Issue Number Eight
"Evil, Revealed : Part Two"
And the heroes fell, one by one....
WORDENSHIRE CASTLE, SQUADRON HQ
"It is strange that he isn't responding to his communicator. Very unlike him." Constance D'Aramis, aka the Crimson Fox, sat before the team's monitor board, staring at the blank screen and frowning. She's fully recovered from her battle with Hawkman*, but she was still growing more and more tired by the day. Her family business was taking up most of her time and her responsibilities as team leader ate away at the rest.
(*As detailed in issue five.)
And now Revenant was missing....
Cyril Sheldrake, the Knight, set a cup of tea before her. He was a handsome man, though his hair was increasingly speckled with gray. Someday soon, he would be forced to hang up the costume and turn it over to his ward, Julie. "Who knows with him? If you ask me, we're lucky he hasn't betrayed us all! We don't know his real name or what 'sins' he committed before being damned. The mere fact that he is damned should be reason enough not to trust him in our home."
Constance sipped her tea and made a face. She'd never seen the British affection for the stuff and pushed it away from her after setting it back down. "Everyone deserves a second chance, Cyril. Not everyone is born and bred in the same kind of luxery as you and I. Perhaps Revenant turned to crime as a means of escape. We do not know and I won't judge him because of it."
"And what if he was a serial killer or a child rapist? Would you still think he deserves a second chance? This liberal mindset of yours is going to get us all in trouble!"
Constance had had enough. She stood up and pointed a finger into Cyril's face. "Damnez-vous! How dare you?! I have bent over backwards for you, Cyril -- relocating the team to England just so you could stay at home, not speaking up when you've challenged my authority in front of the others -- but this is too much! I am team leader and I have made my decision! He is one of us, end of story!"
Cyril's jaw clenched but he held his tongue. "Very well. I see how this partnership is going to turn out... You live in my home, use my labs and computer equipment and expect me to be seen and not heard? The Knight is a national icon, an identity created by my father and nurtured by myself. It has helped this team enormously--"
Constance turned away, her attention drawn by the monitor board's pinging. "Hush! We are receiving an emergency signal."
The Crimson Fox studied the readout that appeared before her, a small map of Paris rising up in a holographic display. A flashing light drew her eyes. "There! Ze computer says that Revenant has activated his emergency homing signal -- he is back in Paris!"
The Knight nodded crisply. "I'll alert the others. The trip is too far for my Knight Platform to carry us. We'll have to use one of the old JLI shuttles that the U.N. loaned us."
The Fox moved towards the door. "I'll warm up ze ship. Tell everyone to hurry! Whatever could take out Revenant could be very dangerous indeed!"
Chandi Gupta concentrated, biting her lower lip so hard that it bruised the soft flesh. Before her, a tub slowly filled with water. Ever since her powers had first manifested, she'd felt more at ease using her flame powers, especially when focused through her psychic arrows. But she also had the ability to generate and control water, and it was a power that Sue Dibny was trying to help her realize.
"That's it, Chandi! Just keep it slow. You're capable of generating mini-floods, but you need to reach the point where your control is so good that you can make a trickle if you want."
Chandi glanced over at Sue, who was seated on the floor in the middle of the team's training room. When she spoke, her voice was tight with effort. "But... when would I need... to... make a trickle of water... in combat?!"
"You never know. But the point isn't that you'll be able to defeat Despero this way, it's that your level of control is so high that you can do anything with your power."
The sound of the castle's intercom system coming on made Chandi's concentration slip. The water sloshed over the edge of the tub and puddled on the floor.
"All team members to the hanger immediately. I repeat : all team members to the hangar immediately!"
Chandi let out a smile. "I wonder what's up? It's gotta be better than this!"
Sue playfully whacked her on the arm. "Go. We'll practice more when you come back. Tell Ralph to be careful."
"I will, Mrs. Dibny. Thanks!"
Sue watched the young girl run outside and shook her head. I hope my kid has an easier time growing up than she did. Then again, with the life that Ralph and I lead, maybe that's not a fair expectation....
PARIS
"So he's not answering our hails?" Ralph Dibny's body was seated in the middle of the JS shuttle, but his neck was extended into the cockpit, where his face was pressed close to the Fox's.
"No. But there are several possibilities, the least of which is that his communicator is damaged somehow."
Ralph's nose twitched. "Hmm. Maybe, but something about this has set my nose off. I smell a mystery... Then again, I smell a lot of mysteries where Revenant's concerned. You want me to look into his background?"
Constance sighed. "Not you too, Ralph. Does everyone distrust him?"
