Assault soon began to feel entranced as Michele began to weave seductive thoughts into his conscience.
It was almost midnight. In the Beetle Cavern, a Martian saloon located in the northern block, The Crazy Johnny Mo strolled through the old drinking hole. Mutants weren’t allowed in this sector. To be caught here meant their certain death.
Johnny Mo observed the nightlife. Prostitutes flirted with perverted old tourists in darkened doorways. Others strolled towards the pilots of hovering cruisers by the curb. Everyday regulars lie in puddles of stale liquor and piss in the alleys and on the dirty floors. On the far end of the saloon a small brawl between an elder Mutant and a Mars Civil War Veteran had just begun. The Mutant won, of course, using the advantage of his Mutant powers. However, there was one major disadvantage for his win - now that he had exposed himself, the poor elder wouldn't live to see the sunrise.
A devilish cult of non-Mutant individuals drilled the poor Mutant with drugs in preparation for the sacrificial deed. In spite of his sedation, he was vaguely conscious of the savage humans circling the bar where he laid unprotected, an offering to their hatred and sinful pleasure. Although horrified, he was unable to counteract, and consciousness failed him as the war veteran lifted a small sword into the muggy saloon air. The blade descended...
Mo stepped outside, ignoring the sadistic sacrilegious act, as the poor old Mutant released a final scream. Looking at his watch, Mo spoke to himself, “It's almost time and I think I’m standing where the message said to be… but there's no sign of...”
The soldier of fortune raised his right hand staring at it in disbelief. It was growing transparent. He began to fade and dissolve into the night's air.
Joseph and Martinez cautiously advanced over the drawbridge of the palace. On its better days the bridge had been a beautiful radiant white, but today it was the color of gray soot. Halting midway, Joseph gazed over the bridge, down into the dark abyss that extended deep within the bowels of Celestial world.
Martinez stood next to him and said, “Mo has just been released from the penal colony.” She would use her powers to bring him across space and time. Since her teleportation only worked from one dimension to the next, it would take a while for Johnny Mo to reach the Celestial World. He had to be teleported to one dimension and from there to the Celestial Palace.
She too began to stare into the abyss. It was hypnotic - its size and depth. She could feel the evil that dwelled beneath.
“Joseph,” Martinez blurted out into the night's cool breeze, “The Darkness. It hides down there.”
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“I have this feeling... a gut feeling that I'm endangering you if I don't leave at once.”
“I don't understand.”
“The Darkness will use me to get to you.” She repeated.
Before he could respond, a woman's desperate cry for help pierced the air. It was Elissa.
They rushed the palace. No Assault. No backup. Just each other.
The Anti-Terrorist Force for Interplanetary Peace was the highest ranked military force in the galaxy. CIMA was the nameless, faceless legion of the ATFIP command. These front-line commandos lead the ATFIP units into battle against Mutant revolts. The soldiers who were a part of this organization were all highly qualified medics, fighter pilots, and warriors of solar and Mutant warfare. They had been trained to move quickly and efficiently, how to plan, how to take and give orders, and above all how to think three-dimensionally.
A small ATFIP star fleet hovered in the far horizon of the Celestial moon. Inside the largest ship, the Counter-Intelligence on Mutant-Affairs task force was preparing for deployment.
The Frigate dropship ejected from the belly of an ATFIP star cruiser and descended onto the alien world.
“Let's gear up and get out!” General Magnum yelled, as the Frigate touched down smoothly. “We have some Mutants to bleed. And some good guys to free.”
General Talisa Magnum was the leader of CIMA. A half-Hispanic, half-Hawaiian Solar SeAL. She had the shapely figure of a bodybuilder without the rich definition of male muscle tone. She had a sexy, yet sensitive interior, and a rugged, yet beautiful exterior. There was nothing this woman could not do that she had not proven time and again.
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, baby!” The point-gunner howled with excitement.
Wearing their solar armor and gripping their combat rifles, the savage commandos of the CIMA task force departed the dropship, one by one.
