New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative

by C. J. Carella

  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.

  Christine Dark

  Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 19, 2014

  A little earlier:

  Mark called her through their telepathic link. He was angry, but he was also scared, and that terrified her. He didn’t scare easy.

 

 

  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. Stupid question, but the answer would give her enough time to get her crap together.

 

  She’s here.

  Mark went on.

 

  This time the flashback sent her to her knees, tears pouring out.

 

 

 

 

 

  That triggered another bout of PTSD, mercifully not for long.

 

  The savagery behind her thought scared her a little, but it was better than the terror she’d felt before.

  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.

  Face-Off

  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.<
br />
  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.

  Christine said.

  Over. It was finally over. Christine hadn’t turned.

  We’d won.

  Chapter Eight

  Hunters and Hunted

  Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 19, 2014

  This is it.

  All in all, Daedalus Smith enjoyed his last death better than the previous one. He’d been put down like a dog during that demise, with no chance to do anything but whine a little before the end.

  Now, he did his level best to take some of the other bastards with him.

  Like he’d told the evil bitch, his current Myrmidon suit was second rate at best. Pitiful muscle augmentation, barely-adequate armor plating, pathetic force fields. Its only saving grace was the Outsider energy generator he’d built into it: its disruptor beams were death on Neolympians. That might be enough.

  He recovered from the girl’s surprise attack in time to see Ultimate heading straight for him. Johnny still held a grudge over Daedalus’ previous escapades. The big lug never had much of a sense of humor. Killing him would be a pleasure.

  Daedalus unleashed a torrent of Outsider energy towards Ultimate. The beams of sickening purple-black force reached towards John – and hit an electromagnetic field surrounding him, dissipating harmlessly.

  God damn it!

  Someone had figured out a countermeasure for his doomsday weapon. He should have kept up with the literature, he thought as he dodged John’s relentless attacks. No use trying to get into fisticuffs with the big guy; he would rip open the suit as if it was made of cardboard. The only silver lining he could see around this particular thunderhead was that the anti-Outsider protective field was short-lived: his suit’s sensors calculated its protection would only last thirty to forty-five seconds under current exposure levels, less if Daedalus amped things up.

  Time to amp things up.

  He poured it on, and John, intent on reaching his tormentor, didn’t notice his portable electromagnetic field failing until he got hit. Daedalus grinned as the Invincible Man convulsed in agony. Even better, the Taint inside of the big lug was feeding on the dark energy; Johnny might actually end up switching teams and turn the last stand into an actual win. Maybe…

  A burst of plasma beams hit the Myrmidon from behind, raising the temperature inside the suit to a very uncomfortable hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Daedalus’ plans and hopes shriveled and died even as he screamed in anger and pain.

  Brass Man had joined in the fun.

  Gritting his teeth against the agony of being slowly roasted alive, Daedalus fired off a wide blast of Outsider energy, catching both Boy Scouts. Brass Man’s defenses held up under the attack, but Ultimate dropped limply towards the ocean below. Daedalus sent a brace of mini-missiles after him, hoping to finish him off, but Brass Man intercepted the volley with an energy shield.

  Too bad. He’d almost killed Ultimate. But he’d failed, and he’d literally shot off his wad.

  The new and improved Doc Slaughter battered the Myrmidon suit with a variety of weapons, including some sort of gravity-based tidal-force generator that overloaded all his defensive systems. Daedalus felt his body being pulled apart like taffy.

  “Fuck you, Slaughter,” he managed to say as he activated a self-destruct switch in a last-ditch try to get himself a date for Hell.

  And that was that.

  Hidden Facility, Delaware, July 20, 2014

  MUNNIN DEVICE ACTIVATED

  DOWNLOADING

  She woke up, cold and aching all over, feeling frail and much too human. Only the grating presence of her Masters kept the illusion of normalcy at bay.

  Well, that didn’t work.

  All her Neo powers, gone. Her henchman, gone, since there’d only been once Munnin Device available. All she had left was the Taint of the Outsiders, flooding into her, transforming and stripping her of every last vestige of humanity. The injection of toxic energies had several nasty side effects. Entire nerve clusters in her body died. Half of her face went numb all of a sudden. At first, she wanted to scream, but the impulse soon faded, along with everything but a desire to inflict suffering on everyone around her.

  You may call me Christine Night from now on, she thought to no one in particular as a lopsided grimace formed in a face that was half dead, half burning in endless agony.

  Wait till they get a load of me.

  The Freedom Legion

  Freedom Island, July 19, 2014

  “The media is going to have a field day with all this soap opera shit,” the Faerie Godfather said.

  “At least we’ll get a few good issues of Legion Comics out of it,” Ali said with a smirk. Might as well laugh about it. Better than sob into her pillow. The simple fact was that her personal humiliation had already become Hypernet fodder, along with all the other scandals of the last twenty-four hours. Nothing she could do about it, other than ride the wave to shore, pick herself up, and move on.

  The small fleet of Associated Press camera drones that could always be found orbiting Freedom Island had filmed the super-battle in loving detail. The raw footage would be released to the world in half an hour or so. A short edited version had just been released by GNN, garnering its best ratings for the network since the Genocide War. The Legion Council had about fifteen minutes to release a statement and get in front of the mess. Hell of a thing to have to deal with when your bruises from said super-battle were still healing, but that was why they got paid the big bucks.

  “We are all in agreement on the veracity of Christine Dark’s preliminary report,” Doc said. None of the other Councilors disagreed. “Very well, then. We will include it in our statement, reveal the existence of Christine’s evil counterpart, and explain how she caused the crisis that led to the battle over the Island and her ultimate destruction.”

  “They are going to ask what we intend to do about Ultimate’s violation of the Legion’s Morals Code,” Tigresa said.

  “Which is the next item in the agenda,” Ali said. “I propose public censure and a month’s suspension, followed by a year’s mandatory counseling. Concurrent with constant monitoring to ensure he is cleansed of any Outsider Taint.”

  “That’s what Larry got when he fessed up, other than the Out
sider monitoring part,” Artemis said. “I think it’s fitting.”

  “I disagree. I think it is a mere spank on the wrist!” General Xu said.

  “Slap on the wrist,” Fox Ghost corrected him.

  “My meaning is clear. After all the scandals of the past two years, this cannot stand. I propose we suspend him for one year. Bar him from any position of authority, for five years. Probation for ten. Counseling for the foreseeable future.”

  “Seems a little extreme,” Fox Ghost said.

  “I disagree,” Musashi countered. “One of our most powerful members, a hundred year-old man, was seduced and manipulated by a girl barely out of adolescence, with nearly catastrophic consequences. Those are all signs he never fully recovered from his earlier mental difficulties.”

  “Time is of the essence, so let’s put the two proposals to a vote,” Adam said.

  They did. Xu’s motion won, five votes to three. Ali, Olivia and Fox Ghost voted against. Everyone else voted for. Including Adam.

  “Motion carried. We will announce our decision during the press conference. I nominate Artemis as our spokesperson.”

  That motion carried unanimously. Olivia would be a fitting ringmaster for the ensuing media circus, Ali thought.

  She followed Olivia on her way to the media room. Having a few prominent Legionnaires backing her up would look good for the cameras. They’d already corralled up Sun Knight and a couple other photogenic heroes to act as background color.

  “I’m surprised Adam went along with this,” Olivia said on the elevator ride down.

  “He’s been exposed to that Outsider crap himself; the Lurker half of him, that is,” Ali said. “Drove him literally insane. I can understand why he’s being cautious. John hasn’t been himself for a long time now. I should have known, if I hadn’t been acting like a smitten schoolgirl.”