Whatever, it wasn’t important. This was a pulp comic that only cared about the nifty “appear-out-of-the-night-sky” effect. Joy’s concern was that she’d just witnessed an entire Red Specter action sequence where he hadn’t uttered a single word. It was like the strip was trying to drive her nuts.
Cut to Shiori berating her bandit minions for their incompetence while grinding her high heel into their leader’s prone head. This again? Joy was starting to suspect the author (What was his name again? It was at the top corner of every strip. Erik Avakian, that was it.) was indulging a fetish. Or maybe multiple fetishes. Anyway, Shiori finally let the leader up, but he’d had enough. He grabbed a torch from somewhere and prepared to hurl it at her, saying, “You’re made of gas, huh? Well, let’s see what this does to—YEEEAAAARRRGGHH!!!”
The bandit screamed as Pochi engulfed him in a stream of fire, his torch harmlessly sailing over her head.
“NO, Pochi!” said Shiori. “No fire-spitting without my signal! We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? Haven’t we? That was very naughty. Naughty naughty widdle Pochi-kun. Who’s a naughty boy? You are! Yes you are!”
Shiori paused from scratching Pochi behind the ears to address the bandits. “Word to the not-so-wise: never wave a torch at a dragon. It means you want to play, and—well… you see what happens.”
Shiori sighed as she examined the rest of them.
“Okay, which of you is next?”
The bandits glanced nervously at each other and said nothing.
“Next in command, I mean,” she snapped. “Your second-in-com… well, no, it’d be third-in-command, by this point, hmm? Yes, third-in-command, step forward.”
More awkward silence followed, until one raider finally raised his hand.
“He’s dead, ma’am. First day you got here, he was standing right behind our old leader when your dragon spit at him, and—”
“Uh, fine,” said Shiori. “Fourth-in-command, then.”
“Um… he was also standing behind the—”
“Lir’s balls! How did you idiots even survive this long?” Shiori cried, throwing her hands up. “If those were your top leaders, you’d think they’d at least know how to dodge better! You people have no standards, that’s your problem.”
Shiori crossed her arms and spent a few moments in serious contemplation while Pochi nuzzled at her cheek.
“Okay, fine. This is my fault,” she said. “I’ve been expecting too much of you. I see that now.”
The raiders all sighed in relief.
“I’ve been expecting you to think, when clearly that’s not what you’re good at. So I’ll do you a favor and remove you of that burden.”
Shiori opened a chest at the foot of her divan and pulled out one of the black urns. By the time the bandits realized her intentions, it was too late. She lobbed the urn into their midst, and their horrible transformation began.
Shiori reclined on her divan as the horrific scene unfolded before her. “Yes, I should’ve done this from the beginning. Forget all this futzing about with town wells and sneaking around, when I have a perfectly good core for my army right here. Isn’t that right, boys?”
From where the Goktun raiders had once stood, a crowd of identical, amorphous gas-men raised their blobby heads and moaned in unanimous agreement.
“That’s better,” Shiori stood up and surveyed her new troops. “In fact that’s perfect. You’re the perfect soldiers for Albion’s new army: mindless, relentless, fearless, remorseless! Unfettered by petty human weaknesses, like love or compassion. And, most importantly, this time you shall be following a true leader into battle. I, Shiori Rosewing, shall bring you victory.
We will roll over Zalandag, and our ranks shall swell as we add their fallen to our number. City after city will fall to us, and SOON, yes, so very SOON, the whole WORLD shall be MINE! OOOHH HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HOHOHO!!!”
Chapter 16
Assault On Zalandag
Joy skimmed forward as Shiori led her army of gas-men on Zalandag. Back at the town, the heroes had convinced a third of the villagers to join their side, but the Anti-Kallistrate die-hards still refused to listen. They met Shiori at the edge of the town to talk things over, and were promptly converted into Shiori’s gas minions. After seeing that, all the remaining villagers either joined with the heroes or ran around in a blind panic.
It looked like all would be lost as the gas-men swarmed through the village, but Dr. Zhang’s team hadn’t been sitting around idle waiting for the invasion.
