Origin, Chapter Two

“Who…who are you?” Phoenix breathed, gazing out of huge eyes at Phoenix Prime. The latter began to slowly advance across the laboratory towards her.

“I am Phoenix Neetkins,” she said in reply, her fiery gaze never leaving her doppelganger. “Daughter of James and Iskira Neetkins, sister to Neetra and Carmilla. That’s more than a genetic abomination like you can say! Cloning, undiscovered medicinal plants, temporal displacement, an experimental machine belonging to the government of France…so many changes have been wrought upon your body, I doubt there’s a single pure molecule of me left in you! Do you even know what you are anymore?”

Phoenix Prime opened one hand, and a burst of flame flashed into life in her palm. This she drew back, ready to strike.

“A pity,” she went on, “that now you’ll never find out…”

Suddenly a mighty blow was dealt her from the flank, dissipating the fire in her hand and making her stagger aside. Amy, fighting-mad with fury blazing in her green eyes, swooped down upon her and for some moments the pair duelled their way throughout the laboratory in a high-speed whirl of kicks, punches and blocks. Phoenix Prime, parrying with one arm, mustered up another incandescent bolt and hurled it at her opponent, but Amy leapt back, shrinking into her true form of a small black cat so the fireball passed harmlessly through the empty space she had occupied as a human. Her four paws touched the far wall and she rebounded from it with feline quickness and agility, metamorphosing again in mid-flight as she bore down upon her adversary. The flying kick of a young woman at peak fitness caught Phoenix Prime unprepared, and sent her spinning to the laboratory floor.

A swift handspring brought the fallen girl back to her feet again, and without ado she leapt straight up and revolved her body in a lightning-fast circle. Her wings of fire whipped out in a deadly spiralling shield and this time it was Amy who was struck unawares, scythed by the flaming pinions and flung helplessly to the sidelines. She crashed into a bank of computer equipment and it collapsed on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

“Transform now, cat, and the weight of that machinery will crush the life from you in an instant!” Phoenix Prime declared, and turned back to Phoenix. “Your friends are certainly supportive, but they won’t save you. I’ve taken steps to ensure The Four Heroes are also occupied, fending off a regiment of my army!”

“Your army?” Phoenix repeated. Phoenix Prime nodded, a smile of malicious satisfaction on her face.

“You yourself handed me the opportunity to acquire them, the day you used trickery and deceit to thwart The One Below,” said she. “Soon after that he was forced to abandon his plans to invade the surface world, when an uprising by enemy subterranean races threatened his very dominions. When all seemed lost, I freely volunteered the services you refused to provide. I became The One Below’s power source, and together we annihilated those who resisted him! In return he gave me three battalions of his stone soldiers, who now obey no-one’s orders but mine!”

“You made a deal with The One Below?” Amy exclaimed, as she struggled to free herself. “You committed genocide on his behalf, just because it would help you? I don’t care what you say, you’re not Phoenix, you’re nothing to do with her!”

But Phoenix responded in a soft voice: “Non, Amy. From zat which binds me to all ze othair Phoenix clones out zere, zat which allows me to sense zeir presence and feel zeir pain, I know zat what she says is true. She is all she claims to be, and in some way, though I do not understand how…she is so much more!”

“And now we’re going to find out exactly what,” the voice of Neetra then said, as the door banged open and The Four Heroes charged into the room. Bret rushed to Amy’s side, threw away the pile of wrecked apparatus and helped her to her feet, while his three comrades turned their attentions to the intruder.

“Your army’s gone all to pieces, Phoenix Prime,” Dylan announced. “Now step away from her!”

The girl addressed turned. “Those fools. Still, plenty more where they came from,” said she. “And if it’s come to this, Four Heroes, then I believe my older sister proved some time ago that the gifts of anti-matter mutation can more than hold their own against your overrated powers!”

Neetra stepped to the head of the group.

“We’re not here to fight you,” she declared, her gaze unflinching as she stared Phoenix Prime down. “I told you what happens now. This is where we learn the truth.”

With that, the girl tipped back her head and closed her eyes. An aurora of golden light swirled and rippled forth, enveloping the laboratory in its dusty sunset waves, and drawing all seven of the persons there assembled into a gentle but unbreakable embrace. Through the supernatural abilities of The Four Heroes’ most powerful psychic, the minds of Joe, Bret, Dylan, Phoenix and Amy were brought into harmony under the orchestration of Neetra’s own, and together their telepathic selves circled and enmeshed and interwove with the mind of Phoenix Prime. There was no violation, no forcible trespass, but merely sharing in its ultimate form, a unity of the innermost, a confluence of memory and feeling from which nothing was reserved. Within this, before the inward eyes of our heroes, the secrets of Phoenix Prime which had never before been spoken were at long last unravelled…

Flesh-Ripper bounded ahead of Solenoid and took the supervillains’ vanguard, his shaggy hide of fur and sinew flashing through the night at inhuman speed, his lethal fangs and talons agleam. As soon as he was within range he gave voice to a blood-curdling howl and pounced, his tiny brain empty but his entire being gripped by a primal urge to rip out the Next Four’s throats.

