ISSUE #12 (December 2020)
Written by Emma Woods Featuring: |
"THE ERADICATION MANDATE: PART 3"National City…
The DEO… As the Deputy Director of the Department of Extranormal Operations, Linda Danvers was not accustomed to her presence being protested at their headquarters. And yet, as her aide hurried to keep pace from the moment she had marched through the doors, Linda knew she was about to be bombarded with precisely that. “Deputy Director,” Eveline began, an iPad clasped close to her chest and her manner harried, “you can’t be here, you’re…” “Eight months pregnant?” Linda snapped, feeling far too irritable to even think of apologising, one hand braced beneath her protruding belly as she insisted on marching. To make matters even more uncomfortable, the unborn infant growing in her womb was kicking up its own protest, rolling this way and that as if sharing her own urgency. “I hadn’t noticed. What I have noticed is that the sky is falling, and the Director is missing. So, until Ms. Luthor resurfaces, my daily diet of shitty TV will have to wait.” Stubborn as she was on the matter of her involvement, Linda did immediately call for a chair the moment she reached the crisis centre, supplied with one swiftly as she positioned herself before the main display table. The room was a hive of activity, dozens of operatives assimilating information from a dozen more sources, controlled chaos reigning supreme as reams of data was slowly being collated into a complete picture. “Pickles,” she demanded, settling into a piece of furniture that was not designed for a pregnant woman of eight months. “Someone explain to me why the planet’s ending.” The lack of an immediate answer confirmed that they did not have a clear idea. She changed tact, pinching the bridge of her nose before releasing a deep sigh. Calm, she needed to effect calm, the world was already in crisis, her subordinates didn’t need an increase in stress, “Where is the Director?” “Unknown,” one of her lead, tactical officers confirmed, bringing up a three-dimensional image from the desk before them. The hologram crackled in and out of focus as a tremor shook the floor beneath them, a mini quake that was becoming all too common in the last hour. The live feed snapped back into clarity and depicted the site in the Amazon the DEO, including Lena Luthor, had dispatched a team to. The structure that they had mobilised to investigate was, quite simply, now missing, leaving a gargantuan, ragged crater in its place. “The anomaly was last reported as being of Kryptonian origin, it’s interior delving deep beneath the surface of the earth. We lost contact an hour ago after an alarm was raised, the structure has vanished, along with the Director.” And her husband, Linda didn’t add, the head of security at the vanished site the father of her unborn child. There was no time to make it personal, she had to focus on the big picture. “Kryptonian in origin?” she questioned, seeking clarity. When she received it, she nodded, “Great, call Superman, why hasn’t big blue saved the world yet? “Superman’s location is unknown.” “Less than ideal,” Linda moved on, “the quakes?” “Are not random in nature,” a second consultant spoke up, his tone clip and proper. “They began shortly after we lost contact with the Kryptonian Fortress in the Amazon. The first shockwave was the most violent, planet wide, the rest have been less intense but are becoming increasingly frequent. Cause unknown, purpose unknown.” “I’m not thrilled by how often I’m hearing the word unknown,” Deputy Director Danvers scolded, finding the lack of concrete intelligence frustrating. “Give me something on the hostiles.” “Un… clear,” the first agent spoke up, quickly rethinking his vocabulary after a sharp look from his heavily pregnant superior. He brought up several new images collected from across the globe, some of them were video, a few had audio, most were of poor quality. “Intelligence has been pouring in since their first appearance, arriving in groups in heavily populated areas, hitting hard, fast and with considerable casualties.” Lena leant forwards in her chair, narrowing her gaze at the grainy images depicting the vaguely humanoid figures, moving as though they were suspended in the air, unrelenting, unworldly, ethereal. A threat. “We received these images from Gotham,” her agent confirmed, bringing one video clip to the forefront of all the others. Its quality was leaps ahead of those that had come before, the image sharp, the audio crisp. She didn’t need to ask who it had come from, Linda slightly irked that it wasn’t one of her own people. The figure depicted appeared human only in the vaguest sense, an outline carved from seamless obsidian and featureless, its only adornment a crest engraved into its torso, a stamp of ownership that was known to every man, woman and child on Earth. It was the crest of the House of El. Superman. It was her job to consider the implications… “Where was the last known…” Deputy Director Danvers didn’t get to finish her sentence, not as the roof caved in with a thunderclap and her world was consumed by noise and shrapnel. By the time she realised that she was on the floor, Linda found that her ears were still ringing, the agents of the DEO inside the command centre in similar disarray as the struggled to regain their bearings. Linda blinked, shaking her head, cradling her belly as she looked to the centre of the room, a giant of obsidian hovering above the debris that it had so swiftly wrought. Dispassionate, the figure turned its faceless gaze about the room, taking it all in and passing silent judgement. With grim determination, Linda Danvers pushed herself back up to sitting, just as it’s sightless gaze turned upon her. “Insufficient,” it determined, raising one hand from its side. “Eradicate.” Gotham… “Propagate,” the faceless figure of obsidian dispassionately intoned as it relentlessly marched down