They’d managed to build three “vaccu-suck” devices, odd contraptions that used high-speed steam-powered fans to suck air through long hand-held tubes with funnel openings on the business ends. They had the bulk of these devices mounted on rickshaws and engaged with the gas-men in a running battle throughout the streets of the town. They would suck up the gas-men into hollow tanks and trap them there, stopping the gas men without burning down the entire village, though Joy noticed that only the men actually wielded the vaccu-suck weapons. That was weird—you’d think Lilla would be a better choice for running around pulling a rickshaw than the elderly Dr. Zhang.
Joy flipped through the rest of battle, as the heroes raced to suck up the gas-men before they could infect the Zalandag townsfolk with their gas-plague. And surprisingly enough, they seemed to be winning, in no small part because of repeated instances of unusually lucky breaks for the heroes. Shiori’s minions would have a group of villagers cornered, only they’d be hit by a sudden gust of wind, the villagers would make a break for it, and a vaccu-suck rickshaw would show up finish the mindless wraiths off. Horse carts would stampede at just the right time to create a crucial diversion. Wine casks would spill and catch fire in just the right spot to act as a barrier between the Zalandag townsfolk and their attackers.
Joy thought Avakian was just being lazy with all these coincidences, until she noticed something hidden in the shadows of one of the “coincidence” panels—a silhouette of the Red Specter. She flipped back to each previous miracle and found the same silhouette again. This comic was making it really hard to skim, what with all these hidden pictures.
Too bad there was no hidden monologues from the Specter. No, that would’ve been too useful, wouldn’t it?
The battle raged on, and the good guys kept winning. Gas-man after gas-man disappeared into the guts of the vaccu-suck machines, until all that remained was Shiori and her litter-bearers, surrounded by the heroes in the middle of the town square.
“We’ve got you now, Shiori,” said Kolton, as he aimed his vaccu-suck device at the wraiths carrying her divan.
But Shiori was too quick, leaping off her palanquin and rushing Kolton, even as her litter-bearers disappeared into the vaccu-suck’s funnel. She laid Kolton out with a kick to the head, leaving his device unguarded.
The Caliburn knight lashed out with her foot, her stiletto heel punching though the vaccu-suck’s collection tank. A high-pressure jet of pink gas streamed out and arced high up in the air before gently drifting back to earth, growing thicker as it did. Inside the growing cloud, things began to move.
“No!” yelled Dr. Zhang. “She’ll start the whole tragedy over again. We have to plug that hole!”
“I’m on it,” said Baz, but Shiori blocked his path.
“Are you, now?” she said, leering over the top of her fan. “You seem more experienced, to be sure—but I’ve been disappointed by men like you more times than I can count.”
“My name is Baz Mankari,” he said, drawing himself to his full height. “And I served six years with the Jagdkommandos, so yeah, I think I’ll be more than enough for you, lady!”
Baz lunged at her, and the fight was on. The Jagdkommandos were Kallistrate’s best of the best, an elite unit intended to counter the Caliburn Knights. Joy’s military combatives trainer, a veteran navy frogman by the name of Kodwo Adachi, had actually taken the Jagdkommando entrance trials, only to wash out on the fourth day of “Hell Week.”
Kodwo w
as the toughest man Joy had ever met. Hitting him was like hitting a tree. And he was one of the ones who hadn’t made the cut. Baz had made it, so he fared much better against Shiori than any of the Goktun bandits, trading blows with her and managing to land a few good shots, but the end result was the same, with Shiori felling him with a kick to the head.
Didn’t have to use her gas powers, either. Unfortunately, as good as the Jagdkommandos were against regular units, there was no way they could take a Caliburn knight one-on-one, and even this silly comic strip couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Baz struggled to regain his senses, as Shiori sauntered past and punctured the collection tank on his vaccu-suck machine, leaving only Dr. Zhang’s intact. Shiori faced him and Lilla down, with her army of gas-men re-forming behind her, only their time in the collection tank had changed them. They’d been mashed together, compressed into a tiny space, and now it seemed they couldn’t quite remember how they’d been before.
The gas-men had turned into misshapen monstrosities. Some were giants with multiple arms, legs, and heads, while others appeared as co-joined twins, and others were stranger still: bizarre beings composed of spare parts. One unfortunate creature consisted of two sets of legs and hips whose lower torsos flowed into into each other, creating a double-ended beast that staggered about blindly, nearly stepping on a disembodied head that scuttled about on six arms that sprouted directly from its skull.
