alpha Thomas’. It would be very funny if it wasn’t so absurd.”
Charisma Man flinches and reddens at the assertion that he is in fact the ‘Beta’ Thomas and not the ‘Alpha’ Thomas as he has repeatedly asserted. He turns and arrogantly frowns at Paradox, who just shrugs and flips him the bird.
“Don’t look at me.” He says. “I’ve always thought you were too much of a douche even for this team.”
He pauses for a moment.
“And Alpha Thomas was a great member of this team.” He states. “You’re just a useless asshole in cheap gold tights who took this up because he couldn’t cut it in movies that even Bruce Campbell would have been embarrassed to be associated with.”
Charisma Man scowls at him and looks across the table to Mr. Ego, who blatantly yawns at him.
“Mr. Ego must agree.” He replies. “However, being the compassionate and enlightened deity that he is, he felt that allowing you to utilize your minimal talents for our mutual advantage was the least that he could do for you.”
He pauses for a few moments and smiles as Wellington returns with his water. He nods his head and looks over at Charisma Man before he opens the bottle.
“You’re welcome.”
He punctuates the statement by gracefully lifting the bottle up to his lips. He takes a long, slow sip from it before he looks at Wellington.
“Excellent work, my good man.” He says with a smile. “Perfectly chilled, as always.”
Wellington rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything. Mr. Ego looks over at Paradox and grins.
“No offense intended.” He says to him.
Paradox waves a dismissive hand.
“None taken.” He replies. “And even if there had been, it was wrapped up in a dig at that asshole, so I wouldn’t have minded.”
Mr. Ego declines his head and his bottle of expensive spring water and smiles.
“The Pinnacle of Perfection’ appreciates your forbearance.” He replies.
Paradox declines his head.
“No problem.” He answers before he looks over his shoulder at The Lord of Pain.
“So, we’ve destroyed the ‘Fusion Friends’ and ‘The Gentleman’s Savages’ have dispersed.” He states. “Who or what is next on our list?”
Charisma King steps between them with a dark and tempestuous scowl on his face. He stands up to the full extent of his barely over six foot, one hundred ninety something pound frame and pokes a finger into the chest of the massive Paradox.
“Listen moron.” He says. “You’re lucky that I’m a team player or I’d put you in your place.”
He’s interrupted by a derisive laugh from Mr. Ego and The Lord of Pain barely manages to disguise a smile. Paradox looks down at the finger before turning his bored gaze on Charisma King.
“Is that a fact?” He asks. “As I recall, the last time that you tried that, I was already injured and I still beat your scrawny ass. What would your excuse be when I do the same this time, JV?”
Charisma Man’s eyes flare when Paradox refers to him as “JV”.
“If our partnership wasn’t so lucrative, I’d put you in your place you big moron.” He sneers.
Mr. Ego grunts while The Lord of Pain shakes his head in frustration. For his part, Paradox just smirks at the attempted insult.
“The Lord would like this silly discussion to cease.” The Lord of Pain states firmly as he looks at Charisma Man. “The simple truth is that Alpha Thomas was an original team member and his loss may never be truly replaced. You may never have been recruited had he stayed. That said, you’ve done an admirable job for us.”
Paradox makes a derisive sound.
“Yeah.” He replies. “For a Junior Varsity promotion.”
Charisma King glares hatefully at Paradox.
“I detest you.” He growls through grit teeth.
Paradox reaches forward and pats him on the side of the face as he leans forward and looks at him eye to eye.
“The feeling is mutual.” He replies. “But as long as we keep making money hand over fist together, I don’t need to be on your Christmas card list.”
The Lord of Pain claps a hand down onto Paradox’ shoulder and smiles.
“That’s better.” He says. “The Immortal Lord doesn’t care if we like each other. He does care if we can continue to function as the well-oiled machine that we’ve always been.”
Paradox leans back in his chair and laces his hands behind his head. He looks over at Mr. Ego, who is admiring himself in a small pocket mirror and grins.
