New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative (17 page)
Read New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative Online
Authors: C.J. Carella
Tags: #Science Fiction | Superheroes
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 19, 2014
They hovered in the air, a few miles away from the apocalyptic fight, unseen and undetected.
“Are you sure they can’t pick us up?” Daedalus asked nervously. He’d managed to cobble together a Myrmidon armor suit, using spare parts he’d scavenged, but he didn’t feel safe being this close to his enemies.
“I’m Undetectable Girl, remember? Daddy made sure of that. Or have you forgotten how much fun you had trying to find me after I escaped from your clutches? Well, not exactly me, but you know what I mean.”
“How much longer do we have to wait? Not that I’m not enjoying watching those two buffoons pummel each other, mind you. Best show I’ve watched in a while. But we’re a little too close to the action.”
“Have to wait until Johnny’s worked himself into a good frenzy,” she said. “The little Outsider seedlings I’ve left in his aura are growing at a nice rate. When they finally corrupt him, we’ll know.”
“How?”
“He’ll kill Mark, of course. And his girlfriend, Mighty Aphrodite, for the sin of being too close to ground zero. Christine will be next. She’s probably too tough for John to handle, but she will turn evil after Marky-Mark dies, and her head will go boom. Seeing her boyfriend die – for the third time – and then losing her soul will be a fitting punishment. I wish it could be worse, and lengthier, but it’s best not to give her too much time. She might think of something. We’re pretty creative bitches, us Dark girls.
“After that, I wouldn’t want to be anybody on Freedom Island, because those first few minutes when you go berserk are a doozy. You were lucky, and burned off all that rage and energy via some rough sex, but I’m betting John is just going to kill every motherfucker he can reach. Say anybody within a few miles. That’s what I did, when I lost my shit over New York. About three million people had a very bad day by the time I was done. After he gets that out of his system, we’ll invite him to join our gang. He won’t be able to say no.”
“I hope you haven’t forgotten we’re within a few miles of him.”
“He can’t see us, Captain Douchebag. On top of my usual anti-detect field, I’m using a Codex Word. You know, the kind of knowledge you’d have killed to get back in the day. Daddy called it
Dim
, which I always thought was kind of weaksauce, but it’s what let him lurk all over the place, even when he spoiled the ninja effect by laughing like a loon.”
“And a pretty close equivalent to your Daddy is coming this way. In his new and improved Brass Man suit.”
“Jealous, Dee? Would you like to go
macho a macho
against him in your tin can, see which one of you has the most nerd cred?”
“Not at the moment. This suit is not my best work, even with the extra power disruptors. He’d probably win. What worries me is that he might see through your invisibility field.”
“He’ll be too busy trying to keep those idiots from killing each other.”
She was probably right, Daedalus admitted to himself. Ultimate and Face-Off were going hammer-and-tongs with genuine gusto, exchanging kilotons of TNT worth of kinetic energy and ignoring their fellow Legionnaires. Hyperia finally tried to intervene and ended up knocked a few miles into the sky for her troubles. It served the pathetic bitch right. Brass Man moved next, encasing the duelists in energy bubbles; those only lasted a couple of seconds, even after the Faerie Godfather arrived and tried to reinforce them with his own force fields. There was no holding them back.
More Legion teams were assembling; he could follow the comm traffic well enough in his suit. If enough Legionnaires concentrated their powers on the dueling morons, they might just be able to overpower them. Dark Christine was counting on John going berserk before that happened. At that point, the Legion was doomed; a John Clark without compunctions to kill would be an unstoppable force. He would pick off the most powerful heroes first, before they knew what was happening, and the rest would be nothing but a source of entertainment for him.
Daedalus was looking forward to the massacre. His usual contempt for the Legion had crystallized into pure hatred, now that the Outsider Taint was running through his veins. Before, he would have felt some regret if his plan to kill every Legionnaire on the planet had succeeded. Now he would enjoy it, as much as anyone in his condition could enjoy anything.
“Almost there,” Dark Christine said, shivering in anticipation. “I can’t feel his emotions, but I can sense the Purple Rain getting stronger. It’s growing all over him now. It’s…”
She froze in mid-sentence. Daedalus turned to look at her. Her face was twisted in an expression of furious shock he’d never seen before. He found it a delightfully refreshing change from her usual malevolent smirk, even if it meant something had gone very wrong with the whole scheme.
“That BITCH!” she screamed. “She…”
Something hit them both like the fist of an angry god before Daedalus could find out how the girl had ruined everything yet again.
It was becoming a regular event, he thought even as he fought to stay conscious.
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 19, 2014
A little earlier:
No
.
That face. That laughing face. Her own face, laughing as Christine screamed in agony. The terrible flashback paralyzed her for several seconds.
She snapped out of it.
She’s here
.
This time the flashback sent her to her knees, tears pouring out.
Payback was going to be a total bastard.
* * *
They came up with a hastily improvised plan and set it in motion.
