[LNHY/ACRA] The Daily Super Short-Short Story #35

[Saxon Brenton]

The Daily Super Short-Short Story #35
 
A Devil Came Down to Georgia 17
 
Last Time: Damian the wondersock was driven off.
 
     Damian gave the figure a suspicious glance. "And who might you be?"
     The young woman looked human, but Damian wasn't fooled for a minute. 
If nothing else, her psychic aura was quite distinct and she hadn't 
bothered to mask it. She smiled a crooked smile and said, "I'm known 
as Lisa."
     'Known as' noted Damian. Out loud the sock said, "Another Nephilim, 
I see. Well met, dark sister. I'm Damian. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
     "My associates and myself couldn't help but take an interest in the 
Becoming of Mister Wryce. He's very powerful, you may have noticed."
     "Tell me about it," the sock muttered.
     "So powerful, in fact, that we were thinking that he really couldn't 
be allowed to develop untutored," added Lisa. "Champions of Light can be a 
real pain in the butt, but if he could convinced to join our merry little 
band, well, he'd be a real asset. If all else fails with corrupting him to 
Our Side, he'd make a useful bargaining chip."
     "This isn't an official representation by a demon prince, then?"
     "No," said Lisa. "It isn't even an *un*official representation. Of 
*any* dark lords," she added.
     .oO( Ah, ) thought Damian. This was, of course, the nub of the issue 
when you were an evil demonic being living in a superhero class universe: 
there were simply so many diabolic types lurking around and scheming. 
Humans, self-centred creatures that they were, were prone to simply 
theologise the gods of their enemies into universally being demons, and 
the monotheist religions relegated *everybody* else's deities in this 
way as a matter of course. (Which suggested a particularly deep-seated 
paranoia about their place in the universe.)
     The diabolicals themselves knew that this was utter bull, because 
the fratricidal infighting between the various groups of powerful, evil, 
and ego maniacal entities was sometimes the only things that allowed the 
various forces of good to preserve a status quo.
     And this led to a lot of factionalising. There were always small 
groups - gangs, really - setting themselves up in the metaphorical turf 
between the various demon princes and evil gods of various pantheons, and 
when the going got tough there were any number of ways to play off one 
side against another for some independence. It looked to Damian as though 
Lisa's group was one of those, and a powerful Nephilim would be to the 
advantage of such a group - either as a member, or as trade goods.
     Which brought back the niggling question of when one of the big 
boys would turn up, Damian noted.
     "I think I'd be very interested in meeting your group," said Damian. 
"At least for long enough to break our boy prodigy."
 
Tomorrow: Damian's new allies.
 
The Daily Super Short-Short Story series and the wondersocks created by 
Arthur Spitzer, and used with belated permission.
 
-----
Saxon Brenton    University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au 
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero 
fiction of the rec.arts.comics.creative newsgroup can be found at:
     http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/