Re: Vendetta [S!2 Round 1 ~ Presidentialgon]
12-23-2012, 04:22 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by XX.
From his the belly of his gunship, Exida gave the battle a three out of ten.
“What the hell is going on?” he barked, pressing his snout to the smoked glass that formed the cabin’s walls and leaving a wet noseprint that would later be enshrined in a reliquary on the outskirts of the Capitol. “Is that a goddamn horse down there? Thing looks like an impacted rhinoceros. I thought we had perimeters up by now! Damn you, I want men down there in containment five- ten minutes ago! Send people with names!”
“You’re a natural, Mr. Exis,” said 5106. He hadn’t left the deer’s side in over an hour. The agent’s soft voice was a subtle underline through the chaos and screams of the rabid crew. “One wonders why you hadn’t come to our attention before.”
“You know damn well why,” Exida growled. His furious red eyes glowed with a light that had been steadily building up since his last transmission, casting a baleful glare over his sunken cheeks and razor fangs. The V on his chest glittered with the cold finality of steel. “I had an empire. I had ten thousand soldiers following my every word, I had money. I had influence. I had so many politicians in my pocket that I jingled when I walked. The most beautiful woman on our unworthy earth called herself mine and I had power, dammit. No one stands against Exida Exis and lives! You want to see what a real villain can do in this amateur hour? I’ll crush this world beneath my hooves! I- ah, hell, you’ve got me doing it again.”
The agent’s eyebrows arced above his sunglasses. “Why, Mr. Exis, no one is making-”
“Yes, I heard you, ‘acclimation’,” the deer snapped. “Scaffolding, if you ask me. When did we start pandering to these people?”
“Not until just now, actually. It’s proven most interesting. I believe that horseman has begun eating one of your ships.”
“Son of a stag!” Exida motioned behind him with his antlers. The view on the cabin window rocketed in on the Khagan and expanded his image to near life-size. The deer watched the giant man punch clean through the chests of six consecutive snakemen and snorted. “What do you think? Deuteragonist?”
“Doesn’t have the charm.”
“No, look at those sweat stains. Disgraceful. Though his body count is more than enough… Minions! How far are we to zero hour?”
A small cabal of hissing snake-headed men growled a series of unintelligible numbers that Exida merely nodded along to. “Close, then,” he said, pawing at the floor with his hoof. Instantly the window sprang into a display of glowing green screens, most bearing orthographic drawings of Johnny Raptor strangling a varying number of serpents.
“Ready my ship,” Exida called, staring at Raptor’s beatific face with unabashed hatred. His cigarette sparked and fizzled, scorching the screen with showers of white-hot sparks. “We go terrestrial in ten. Bring the abomination. By God, Raptor, I hope you’re fully prepared to see exactly what kind of man you decided to fuck with.”
____________
He was.
Or, at least, that’s what he thought.
Johnny Raptor sped toward his date with destiny atop what was very likely a stolen motorcycle. In truth, he wasn’t actually sure where it had come from or how he had ended up riding it, but he definitely knew why. Motorcycles were cool. He was cool. It was a case of pretty self-consistent logic.
Although, he mused, ramping over the heads of a furious mob of Viper ninja-cops, it might have been more impressive if his teammates hadn’t deserted him for various reasons. Felgurd had been taken by the ever-groping hands of the Viper war machine, Artemis was most likely off canoodling with some girl by now and Sweet Uncle Sam only knew where the Khagan had run off to. It was a hard and lonely life, being the hero, but Johnny Raptor was used to it. He didn’t have a choice.
The motorcyle’s wheels shredded over Presidential lawns and Viper footmen alike as he sped towards the Spire of Gratitude, looming on the horizon like a dark needle piercing the heart of NeoTransAmerica. Viper gunships circled above like great dark birds, lazily pumping the occasional round of flak missiles into the action. A faint red halo had formed above the Spire’s apex that cast the entire structure into ruddy shadow. Funny, Raptor thought, he’d never heard of any Spire before- it must be new. Probably a monument to his countless victories against the ongoing threat of Viper, ha ha, yes! How ironic the deer probably thought he was being, staging a showdown in the very shadow of one of Johnny’s greatest accolades! Well the joke was on him! Johnny Raptor NEVER lost a fight!
(But you have, something whispered. You have and you have.)
He would emerge from this conflict bloodied, yes, battered certainly, but victorious, and he would mount that hellish deer’s head above the marble fireplace he was sure to receive from the grateful public. Perhaps if he were feeling merciful he might even let it become his faithful steed!
(And when have things ever gone that well for you?)