“Wallace.” He says.
Wallace Alan Chadwick, the man known as “Mr. Ego” looks up from his self-admiration and looks over at Paradox with a curious expression.
“Yes, Scott?” He asks. “What is it that you needed so badly that you interrupted the Perfect One’s self- appreciation time?”
He looks from Chadwick to The Lord of Pain and smiles.
“It’s mission planning time.” Is his excited reply.
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Part Three: Villains, Unlimited
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Super Heroes and their teams are notoriously easy to bait and trap. This has been well established throughout the history of hero lore and has been borne out multiple times throughout history. In the age of social media, and specifically Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, it’s even easier than ever before to bait a bunch of goody two-shoes into a trap where one can eliminate them. This was a lesson that “The Ego Trip” learned early and quickly and had taken advantage of on numerous occasions, with the untimely demise of the “Fusion Friends” and their masked associate being their most recent successful application of the tactic.
You would think that this tactic would not work as well with anti-heroes and villains.
You would be wrong.
The simple fact of the matter is that both heroes and villains are motivated by the same thing regardless of what the claim, they just apply different names to it. Whether they claim that they do what they do to help people and uphold the American way, or they claim that they’re all about money and power, the simple truth is that they all do it because they want attention. Not only do they want it, they crave it. This is not to say that their other stated motivations are complete nonsense, because they certainly do factor into the larger equation. That said, who else but an attention hog would get dressed up in an ostentatious costume and make a professional spectacle of themselves?
Exactly.
This is the situation that we find ourselves in on two days after “Pain and Paradox” eliminated the “Fusion Friends and Guest”. Much like the day before the sun is shining, the sky is a breathtaking shade of blue and there are wispy clouds dotting the skies over our fair city. This time, however, things are different because it is not our team of world renowned villains who are doing the fighting. This time our fearsome foursome sits in their stealth jet, “The Soaring Ego” (because of course it is) and observes as the trap that they laid out the previous day begins to unfold.
As stated before, super teams are very easy to bait and wouldn’t you know it, the bait used is often so absurdly obvious that any idiot should be able to tell that they’re being played. Perhaps the two super teams that our favorite villains baited into their upcoming confrontation were aware of this and felt as if they had to come anyway. After all, when the most infamous team of villains in the world announces to the world that “We’re going to rob the city mint tomorrow and none of you fools can stop us”, there’s a good chance that at least one team of heroes is going to arrive. This is even easier when the leader of said team is a little too open about her identity on the internet.
Ain’t Twitter grand?
It seems that even professional heroes aren’t above a well-placed tweet that challenges her status as a hero, but also as a leader. It was to this heroine, one Wylde Woman (not all hero names are created equal), that The Lord of Pain and Charisma King tweeted the following:
“Going to rob city treasury tomorrow. A real hero would stop us. Enjoy your day off.”
Wylde Woman responded as follows:
“Wylde Bunch’ will stop you. Justice will be served.”
Ladies and gentlemen, consider the gauntlet thrown.
Heroes are so predictable.
As “Pain and Paradox” wished to eliminate two birds with one stone, the following was also released to social media on the same day;
“Nefarious act tomorrow. Wylde Bunch accepted invite. Any other takers? Lots of money to be had."
Obviously we had a taker.
Back to the present.
Our favorite villains watch as the “Wylde Bunch”, led by the blond haired beauty Wylde Woman assemble on the streets below them. Alongside her are the stunning beauty Silver Magdalene, named because of her long and flowing silver mane, the walking wall of muscle and style Joe Cool and on-again, off-again team mate “The Seventh Circle” Serpentis Vectum. The four stand across from the city treasury and scan the area. After a few moments, Wylde Woman begins giving directions, which all but Serpentis Vectum immediately follow. Instead of doing as she instructs, he walks up and stands at her side with his arms folded behind his back and an inscrutable look on his face.