“Tranquilizer,” The Chancellor voice-commanded his gun. A dart flew from the barrel to Flesh-Ripper’s neck, dropping him to the street in an insensible tangle of hairy limbs. Casting aside his weapon, The Chancellor stepped over the slumbering beast and closed with Solenoid.

“Do you think I have not dealt with attack dogs before?” he demanded contemptuously. “Or, for that matter, unschooled opponents?”

“What about unschooled opponents who can do this?” Solenoid snarled, breaking free of The Chancellor’s grip and unleashing his magnetic powers. Shop-front windows across the antique weapons quarter exploded as one, rent asunder by the swords, knives and other bladed weapons that Solenoid brought whistling down upon the battlefield. Before this vicious onslaught of murderous metal The Chancellor was forced to flee, and combatants of both factions had likewise to break off their engagements and defend themselves from the slicing, slashing storm.

D’Carthage turned on his heel to confront Solenoid, his red velvet cloak flaring out magnificently behind him. Upon a single sweep of his muscular arm, writhing green vines shattered the pavement from below and ensnared the villain, pinning his hands to his sides and lifting his feet from the floor. Struggle and swear as he might, Solenoid could neither escape nor use his magnetism to work any more violent mischief.

“An underhanded move, Sir, shame on you!” D’Carthage declared. “Like all rogues and vagabonds, you are no pugilist!”

As the brawny blond man returned to pitting his creepers against Icer’s frozen barricades, Gala shot lithely by while deflecting with her shining cutlass the forks of lightning Maelstrom sent after her. Her long black coat was a blur of motion and her wild brown hair streamed out as she twirled and leapt and swung, bouncing thunderbolts from her blade one after the other and sending them crackling into the night sky.

“Curse you, woman!” Maelstrom hissed as he kept up the pursuit. “How is it that you wield such power with such skill, and yet you are unknown to me? Why was your coming not predicted by my art?”

“My coming was foretold, wretch, by authorities far greater than your blundering mysticism could ever dream of!” Gala retorted, glimpsing Hydrus advancing stealthily from the side. A split-second was all she needed. When the blue-haired man’s palms erupted into a waterspout, Gala was already airborne, cleaving her sword below her heels to catapult Maelstrom’s last lightning-bolt straight into the heart of the geyser. Light and noise swallowed the world for an instant, and then Hydrus toppled backward to the street, his body rigid as a board, his hair standing up in huge blue spikes, his eyes staring unblinking at the starry sky. As Maelstrom stumbled away, reeling from the blinding flash, Gala landed before him and used the flat of her cutlass to propel the withered old sage to where the vines that already held Solenoid were waiting.

Sword-Slicer looked like a shooting star as he careened across the battlefield in his silver finery, wielding his enchanted blade and attempting to bring down the speeding airborne form of Steam. Their deadly dance brought them close to where Gala was, just in time for Sword-Slicer to witness the rout of Maelstrom and Hydrus.

“The fair buccaneer is a delight indeed!” he exclaimed, in tones of deep approval. “And yet so serious, so warlike. Thigh-slapping jollity is what a warrior seeks in a buxom wench of the waves!”

“D’Carthage, mate, were you pair separated at birth?” Steam asked incredulously.

“I can only suppose it must have been so!” D’Carthage laughed from elsewhere on the street. “Ah, could it be that at long last I have met a worthy opponent, one who will understand the honour of facing me in a true contest of skills?”

“Only if I don’t have him first!” said Steam, returning to his death-dives and loops around the sword-bearing foe. D’Carthage in turn resumed piling his tendrils of green upon the glacial shields of his opponent, but Icer was defending himself with a vengeance, freezing the living vines inside enormous bergs and splintering them apart into verdant shards.

“Give it up, yo!” Icer cackled, secure behind wall after wall of his element. “You’re throwing plants at me, and no plant survives the deep-freeze that I got!”

“How true,” purred D’Carthage. “A change in temperature would, I think, be advantageous to us all…!”

On this cue The Chancellor, who had taken position close by, let rip with his flamethrower. Within seconds Icer’s entire defensive array was reduced to so much water and vapour, and the slight young man was suddenly alone and unprotected on the street. D’Carthage strode through the puddles, summarily dispatched him with his fist, then summoned a mass of creepers to hold him.

