New Mages #3
"Zona Oscura"
(Still Act III)
by Jacob Milnestein

His frail human form crashed into the ground of the metal corridor, tearing a trench into it's smooth surface as he slid across it and slammed directly into the wall.

His stomach wretched, bile and blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Seconds passed, valuable seconds in which he made no attempt to move and then slowly Black Star rose shakily to his feet and held his staff out before him.

The angel, or whatever it was, continued to advance, its facade feminine at present but the blistering rage in his obsidian eyes remained thoroughly alien. He had seen its kind before, knew the power such creatures wielded and yet still he stood his ground. Another second passed and suddenly a fresh burst of pain. He blinked, opened his eyes once more and she was standing in front of him. A terrible feeling of loss settled upon him and he looked down.

Thrust directly through his stomach was the burning blade of the woman's scarab weapon. Suddenly he understood everything and knew that he had lost. He blinked again, darkness foreboding behind his eyelids. The woman smiled cruelly as he opened his eyes.

Another second passed before she twisted the blade and his body was torn clean in two.

* * *

Lin Tsang Hsia sprinted down the corridor, her costume heavy and uncomfortable. Struggling to keep up with her speed, another of Master Romanov's pupils awkwardly followed on behind, his youthful features hidden behind the mask of American president George W. Bush.

She was younger than him, younger than all of Romanov's New Mages and yet she was easily the swiftest of any of them. It was an advantage that the stranger who held such sway over her teacher was so gifted in Mandarin. Despite having been in Pacific City for over four weeks now she still found the curious English dialect that they all used so frequently awkward to pronounce and even more so to understand. More often than not when Romanov spoke to the others on the team, Lin found her mind wondering, unable to comprehend what was being said. Without Master Ling's presence she was entirely dependent upon the translations of the group's leader and this was something she found far from comforting.

She stopped suddenly and the boy in the Bush mask, only several years older than Lin, all but collided with her. He instantly started babbling and she turned, placing a finger to her lips to indicate silence. He broke off with his inane chatter and Lin felt relived. At least he could understand simple signs.

Shortly after the fight between the one named Mysteria and the Mediterranean man, Romanov's female had instructed her to take the boy and seek out any further enemies. She had nodded and departed almost before the words had left the woman's mouth, thankful to be out of the presence of the Mysteria woman's unnerving transformation.

She shifted her weight very slightly, her whole body tensed beneath the costume. The Silver Shadow uniform was still a point of contention for her. She saw no reason to conceal her identity and found the uniform to be constricting, not because of its design but because of what it meant. She glanced down at the entwined white and black of the symbol on her shirt and felt distaste. She was no Taoist and she was definitely not a superheroine.

The presence she had sensed earlier moved slightly beyond her vision as if it was perhaps circling them. She glanced at the boy in the mask. He looked anxious, as if uncomfortable with the silence and the approaching enemy.

In that instant she made a decision.

Moving suddenly to cause the boy at her side to jump in surprise (and quickly pretend that he hadn't been startled) she reached up and pushed the cowl of the Silver Shadow uniform back. With both hands she took the upper half of the costume by the shoulders and pulled the soft material up over her head and threw it behind her. Hair spilling out over her shoulders she quickly dispensed with the black mask that covered the upper half of her face, dropping it also to the ground.

Her American companion opened his mouth to question her but she shot him a look that soon silenced him.

The movement continued, the sound of breathing and footfalls outside of the corridor, moving in a slow, ever decreasing circle. She reached down and pulled her two butterfly knives from the black sash at her waist, the dim light glinting on the blades as she readied herself.

The sound stopped abruptly. The boy opened his mouth again to speak and then it happened. Tearing through the metal wall on the right, a slender beast on all fours hit the ground before them. Lin Tsang Hsia leapt instinctively up into the air and twisted the blades of the knives down towards the animal's back.

The boy cried out and she faltered in mid-air. The beast rose up onto its back legs and revealed itself as a woman, dressed in the skin of an animal. With a smile the enemy ran forwards, heading in a direct line for the boy in the Bush mask and Lin Tsang Hsia landed uselessly at the end of the corridor with her back to the fight.

Her face flushed red with anger and embarrassment at her mistimed attack and lack of attention. She turned just in time to see the wolf-woman slam her fists into the boy's gut.