the narrow streets, cracking the asphalt beneath its feet as it smashed aside all obstacles. “For the last time, asshole,” Batgirl protested as she beat a hasty retreat from her pursuer, Stephanie’s lungs now burning from the extended flight. Her heart was beating a mile a minute as she forced herself to keep sprinting, leaping, vaulting and climbing all debris in her efforts to escape, the cries of a city under siege echoing all around her. “No means no!” Reaching for her belt, Batgirl unclipped her grapple and held it high, depressing the trigger and shooting the tether up into the sky. The hook found purchase high above her head and, as soon as the line pulled taught, Stephanie depressed the trigger and she was yanked upwards. Her efforts to redirect the pursuit to the rooftops of the Narrows proved short lived, a concentrated beam of focused light from her hunter’s featureless expression sheering through the cord and sending Batgirl plummeting back down to earth. Batgirl yelped as she hit the floor, rolling with the landing and yet still hitting the concrete awkwardly on her shoulder, forcing herself back up to her feet to continue sprinting. The giant of obsidian didn’t even break its stride, continuing its pursuit with detached conviction. Nothing about this encounter had gone how Stephanie had planned, Batgirl leaping into action the moment the first of these ‘Eradicators’ had entered Gotham airspace, and displaying not even a moment’s hesitation in garnering this particular specimen’s attention instead of letting it run riot on her cities citizens. Everything had gone downhill from there however, the ‘Eradicator’ seemingly impervious to her usual playbook, shrugging off her assaults as though she were a toddler. With the civilians out of immediate danger, Batgirl had chosen the better part valour, at least until she could find a place to regroup. That plan was not exactly working out. “Propagate,” the obsidian giant repeated with grim finality, striding through the wreckage of a swiftly abandoned street. Once again, its featureless dome lit up with blinding, crimson light, unleashing a second, focused blast, this time targeting the asphalt right at Batgirl’s rapidly moving feet. Stephanie didn’t have time to redirect her footing, the teenager instead flung off her feet by the detonation and sent spiralling through the air. She landed with a shout, her bones aching, Batgirl rolling and scrabbling to find her feet. The Eradicator closed the distance in the time it took for her to find vertical, the distance between hunter and hunted reduced to little more than a few yards. “Propaga…” “Listen, meathead,” Batgirl snapped, unclipping her collapsed bow staff from her belt and springing it out to its full extension with a sharp snap. Like a cornered animal, she hunkered low and held her weapon out threateningly before her, showing her teeth as her left arm dangled limply at her side. “I told you, you’re not my type!” Unperturbed, the obsidian giant advanced, raising one hand to… Batgirl blinked, and in that time the Eradicator was smashed off its feet by the sudden arrival of a large, midnight black vehicle, almost tank like in proportions as it crashed into the aggressor at high speed, slamming it into a building before coming to a stop. For several seconds, Batgirl was deafened by the experience, coughing several times as clouds of dust circulated the air. With a hiss, the canopy of the car slid open, revealing the driver. “Robin?” Batgirl exhaled, suitably surprised. The sight of the boy wonder’s diminutive frame strapped into a seat that was too big for him threatening to be hilarious, were the circumstances not so dire. “Indeed,” Robin agreed with an impatient tone. “Now make haste, Drake insisted that we collect you.” “Is this the Batmobile?” Stephanie questioned, climbing into the passenger seat before the canopy could slide closed. “One of them,” Damien confirmed, the boy wonder adjusting the controls. “Are you allowed to drive this?” Batgirl winced, massaging her numb shoulder. “Today?” Robin changed gears, switching to reverse. “Yes. We’re pulling back to the Cave, Batman wants us to rearm, we need to rethink our arsenal if we are to match this foe.” “Is Batman on the line?” Stephanie queried, stamping down on a fresh yelp as she popped her dislocated joint back into place. “Why?” “Because that ‘Eradicator’,” Batgirl exhaled deeply, allowing the pain to run its course, “had a hard time taking no for an answer.” The Kent Farm… Connor was feeling impotent, and it infuriated him. Stripped of his Kryptonian DNA, he could only watch the unfolding crisis on the kitchen TV, arms folded as the live footage faded in and out of focus. The panic on the streets was palpable, almost leaping from the screen, and every fibre of his being wanted to get involved. Once, he had been able to, but now… Now he was just a bystander. Lois was in the living room, unsurprisingly on the phone and gathering as much information as possible, her inquisitive mind and insatiable drive already mapping out the next five steps she would be taking, even while the sky was falling. She was distracted, Connor’s eyes roaming to the keys to the truck sat on the kitchen table… There was a thud outside the house, a dull sound of rapidly compacting earth as something heavy came down to land. Connor recognised the noise, he had made it several times himself, when thoughts of control had been far from his head. He paced outside, expecting the worst, and finding his suspicions confirmed as he came faced with a figure of obsidian, smooth, featureless and aping the form of humanity. Imperiously it stood outside the Kent home, motionless and adorned with a single decoration, the crest of the House of El embellished across its chest. Connor marched down the steps of the porch, the young man’s own, broad shoulder’s squared, coming to a stop where, that very morning, he had