Steam skidded to a landing as the other three members of his team regrouped around him, and together the entire Next Four surrounded Sword-Slicer. “The last man standing,” Gala said to him with a mocking smile. “Surrender now, you vainglorious oaf, or you’ll see just how much damage this ‘fair buccaneer’ can do to you!”

“Hold hard, me handsome,” Sword-Slicer responded easily as his gaze sought out D’Carthage, to whose earlier speech he had carefully attended. “I believe you have among you one, at least, who will respect my right at such a time to a wager of single combat?”

With obvious gratification, D’Carthage stepped forward at once. “You believe correctly, Sir!” he declared. “And as the challenged party, I trust you have no objection to my choosing the weapons?”

An antique rapier was standing at hand, embedded point-down in the street. D’Carthage pulled it up by the hilt and levelled it at Sword-Slicer with a flourish.

“I see in you, Sir, a decidedly unimaginative fencer wholly dependent on flamboyancy and a magical sword,” D’Carthage went on. “Unlike your partners in crime, you clearly have no innate superhuman powers, but merely a sorcerous weapon to hide behind. Do you have the courage to face me without it, one plain sword against another, steel against steel and your will against mine?”

Sword-Slicer’s blue eyes sparkled, and a smile spread slowly across his face.

“I can think of nothing I should like more, my fine fellow!” he declared. Without ado he tossed his enchanted sword aside, which clattered to the street and ceased to flame with its ethereal colours, reverting to dull metal. Sword-Slicer selected a rapier of his own from the many littering the battlefield, swished it a few times, and held it ready.

“A simple sword,” said he. “Boasting none of the mystical might of me eldritch razor-edged friend. With this weapon alone shall I give you satisfaction! Come, Sir!”

“D’Carthage! We don’t have time for this foolishness!” Gala barked.

“But there is always time for two gentlemen to prove themselves in the most noble of sports!” D’Carthage beamed, too much in his stride by now to heed even the warning tone in Gala’s voice. “Besides, my victory will be swift. Let’s at it!”

D’Carthage threw off his cloak and his three fellows stepped hastily to the sidelines, as he and Sword-Slicer saluted each other and began to make opening passes. After a few moments of this back-and-forth, Sword-Slicer launched into the first spectacular stroke of the duel, a huge and extravagant downward swing that even a novice could have seen coming. With a confident smile D’Carthage raised his foil to parry as his opponent’s blade descended upon him, knowing he was meeting the thrust with time to spare, already planning his counterstrike…

And then, the moment before the blades touched, Sword-Slicer’s came alive with demonic otherworldly fire identical to that which had raged upon the weapon he discarded. The burning rapier clove the other in two without stopping, and its plunge ended in a searing burst of terrible energies struck from D’Carthage’s hide. With a cry he crumpled to his knees, all his strength sapped by the brutal unexpected blow, and as D’Carthage fell, the plantlife he held mastery over wilted likewise. Maelstrom, Icer and Solenoid leapt down to the street as their dying brown snares fell away around them, and they did not waste the opportunity they had been handed. Mustering all his magnetic force, Solenoid hurled every parked car within his range across the battlefield at his adversaries, and before Gala, Steam and The Chancellor had time to react they were laid low in a devastating collision of mangled metal and flying chunks of chassis.

“Fool!” Sword-Slicer roared in savage triumph, as he stood over the humbled form of D’Carthage. “My powers are within me, not my sword! I am as much a superhuman as any of me buckos, and can infuse whatever blade I wish with the enchantments that course through me! The Four Heroes would have known this, but it seems their new friends have much to learn before they can claim to be their equals. Brush up your Machiavelli before you next face me, Sirrah!”

“Nice monologue, homes, now let’s buck before they recover!” said Icer, rushing past with the still-rigid Hyrdus in tow. Sword-Slicer recovered his original blade and joined him. Meanwhile Maelstrom grabbed the slumbering Flesh-Ripper by the tail, Solenoid swung the Dimension Borg robot’s head back underneath his arm, and dragging their two fallen comrades behind them the villains vanished into the night with their prize.

Gala flung aside the twisted roof of a Studebaker and hauled herself out of the heap of scrap metal. Beside her, Steam and the Chancellor were slowly doing likewise. The piratical young woman took in the street at a glance: battle-ravaged, strewn with weapons and detritus, deserted but for her wounded minion. The look that fell across Gala’s features would have chilled to the bone any who witnessed it.

“They escaped,” she breathed, her voice all the more terrifying for being hushed. “We…we were defeated!”

END OF CHAPTER TWO