They don’t have long to wait as a few minutes later another foursome arrives and upon noticing the “Wylde Bunch”, immediately attack. At the forefront of this team is another blonde haired female, except this one has red eyes that immediately glow like the fires of hell upon seeing her enemies. She pulls up and smiles as tongues of flame begin to emanate from the sides of her eyes. She sizes up her enemies and unleashes a sonic screech that hits the Wylde Bunch from behind with such force that it almost drives them into the ground. Neither she nor the rest of her team wait, they engage without giving their enemies any quarter and touch off exactly the brawl that “Pain and Paradox” were hoping for.
The four men leave their invisible place and hop down to the nearest roof, where they land out of sight to watch the outcome of their handiwork. They are clearly pleased with their work as all four men have varying looks of enjoyment on their faces. Below them, Wylde Woman and the leader of this second team are slugging it out as the second blonde follows repeated sonic screams with large gouts of flame from her eyes and hands that keep her adversary off balance in spite of the fact that she manages to avoid most of them. About her the other members of the teams engage with the opposites as Joe Cool is engaged by a red haired warrior who pins him to the ground and proceeds to lay in strike after strike. There is obvious long held animosity between them as neither man seems to care that his opponent is not who he arrived expecting to find and each strike from one is met with an equally savage counter from the other.
Silver Magdalene trades strikes with an attractive African-American woman who has a stylized open eye on her forehead. The two dance back and forth for minutes on end in a stalemate as Silver Magdalene fires beams of silver energy from her hands and her opponent swats them away with a simple wave of her hand before they ever get to her. It’s clear that these two women have battled before and know each other well.
The final battle involves Serpentis Vectum and a dark haired man with a look of intensity about him. Serpentis studies the man as he advances on him but seems unimpressed by his would be attacker.
He closes his eyes and begins to move his hands in front of him as he touches the gold breastplate of his outfit. The dark haired man grits his teeth, sneers and breaks into a run. After a few seconds he leaps into the air, draws two weapons, a nasty looking blade and a very large chain and aims his momentum for his chanting opponent.
He never makes it.
Right as he’s about to strike, the black cloaked and gold adorned man before him opens his eyes and smiles. Seconds later a look of surprise and fury comes across the face of the dark haired man as his chain suddenly takes on a life of its own and wraps itself around his body multiple times. Unfortunately for him it doesn’t stop there as it extends far enough to wrap itself around his neck and squeeze. The sword does him no good either as its ripped from his hands and promptly buries itself into the side of a nearby building, after which he finds himself in the unenviable position of floating up and back towards an overhanging street lamp.
Up above our four villains smile as the battle rages below them.
“I must say that you’ve outdone yourself this time, Charisma King.” “The Lord of Pain” says with a smile. “Your public service message on the city wide nexus was the perfect hook to sink into these fools and now they destroy themselves for our entertainment.”
Charisma King smiles and rubs his knuckles across his chest before he breathes on them and repeats the motion. He looks at this three teammates with an expression of haughty superiority.
“Of course it was brilliant.” He replies. “I arranged it and no one is more brilliant than I am.”
Both Mr. Ego and Paradox roll their eyes at the response while the Lord of Pain doesn’t miss a beat.
“If you’re so brilliant...” He states. “Then why do you have to cheat at Pac Man?”
“And Yahtzee.” Mr. Ego chimes in.
What can be seen of the face of Charisma King turns a dark shade of crimson under his mask as he folds his arms across his chest defensively. Paradox holds out a bag of “Smart Food” to Mr. Ego, who takes a handful and pops it into his mouth. He reaches around Charisma King to The Lord of Pain and offers him the bag, from which the Lord extracts an impressive quantity of the incredible cheese flavored snack. Paradox withdraws the snack and resumes picking from it.
“Aren’t you going to offer me any?” Charisma King growls.
“No.” Paradox replies with a raised eyebrow.
“Why would he offer you popcorn?” The Lord of Pain asks. “You cheat at Pac Man.”
“And Yahtzee.” Mr. Ego offers again.