If battling the Mutants was not enough, a hellish storm, with winds close to 115 miles per hour, was coming in from the east – straight for the city. But it would only be a minor inconvenience for this task force. They had previously clashed arms with a small Mutant guerrilla squad on one of the moons, where the atmosphere rushed winds that blew more fiercely than the strongest tornado or hurricane that had ever blown on Earth. They used the harsh weather to gain advantage over the Mutants.
They marched in unison. The toughest, the smartest, and the best soldiers in the galaxy advanced toward the city's inner perimeter.
They planned to make this a battle for the history books.
Assault stood speechless and motionless as he began to give in to his exotic adversary's “mental” seduction. But as he stood there, an uncontrollable Michele began to set certain objects in the vicinity ablaze. She had never felt such passion for a man before, but in this weakness she made one stupid mistake. She unknowingly set the beautifully knitted rug on which Assault stood aflame.
Acting on instinct, the soldier jumped off the burning rug. The fire freed him from her seductive hypnosis. He whipped his combat rifle around and aimed it at his Mutant enemy’s heart.
“You're not going to hurt me, are you?” she purred nervously, trying to reclaim her prey. She wanted him badly. She had to have this man.
“You can bet your slutty lil' hide on it, honey.”
Before Assault could fire his weapon, Michele fell to the floor crying like a small child - a fragile, gentle creature. Her persona had reverted to her alter ego Marie - an innocent shocked with terror. Where was she? Who was this frightening soldier standing over her? Why was he waving a rifle in her direction?
“Oh, give me a break,” Assault exhaled as he looked up to the heavens. He never once lowered his weapon away from Marie. He didn’t trust her for one Martian minute.
Joseph and Martinez searched for Elissa. They ran into a spacious chamber which was clouded by a warm mist that was being emitted from an indoor spring. Outside fierce winds ripped the city.
Joseph and Martinez carefully advanced through the huge, open chamber.
Stepping in something sticky and wet, Joseph halted and knelt down. He ran a finger through a puddle of some unknown substance. Martinez stood beside him, gripping her weapon, anticipating anything. A slight illumination of moonlight filtered through a window, allowing Joseph to see the substance.
“Blood,” he whispered to her.
“Whose?” she asked.
Joseph stood and took two steps, when he felt something against his boot. He looked down and found an old dead Celestial staring back at him through the cold darkness. He recognized the face of the city elder. His mangled body was twisted and laid on the floor with a huge, jagged hole in his chest. He had probably died defending his Empress.
Seconds later, Elissa's scream came from behind. Joseph and Martinez spun around, almost simultaneously. Syn stood, holding Elissa by her hair and holding a small caliber pistol to her head.
Rebel, wearing protective gloves to keep from unbalancing his weapon's structure, stood beside Syn, aiming two automatic weapons toward the two heroes.
Feeling helpless, Joseph turned to Martinez. She nodded.
Martinez closed her eyes but Rebel, thinking she was about to use her Mutant powers, laid off a round. The slug ricocheted off Martinez' armor, throwing her onto her back. Reading Joseph’s mind, she had begun to bring in reinforcements. She had started
to teleport Johnny Mo but the impact of the slug and the excruciating pain made her lose total concentration on Mo's teleportation.
Joseph dragged her behind a stone pillar and knelt beside her. “Jenny?”
“I'm okay. I just hope Mo isn't lost between the fold of dimensions.”
For a few seconds, Johnny Mo met his worst fears and nightmares as he shot through space. Screaming because his head felt as if it were going to implode, he fought for his life. He began to fall, penetrating layer after layer of cold nothingness. He continued to scream but this time from a horrifying burning pain. His body burned as he entered an alien world.
This hot and desolate planet was the hunting ground of Chasseur, a world that made the mythical underworld of Hades look like a day at church, home of vicious and sinister hunters - carnivorous sportsmen that only existed to hunt, devour, and gather interplanetary trophies. They had hunted formidable prey throughout various dimensions for millions of years. As a race of warriors, they were unsurpassed by any other life form - human, mutant, or alien. They even hunted each other. Because of this, they were a dying race. To them there was no greater satisfaction than the deadly struggle between the hunter and its prey.
