LLH 9.4

“Red Roses for a Pink Lady” by Roentgen

Upchuck and Tiffany sat down to the movie. “The Shopaholic’s Daughter”, starting a bunch of actresses that he had never heard of. A real “chick flick” according to what he had learned so far on IMDB. He figured that it would be the perfect kind of movie to show Tiffany how sensitive he was to a woman’s needs. With luck, the three glasses of wine he drank would soon obliterate his memory of that embarrassing dinner together.

Tiffany sat one seat away from him, and put her purse in the seat between the two of him.
She gave him an odd look. With that look, Upchuck knew in his heart of hearts that the night was over.

Finished! Kaput! There would be no kiss, no hand holding, no exchange of pleasantries. There wouldn’t even be “Gee Charles, I had a really nice time.” It was back to Upchuck being a figure of scorn again. They’ll probably get together and laugh about it.

As the movie started, Upchuck heard a cellphone go off. It figured that there would be some force to spoil a movie that he probably wouldn’t like very much anyway.

“Shhh!” someone shouted and Upchuck changed his ears to a more sensitive form. He quickly located the sound…in Tiffany’s purse.

“Tiffany!” he whispered. “Your phone is ringing!”

“But I turned it offfff!” she whispered as someone five rows back shouted, “Answer it!”

Tiffany reached into her tiny purse. The white phone was glowing, blinking on and off. She flipped open the clamshell:

EMERGENCY
Return to Legion Tower Immediately
Press *3 to Acknowledge

“What’s it say?”


“We have to go baaaaack,” said Tiffany. “There’s an emergencyyyyyyy.” Tiffany pressed the buttons and the ringing stopped, to sarcastic clapping in the background.
As the two walked out, Upchuck figured that the night couldn’t have ended any better than it just did. At least, it kept him from having to watch the movie.

(* * *)

The fall from the upper floor of Legion Tower was over two hundred feet.
Glass rained down as Kyle Armalin watched solid concrete rise up to greet him as he plummeted out of Legion Tower. He remembered to tuck and roll at the last moment, like a diver. This meant that he would now land foot first, and have his femurs driven right into his hipbones, sure to cause him agonizing pain.

However, he contacted the ground with the force of a butterfly kiss, landing on his feet as lightly as Fred Astaire. Sizing up the situation, he disappeared – literally – running with a speed that was almost akin to teleportation. He had to go get something….

(* * *)

“YOU BASTARD!!”

Jane reached out a hand towards the gymnasium equipment at the center of the floor. It wasn’t a mere yank, a tug, but rather the gut-wrenching tear of metal that punctuated the silence as the bolts flew out of the floor making noises like a heavy metal drum solo.
Several tons of iron plates, bars, rods, and free weights flew toward Black Majesty. Sandi screamed “Stop it! Stop it!!” but Jane wasn’t listening. The force of the fusillade would have crushed a normal human being….

…but not Black Majesty. Jane shielded the Legion from being hit with stray shrapnel, but somehow, not as single item found its target as Black Majesty looked at Jane.
(“Close the door!! Close the door!!” screamed Black Majesty’s retinue as they fled the area. The door finally closed. One second later, two tons of iron plates from a Nautilus machine collided with the closed elevator door, punching a hole through the shaft and theoretically raining down heavy iron death on those trapped inside.)

Black Majesty glared at Jane. “Not fair,” he said, and gave a very weak wave of his hand.

Jane was suddenly picked up with the force of a gale wind and slammed into one of the walls. By sheer luck, she did not fracture her skull, but it was not a gentle landing. She rolled onto the floor, her condition unknown as Brittany rushed over to assess her.

“Get out of here, Daria,” said Quinn, very quietly.

“Quinn, don’t do it, he’s…”

Quinn walked away from Daria, towards Black Majesty. “Get back, Daria. Or you’ll get hurt.”

“Are you a witch?” said Black Majesty to Quinn, noticing her earlier display of electrical powers.

“No,” said Quinn. “I just want to know how much I can hurt you.” She paused. “I’m hoping that it’s…a lot.”

And with that…Quinn pointed both of her arms towards Black Majesty, and unleashed the full fury of her electrical abilities.

One of the Sandis grabbed Daria away before a stray arc of electricity clipped her legs.

(* * *)

There was…something…then…there was….

BLINDNESS.

It was a burning sun. All Brittany could make out was a pulsing, burning strobe light that filled the air with an acrid smell, the smell from after a thunderstorm. The light that Quinn threw off was so strong that none of the Legionnaires could even make out Quinn’s features, or Black Majesty’s, or the features of anyone else. A massive amount of electrical energy was being fired right into the body of Black Majesty, an amount so blinding that the room was quenched in lightness – the opposite of darkness, but having the same effect, rendering human senses useless.

(* * *)

Only the competitors could tell what was happening.

Black Majesty’s wardrobe was ripped from him in the space of a split second, virtually atomized by the amount of energy, the sheer amount of electromagnetic force that was the power of Quinn Morgendorffer. Each computer in the room, each electrical watch, gave up the ghost, having its hard drive wiped forever and ever.