* * *

Mikael ran, his wings trailing behind him and spilling out feathers as he moved. His pure white heart pounded beneath his milky white flesh, crystal tears streaming from his eyes. He had heard of Yehovah Vehayah, heard of the great powers she possessed. Before he had been cast out from the heart of the Imperial Magistrate's empire, Mikael had learnt much of the forbidden knowledge. He had been a high priest and thus privy to the ancient books that resided in the bottomless crypts beneath Saint Paul's cathedral in the world capital. It was there that he discovered the legends of Vehayah and the seeds of his heresy had been planted.

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the tears out and swiftly opened them once more, his pace never once slowing down. Once he had been a warrior, once he had been prepared to fight, to die, firstly for the Imperial Magistrate and secondly for the Earth he found himself in exile upon, now he was little more than a coward, a scared child running from a foe that seemed so much bigger, so much stronger than him.

A sudden flare of light illuminated the darkened corridor and Mikael squealed in horror, falling to his knees and throwing both his arms and wings up over his head. Fearfully he waited for the final blow from Vehayah's scarab-blade.

"Get up, you wretch." A hateful yet familiar voice snarled.

He looked up, trembling from behind the layer of fingers and feathers. Standing over him, her hands on her hips, was Tanya Clandestine. Her face was warped with distaste and anger, the fury seeming to rise up from the very core of her being. All the disgust, all the loathing and anxiety of seeing her world destroyed and being kept in exile on a remote and barren desert world seemed to be present in that expression. She was barely human anymore, the scarab all but consuming her personality.

His mouth opened but he could not find the words to express his horror, the sheer terror that he felt at the sight of their adversaries was so crippling as to prevent him from providing his teammate with an adequate warning.

"Who are they?" She demanded, her anger rising.

Mikael's mouth opened uselessly as he tried to force the words out. A sudden, sickening thud resounded through the corridor and the former Malachim turned, his eyes wide with fear. Lying besides him, eyes wide and face splattered with blood was Black Star's body. Mikael's eyes travelled the length of the atrocity, moving from the terrified expression down against the torn uniform to where the spectacle ended, shorn neatly at the torso in a congealing mass of blood and remnants of lost organs.

He looked up and saw her standing above them - the other; her feet hovering above the ground.

"I'll deal with you later." Tanya snarled to her colleague, emotion all but choking her words.

She took hold of the silver scarab and her cloak fell away, revealing her standard issue New Mages uniform. Energy crackled around the scarab, running up from the soft silver metal and coursing through her veins.

The other tilted her head, the carved letters in her naked flesh seeming to throb with each burst of energy from the opposing scarab.

Clandestine's eyes clouded, a milk white liquid spreading from behind and eventually obscuring everything. She clenched her fists, the veins in her flesh pulsing beneath her costume. There was a moment of silence, the emptiness of the void encroaching upon them. The air on the Serpent Road was stale; warm recycled streams of oxygen produced by Churchill and Utopia on a rotating schedule. The atmosphere was oppressive and the stale air carried the stench of Black Star's decay upon it all too easily. The silence continued and Tanya Clandestine smiled.

Without warning her body abruptly burst into flames and she screamed out in agony, writhing and twisting in pain as the flames turned a vigorous shade of blue. The bones of her back cracked audibly and she doubled over as skin and costume tore open and four distinct wings pushed their way out of her frail human body, the feathers dripping with blood and gore.

She righted herself, her expression strangely blank and her hair dancing wildly in the furnace. Slowly, as if restraining the sheer power that filled her being, she opened the palm of her right hand and revealed the shimmering surface of the scarab beetle burnt into the flesh. A cold smile spread upon her features and softly she titled her hand, and the ancient scarab with it, towards the wall. Mikael's mouth opened in terror as he realised the significance of her actions yet before he could scream the corridor was filled with radiance.

A moment later and the entire umbilical section that tied Moonbase Churchill to the expansive Utopia space station imploded in silence.

* * *

The machine's eyes flickered, dim lights behind optical wires.

Johann Weisz had never liked machine magic; it spooked him out. There was nothing natural about plugging a toaster in and asking it to call up Obizuth. It just wasn't healthy to give ancient deities control over electrical household items and not expect them to send your electricity bill through the roof. He watched with only the slightest curiosity as Romanova slowly removed her black leather gloves and then, with an expression of deep concentration, placed her hands firmly on the chest of the ruined machine. The eyes flickered wildly and the mouth gaped open as if desperately in search of words.

He suppressed a yawn and glanced a look at the nervous expression on Millennium Man's face. Cruelly he smiled, taking a certain kind of pleasure in the fully-fledged hero's discomfort.