Mo stood on a nearby rock and surveyed his surroundings. Crap, this didn’t look like Celestial World. From the looks of his surroundings, he knew immediately where he had landed. Chasseur was a common horror story told among prisoners at the penal colony. Obviously something had gone wrong with his teleportation. Not being one to wait to be rescued, he decided to create his own Plan B, and that was when he realized he was being watched.
On this day the Chasseur prey was Crazy Johnny Mo.
The hunter observed and studied his physique from nearby. Every follicle of hair. Every muscle. Every bone. He was the perfect specimen, the hunter thought. This was going to be one hell of a dance.
“Mother of God,” Johnny Mo tensed as the colossal creature moved in closer.
Johnny braced himself as his inhuman predator leaped to the huge rock where Mo stood. The hunter threw a massive fist into the center of his face, knocking Johnny off the rock and onto the rocky, dusty soil of the Chasseur Dimension. Johnny began to lift himself as he spat up a crude mixture of phlegm, blood, and dirt.
The hunter stepped off the boulder, as Johnny sent a huge boot towards the hunter's midsection. However, his adversary caught it. Lifting Johnny into the hazy air of the alien world. The beast flung him backwards, bouncing him off the rugged boulder.
While he lay trying to catch his breath, Johnny realized he didn't have a chance against this creature. If he was going to die, he was going to die fighting. Locking his fists together, Johnny leaped up with all his might and slammed them into the unprotected face of his predator, which surprisingly knocked the beast back a few steps.
The hunter screamed in anger, and then he laughed in glee. He lunged forward, and kicked Johnny in the rib cage with a colossal foot, which sent him crashing across the world's floor. He fell off a cliff and down a dark crevasse. Seconds later, his fall was broken when he splashed into an underground spring. He coughed as he tried to catch his breath and gather his senses. He swam to the side of the crevasse and hid under a small overhang, hoping to fool the hunter into thinking he was dead. He could sense the hunting creature above, looking down into the crevasse. After a while he could tell that the creature had given him up for lost. Slowly climbing out of the water on a small bank nearby, Johnny tried to see through the near darkness of the abyss.
“Man, I feel like...” Johnny began to speak to himself. He'd rather hear his own voice than the nothingness provided by the semi-darkness of the cave.
“You feel like what?” asked a strange old voice.
Johnny jumped and pulled out a small blade, aiming it in the direction of the voice. A tall, thin individual flashed a light into his eyes. Mo took a step back as his eyes tried to focus, still gripping his knife.
“Away with your weapon,” said the strange fellow. “I mean you no harm. That thing up there won’t venture down here. You’re safe.”
Johnny hesitated but he lowered his weapon. “Who are you, old man?”
“My name is Drexl. Dr. Drexl. I'm from Earth just like you. I was exiled here years ago for my part in the great cloning experiments. I… was a genetic scientist.” The man smiled and shrugged. He lit a smokeless torch and turned off his flashlight.
“How long have you been here?”
“Forty years? I’ve lost count… hiding from those things. ” The man looked up towards the surface of the planet. “Actually, that very one's been playing cat and mouse with me for over a decade. He has killed everyone and everything else, so it is just him and me left on this planet”.
The old man sat down as he looked at Johnny.
“Believe it or not, I once looked like you. Young. Strong. I had hair.” He laughed at his sad joke. “This is what happens to you living in this … paradise. Living on fish, mushrooms, and whatever else you can find that grows in the dark.”
“Do you ever go up there?”
“Very rarely. There are several exits out of this crevasse, but I have to be very careful. That creature is an excellent hunter, so he lays traps for me at all the entrances he has discovered.”
Looking over the area at hand, Johnny asked, “Is there a way off this world?”
“That would depend. How did you get here? Did you crash your ship or are you a Mutant? Do you have any powers?”