been chopping wood. He folded his arms again before speaking up. “Private property,” he explained, “no solicitors.” The Eradicator turned its head to look upon him, its regard unknown, its manner unhurried. It spoke back in turn, it’s tone emotionless. “Connor Kent,” the obsidian man observed, regarding Clart Kent’s eldest child. “The Bastard Son of Krypton.” “Alright,” Connor stated tersely, what little patience he possessed running out as he yanked the axe free from the tree stump beside him, increasingly aware that his mother was in the house behind him. “One more step, and we’ll see which one us deserves to wear that shield. The Eradicator turned, advancing a single stride, Connor standing ready and Lois stepping out onto the porch in search of her eldest son. The young man took a breath… …and the obsidian man was in front of him, closing the distance between them in a flash and swatting the young man’s improvised weapon from him grasp. It spun through the air, coming back down to land far away, Connor scarcely able to react before he was seized about his throat and lifted bodily from the ground. He gagged, grasping at his attacker’s wrist, fruitlessly trying to break its grip. “CONNOR!” Lois cried out, a mother immediately rushing to protect her cub, even as the obsidian man gazed up at her struggling son with a featureless expression. It had peered into the young man’s DNA and found him wanting, its judgement wrapped up in just four syllables. “Eradicate.” The thunderclap of a sonic boom was all the warning that anyone on the scene would receive before a blur of red and blue cut across everyone’s sightline and slammed into the Eradicator! One moment it was there, and the next it was gone, carried away by the rapidly arriving and just as swiftly departing figure who flew through the air like a comet. Connor dropped to the floor, his lungs heaving for fresh air, released from the Eradicators grip that was suddenly no-where to be seen. Lois was by her sons’ side in an instant, helping him to sit, soon joined by another as he youngest child, Jonathon, came stumbling through the fields at a sprint, returning to the homestead with his nose and ears a little bloody. “Wait!” Superboy insisted, trying to keep up but his body uncooperative. “KARA, WAIT!!” Half a mile away, Supergirl came to an abrupt stop, slamming her feet into the ground and garbed into the bold red and blues that were her proud families uniform of office. Once, it had been her Grandmothers, now it was hers, the Matriarch of the House of El. For several yards, the Eradicator kept on going, the obsidian man propelled by irresistible momentum after being slammed into by a Kryptonian as though she were a battering ram. With cold calculations, the construct that aped the form of man arrested its enforced, airborne path by exercising its own mastery of flight, coming slowly to a stop and, with deliberate intent, lowered itself to tread upon the ground. “Enough,” Supergirl warned, pacing forwards, seething despite her outwardly calm demeanour, eyes of bright blue piercing as the earth beneath her feet trembled. The world was screaming, subjected to outside forces that were transforming it from the inside out, Kryptonian technology from an archaic, barbaric age when her people believed that they could reshape the cosmos in their own image. Her family. “Kara Zor-El,” The Eradicator observed, paying no heed to her warning, “the Last Daughter of Krypton.” “I said,” Supergirl repeated, struggling to control her temper. It came upon her without warning, as it always did, the pain forever coiled within her like a serpent and waiting for an opportunity to strike, clouding her judgement. “Enough.” The obsidian man paid no heed, taking one pace forwards and, faster than the human eye could follow, the Eradicator crossed the distance between them and moved to grab her throat. Supergirl was far from human. With speed that exceeded her foes, Kara snatched the Eradicators wrist before it could reach, her gaze locked with its faceless scrutiny as she stood unflinching, the obsidian man towering over her petite physique and yet held in place. Supergirl tightened her grip and, with a crack, the artificial man’s exterior began to crumple, Kara’s eyes of bright blue turning crimson. “Kneel,” she commanded, exerting her authority. The Eradicator did not obey, “Propaga…” With a flash of light, Supergirl sheered the artificial man’s head clean off its shoulders with a fleeting yet horrifyingly effective blast of heat vision. The rest of its frame remained standing as its cranium toppled unceremoniously to the floor, rolling across the dirt before coming to a stop. She released the Eradicators wrist; it was of no further threat. The Earth trembled beneath her feet. “Kara!” Lois called out, Supergirl looking back over her shoulder as her adoptive family caught up. There were surely a thousand questions racing through the mind of the ace reporter, only one mattered to her for the moment. “Are you ok?” Kara nodded, looking to the decapitated head at her feet before reaching down to pick it up. She had acted without thinking, a failing that she could ill afford. Lois looked her over with a mother’s eye regardless of Kara’s silent assurances, whilst Connor and Jonathon investigated the still standing, headless body of the Eradicator. “What are they?” the eldest son enquired, seriously tempted to push the figure over. “A mistake,” Supergirl attempted to explain, searching one of this world’s many limited, primitive vocabularies for the suitable words to explain it. “Hubris, I think, a mistake?” Kara exhaled, feeling frustrated before looking to the horizon and gazing further into the distance than any mortal man would find possible. The earth continued to tremble beneath her feet, filled with the violence of a forced, unnatural birth. The original sin of the House of El. “World Engine.” To Be Continued… |