“I DO NOT!!!!” Charisma King yells in a booming voice.
All three of his teammates glare at him in unison.
“Do you wish to inform our patsies of our presence?” The Lord inquires incredulously.
Charisma King rolls his eyes and thrusts an angry finger downward at the fracas that’s engulfed the street below them. A fracas that’s guaranteed to only get worse with the arrival of the police sirens that rapidly grow louder in the distance. Paradox raises an eyebrow and stands up.
“Perhaps we should take this back to our jet.” He offers. “I for one would like to avoid tussling with the police today.”
Mr. Ego stands up as well.
“Indeed.” He answers. “Perfection Personified is in no mood to deal with the local constabulary. It would ruin his pleasure at watching these eight super chumps annihilate each other.”
The four men nod in unison and The Lord of Pain presses a button on his wrist guard. Seconds later large clouds of dust kick up around them and an illuminated staircase extends to them seemingly out of nowhere. The four men ascend it rapidly and it closes behind them. Their jet lifts up silently into the sky as the four of them walk to the back into a separate cabin, sit down in plush looking chairs and wait for the massive arced screen that’s before them to active. When it does, their smiles only widen.
“Excellent.” The Lord of Pain chortles. “It seems as if the gloomy looking fellow with the gold K-Mart armor set has quite effectively neutralized that scruffy looking fellow with his own chain.”
The other three men nod in agreement.
“I like how he spins him in arcing circles with it so that it both chokes him and slams him into building walls at the same time. It’s a nice touch.”
“It is.” Mr. Ego replies. “It reminds me of my days with ‘The Gentlemen’s Savages’.”
The sentence never concludes as the wide smile evaporates from his face and is replaced with a look of hate filled fury.
“At least he’s quiet now.” Charisma King blurts with a smile.
“Fuck you.” Paradox growls at him. “You know what his former partner did to him.”
Charisma King smiles at Paradox, who flips him the bird in return. The two men don’t get to exchange another word as two smaller men enter the room, one of whom is skinny and at least vaguely metrosexual. One of them walks over to The Lord while the other goes to Paradox and hands him a bottle of water.
“Are you feeling ok, Mr. Scott?” He asks. “You didn’t exert yourself too much?”
Paradox shakes his head and smiles.
“No, Lawrence.” He replies. “I’m fine. Sit down and enjoy the show.”
Lawrence begins to sit down when Charisma King wheels and snarls at him.
“Get out, twerp.” He sneers. “I don’t want you in here.”
Lawrence pales and looks at his boss, who nods his head and gestures for him to sit.
“I wouldn’t.” Charisma King growls.
Paradox looks at him with an icy glare.
“Lay a hand on him and I’ll eject you out of the plane through the bathroom toilet.” He replies. “Just sit down, shut up and enjoy the show.”
Charisma King makes a subtle threatening gesture to Lawrence, who sits down next to Paradox and fixes his eyes on the screen. The scene below them is one of absolute chaos as the local Super being Neutralization and Containment Task Force has joined the action at full power and as such as turned what was a fairly even fight into an all-out war in the streets.
“I love it when a plan comes together.” The Lord of Pain says with a gleeful smile.
The war in the streets rages for the better part of a half hour before the SNCTF gets control over the situation and five of the eight super beings are down and out. The only ones left standing at the end are Wylde Woman, Serpentis Vectum and the woman with the flaming red eyes. Wylde Woman steps forward to try and finish the battle when Serpentis Vectum suddenly turns on her, locks both hands on the side of her head and proceeds to shoot bolts of blue lightning into her head. Wylde Woman goes stiff as her nerves short circuit and her body begins to convulse wildly. (No pun intended). He holds his grip on her for over a minute while his red eyed opponent stares at him in slack jawed surprise.
He finally releases Wylde Woman and her smoking body drops to the ground in a heap. He turns and shrugs as the red- eyed woman with a crooked smile.
“Shocking!” He chortles with glee before he looks the Red Queen dead in her eyes. “You’re welcome, Red.”