Ralph nodded somewhat sadly. "Afraid so. Even Maya says he spooks her. All that hell and damnation talk's got me kind of worried, too. I mean, what if Neron comes looking for Revenant while Sue's at the castle alone with the baby?"
"All right. But nothing sneaky. We'll demand answers from him publicly, but I don't condone anyone snooping into his past. Fair?"
"Yep. So that's the place?" Ralph looked out the viewport window and saw an abandoned Alchemax facility up ahead. "Alchemax... Weren't they busted for some sort of illegal research a few years back*?"
(*Check out Justice Society of America (1992) # 3-5!)
"I do not know, Ralph, but this is the source of Revenant's distress signal." Turning to the others, she said "Prepare for landing everyone. We're going in."
The Justice Squadron entered the Alchemax building, each on guard for anything. The Crimson Fox and the Knight were at the forefront, flanked by Maya and the Elongated Man. Hawkman and Godiva were in the rear.
The entry hall was empty of all furniture and adornment, but the Fox sniffed the air. "There are people here. I can smell them."
Hawkman nodded. Since his acceptance of the Hawk-Avatar, his senses had been augmented as well. "Yes... but not just people. There's an animal scent to this place. Something ape-like."
The door which they had entered suddenly slammed shut, a lock snapping into place. Godiva immediately whipped her hair out towards the handle and pulled. With a grunt, she shook her head. "It's too strong. I can't get through. We're trapped."
Hawkman drew a large Thanagarian blade. "This is an ambush... Form a circle in the center of the room, keep your eyes and ears open. Watch for some sort of gas attack as well, they could be looking to capture us."
The Knight followed Hawkman's suggestion, taking up a point in the forming circle. He glanced at the Crimson Fox. "If Revenant's betrayed us, this will be on your head."
"He hasn't betrayed us." I hope.
"Welcome, Justice Squadron." The booming voice that rang out through the room sent shivers down Maya's spine. It sounded bestial and dangerous. "I am your host, known to many as the Ultra-Humanite."
The Elongated Man stretched his neck until he saw the tiny speakers mounted throughout the room. The Ultra-Humanite could be anywhere, possibly not even in the building at all....
The Crimson Fox clenched her fists. "What have you done with Revenant?"
"The wraith is alive, my dear. I am not generally a murderer -- if I can contain my enemies in some other fashion, I will do so. And for the moment, Revenant is no danger to me or my compatriots."
Ralph snapped his fingers. "You're the leader of the new Secret Society, aren't you? It makes sense -- you organized one of the old groups, after all!"
"Your deductive abilities are astonishing, Mr. Dibny. A pity you did not solve this conundrum earlier. As it is, you are now in my clutches."
Maya summoned up a flame arrow, determined to try and blast their way to freedom. She never got the chance to send it forth, however, as the floor suddenly gave way beneath her. "Guys, watch out!"
Her cry of warning was too little, too late. Each of the Squadron members found themselves dropping down a series of metal tubes whose frictionless walls held no hope of staying their fall.
Hawkman, however, reacted in his own way. Flapping his wings to stay aloft, he moved high into the air, above the many holes that had opened beneath him. With narrowed eyes, he watched as the traps closed and left the floor once more smooth and unlined. "Seven Hells! You'll pay for this, Ultra!"
"Oh, just zip it, bird-boy."
Hawkman whirled in the direction of the woman's voice and saw an attractive young girl dressed in a costume striding towards him. The Thanagarian dove down quickly, snatching her up. "Where are my friends? Tell me or --"
"Or what? You'll beat me up? Sorry, birdie, but your wings are about to get clipped."
The villainess known as Amber suddenly secreted a thick substance which spread over his wings in a heartbeat. Unable to fly, he landed hard and lost his group on Amber.
She landed on her feet and laughed. "Keep struggling all you want -- that stuff answers my mental command and there's no getting it off. Right now it's sliding over the rest of you and hardening, trapping you like a fly in amber. Tough, huh?"
Hawkman, however, was unable to answer. Caught off-guard, he had no defense for the substance which washed over him. Able to breath slightly through the pourous substance, he could only watch in mute horror as Amber raised a communicator in her hand. "I've caught my little peacock, Ultra-Humanite. Two down."
The Ultra-Humanite watched from his hidden chamber as the members of his Secret Society moved forward in their attacks on the Squadron. Had the battle not been on the Society's home field, with all advantages in their favor, the results might have been different.
But nothing had been left to chance.
After Amber's victory over Hawkman, the rest of the heroes fell like dominoes. Landing alone and bereft of allies, they had found themselves set upon by members of the Society.
Signal Man found himself surprised by the strength and fury of Godiva, but in the end his hypnotic flashes had reduced the woman to an unwilling slave.