Even Shiori seemed taken aback by the nightmarish scene. “Yeeesh,” she said, before shrugging it off. “Oh, well—it’s not like they weren’t ugly before. I’ve worked with worse. No idea how I’ll put them in a phalanx, though. That’s going to be a challenge.”
“You monster!” said Lilla. “Look what you’ve done to them. Have you no shame?”
“What I’ve done? I wasn’t the one who squashed them all together like that.” Shiori grinned and fluttered her fan. “How hypocritical. And typical. Such a shame, really—if you could just see past your pathetic loyalty to your upstart Kallistrate nation and swear allegiance to Emperor Oberon as your forebears did, you’d be so much better off.”
“You think us fools, do you?” said Dr. Zhang. “When we can see what happened to your last set of allies, right before our eyes.”
“Turn you into gas? No, that’s what happens to those who disappoint me,” she replied. “And what will happen if you continue to defy me. But you’ve shown admirable resourcefulness to hinder me so far. Why would I throw that away just to get another shambling gas-soldier if I didn’t have to? Do you know how hard it is to get good help these days? Do you? All of you would be far more… useful to me in the flesh.”
Joy frowned. Was Shiori staring at Lilla when she said that? Lilla hadn’t even done anything useful in the story so far, so why… Never mind, whatever. The heroes made the standard declarations of how they’d never join with her, Kallistrate is the beacon of freedom for Nokomis, etc. Shiori says they’re doomed, and—Oh! A hail of bullets hits Shiori from off-panel. It’s Baz—he pulled himself together enough to fire his revolver.
“Sore loser much?” said Shiori to Baz, who’d turned incorporeal to avoid the damage, her “wounds” leaving trails of gas that didn’t bother her any. “And after I went out of my way to give you the dignity of a fair fight, too. That’s gratitude for y—Aiigggh, NOOOOO!!!”
“No, that’s smart tactics, witch,” said Baz, as Shiori was pulled into Dr Zhang’s vaccu-suck. “Just needed you to go gassy so Dr. Zhang could do his thing. Looks like it’s gonna suck to be you.”
The pun was bad enough to make Joy groan out loud, but Shiori disappeared inside Dr. Zhang’s device, which he then turned towards the rest of the gas-monsters, as Kolton staggered over to the rest of the heroes as they rallied around the converted rickshaw.
“Wha’ happened?” said Kolton. “Did we win?”
“Almost,” said Dr. Zhang, looking over the milling crowd of pathetic gas creatures. “Without Shiori to control them, these aberrations have no will. But they cannot be allowed to roam free. This will test the capacity of my vaccu-suck to its limit, but I believe—”
A panel-filling BANG cut him off, as a slight bulge appeared in the side of the collection tank. Another BANG, and the bulge grew larger and more pointed.
“No! Impossible!” said Doctor Zhang, even as the banging continued and the bulge swelled out, deforming the collection tank further. “There’s no way… no way she could…”
The vaccu-suck machine exploded as Shiori’s stiletto heel burst through its side, followed by the rest of her, along with all the remaining gas monsters. Shiori’s laughter filled the page as she materialized right behind Lilla and seized her by the neck, as the men dived clear of the blast.
“Foolish mortals! Did you imagine your pathetic contraption could contain the magnificence of one such as me, Shiori Rosewing? OHHH HO HO HO HO HO HO HO!”
Shiori brandished her fan, which turned out to hold a concealed blade in one of its ribs, and pressed it up to Lilla’s throat, while producing a small black urn in her other hand. She popped the cork stopper off with her thumb and held over her captive’s head.
“This is your last chance! You can join me willingly, or become my mindless gas minions, starting with precious little Lilla. Choose quickly, for my patience is at its limit. Will you serve as men or monsters?”
Shiori glanced back at the misshapen horde coalescing behind her, and her expression changed a bit. “But while you’re here, could you take a look at my back for me?” She shifted around while keeping her grip on Lilla. “I didn’t pick up anything that shouldn’t be there, like an extra arm, did I? Or someone else’s head sprouting out from where I can’t see it? I mean, you’d think I’d be able to tell immediately if that happened, but I just want to be sure, y’know?”