Quinn watched the clothes fry from Black Majesty’s form…the same way they had been burned away from Lou Cypher, when she had hit the unkillable man with the full force of her power several months earlier.

Black Majesty…stepped forward. The metal in the area smoked, melted, blackened.
Quinn knew she had to pour out even more force, more power. As she did, she watched with horrid fascination as her own clothes, formerly protected, suddenly were burned away as well, vaporizing. That’s never happened before, she said to herself.

But she wasn’t hurt. That was the most important thing. The most important thing was to stop this killer. He might have killed Tom, killed Armalin, killed Jane. No one else could be allowed to die.

As she pumped power into him, Quinn watched the very flesh, the very fat under Black Majesty’s face…melt. The melted flesh poured over his skull, dancing over the bone like raindrops over a window on a windy day.

Black Majesty’s held tilted to the side. In the middle of what would have been the very definition of death…he smiled. As if he were amused!

He raised his hand, and an arc of blue energy leapt into Quinn’s chest. Her electrical powers shut down immediately, and she fell, naked, to the floor.

The blue energy concentrated itself about Black Majesty’s hand. It zigged, it zagged, it turned in about itself, doing things that no beam of light should have been able to do. It formed patterns upon patterns within itself, Escher-like mazes.

The elevator doors returned themselves to normal.

The burnt metal, the destroyed computers, the glowing hot surface of the floor all returned to their former states within moments. The only things which did not return to their former states were the clothes of Quinn Morgendorffer and Black Majesty.

Black Majesty did not seem to care that he was naked. He was sculpted like a Greek statue made of black marble, a specimen of physicality which perfectly matched his incredible power.

As Quinn looked up, trembling, the only things keeping Black Majesty from Quinn were Daria and Stacy.

(* * *)

>>-GET OUT OF HERE!! GO AWAY-<<

It was a command aimed directly into the mind of Black Majesty. Psi-sensitives in the area would have been able to hear the command as an echo, and would undoubtedly be wincing. It was a command not to be obeyed.

Daria had finally touched Black Majesty’s mind and found…

…darkness…and POWER!

Daria was taken up in a whirlwind. The walls of the Legion Tower literally collapsed into a million pieces like a house of cards, girders, metal plates, people swept miles away in split seconds. She was helpless against the onslaught of what appeared to be a malevolent black firestorm that annihilated everything it its path, leaving Daria Morgendorffer alone and friendless, the Apocalypse coming, the four riders having fled to the four corners of the earth.

In Daria’s new reality --a reality of horror and devastation -- the black firestorm coalesced into the gigantic form of the Black Majesty, hundreds of feet tall!

Daria ran, like a kitten running from its master. A gigantic black hand snatched Daria up and Daria felt the flames squeezing her ribcage, as she struggled to get free. Then the hand turned…

…Daria faced it. It was a head with red hair of fire, literal fire, burning furnaces for eyes and a pit of the torments of hell illuminating every corner of Black Majesty’s mouth. The spaces of his body which were not fire were unholy dark matter, the matter that was used to make Death.

“WHO ARE YOU TO TORMENT ME?” the Giant head screamed, each word a Dresden firestorm. Daria could feel her body starting to burn.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohGodohohGodohGodohGod

“I’LL MAKE YOUR SOUL SCREAM MY NAME!!” he shouted. And indeed, Daria could hear her soul, a weak pitiful voice inside singing, “Black Majesty! Black Majesty!” as it ignited and what was left of Daria Morgendorffer was consigned to the flames of unimaginable suffering….

(* * *)

Stacy smelled urine.

Daria simply said, “Ggg.” Then, she collapsed to the floor, unconscious, in a pool of liquid.

One of the Sandis had covered Quinn with a blanket. No one knew what to do next. They seemed to be out of options. Stacy was already beginning to hyperventilate.

“Charming indeed,” said Black Majesty, with a smile. “I came for my property – but perhaps, but who would have thought that I could have possibly found, perhaps, a suitable candidate for a bride….”

Quinn was forced to look at him. Everyone was. At his nakedness. At his sense of triumph.

Black Majesty seemed to make a decision. “Better, still, that the rose has thorns. One should remember that beauty usually walks hand-in-hand with danger.” He looked right into Quinn’s eyes. “You will come with me.”

Stacy swallowed. “No…” she muttered, her lips shaking.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Something changed in Stacy. Stacy screamed, but it was not the scream of a terrified teenager. Rather, it was the scream of a furiously angry animal, the scream of the she-wolf as something evil and unwanted had intruded on her territory.

The muscles in her face pulled her lips backward as her jaws clamped shut. Sharp incisors ripped through her gumline, knocking out two of her teeth which fell to the ground. The pupil of her eye, the smooth muscle which opened and closed to allow light into Stacy’s eyes, changed shape from a wide dot to a vertical slit….and blood dripped from Stacy’s hands as her fingernails extended to talons, two inches long.

Stacy lept, covering the distance between Quinn and Black Majesty in a split second. Black Majesty simply grabbed the hand that was about to bring razor-sharp talons to sink into Majesty’s throat, stopping the attack with speed that rivaled Stacy’s new-found power.

He looked rather indifferent. “Damned nightbreed,” he said. “You should be cleansed from the earth.”