Star Sapphire simply overpowered the comical Elongated Man, using her alien-induced abilities to reduce him to a limp pile of flesh.
Kestrel found himself in combat with the Crimson Fox, who acquitted herself very well in combat. Her pheromones had briefly seemed to turn the tide, but the Ultra-Humanite had placed a drug into the Thanagarian's system that neutralized their effectiveness to a degree. Even though Kestrel's first choice had been to oppose his opposite number, Hawkman, he had in the end seen the Ultra-Humanite's wisdom. Each Squadron member must be taken down by someone aptly suited for the task. With Fel Andar and Katar Hol, the abilities were too even, there was too much chance of the Winged Wonder emerging victorious... and that could not be allowed to happen.
The Mirror Master endeared himself to the Ultra-Humanite by capturing his second hero, the Knight. The battle had been just as brief as the one between the Mirror Master and Revenant. Heroes had a tendancy to dismiss Mirror Master as a gimmick villain, but his power was quite great. The Ultra-Humanite, in fact, had failsafes to take McCulloch down should he turn against the Society, as he once did with the Injustice Gang.
In the end, only one Squadron member remained... and the Ultra-Humanite would deal with her himself.
Maya was letting loose with a string of obscenities that would have shocked her parents, had they been near enough to hear them. She had been deposited rather roughly into an empty room that was lined with metal. Her attempts to burn her way out had ended in failure and she wasn't sure what use her water powers would be, either.
The sound of a door opening immediately set her hands blazing. The hulking figure who entered the room was unmistakable. A figure risen from the nightmares of the just, he had terrorized the world since the dark days of World War II. A scientist whose brain had been transplanted from body to the next, all to prolong his evil existence.
The Ultra-Humanite.
Maya let loose with an immediate attack. Her blasts of flame sent the Ultra-Humanite staggering back, as bits of his white fur became singed. "You bastard! Let my friends go!"
The Ultra-Humanite roared, lumbering forward through the flames as if oblivous to the pain. He grabbed Maya and shook her hard. "Stop this, child! I won't hurt you if you don't resist!"
"Screw you!" Maya's eyes shone with fire as flames burst from her flesh to surround the Ultra-Humanite. The smell of burning flesh filled the room.
"ENOUGH!" The Ultra-Humanite used his mental powers to attack the young girl, shorting out her mind and making her go limp in his arms, barely conscious. "Damn you... I was hoping to sway you to our side, but I should have known better. Your powers could be quite useful is you were trained properly... but that is obviously not to be. So be it. Join your friends in their banishment...."
Godiva woke up to find herself strapped inside a clear tube, her arms and legs bound by metal casings. She turned her head enough to see that her teammates, including an unconscious Revenant, were alongside her in tubes of their own. The technology looked familiar, like that of the Justice League's old transporters but modified by the Ultra-Humanite's twisted genius.
"One of them's awake, U-H. Too bad we can't keep her around. I like her." Signal Man leered at Godiva through the tube.
"We should kill them all and be done with it," murmured Kestrel.
The Ultra-Humanite grunted as the other Society members waited for their master to begin the final process. At last, he looked up from his computer console. "It is ready. Today we throw open the doors to a new era -- an era of freedom from our enemies. An era in which beings such as we shall rule the world!"
Godiva frowned. What were they up to? She looked desperately for a way out but found none. Oh, Piers, remember that I loved you....
The Ultra-Humanite's white-furred paw flipped a switch and a humming filled the air. Electricity flew around the Squadron's prisons, growing in intensity until all of the Society members had to look away from the blinding glare.
A snap echoed through the room, sounding like nothing more than the snapping of a rubber band.
And then the tubes were empty, its contents dispatched to another level of Hypertime.
Star Sapphire could barely contain her excitement. "Did it work? Are all the heroes gone?"
The Ultra-Humanite studied his readouts, scanning the world's news channels for any evidence of superhero activity. His cameras mounted in Metropolis, Gotham, Keystone and Midway showed nothing. No Superman, Batman, Flash or Doom Patrol.
He raised a fist into the air. "We have done it! The Secret Society of Super-Villains has banished all heroes from the Earth!"
TO BE CONTINUED....
In Justice Squadron # 9 : The Secret Society has won! The DCL Universe has lost its heroes! What can possibly happen now?! Be here for the stunning conclusion of "Evil, Revealed!"
EUROPINIONS
I think this current storyline is the best one yet, but I have no idea what everyone else thinks because I continue to receive virtually no feedback. Love it or hate it, let me know!
For those of you who wonder if our team will face anyone other than the Secret Society, the answer is "Yes!" Following next issue's blowout, we'll be moving on to other villains and other storylines. No more Society, for a long while at least.
Keep in touch,