ASH: CSV Annual #3 - Zoo of Malice (by Tony Pi)
Dave Van Domelen
dvandom at eyrie.org
Mon Aug 20 20:22:39 PDT 2012
[The cover shows Conflicto running for his life towards the viewer, as a
two-headed fire-breathing camel pursues him, one each on each side of the
page. "An untold tale of the CSV!" proclaims a banner in the lower right,
slightly charred by camel-flame.]
==========================================================================
. Blackbird & Countinghouse Presents:
( ) CONCLAVE OF SUPER-VILLAINS ( )
I An Academy of Super-Heroes Universe Comic I
I copyright 2012 by Tony Pi I
Annual #3 - Zoo of Malice
===========================================================================
CODENAME Real Name Powers Status
---------- ------------------ -------------------------- --------
BURNOUT Tyra Dumont Ash Elemental ACTIVE
CHALLENGER Robert Coulter Cybernetics RESIGNED
CONFLICTO Eugene Kwan Friction/Viscosity Control ACTIVE
KALIBAN Kaliban Kalibos Monstrous Strength ACTIVE
MYRIAD Alpha Rho Fourteen Shapeshifting ACTIVE
SPIRAL Anya Kirova Telekinetic Torque RESIGNED
============================================================================
[May 10, 2025 - Lac Montreal, Quebec Sector]
(Challenger)
Robert Coulter held Anya in his arms as they stood at the brink of the
Jacques Cartier Bridge, where it ended suddenly over open water. There
should have been a vibrant city between le Sainte-Helene and Laval, casting
long shadows under the sun, but seven months ago the island of Montreal had
vanished off the face of the Earth, quite literally.
"I fought against the Academy of Super-Heroes there a year ago, when we
tried to conquer Montreal. I swear, those fools did more collateral damage
than we did," Anya told Robert. "Where the hell's the team? They're late."
Her words might have sounded cold to anyone who mourned the loss of
Montreal, but Robert understood. Montreal hadn't been destroyed, it was
just...misplaced. But that was a secret the Conclave of Super-Villains meant
to keep, until they figured out how to leverage that information to their
advantage. When the two fell in love and resigned from the CSV a couple
months ago, they were made to understand that certain secrets must remain
secrets. Or else.
"You sure you want to see them again?" Robert asked. "We could slip
away. They're not even expecting us. I hear Niagara Falls is lovely this
time of year."
"I'm sure. I've been missing them ever since we quit. Well, everyone
except Eugene," she said. "Besides, it was you who couldn't resist
monitoring the encrypted channel, darling."
Robert sighed. "No one really quits the CSV, even a dabbler like me, I
suppose." They had intercepted the coded message while touring Quebec City
incognito. A small-time operation called the Carnival of Crime invited the
CSV to a bioweapon demo here. The bioweapons were not run-of-the-mill
genetically-altered monstrosities, or so the Carnival claimed, but Magene-
spliced creatures whose powers defied the laws of physics. That was tempting
enough for the CSV to send a team to confirm these claims.
Anya hopped back on the piece of junk they called a motorcycle. "Let's
wait at the casino. Hurry."
Robert climbed on behind her. She'd let him drive until New York City
where, running from his old paragang 'friends', he'd gunned the engine so
hard that it broke. Now the wheels spun solely thanks to Anya's telekinetic
powers, and she loved tight corners and deadly speed.
To tell the truth, he wouldn't mind reconnecting with his former
teammates, so long as their friends didn't tempt Anya into rejoining the
team. Villainy had never suited him, but Anya wasn't afraid to let her dark
side loose. Why couldn't they just live a normal life, now that they'd found
each other?
The only person he hoped wasn't coming was Eugene. That kid still
thought he was in love with Anya.
* * * *
(Conflicto)
The trip up the St. Lawrence Seaway to Lac Montreal was supposed to be
at most seven hours aboard Triton's Crabship Alpha, but after nine hours of
staring at the dark waters, Eugene 'Conflicto' Kwan was bored out of his
mind.