Step A: Mark went after John. Pretended to. And made sure John was in on the joke by using a low-frequency noise projector to whisper a warning into John’s super-ears just before starting to pummel him. Mark explained the situation while trading punches with John, who had gone along with the plan. Not that those two had ever needed much prompting to fight. Maybe the pretend battle would help them work out some of the bad blood between them.
Step B: While they pounded on each other, Christine went Ninja-Dim, followed the two fighting boys, and examined John’s aura. He had his protective ring on, which blocked his emotions from her, but she could still pick up other stuff. Including the black-purple energy from the Outsiders.
In small amounts, the Taint was devilishly hard to spot. But as John’s emotions ran higher – his anger was directed at the fake Christine rather than Mark, but it was no less real – the stuff started to spread like fungus on old pizza. If it reached critical mass, John would stop being John; he’d lose all control and turn into a murderous killing machine. Like what almost happened to Cassius.
No way she was going to be able to cleanse John’s soul in the time available. Especially since she suspected her evil twin was nearby, ready to pounce.
Minimize the damage, then. Keep it contained
.
Step C: She couldn’t remove the infection, but she could cocoon it in positive energy, prevent its malevolence from reaching John’s core. It took her some doing before she found all the Outsider seeds, but after she did, keeping them isolated was relatively easy.
Along the way, she also traced the infection’s point of origin. Dark Christine was very close, and she was chock full of Taint. So much so Christine could track it even through her invisibility cloak. Just as she sealed off the infection, she found her evil twin.
Dark Christine was flying around with a guy in a Myrmidon suit. Had to be Daedalus Smith, the nemesis she’d never had the pleasure of ass-kicking in person.
Time to change that.
she shouted to Mark, and blasted the two d-bags with everything she had.
Step D: This time, it’s personal.
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 19, 2014
“Playtime’s over, fucko,” I told Ultimate, ducking under a haymaker and regaling him with an elbow to the lower ribs as a parting gift.
We broke away, but for a second it looked as if he would circle back and keep fighting. He was still pissed off. At me, at Dark Christine, at being made the fool yet again. I’d be more sympathetic, except he’d thought he was screwing Christine behind my back, and had been okay with it, the fucking asshole.
Beating on him with everything I got had felt pretty good.
“Face-Off to Freedom Squad One,” I said on the comm as Ultimate stopped attacking me and I dodged Hyperia, who was still on the job. “The fight was a ruse. Repeat. A ruse. We’ve got a new target.”
“This is Ultimate, confirming,” the big asshole joined in. “Christine just flushed out the real enemy. Converge on her beacon.”
“Roger.”
Another big-ass fight was brewing up in a nearby patch of sky.
Christine hadn’t waited for us. As soon as she spotted her asshole alternate self, she’d gone in, guns blazing. As I closed in, I spotted two figures spinning away from a massive energy release. One of them was a red-haired woman wearing a black latex costume and thigh-high boots; she’d clearly stolen the design from Kestrel, Condor’s kinky significant other. The other was inside a Myrmidon suit.
“Daedalus!” John shouted, going after the armored guy. I wished them the best, and headed for Dark Christine. I’d only met her for a few seconds, not too long ago, but it’d been enough to earn her a ‘kill on sight’ entry in my personal little list of people who’d never be missed. Sure, she might look a lot like my Christine, but thanks to our psychic bond I didn’t have to worry about who was who.
My Christine was pressing her attack, hitting her evil alternate with a barrage of psychokinetic blasts. FUBAR Christine was on the defensive, relying on her shields and not trying to strike back. At first I didn’t understand, but then I felt Christine’s rage growing to insane levels. The evil bitch was trying to drive Christine insane with hatred. To corrupt her.
If that happened, the bombs inside her head would go off.
I swooped down from above and smashed into her shields, but didn’t get through them. As I circled back, I could tell she was hurting badly, though: Christine was scoring multiple hits. But she had completely lost it. I tried to reach her, but she’d gone berserk, and I couldn’t get through to her. I’d been in her shoes before; there was a point past which all that remained was the urge to kill. At that moment, she was beyond reason, beyond compassion. Which made her a perfect host for the Outsiders.
Time to end this.
I thought about the outburst of terror Christine felt when at the mention of her evil twin. I drew on all my own fears along with my customary murderous rage, and I hit Dark Christine on the back of the head. No famous last words, no taunts or insults. I just crushed her skull and tore her apart with a follow-up swing that obliterated her corpse. A fresh barrage from Christine turned those remains to atomized spray.
Her anger and hatred were still burning bright. For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to stop, that I’d be next. But she stopped. Anybody can learn to hate, but she managed to set that aside. What we felt for each other was stronger than hatred or anger. For a second, she glowed so brightly I couldn’t look at her, as she got rid of all the power she’d called forth in an explosion of light. When that was over, she was back to normal.
Over. It was finally over. Christine hadn’t turned.
We’d won.