Johnny Raptor grinned triumphantly to himself as the Spire’s colossal form came nearer and nearer. He would always win. He was a hero. He was invincible.
___________________
“COWARDS,” the Khagan roared, scattering bodies before him like confetti from the hands of a child, “FILTHY COWARDS! COME! SHOW ME YOUR LEADER! SHOW ME YOUR WEEPING MOTHERS! JE SUIS TA MORT! LET ME SEE YOUR FACES!”
The deafening clamor of the battlefield was like a symphony to him. The percussive chatter of the popping shells and the clattering of marching boots, the subtle lyricism of each enemy’s dying breath (each lung an wheezing woodwind, each bubbling tongue a tremble of strings), his own roars a maestro’s conduction over the orchestra’s bloody swell... He stopped to wipe away a tear that burned a hole through the cheek of the snake-man it fell on, who died screaming underneath Ariq’s hooves. More followed. Toghun did not keep track.
He rode through the hordes in a surge of crushing fury, overpowering man and machine alike. Tanks were crushed like dollhouses beneath him and men died by the frothing dozens. Occasionally their bullets hit him but he noticed no more than if they were moths nibbling at his vest. It was as though he was at the head of his own armies again, riding down his foes to the admiring cries of his men- ah, yes, but that was wishful thinking. Very wishful. If he wanted to return to them he must first destroy these squalling excuses for warriors. Hardly a challenge for the Khan of Khans!
The Khagan stopped Ariq short and kicked him into a rear, surveying the field as his horse screamed with rage and raked the air with his monstrous hooves. The fighting was grouped into tight clusters scattered around the base of the Spire, the largest now keeping a respectful distance from Ariq’s hooves and only reluctantly throwing themselves into Toghun’s line of fire. The rest- he frowned- were… standing? A quick spur of his heels sent Ariq rocketing forward into a cluster of screaming snakemen whose gurgling cries the Khagan thoughtlessly tuned out as he peered over the masses. Standing, yes. And- talking? Did that one have a crossword out?
He shook his magnificent head. Where were the opponents? Where were the coursing armies, the enemy ships?
Where was the war?
“JOOOOHHNNNNYYYYYYYY RAPPPTOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRR!”
The motorcycle shot over a rampart in a haloed blaze of igniting gunpowder and stage makeup, flames and empty bullet shells raining down from its rims into the hissing swarms. It flew into the sky like a steel and rubber Icarus, pausing in its ascent long enough to blot out the sun and cast an eagle-shaped shadow over the battlefield. When it landed a shockwave of atomized Viper chattel flew out for miles.
Johnny dismounted and flipped open the kickstand in a single, imperceptible motion. He would have discarded his helmet had he been wearing one, but he was not. Helmets were for babies.
“WHO HERE,” he yelled through teeth so white they could have been seen from space, “IS IN CHARGE?”
There was no response. Thousands of glittering yellow eyes stared back at him, most vaguely surprised and a little incredulous. It must be the motorcycle, Johnny decided. The flames might have been bigger.
“I AM LOOKING,” he said, “FOR THE ONE CALLED EXIDA EXIS. HE IS A DEER. I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM IN PERSON BUT HE IS ABOUT-” he gestured in the vague area of his own head, “-THIS HIGH AND LOOKS LIKE A DEER.”
“I HAVE BUSINESS WITH HIM,” he added helpfully.
One of the foremost snakemen scratched his head and shrugged. He pointed upwards in a way that suggested press X to continue.
“DO you, though, Mr. Raptor? Or do I… have business with YOU?”
And for the second time in as many hours, Johnny found himself staring up at the sky at the belly of a descending Viper gunship, except that this time the deer sneering down from it was real.
Open blast doors folded out like angel wings from either side of a slick black machine that was to a helicopter what an ICBM is to a throwing dart. Its engines whirred and roared frenetically, drowning out all sounds of struggle in the field below; haloes of dust and shrapnel encircled the machine and filtered the sunlight into murky obscurity. At its center was the head of a pure white deer. Watching. Smirking.
Black-clad soldiers bristled in behind him, their reptilian silhouettes distorted by the addition of machinery and high-powered rifles strung from their spiny shoulders. Their heads poked over the beast’s shoulders and hissed at Johnny jeeringly, but the man took no notice. Any interest they might have held for him was overtaken entirely by the spectacle of Exida himself. An unbiased observer might have identified the creature’s species as a cross between a deer and a professional wrestler; a biased one would have called him a marketing masterstroke waiting to happen. But Jonny was not truly either of these things, and what he saw as the gunship came to rest in a cloud of blood-sodden dust was this:
An imperious white stag with antlers like two ivory trees bursting from its skull, their tips crimson with blood and corruption. Virulent red streaks ran down them into the beast’s eyes: two beautiful rubies glittering with a cold malevolence that made Johnny grit his teeth in anticipation. Despite its reek of evil the deer shone through the clouds of dust and smoke with a pearly radiance that washed all color from its surroundings. It was a beacon. It was a god. And Johnny knew, with every manful fiber of his incredibly fibrous being, that it existed for him and him specifically.