The others didn't seem to care, Eugene noted, but maybe it was because
they weren't exactly human. Kaliban, piloting the ship, was a furry gene-
spliced experiment who talked like Shakespeare (hey-nonny-nonny and all
that). Myriad was a blob of protoplasm that could take on countless shapes
(although never the ones that Eugene requested). And mission leader Burnout
was a crimson-skinned madwoman with Medusa-like powers. His teammates took
things too seriously sometimes, which was a problem he'd like to fix.
He fixed himself a bowl of instant noodles. "Anyone care for ramen?"
Myriad scowled, and Kaliban replied with a polite 'nay'.
Burnout didn't even look his way. "Put that away, Conflicto, and focus
on the mission. If these animals truly are effective bioweapons, then we
must acquire them if the price is right."
"Or steal them. See? Sometimes I listen." Eugene walked up next to
Kaliban with his bowl to stare at the viewscreen. "How close are we?"
"The isle we seek is near, my slipp'ry friend," Kaliban said.
"That's what you said five minutes ago." Eugene poked at the ramen with
his chopsticks, and wondered if the noodles would go down more smoothly with
a little help from his friction power.
That was when things went wrong.
Maybe he should've used a fork instead of chopsticks, or used his power
to keep the bowl of noodles from slipping out of his hand and onto the
controls. Or turned the hot soup into goop with his viscosity mojo before it
could seep into the circuitry. But it was too late; the panel sparked and
burst into flames. "Sorry. You'd think Tritey would have waterproofed..."
The lights died suddenly, and the crabship spun upside-down.
Kaliban's acrobatic reflexes saved him from smashing against the walls,
and Myriad simply oozed and absorbed the impact, reforming herself into an
upright position. Eugene and Burnout, however, weren't so lucky and were
thrown about the cabin, ending up in a tangle of limbs, bruised and battered.
"You imbecile!" Burnout's devil-red face hovered over Eugene's, her eyes
glowing gold. A lock of Eugene's hair crumbled into ash.
The crabship jolted again as it crashed into something outside, but
Myriad was ready this time, wrapping them all in a cushion of protoplasm.
After Myriad released them, Eugene extended his tactile senses outside
the ship, feeling the grit of sand and rock beneath the smooth outer shell of
the crabship. "Land ho!"
He found the escape hatch in the dark, popped it open and climbed
outside with the others. The ship had crashed on a rocky shore. Myriad
extended her neck like a giraffe to survey the area. "We're on the right
island. I see the casino."
"Lucky for you, Conflicto," Burnout said.
Kaliban examined the damage to the crabship. "By chance the vessel's
hull hath not been breached. Let Triton's 'bots begin the ship's repair."
He climbed back inside to activate the repairbots, the ones Eugene always
thought looked like killer octopi. Triton always made cool gadgets, even
though he sometimes went overboard with his ocean fetish.
Burnout tapped her wrist-glyph and looked at the time flashing white on
her scarlet skin. "We're late. Come on." A fence blocked the way onto the
road, but she simply transmuted part of the wire-mesh into smoldering ash
that blew away on the wind.
Eugene followed her through the gap in the fence and stepped onto the
roadway. "Hey, this is where they used to hold the Canadian Grand Prix
Formula One!" He loved formula racing, both as a fan of the sport and a
wanna-be driver. He even discovered his powers speeding down the hills of
San Francisco in a homebrewed yellow-and-orange go-kart. "I'll have to get
my racing fix somewhere else, I guess. Hey Burnsy, you think they'd let me
race in the Monaco Grand Prix?"
Burnout smirked. "Only if you blackmail them."
* * * *
(Challenger)
Robert was sure they were being watched, but by what, he didn't know.
It wasn't the cameras he was worried about. Those were a given for any
casino. But as he and Anya waited at the front entrance, he thought he saw
monkey-like shapes looking down from shadowed crannies higher on the
building, and peeking from the emptied fountain. However, an infrared scan
with his cybereye revealed no heat signatures. Even when he reviewed the
recordings, he could only see clouds of dust blowing in the wind, although
when he paused the footage at certain points, the fleeting images did look
vaguely like monkeys. Odd.