“Uh, you look fine,” said Kolton. “No extra arms or nothing.” Actually, Joy wished she looked that good from that or any angle, though she had to remind herself that she had the disadvantage of being a real person with real anatomy, instead of a pen-and-ink fantasy pinup drawing.
“Excellent!” crowed Shiori, switching back into full villain mode. “Now, you have ten seconds to surrender before poor defenseless Lilla loses her humanity! Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Eh, what?”
Out from nowhere, a familiar silhouette rose up behind Shiori, this time wielding a sword. Before Shiori could react, the Red Specter chopped off her hand, caught the urn before it could fall on Lilla, cut off Shiori’s head, and pulled Lilla free of the decapitated villain’s grip.
“Red Specter, you saved me,” said Lilla, starry-eyed.
“Thank you, Specter,” said Kolton. “We sure are glad you’re here.”
“About damned time,” groused Baz.
Shiori’s head bounced off the ground while the rest of her body staggered about blindly. She looked annoyed.
“Red Specter!” she screeched. “Where did you come from?”
“WHEREVER TYRANNY REIGNS,” intoned the Specter. “WHEREVER EVIL STRIKES. LOOK TO THE SHADOWS, AND I’LL BE THERE. FOR NO INJUSTICE WILL ESCAPE THE WRATH… OF THE RED SPECTER!”
“Ugh, always the same line,” she said, as Pochi the Dragon swooped in to pick up her head in his talons, her severed hand held gently in his mouth. “But this time you’re too late. You’ve meddled with my plans for the last time!”
Shiori sneered as her dragon familiar reunited her head with her body. “You face an entire army now! Gas monsters, seize him! Oh, and good work, Pochi-kun. That’s a good boy! Now you stay here, because Mama’s got a bad, bad ghost man to deal with.”
“Specter, what can we do?” said Dr. Zhang. “My vaccu-sucks have all been destroyed—”
“YOU’VE DONE ALL THAT YOU COULD,” said the Specter. “NOW YOU NEED TO GET CLEAR. I WILL HANDLE THIS.”
The heroes fell back, with Dr. Zhang overriding Kolton and Lilla’s objections, while the Red Specter faced off against an army of monsters. He reached back over his shoulder to draw a smal
l buckler with an odd stick-handle that extended well past the edge of the shield. He snapped the buckler to his sword pommel, and Joy realized she was looking at the same spear weapon from before. Apparently it could split into two pieces. The Specter activated the big fan mechanism he’d used before, but it was only a matter of time before the sheer numbers of the gas-monsters overwhelmed him, their multiple limbs wrapping him up, immobilizing him in an upright cruciform stance.
“I’ve beaten you, Specter,” crowed Shiori. “Even you can’t stand against all my monsters at once.”
“YES,” said he, his cigarette lighter appearing in his hand. “ALL GATHERED TOGETHER NOW.”
“Minions, NOW!” yelled Shiori, and the gas-monsters shifted their bodies away from the lighter, while maintaining their grip on his arm, yanking it skyward, with the deadly open flame pointing away from their gaseous forms.
“OHHHH HO HO HO HO HO HO HO,” Shiori’s laugh echoed across the town square. “Did you think you’d beat me again with the same old trick? A master strategist like me, Shiori Rosewing?”
Dr. Zhang’s group watched this turn of events in horror from the edge of the square. Lilla and Kolton once again having to be held in check by Baz and Dr. Zhang. There was nothing they could do now but believe in the Red Specter.
Shiori strode up to stand inches away from her captive, tapping her fan to her lips while looking him over. “I must confess, Specter, you… intrigue me,” she said, running a long finger across his mask. “Just what are you hiding under there, I wonder?”
The Red Specter didn’t answer. He just stood there, silent as the grave, eyes unreadable behind the gaslight reflections on his goggles.
Shiori just shrugged. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough.” Her smile was predatory. “But first, one little thing. Fire is dangerous. Not a toy. So, we’ll be taking that away—”
The Legend of the Red Specter (The Adventures of the Red Specter Book 1) Page 8