“I’m a human, old man. Someone teleported me here. I don’t know why, but I think they got their directions mixed up.”
“Really? I could have sworn you were a neosapien by the way you fought that creature up there.” The old scientist studied Johnny closely.
“Is there a way off this world?” Johnny repeated his question.
“Where there's a will, there's a way. That's what I always say. Follow me.” He motioned, as he ushered Johnny into the labyrinth of caves that lined the underground spring.
The old gent led Johnny into a cave crowded with memorabilia of Drexl's past- photos, books, assorted objects. One object that caught Mo's undivided attention was a shiny, sphere-like object that was big enough for one, maybe two, to climb into. It sat in one corner all by itself, layered in dust.
“What's that over there?” Johnny pointed at the five-foot sphere. He loved anything mechanical.
“That’s what I wanted to show you.” The old man walked up to the huge ball and blew a layer of dust off the computer panel mounted on its side. “This is the D-Ball. I call it that because with it you can bounce from one dimension to the next.”
“How did you get it? And why haven't you used it to leave this place? Can you get it working?”
“Be patient, boy, and I'll tell you. This is how I was transported here from Earth. The pilot was supposed to dump me here and leave but he got eaten by one of those things. I never used it because I never knew how. I was able to hack into the computer and download a training manual, but a lot of good it did me. I don't know how to read the technical jargon.”
“The reason you've been stuck here so long,” Johnny interrupted, “is because you can't read the instructions?” He laughed. “I thought you were a doctor?”
“Shut up, boy,” Drexl snapped. “I am a geneticist, not a pilot.”
“Show me the instructions.” Johnny tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't help from advertising a small smirk. “I knew how to put together an engine before I took my first step.”
The soldiers of CIMA observed the destruction left by the Mutants’ onslaught, as their boots stomped in unison making their way through the cold, wet city.
Buildings had been shattered and burnt down to almost nothing. The storm winds had subsided but winds blew through the devastation in small dust devils. Here and there were heaps of lifeless, rotting Celestial corpses. As the soldiers marched onward, they couldn't help but feel the lost souls of the aliens creeping around, watching, and begging for their deaths t
o be avenged.
“Man, it's an alien genocide,” one soldier said.
It was difficult to believe that five Mutants could do so much damage to an entire race.
“I sure hope someone's still alive here,” the point gunner spoke, sounding almost sympathetic. “I hate to think we're wasting our time on a bunch of dead aliens.”
The silhouette of two figures stood in the path of the small platoon - about twenty yards ahead.
The point-gunner motioned to General Magnum, and she signaled to her fellow soldiers to halt and take cover if and when necessary.
“Who goes there?” he asked.
“Assault. MK Officer 0563,” one silhouette spoke. Assault advanced forward into the moonlight carrying a prisoner. “This is the infamous Michele-Marie.” The platoon gazed at the beautiful innocent creature. “Don't let her fool you. She's really quite dangerous. I'd advise you to take her into custody, at once, while she is still in her Marie persona.”
One soldier took hold of Marie's limp left arm and began to escort her to the special prison cell aboard the Frigate. It was specially engineered to withhold almost any kind of Mutant known to man. A magnetized Mutant skull cap was locked onto her head to keep her from using her telepathic powers.
“Where's Joseph Blades?” asked General Magnum. “We have a warrant for his arrest.”
“What?” Assault exclaimed in confusion. “He's the least of your problems. Syn and whatever is left of his henchmen are what you should be worrying about.”
“We'll see about that,” the General spoke. Then turning to her soldiers, she ordered, “All right, people, we're going to advance toward the center of the city taking out whatever gets in our way. Then, we'll storm the palace, giving it back to the Celestials. Stack `em, rack `em, and pack `em. Corporal,” she spoke to a husky soldier dressed in dirty fatigues, with a red bandanna tied to his head, “I want you to pull up the schematic designs, blueprints. Anything, we need to know about the ins-and-outs of this structure.”
Joseph and the Mutant Killers Page 4