He'd investigated the provenance of the two islands since the
disappearance of Montreal. The city had maintained the islands as Parc
Jean-Drapeau, but when Montreal vanished, so did the people who worked and
played on the islands. Cirque du Marche-Dieu, which was the legitimate front
for the Carnival of Crime, petitioned the government to buy the islands with
its casino, amusement park, and all. They needed new training facilities to
replace the one that had vanished with the city, argued the new owner, Zoel
Quenneville. Quenneville...a young man propelled into the spotlight when the
circus's owners disappeared in the incident...was an enigma, but one thing
Robert did dig up was his love of animals. Perhaps that had made him see
monkeys where there were none.
Then again, they were here to see Magene bio-weapons, and that might
have been their first taste.
The first of their former teammates to arrive was Conflicto, sliding
across the asphalt towards them with a wicked grin on his face. "Spiral! My
lovely, fiery ballerina, what are you doing here? Tell me you've come to
your senses at last and tracked me down!" He skated straight towards Anya
with open arms.
Anya lifted her hand and made a swirling motion with two fingers,
trapping Conflicto in a two-footed figure-skating spin before he could hug
her. "I didn't come to see you, Eugene." She waved at the others with her
other hand. "Myriad. Kaliban. So good to see you both!"
Burnout didn't seem to be fazed by Anya's snub, Robert noted. The woman
wasn't one to socialize, and had only rejoined the team after he and Anya
quit. However, if there was one person you shouldn't anger, it was Burnout.
She put truth to the saying, "if looks could kill."
Myriad added a pair of extra arms to her lithe human shape to hug Anya
tight. "A delightful surprise, Anya. How goes your tour?"
Robert shook Kaliban's paw. "Hey, Kal. Are you in charge tonight?"
"Alas, that honour falls to Burnout here," Kaliban replied.
It made sense to Robert: Tyra 'Burnout' Dumont grew up in Montreal.
She'd be able to negotiate in French, if need be.
"OK, I remember. Hands-off the Spiral," Conflicto shouted. "Let me
outta this before I hurl, love?"
Anya released him. Conflicto moaned and staggered about, trying to
regain his balance.
Robert greeted Burnout. "Fine team you've assembled, Dumont. But why
bring Conflicto?" Myriad and Kaliban, he understood. Both were products of
Khadamite super-science: Myriad being an artificial life-form from the ground
up, and Kaliban an abandoned genetic experiment of uncertain origins. They
knew more about bioweaponry because that's what they were. Eugene, on the
other hand, was a hyperactive disaster. The kind of bioweapon only nature's
random whim could create.
"Believe me, I would have gladly left him behind. Unfortunately, he's
our resident expert on animals and circuses. Once he found out what the
mission was, it was easier to shut him up by letting him come than suffer all
his whining."
They all headed inside together, but as he was taking his third step,
Robert slipped and fell. He activated his forcefield in the nick of time,
making the pratfall more embarrassing than painful.
"Hey klutz, is your cyber-ass OK?" Eugene asked.
"Grow up, Eugene," Anya snapped. She helped Robert up.
Seven months ago, the Casino would have been a cacophony of noise and
chatter, twenty-four seven. The silence now unnerved Robert.
Trotting into view from deeper into the casino came a very strange
creature: a two-headed, two-humped camel wearing matching bow-ties. The head
on the right spoke.
"Welcome. I'm Monsieur Cryptozoologique."
* * * *
(Conflicto)
"Whoa." Eugene couldn't believe his eyes. "What kind of bioweapon are
you?"
The camel's left head snorted fire in answer.
A fire-breathing, two-headed camel wearing red-and-white polka-dot
bowties. It was everything he didn't know he wanted in a pet. But the name
it said was a mouthful. He hadn't the patience for that. "Well, you have me
sold! I think I'll call you...Zooey? No, wait...Sir Camelot!"
Burnout glared at Eugene. "Slow down, Conflicto. Bon soir, Monsieur
Cryptozoologique. My name is Burnout, and I speak for the Conclave of
Super-Villains. I did not expect to be negotiating with a...Bactrian."
"Your voiceprint is a ninety-nine percent match with Zoel
Quenneville's," Challenger said. "Monsieur Quenneville, are you
communicating with us through a vocoder implant or animal telepathy?"
"Very impressive, Monsieur Coulter. I'm a big fan of your writing, by
the way." The camel double-winked. "All your questions will be answered in
due time. But first allow me to give you a quick tour, ply you with
champagne, and show you some of the bioweapons under my control."