However, the attack made Black Majesty unaware of the elevator door behind him. The elevator door, inadvertently restored to its pristine condition by Black Majesty’s Charm of Making, opened as Kyle Armalin stepped out.

Armalin did not look happy. He was carrying a very big gun. The bullets were made of a specialized superheavy alloy. The sheer power of the gun was just great enough to throw these massively heavy bullets into the target. Merely lifting the gun…well, that was a tale for another day.

It was an “AK” gun. AK – for ”ass kicker”. What Black Majesty most certainly was, and what this gun was specifically designed to kill. Armalin hoped he didn’t screw up because he had a limited number of bullets.

The first shot took the top of Black Majesty’s head clear off. The second shot turned the rest of his head into a fine mist which splattered the walls.

Stacy gasped, as Black Majesty’s now headless body let go of her arm and fell to the floor. Not even thinking, she immediately grabbed Quinn and pulled her out of the area.
“HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!”

Demonic laughter echoed through the room. The fallen form of Black Majesty turned into smoke…smoke which formed the silhouette of his body, if not the substance.

“I have matched your full measure…but you have not matched mine! I will not be back for my property, which will be returned to me at my time of choosing. But I will be back for you,” he said, a hand gesturing towards Quinn. “Until then…my charming little rose.”

And with that, the immaterial form of Black Majesty flashed into existence briefly before disappearing, a blue aura of his image quickly fading back into nothingness….all that was left of him was a single, red, red rose, which floated down from the nothingness…and landed at the feet of Quinn Morgendorffer.

(* * *)

Brittany was desperately trying to remember how to treat people who were suffering from shock. Jane was breathing. She had a pulse. Brittany, however, didn’t know how bad Jane was hurt.

She had taken off her camouflage-colored tunic, revealing an olive-drab shirt that hugged every inch of her curvaceous upper body. But she didn’t know whether to prop up Jane’s head, or her feet, or cover her up! There were rules and there were these exceptions to rules, and they all jumped around and danced in her head and she couldn’t remember any of them!!

She remembered the head, though. Don’t move the head if you don’t know what’s happened. So no putting the head on a pillow. But what about the feet?
Brittany heard a voice. “Can…I help?” She turned.

”Eap!”

It was Tom Sloane. Somehow, he had recovered from a beating that would have turned ten men into tomato paste. He looked like the loser of a fight, however. His face was swollen and purple, with one eye closed shut…and he made…crunching noises as he walked.

“Uh…I probably don’t look that great,” muttered Tom, rather witty.

Brittany just closed her eyes and pointed to her cheek, over and over.
“What? What?” asked Sloane. He reached up to his cheek…and found a flap of flesh hanging from his face, hanging like old bark from a new tree.

“Oh.” He reached up and pushed it back into place. The flesh, once reattached, didn’t seem to slip or slide. He then bent down to help Jane, and Brittany could hear several pops in a row. His ribs hurt like hell. But his mind was clear, and he was determined to do what he could.

(* * *)

Stacy began to transform back to what she had been. Armalin looked at Stacy and said, “are you all right?”

Stacy nodded. She was starting to hyperventilate again.

”Whileyouweregonetherewasahugefightand
QuinntriedtostophimandJanetriedtokillhimbuthe
stoppeditandthenJanetriedtobeathimupbuthehurt
JaneandthenhestoppedQuinnandDariawentcrazy
whichiswhen -- !”

“Rowe…go upstairs. Hit the treadmill. Run it off.” He knew that Stacy was in the middle of an adrenaline rush. Stacy nodded.

He went over to Daria and tried to ignore the smell. Quinn (covered in a blanket) and Sandi tried to attend to Daria. “I don’t know if she’s awake. What’s wrong?” said Sandi.

Kyle figured it out. “She must have tried to make a mental assault on this guy…Black Majesty.” He would remember that name, and find out as much about it as possible. He turned to Sandi. “Get more blankets, Griffin. Keep her warm, until she wakes up.” At least, he hoped she would wake up.
Other men from the Quarry Unit rushed into the living quarters. The real medics came to relieve Brittany. As Armalin turned his attention to the scene, he noticed a young man wearing a green sweater and blood-soaked khaki pants which were virtually colored red. The young man turned to greet Armalin and sort of gave a half-smile.

This kid just fought a god hand to hand…and survived! Whatever he was, he was no longer bleeding, he was conscious, and he was on his feet. Armalin suspected that his facial injuries and his fractures were already in the process of knitting themselves up, and at a rapid speed.

“So…,” said Armalin, “you’re Tom Sloane”.

“Well, that’s what Mom and Dad call me.” Tom looked around. “I guess I wasn’t much help, huh? Is…Jane going to be all right?”

“We need to get her X-rayed. It might be okay,” Armalin told him, knowing that beings like Jane and the rest of them somehow survived injuries that would kill a human. “But we won’t know until we find out the results, first. So hold off. And I want to have you X-rayed as well.”

Tom nodded as the elevator doors opened. Upchuck and Tiffany rushed onto the floor. Everyone looked oddly at them as Upchuck shouted, “We’re back, everybody…did we miss anything?”