"Who are you?" Romanova whispered softly, her hands shaking upon the machine's chest.

A sudden burst of static erupted from the machine's gawping mouth and Millennium Man jumped visibly. Weisz smiled like a spiteful child.

"I know that!" Romanova snapped angrily as if in conversation with the deadening static. "But I want to know who you think you are."

The static faltered, the volume lowering until it became an all but silent whisper beneath Romanova's own words. It became dull, monotone and more menacing, as if in some way the noise was a precursor to some terrible event that would shortly be visited upon all their heads.

Weisz watched intently as the battered, fused mess of the invader babbled its diatribe of static. The lights in the machine's dull glass eyes flickered now and again, possibly as a sign of emotional significance added to certain words of its static dialect. He noticed Romanova's hands still upon its chest, noticed how they became increasingly white with tension as she dug them into the soft metal, noticed how the tips of her wings twitched occasionally with impatience.

The static continued for a minute longer, the machine's lips mouthing rhythmically as if it were struggling for breath as Romanova's hands began to shake all the more violently. There was a sudden crack and Weisz flinched as he saw the machine ribcage give way and Romanova's hands plunge into its techno-organic interior. Manly turned away, visibly disgusted but Romanova continued to twist about inside the invader's chest, her shirt and jacket stained with dark, alien gore. She twisted her lithe hands and suddenly the machine's eyes flared up and the mouth dropped open in a silent scream. With a look of decided satisfaction she rose from the machine's side, mercury and blood dripping from her hands and coat sleeves.

She turned and looked at the magician and the hero with a firm glance, pausing only to light a cigarette with her filth stained hands.

"I need you two boys to run an errand for me." She announced, her mouth curling in a wry smile.

Weisz looked disdainfully at the smoke that curdled in the air between them.

"What kind of errand?" He questioned, not bothering to disguise the hostility in his voice.

She took another drag on her cigarette and exhaled in his direction. "I want you to go to Braeburn for me." She replied nonchalantly.

The magician waited for further clarification and, upon realising that there would be none without prompting the figurehead further, he made a circular gesture with his right hand.

"And where exactly is Braeburn?"

Her eyes twinkled with hidden knowledge.

"Far away." She replied, almost as if she were challenging him. "Its an alien world, dead now. The Cybernetic Man, here" She nodded in the direction of the floored machine. "Tells me that this is where our enemies arrived when they made the jump into our universe. I want you to go there and make sure there aren't anymore little surprises waiting for us." She inhaled again and watched the unconvinced expression form upon the young magician's face. "Don't worry, you'll be safe. Michael will look after you, he's been there before."

Surprise registered on Weisz's face before he could suppress it and he turned to look at the powerless superhero in the red and white costume.

"I-I have?" Manly stammered.

Romanova nodded and Weisz realised that regardless of whether she was lying or not she had already taken the hero's doubt into account before asking them to run her errand.

"You've been there many times, don't worry. You'll recognise it when you get there."

Weisz glanced from the dour, stupefied expression on Manly's face to Romanova's cruel smile. "Alright, cut the bullshit." He snapped. "There's something you're not telling us here."

Romanova affected a look of wounded pride. "I wouldn't lie to you, Johann." She smiled.

The magician winced visibly.

"Magenta." He snapped. "I'm called Magenta."

She shook her head slowly, never once taking her eyes off him. "No, you're not. Your daddy was called Magenta but you aren't. You don't even have the scarab." She goaded, knowing that, if all else failed, this would definitely motivate the young boy into running her errand.

Angrily he spat on the floor and looked away from her.

"Alright. We'll go to this Braeburn of yours." He snapped.

She smiled wolfishly and answered with self-assurance: "I know."

* * *

Her mind was clouded by the rage filled communiques of her familiar wolf spirits, each one howling for the flesh of the two children she stood before. A low guttural snarl emanated from between her bared teeth and she wiped the blood away from her chin with the back of her hand, slowly circling her enemies, searching for a weakness in their defences.

She had no idea where she was or how far from Braeburn the Space Hammer had taken them. Not that it mattered. In her heart she had already resigned herself to exile from both her love and her world.

The young girl watched her with curiosity, her large, dark eyes following her movements whilst the boy in the curious rubber mask and suit stood nervously at her side. He was fearful, not of losing or incurring harm to his own person but of harm befalling his younger companion. She smiled deviously and wondering if this was the weakness she had been searching for. Her concentration was suddenly shattered as the boy began to talk again.