They followed the camel. All the slot machines they passed were powered
off, but every surface remained polished to a gleam. "Champagne?" asked the
camel. Six monkeys in little butler uniforms marched forward, each carrying
a silver tray with a single flute of bubbly. They weren't flesh and blood,
however, but looked like animated sand sculptures.
Sandcastle monkey butlers. In tiny tuxes. Eugene grinned. "You, Sir
Camelot, sure know how to entertain!" He took a glass and chugged the
champagne down.
Challenger examined the monkeys. "So they're made from living sand?
That explains the lack of heat signatures."
"My powers allow me to splice the Magene into the DNA of animals, thus
creating the unique menagerie you will see tonight," Sir Camelot said. "I
can place them under my telepathic control, as I have with this camel, but
they are also sentient and can be trained to do what you will."
Burnout crossed her arms. "You call firebreathing camels and sand
monkeys weapons of war? We don't need a petting zoo, Monsieur. We need
genuine threats."
"And you will have them, for the right price." The camel stopped at a
window. "Look."
A giant eagle with glowing silver eyes swooped into view. It was big
enough to carry off a horse. After a pass it climbed back into the sky.
"That transgenic eagle has an internal fusion reactor. Normally it's
quite stable, but he was engineered as a living bomb, intended to destroy
Raleigh, North Carolina."
"Why Raleigh?" Challenger asked.
"Oh, a personal grudge that needn't concern you. I can easily teach him
to destroy any city you wish. If I let him go free, he will fly at a
substantial fraction of the speed of sound towards his target. Imagine a
convocation of these eagles in war."
Challenger frowned. "I don't like it, Burnout. The scale of
devastation such a weapon could bring is beyond..."
"Not your call. You quit the team, remember?" snapped Burnout. "I
will, however, take your concern under advisement. Monsieur, can you work
with any Magene sample?"
"Indeed I can," the camel said. "Alas, my powers don't work
instantaneously, so you must place your orders three months in advance. If
you have specific Magene samples, please do provide them."
Eugene walked beside Spiral. "Sweetie, are you wearing the perfume I
sent you last month?" He'd known she was in New York City on her birthday,
but hadn't known exactly where she was, which made conventional delivery
difficult. Rather than wasting time hiring a useless detective, he
'borrowed' the CSV zeppelin instead and airdropped a thousand bottles on tiny
parachutes, each with a note: "A handsome reward for anyone who can deliver
this gift to my darling Spiral. Signed, Conflicto."
Spiral made a twisting motion with her thumb and forefinger, and Eugene
felt her telekinesis sharply twist his nose. "Ow!"
"That stupid stunt of yours made us the prey of a dozen paragangs that
day, Eugene. Robert and I barely escaped. Thanks to you, that was the worst
birthday of my life."
"It was?" Eugene was stunned. "Sorry. I didn't mean to spoil your
birthday."
"Look, I'm with Robert now. Leave me alone."
They followed the camel into the high-rollers' salle, and the monkeys
closed the door behind them. Only a single poker table remained, and on top
of it stood a skunk with two antennae and a glowing ruby stripe, bathing
everything in its reddish light.
Spiral tickled the skunk's chin. "She's adorable."
The skunk twitched its antennae at her.
Eugene crinkled his nose. "Let me guess...a stink bomb? Fireball fart?"
"She analyzes her enemies with her antennae, and fills the room with an
undetectable gas tailored to swiftly incapacitate its foes," the camel
said. "Like you."
It didn't sink in for Eugene what the camel meant until he saw Myriad
melt into a gray puddle. Spiral fainted. He leapt forward to catch her, but
his legs suddenly gave out under him and he fell as well, landing on his
side. All he could hear were his other teammates collapsing, and all he
could see was a camel's foot about to kick him in the head.
* * * *
(Challenger)
Robert awakened, his head still groggy with whatever chemical the skunk
had created.
He seemed to be in the central ring of a big circus tent, bound back-to-
back with someone. Cryptozoologique must have moved them to La Couronne
Amusement Park.