“Johnny Raptor,” Exida said softly, stepping from the ship on golden hooves. His voice was as tender as a lover’s. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time.”
His henchmen opened fire in a roaring hail of bullets that Johnny dodged like a psychic dancer, flinging himself back behind his motorcycle as 51mm shells tore through the air. The bike’s frame shook and shuddered but miraculously held long enough for Johnny to dig (he had to have one he always had one) for the knife in his boot, tossing it expertly without looking over the motorcycle’s seat in the direction of the deer. There was a loud shunk and the sound of a few hundred pounds of meat falling to the ground; over the gunfire Exida’s voice screamed, “Stop, you idiots! Damn your incompetence, what part of ‘leave him to me’ was unclear to you? What part exactly?”
The bullets stopped. A few shells clattered to the ground distantly. Cautiously Johnny rose, winding a strip of fabric around his arm with surgical precision. He wasn’t injured, but he thought the situation called for it anyway. “Exida Exis,” he said. He looked away from the deer, watching the endless horde of Viper squadmen creep closer and closer, forming a loose ring around him like a slithering, reptilian ocean. Familiar territory. “I admit I didn’t expect you to show up in person!”
The deer tossed his antlers silently. His entourage fanned out from behind him, still cringing from their reproach and nimbly stepping over the body of the snakeman with Johnny’s knife extruding from his neck. The scopes of their rifles formed a ring of shiny black eyes around Johnny that waved in the foul breeze. “I can nearly say the same for you, Raptor,” the deer said coolly. “Or I could if I didn’t know exactly the kind of man you are. You’re all so painfully predictable, you heroes. So hungry for the cameras. So desperate for a little applause! I’m almost disappointed.”
Johnny guffawed (predictable predictable) and pushed the desiccated remains of his motorcycle to the ground. Exida’s henchmen twitched and hissed at the crash, though the deer remained stoic, only narrowing his crimson eyes. Johnny swaggered forward and spread his hands wide. “Are you going to have them shoot me, you curmudgeonly cervine?” he said, nodding at Exida’s henchmen with a square-jawed grin. They flinched. “Or are we going to do this like men?”
The deer inclined his head. “I shudder to think that you’d consider me impolite, Mr. Raptor. Back up,” he called to his men, kicking the curled body of the downed guard out of his path. “Fifteen meter perimeter, all of you. If I see so much as a foot out of line you’ll lose it.”
“I don’t have a weapon,” Johnny said, fingering the hidden knife in his sleeve.
The deer’s eyebrows arced elegantly. A puff of cigarette smoke floated from his nostrils. “Neither do I. Like men, as you said.”
“Fine with me.” Johnny shrugged off his jacket (he was wearing he had to be that’s the way it worked) and let it to fall to the ground. The dust it stirred swirled around his boots. “Now,” he said, raising his fists before him, “Let’s-”
“COMRADE EXIDA!”
Johnny wheeled around, clenching his knife as the deer swore viciously enough to make his guards blush-
An explosion of red and brown ripped through the gathered crowd like an atomic crowdsurfer, tossing a wave of bodies in its wake as a brilliant red sword slashed through wayward limbs and heads alike. A wide, beaming face appeared smeared with blood of various descriptions and bared its wolflike teeth at Exida, proudly displaying something that wriggled faintly over one giant shoulder. The soldiers nearest him had their weapons trained on him, if only mostly out of confusion; they appeared to be irritated that missing at this range would be difficult even for them. A few looked in Exida’s direction and coughed pointedly.
“Let him through,” the deer said. His ears quivered just slightly.
Slowly at first, then more willingly the crowd began to part around Rayeln the Scourge as he strode manfully forward, bearded face grinning childishly as he pushed aside the less nimble soldiers by the heads. When he was about ten feet away he gave his mighty shoulders a shrug; the body that had been draped over him was thrown into the air and crash-landed directly between Exida and Johnny, carving a large swath through the dust.
“Hi, Johnny,” Artemis said sheepishly.
“Kid,” Johnny sighed, shaking his head, “We’ve really got to talk about where your sidekicking career is going.”