"Hey!" He called out, trying to distract her. "Listen I know it's a long shot but have you seen grandma around here? You see I've got this basket of fruits to deliver to her but I seem to have misplaced her address. Yeah, I know what you're thinking but I figure I must have dropped my address book back in the woods or something. I don't suppose you'd mind pointing me in the right direction?" He paused, waiting for a response that she did not offer. "Hello? Wolfy? Erm, can you actually understand me?"

She blinked and the girl was in motion again, her long, silken hair flying wildly as she leapt up into the air. A moment later and Eldritch felt the child's right foot slam into her breasts whilst the left one hit slightly higher. The witch staggered backwards as the girl's feet continued to kick upwards, defying gravity as she all but walked up her chest. The final double kick of the child's prolonged attack found Eldritch's throat and cheek sending her flying back into the dimly light shadows. She gasped desperately for breath, trying in vain to pull air into her pained lungs. The attack would have crushed any normal person's throat, killing them almost instantly but fortunately for her, the added patronage of the wolf spirits weren't about to relinquish control of their human avatar that easily.

She skidded across the metal floor, ducking low as the girl leapt through the air and landed perfectly behind. Before she could think she was defending again. With every step, every blow she blocked, Eldritch was pushed further back towards the boy in the mask. Her attention flickered giving the younger child the fraction of a second she needed to crack open her defences. Pain screamed through her body as the girl's fist connected with her throat, adding to the damage done by the previous kick. Another blow, then another and Eldritch could feel her throat as it all but folded beneath the volley of attacks. Her eyes rolled and she fell forwards, receiving a sharp series of blows to her temples that triggered off explosions of colour before she hit the ground.

Desperately she tried to fight off the pain, channelling the rage of the spirits to block out the agony, and bringing her head up again to be rewarded with a kick that shattered her teeth and almost broke her jaw. She tumbled back on herself, bending awkwardly, feeling her once proud canine teeth shattered in the bloody mess of her mouth. As she fell she saw the girl's hand moving swiftly in a point towards her and knew that this final blow would compound the damage done to her throat so much that it would finally give way. Her heart pounded as the hand grew closer before suddenly being knocked away. She twisted and fell, her eyes catching sight of the boy in the mask between her own bruised form and that of her better.

"You don't need to kill her." The boy warned, his voice suddenly full of age and responsibility.

The younger girl's voice exploded in a fury of foreign words that Eldritch understood nothing of and before the boy could respond she had turned her attack on him, punching quick and hard in his gut.

The boy stood there, the mask hiding any emotion as she continued to beat his flesh, trying to force him down.

After several minutes of constant attack the girl fell back, abandoning her strategy and looking in disgust at her once companion. She shouted out again, something that sounded like it could have been a warning.

"Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?" He shouted back in retaliation. "You're a kid! You're younger than my cousin in Atlanta, what the hell are you trying to do? What's killing her going to prove?"

The girl retorted in her loud, sharp words but made no move forwards. A moment of this ill-fated checkmate continued and slowly he righted himself.

"Sorry, kid, I'm pulling rank on you. I don't care if you know all kinds of kung fu and shit but I'm older than you and that makes me the Cyclops of this shit. Back down or I'm going to put you down."

She remained where she was for a moment, glaring intensely at the boy. It was clear that she understood nothing of his words but the meaning of what had said had apparently traversed the language barrier between them. She took a step backwards and then turned on her heels and sprinted away, her footfalls echoing on the metal floor till they faded completely.

The boy in the mask turned and looked at her weakened and bloody form and winked behind his mask.

"Kids today, eh?" He sighed, softly reaching down and helping her up.

* * *

Michael Manly hesitantly placed his hand inside the machine man's open ribcage next to Magenta's. Silently he looked from the sulky, arrogant expression of the young mage to Romanova's confident half-smile.

"Stop worrying, Michael." She reassured him. "I've taught our friend here that, despite his prior convictions, we are most certainly in the right in regards to this current conflict between his friends and ours. I think he understand the situation now. He won't betray you," She smiled darkly. "He doesn't have the will to."

"You better not be setting us up, mayor." Magenta snapped, emphasising the last word. "Or I swear I'll make your life a living hell."

Romanova yawned idly. "You and who's scarab, Mister Weisz?" She asked in a bored voice.

Magenta hissed angrily and turned away from her. Romanova watched the two of them for a minute, both up to their elbows now in machine innards.

"Are you ready, children?" She asked finally. "Good, then I'll begin."