It wasn't a rope that restrained them, however, but a great white
serpent that had wrapped itself tightly around their chests. He struggled
but couldn't break free. It took three attempts to even fire up his internal
diagnostic subroutine. His cybernetic systems seemed intact, but the skunk's
drug was frazzling his biological interface.
"You'll find the embrace of an elasti-boa quite difficult to escape,
Monsieur Coulter," the snake said with Quenneville's voice. The fact the
circus owner was a paranormal had answered that nagging question Coulter had
had about his age...you generally didn't find old paras, as very few survived
the disaster of '98.
"Everything's blurry. I don't think I can burn our way out of this,"
Burnout whispered. She raised her voice. "What do you want with us,
Quenneville?"
There was no sign of Anya, Eugene, or the others in the tent, so far as
Robert could see. "What did you do with our teammates?" he asked.
"They're safe...for now," the snake hissed. "An entire city doesn't
just vanish. I lost my fiancee that day! Your team clashed with the Academy
of Super-Heroes in my city just two months before it vanished. I'm betting
whatever you did had something to do with it."
So it was about Montreal!
"It was nothing we did," Burnout said.
That was the truth. Technically, Montreal had been accidentally
transported off-planet by a super-hero's magic while he was fighting a mad
god.
"But you know something," the snake insisted.
Robert was torn. He could tell Quenneville the truth about Montreal to
save his team, though the grief-stricken man would never believe that the
city was now stranded on Venus, kept alive by a precarious bubble.
Or, he could keep the secret as everyone on the team had promised.
After all, once the current location of Montreal got out, some foolhardy
heroes would likely mount a rescue mission without thinking it through, one
that might burst the dome and kill everyone inside.
"No, we know nothing," he said.
"You leave me no choice, then. I will kill a member of your team unless
you talk. You have five minutes."
The sound of low growling surrounded them, coming from three sources as
far as Robert could tell. "What's that?"
The elasti-boa licked the air with its tongue. "Invisible tigers.
Hungry ones."
* * * *
(Conflicto)
Normally Eugene would've loved the idea of an elasti-boa, but not so
much when one was wrapped around him and Myriad, threatening them with death.
He'd rather use one to bungee-jump off the CN Tower, but no...Snakey was
demanding to know where Montreal was.
"Can't you just morph and escape, Myri?" Conflicto whispered.
"No, he put monosodium glutamate in the water. Harmless to you, but even
in one part per million, it gums me up like a jelly baby."
MSG? So that was why she wouldn't touch instant ramen.
"Don't you dare say anything," Myriad warned.
"What's the harm?" Eugene whispered. "It's not like he can do anything
about it."
Snakey overheard him and squeezed harder. "I knew it. Tell me,
Conflicto, or I kill Spiral first."
Eugene paled. Snakey knew his weakness.
"If you do, Eugene, Burnout will turn you to ash," Myriad said.
"Remember what the volcano did to Pompeii?"
"If the threat of harm to your teammates doesn't sway you, let me
introduce you to my pets as well," Snakey said. In the waters surrounding
them, giant creatures emerged like floating submarines around them. Eugene
counted three; there could be more. They were colossal three-eyed
crocodiles...or were they alligators? Either way, he didn't like the way
they smiled at him. The nearest one opened its mouth, revealing
diamond-sharp teeth. "Tell me or I'll make it bite off one of your feet."
Eugene would have wet himself if his predicament didn't make that
redundant. He needed Spiral and both his feet. To heck with not saying
anything...he couldn't bear it anymore. "All right, all right, I'll tell you
where Montreal is! Venus!"
Myriad smashed the back of her head against Eugene's, more squishy than
painful. "Shut up!"
"Venus." The snake hissed. "The planet Venus. This is no time for
jokes, Conflicto."
"Some imagination the kid has," said Myriad. "See what a joker we have
to deal with every day?"
"Hey! Just whose side are you on?" Eugene asked. "It's stuck on Venus
but it's safe, I swear! There's a magic dome protecting it and everything.
Honest! Let us go and maybe we can help you..."
"What kind of idiot do you take me for? No one has the power to
transport an entire city to another planet." Snakey squeezed tighter with
its coils, and one of the gators started nibbling on his left boot. "The
truth, now, or pick the foot you want to keep."