With that he waves his hand in a circle and opens a portal. He turns and looks back at the red-adorned woman with a smile and steps through it, after which it disappears. The Police stand by in dumbfounded shock as the woman in red stands and processes what’s happened.
It’s at that moment that she’s blasted in the chest by a massive force and knocked to the ground, unconscious. The Police look around in stunned befuddlement, as they clearly have no idea where the attack came from. Up above, The Lord of Pain takes his hands from the weapon controls and smiles savagely.
“Nice shot.” Paradox says to him with a nod.
“Thank you.” The Lord Replies.
Paradox turns to Charisma King and holds a hand up.
“Before you say it, no, you couldn’t have done it better.”
The three men go silent as Mr. Ego enters the room. Intensity and hatred radiate from him as he stops and looks at his three teammates. The three stand in silence before The Lord nods his head.
“Yes, Wallace.” He says with an understanding smile. “You can take the plane to England. The time for your revenge is at hand.”
This time it’s time for Mr. Ego to nod his head, which is does. He looks at his teammates and utters one word.
“Alone.”
All three nod once in reply, but no further words are spoken.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Part Four: Respite and Revenge
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To recap, Mr. Ego is in England extracting his terrible revenge on his former partner, “The Gentleman”, who has retired back to his home country with his love, for former anti-hero “Ice Queen”. His teammates have heard nothing from him in weeks. Meanwhile, “The Wylde Bunch” and “The Red Queen’s Court” brawled each other to a bloody and violent standstill before Wylde Woman was betrayed by Serpentis Vectum, who left her in a smoking heap before he disappeared into a magic portal. He hasn’t been seen sense. The Wylde Bunch are still recovering from their wounds and effectively out of action, while “The Red Queen’s Court” has found itself incarcerated in the very prison that we began our story in. Red Fusion, the now former leader of the “Fusion Friends” is also there, as is his still mysterious guess team mate. Both Silverheart and The Radiant Light have disappeared and at least one of them is presumed to be dead. The team that was formerly lead by “The Ice Queen” is still disbanded and dispersed across the world. This leaves “Pain and Paradox” as the last team standing and the unquestioned rulers of the super being world.
Just as it should be.
This is where we find ourselves four weeks later as The Lord of Pain and Paradox sit in their base, both with ice cream in hand. Paradox has chocolate with peanut butter sauce while The Lord of Pain has cherry ice cream. Both are sitting back and enjoying a little down time on matching black leather chairs. The Lord’s servant, the demure and long-suffering but mentally sharp Peter Owenson sits to his master’s right, while Lawrence sits on a large couch along the far wall and entertains himself with his favorite comic book, “The Banes of Destruction”. Charisma King sits at the mini bar with a clear drink in his hand and chats with Roger Wright Carter, his personal biographer. All three members of the team are focused on the wall sized television that stretches before them. Paradox drives his spoon into his ice cream and looks up curiously as a news bulletin flashes across the screen.
BREAKING NEWS
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jay Victor Nicholas. We here at Metropolitan Cable News have a breaking report for you. Two hours ago reports of a grisly double homicide came across the wire to our offices. Information is sketchy at this point, but it appears as if someone has killed Morgan King, the man formerly known as “The Gentleman” and his wife, Alexandra Morgan- King, the former “Ice Queen”. Both were internationally known super villains who rained terror down across the United States, the UK, Europe and Asia with their respective groups, “The Gentlemen’s Savages” and “The Epoch”. Their killer is currently unknown and at large.”
The Lord of Pain and Paradox turn and look at each other before they both look at Charisma King. The three men shrug in unison before Charisma King says what all three are thinking.
“He won.” He says with a shrug before he goes back to talking to his biographer.
The Lord and Paradox both nod their heads in agreement before they look at each other. The Lord flashes a positively demonic smile.
“And then there was one.” He states gleefully.
“Serpentus Vectum.” Paradox replies with an equally chilling smile.
END