There was a sudden lurch and Manly felt his stomach leap up towards his throat as the entire world seemed to stretch and contract within the blink of an eye. Colour tore into his being blinding him, the roar of some unimaginable engine screamed inside his head.

Reality folded in on itself and he dreamt he was sick, illness eating away at the core of his being as he lay infirmed upon a stained bed in a dark house, whispering soft prayers of guilt to his absent daughter. All the years of silence and secrets, of loss and heartache weighed upon them. He had trusted too much, he understood that now, and because of this trust he had fallen so far that even the most graceful of angels would not be able to extend their hands to him and prevent his descendent. He wailed, the disease burning through his body and doubled up, his fingers igniting in sharp, vicious sun bolts. Screaming wildly, he tore desperately at himself, the solar knives tearing into his own flesh and running deep trenches across his skull. They had failed him, all of them and now he was dying alone in the confines of a sick room.

The machine engine of all reality screamed out louder and louder and the vision shattered, giving way to darkness. Sickness gripped him and his body burnt with fever as the world collapsed around him. Pain filled every fibre of his being as he felt his body reconstructed light years away from the place of his birth. The screams faded and Michael Manly became faintly aware of sand beneath his face. Opening his eyes slowly he saw the endless horizon of black before him and knew that, at long last, he had finally arrived home.

* * *

In the monastery Lin Tsang Hsia had learnt the importance of solitude. Surrounded by monks, many of whom were old enough to be included in her grandfather's generation, she had learnt to value times with her thoughts. After a while she became unaccustomed to company and, as time wore on and she realised there was nothing more she could learn from Zhing Ra-Ming, she had spent more and more time by herself. When Master Ling had returned for her after the allotted three years as Ra-Ming's student she had found the presence and noise of others almost intolerable. Her arrival in Pacific City did not make things any easier. The words and gestures of the arrogant Caucasians and their vulgar sounding language had done nothing to improve her social skills.

She stopped abruptly, gasping for breath and clenching her fists and tried to calm the anger that threatened to burst through all her carefully studied teachings and disciplines. She hated being so alone, so far from home.

Slowly she exhaled, forcing the torrent of emotion out with the air through her nose. Such anger would only cloud her judgement and with a situation this confusing she needed to be completely in control.

Sudden footsteps echoed through the dimly lit corridor she had halted in and fear ran swiftly up her spine. She turned violently and prepared herself for an assault but the footsteps were still a distance away, although they increased with every passing moment. Her muscles tightened and slowly, the owner of the footsteps came to view at the far end before her.

He was covered in blood and his costume was shredded. His eyes were large and wide, rolling abnormally beneath his crown of burnt grey hair. Stretching out from his back were two wings, torn and bloodied, the thin bone structure exposed. He shuffled forwards, leaving a trail of darkening blood. Fear threatened to overwhelm her but she held her ground.

The enemy stopped, looking up with his rolling eyes and finally laying sight on her. There was nothing for a moment, no understanding, no comprehension, nothing. His dry lips cracked in a smile and slowly he began to laugh.

Carefully Lin Tsang Hsia took a step backwards. Without warning he suddenly cried out in English and launched himself down the corridor, his broken wings filling the space around him and slamming into the walls. Blood and feathers stained the sides and filled the air of the corridor as she desperately tried to turn and then she felt the force of his body slam into her side and his brutal arms wrap about her waist. She screamed out and he screamed with her, a chilling, twisted scream of utter madness that pierced her ears and scratched across the surface of her mind.

Abruptly all the air was forced from her lungs as they slammed into the wall at the end of the corridor and she collapsed, twisted beneath the body of her oppressor. The world turned upside down and she felt herself vomit involuntarily, her head lulling from side to side. Something ran down her forehead slowly, crossing the path usually taken by tears and she didn't need to look to know she was bleeding. The enemy was a dead weight upon her, unmoving and perhaps dying. Desperately she tried to orientate herself, her eyes alternately closing and opening as her head rocked back and forth. She held them open and looked at him, twisted limbs and wings holding her down. Slowly she tried to move her right arm, trapped entirely beneath his chest. She twitched the fingers, blinked and sensed something moving from the left towards her. Sluggishly she turned and suddenly the enemy's head snapped up from where it had previously rested upon her chest and he screamed out triumphantly as his fist slammed into the left side of her head and knocked her back against the wall with such force that her jaw almost dislocated.

She felt the bile in her throat as the colours twisted behind her eyelids and then silently slipped into blissful and complete unconsciousness.