* * * *
(Challenger)
"Twenty seconds," said the snake, its head weaving before Robert's
vision. "I think I'll maul Burnout first and snack on her eyes."
Robert looked past the snake with his cybernetic eye and tracked the
heat signatures of the three invisible tigers circling them. "They're five
meters away and closing," he whispered. "Your eyes working yet?"
"Almost, but I can't incinerate what I can't see," Burnout said.
He had to do something, but with the elasti-boa binding his arms and
legs, he couldn't use his tranquilizer darts. His forcefield projector might
be able to generate a pulse powerful enough to free him and Burnout, but he'd
have to expend his energy store in one burst that would likely...and
ironically...burn out his circuits.
"Five seconds."
Robert could smell the stink of the tigers' fur. "This might hurt," he
warned Burnout, and activated the forcefield.
The sheath of force snapped into being, emanating from his subcutaneous
emitters. In the span of a second, the protective barrier enveloped him and
ballooned, slamming into the three invisible tigers and pushing Burnout away
from him. It also stretched the elasti-boa to its limits, and because it
couldn't gain traction on the forcefield, the snake slipped and flew off into
the cloth of the big top like a stretched rubber band. His forcefield
sputtered and failed, but it had done its job: they were free.
Robert ran to Burnout, who was picking herself out of the stands. She
was bleeding from a head wound. "Are you all right?"
"I'll live. The tigers?"
He did a quick check for the heat signatures of the invisible tigers.
They were battered by the impact of the forcefield, but still stirring. "Um,
we better run."
* * * *
(Conflicto)
Eugene needed to think up an escape plan, fast. Unfortunately, the drug
was dulling his senses, and he couldn't extend his field beyond touch. He
could make the elasti-boa frictionless and try to squirm out, but then he
would have to carry Myriad somehow. Those three-eyed crocs would probably
bite off his legs while he was wading through the water.
Wait...Myriad was just living liquid. That MSG in the water might've
gummed her up, but he was the Clown Prince of Viscosity, wasn't he? He could
give Myriad the consistency of syrup if he wanted to. All he had to do was
to keep in contact with her.
He infused Myriad's protoplasmic form with his power. "Myri? Feel
that?" he whispered.
"Yes. Thank you." She morphed into a thin, cable-like shape, one end
tied around Eugene's waist and the other shooting out to grab hold of a
handrail onshore. Her sudden size-change startled Snakey, who fell in coils
off Eugene into the water. Before Eugene could make a wisecrack, Myriad had
pulled him out of the croc-infested waters and reformed beside him in the
shape of a centaur. She hoisted him onto her equine back.
The giant three-eyed crocs swam towards them.
"Spiral's still in trouble out there, and we have to find her,"
Conflicto said. "Giddy-up, Myri!"
Myriad lassoed his head and covered his mouth. "Shut. Up."
They galloped.
* * * *
(Challenger)
When Robert and Burnout arrived at Le Malefice, huge pieces of the giant
rollercoaster were crashing down. Two mammoths made of solid iron were
chasing after Anya and Kaliban, who were still bound together by an
elasti-boa but were rolling like a log on the maintenance path under the
ride. The animals didn't care that they were destroying the landmark
attraction.
"Anya, look out!" Robert cried as a section of rail fell. But before
the twisted debris could flatten their teammates, Burnout glared at the
wreckage and turned it to cinders.
Robert didn't know how to stop the mammoths, but he had to save Anya at
any cost. He ran towards the disaster zone.
"Challenger, you fool, the girders will crush you!" Burnout shouted.
"Turn it into dust for all I care!" he cried, and clambered onward over
fallen metal. He heard creaking sounds above him, then soft explosions that
made ash rain down. Ahead, he saw that the elasti-boa wasn't constricting
Anya and Kaliban anymore; all that spinning had rendered it incapable of
coherent thought. But the mammoths were still charging towards the two.
Suddenly, the mammoth in front lost its footing and fell. The one
behind it couldn't stop its momentum, and crashed into its mate. The
gargantuan beasts slid to a sudden halt, but they might have crushed their
prey if Kaliban hadn't grabbed Anya and back-flipped out of the way.
A centaur and her rider leapt over Robert. "Conflicto is here to save
the day!" Eugene shouted.
Kaliban carried Anya to them. "You almost crushed us," Anya snapped.
"Nonsense! I made them stop five meters from you." Eugene glanced at
the mammoths. "OK, five CETNImeters, but still, you're not pancake."
"I'm just glad you're all right." Robert drew Anya in for a hug, which
caused disappointment to shadow Eugene's face. Robert didn't care. It was
time Eugene realized who Anya belonged with.
Burnout incinerated a clear path and joined them. "We can't rest, there
are still invisible tigers after us. We have to find the real Monsieur
Cryptozoologique. Conflicto, Spiral, and Myriad: the three of you distract
the animals. Kaliban, Challenger and I will hunt their master."
"Invisible tigers and two lovely ladies by my side, huh?" Eugene forced
a grin. "And you said this mission would be boring."
* * * *
(Conflicto)
A whirlwind of cotton candy danced pirouettes down the path towards the
circus tent, sticking to the fur of the invisible tigers, who now looked like
great Cheshire Cats with pink candy smiles.
"Hello kitties," Eugene said. It was he who found the cotton candy
machine and came up with the idea, but it took Spiral's telekinetic torque to
make the device into an effective confection cannon. Why couldn't she see
that they made the perfect team?
Now that the cats were visible, Myriad took the shape of a kraken,
wrapped her tentacles around the tigers and pulled them towards the swing
rides. They clawed and bit at Myri, but they drew no blood as she simply
flowed her 'wounds' shut. Eugene gave her a thumbs-up as she was chaining
them up, but she shouted: "Duck!"
If Eugene hadn't crouched for cover in the nick of time, the living
missile would have slammed into his head. Instead, the three-eyed crocodile
overflew him and crashed into the cotton candy machine. Luckily, Spiral had
darted out of the way as well. They turned and saw one of the mammoths
picking up another crocodile, hoisting it like a javelin.
"Split up!" Spiral snapped. "He can't aim for us both!"
She headed for the ferris wheel, while Eugene slid towards the water's
edge, backwards and waving his arms. He wasn't going to let them hurt
Spiral. "Hey mammoth, bet you can't hit me!" How good could its aim be,
anyway, with all that stainless steel wool over its eyes?
As it turned out, pretty good. The crocodilian missile hit Eugene
square in the chest, knocking the breath out of him. He fell into the river
and began to choke on the water....
* * * *
(Challenger)
Kaliban had picked up the scent of the fire-breathing camel, and it led
them to the Biosphere. The Biosphere was a geodesic dome, only it had lost
its acrylic bubble in a fire half a century ago. All that was left was the
steel skeleton and the museum building inside.
"Find Quenneville," Burnout said. "Break him."
"He's doing this out of grief," Robert replied. "If we can convince him
that his fiancee is still alive..."
"Not everyone survived in Montreal," Kaliban said. "We cannot tame the
beast with hopeful lies."
Sand choked the air around the Biosphere. As the three ran towards the
museum entrance, rabid monkeys coalesced out of the sand and assaulted them.
One landed on Robert's shoulder, trying to scratch his human eye out, while
another flew apart into a little sandstorm, seeking nooks and crevices where
grit might fry his cybers. He pressed a hand against his good eye for
protection.
Neither Kaliban nor Burnout were faring better. Kaliban had closed his
eyes and was relying on his sense of smell to guide him, but dozens of sand
monkeys pummeled him from every angle, only to fly apart when his hands grab
for them. Burnout, whose powers relied on sight, fought the stinging
sandstorm to activate her killing gaze. But as soon as she turned one of the
monkeys to ash and molten glass, another one...possibly the same one...would
coalesce out of the flying sand and attack her again.
"Won't work, Burnout, they're like djinni," Robert shouted into the
sandstorm. He was the only who could really see, relying on his cybernetic
eye to guide them closer to the entrance. He scanned for heat signatures
again. There were three, high up. "Camel, man, and giant eagle on the roof
of the museum!"
"Grab on to me. I'll climb the Biosphere," Kaliban told Robert and
Burnout. They held on tight as Kaliban leapt, caught a brace, and began to
climb the geodesic dome. The pesky sand-monkeys mobbed them, weighing
Kaliban down. Their teammate was superhumanly strong, but even he had his
limits.
Monsieur Cryptozoologique laughed from the rooftop. "So, you've found
me somehow. It doesn't matter, because you'll never reach me. This is not
the end of our war, Conclave of Super-Villains." The giant eagle took the
man gently in the cradle of a claw.
Burnout opened her eyes. "I'm going to incinerate your ass..."
"Can't risk it," Robert warned. "That eagle's thermonuclear."
The eagle took wing and flew out a gap at the top of the geodesic
dome. "A la prochaine," Cryptozoologique cried.
The ferris wheel from La Couronne crashed through the park towards the
Biosphere. Riding in a giant hammock near the centre of the wheel were Anya,
a soaking-wet Eugene, and a three-eyed crocodile. Anya aimed both hands at
the eagle. "This is for nearly drowning me, bastard!"
Monsieur Cryptozoologique slipped out of the bird's claw. He fell
screaming from a height of seventy meters until he hit the waters of the
channel below, and sank out of sight. The sand monkeys suddenly lost
cohesion and the sandstorm died, but the eagle kept flying, reaching nearly
the speed of sound in a matter of seconds and vanishing to the south.
Robert spat sand from his mouth. "Is he dead?" he asked.
"For all we know he's got teleporting walruses in the water who saved
his ass. What do I care?" Eugene gave the three-eyed crocodile a loving pat
on the head. "All I know is, if it weren't for Myri here I'd probably be
dead."
The hammock sprouted a woman's head. "What are you talking about,
Conflicto? I'm the hammock, not the crocodile."
"You mean this is a real croc?" Eugene said in a very small voice.
The crocodilian beast licked Eugene's face, as though it understood.
Anya smirked. "I think he's taken a liking to you, Eugene."
"I better warn Raleigh about that eagle." Robert hoped some competent
super-hero would be able to stop that nuclear warbird before North Carolina
got too...toasty. "You better get back to your ship, guys. This place will
be swarming with heroes soon. We should say our goodbyes, Anya."
Myriad lowered Anya, Eugene, and the crocodile down to the ground and
resumed human form. "Come back with us, Spiral?"
Robert tensed. What if Anya said yes?
"You shouldn't, Anya," Eugene said. "I don't want to worry about you
getting hurt anymore."
His words surprised Robert, as well as Anya.
"I...I think I do stupid things to impress you, but usually I just make
your life miserable," Eugene continued. "Maybe if I faced the fact that
you're really gone, I can start taking things a little more seriously."
Anya nodded. "That's big of you, Eugene. And good job on stopping
Quenneville." She turned to Myriad and hugged her. "I promise I'll visit,
though."
Eugene climbed on the back of the crocodile and struck a pose, arms
akimbo. "Well, I'm taking Ringo here home, and the rest of the animals. If
we leave them here, they'll just lock them up. Beware, world...here comes
Conflicto's Zoo of Malice!"
Robert and Anya exchanged glances and smiled. It was good to hear
Eugene making an effort to be more serious...but that was going to be an
uphill battle.
THE END
=============================================================================
Editor's Notes:
This started as a submission to a Canadian science fiction anthology,
one with sufficiently creator-friendly terms that neither Tony nor I would
have to sign over rights to characters or setting (just the first publication
rights). Since the intent was to put this in front of readers who'd never
heard of RACC, much less ASH, it needed to be a bit heavier on explanation
than it would have had it been written for RACC in the first place.
Sadly, it didn't get accepted, so Tony gave me the go-ahead to post it
once I'd gotten it in shape. Mainly that meant formatting and the removal of
all the non-ASCII-7 characters infesting the Quebecois French. And the
damnable smartquotes. And the accent over the first E in Biosphere. :)
Actual editing for content was pretty minimal, since I'd had input during the
original writing, although I did change "candy floss" to "cotton candy" in
deference to my American-English sensibilities.
This story takes place in the rather long gap between CSV #25 and #26,
more specifically in the relatively quiet period between ASH #41 and #42.
For more of Tony's current work, see http://www.tonypi.com !
============================================================================
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and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH !
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There's also a LiveJournal interest group for ASH, check it out at
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you're on Facebook instead, there's an Academy of Super-Heroes group there
too).
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