“Comrade, I am here!” Rayeln’s voiced boomed over the otherwise silent crowds as he trotted up to Exida’s side. He peered down at the deer with an excitement that bordered on fanaticism, ignoring that the latter’s teeth had nearly bitten through the cigarette clamped in his jaws. “Comrade, I have located one of the aristocracy’s spies! I have been steadily sabotaging their efforts to hinder the peoples’ liberation ever since you so wisely-”
“Shut up.”
Rayeln’s smile flickered. He tilted his head at the deer. “Comrade…?”
“You idiot. You great fucking idiot! Someone please tell me how someone- anyone- fucks up this extravagantly. Please! Tell me! Anyone? No?” Exida’s antlers butted into Rayeln’s chest, who twitched, stunned. “How long do you think I’ve been waiting for this moment, Rayeln,” Exida asked, his voice high. “Take a guess. Please. Now.”
“C-Com-”
“Take a guess.”
Rayeln looked helplessly to either side of him. His smile began to slip. “I… am not…sure-”
“Four hours, Rayeln. Four hours I was sitting in that dank cabinet of a ship breathing the smoke of my own cigarette. Four hours with that sycophantic son of a bitch whining in my ear about his rules and his manifestos, and these hordes of faceless idiots breaking into a mating cluster at the slightest hint of any form of excitement . Four hours waiting for yet another hero in what seems like a never-ending parade of mockery and cheap camp imitation just to have all my planning, all my masterminding ruined by a single incredible blow of incompetency and poor self-control, ruined by you, you pathetic sack of testosterone-soaked flesh. Can you imagine, you wretched imbecile? Can you possibly summon the last dying cells of your steroid-addled cortex and think for even the briefest fraction of a second of the setback you’ve caused me?”
Rayeln took a tiny step back. The laser sword’s tip fell to the ground. “E… Exida…”
“Don’t say my name,” the deer said coldly, red eyes clear with fury. The Laurels around his neck shimmered. “Do us all a favor and slit your worthless throat.”
The barbarian’s stricken face looked down at his sword, back to Exida, then back to the ground. His mouth twitched and he began to say something before he closed his mouth, squaring his quivering jaw. He lifted his arm gently, the sword’s pommel loose in his grip as the blade began to drift to his neck-
Johnny shouted “No!” at the same time that a hellish horse’s scream cut through the artificial hush of the battlefield. Something erupted behind him with the sound of a miniature landslide; he turned to be greeted by a faceful of fresh blood spouting from the half of a Viper soldier held in the hand of a triumphant Toghun. The Khagan was seated atop a snarling Ariq amongst a puddle of liquefied reptilians, one fist raised triumphantly high to the scorching sun. He held the recently emancipated skull in his hands, which he tossed casually to land in a wet, bouncing roll at Exida’s hooves.
“Exida Exis,” he said smugly, wiping the palm of his hand off on his armor. “For the glory of the Pankhaganate, I challenge you for the supremacy of this contest. Face me!”
The deer’s head moved from Rayeln to the Khagan with ponderous gravity. “Rayeln,” he said, slowly, tasting the words, “I’m going to have to ask you to wait for a moment. Something else has come up. My apologies.” A single golden hoof lifted, paused; it landed in a soft, inaudible puff of dust.
The two Viper guards flanking him sank to the ground and drew their weapons from their holsters in the same motion, shouldering the rifles as though the machinery had been born from their bodies. They paused for no more than the time it took to aim between breaths and pulled their triggers simultaneously.
Both of Ariq’s front knees exploded inwards like two huge, fiery blossoms, smoking blood sprouting over the horse’s legs and chest as it sank to the ground screaming in clouds of billowing steam. Red sparks spat out onto the ground, burning tiny craters into the dust around the kneeling beast, rivers spreading beneath it as it roared and roared, thrashing its enormous head from side to side. Toghun swore and tore at the reins but Ariq’s convulsions had nearly unseated the Khagan. He clung to his horse’s mane, shaking a bloody fist at Exida and opening his mouth for a battle cry-
“Again,” Exida said. “Hit the rider this time.”
Two more flowers bloomed on Ariq’s chest and the horse bellowed again, more machine than animal in the furious cacophony of its screams, but its voice paled in comparison to the roar the Khagan gave as the bullets pierced his abdomen a few centimeters shy of his ribs. His hands flew to his armor, shock overtaking his face at the thick blackish blood flecking his fingers. He raised them before his face, half in defense and half in fury, suddenly aware of how he shone in the sunlight. His lips moved wordlessly as he locked eyes with Exida. Rubies. Beautiful red rubies on a white, white plain.
“Rayeln. I’ve found a use for you after all.”
The giant approached like a drunk, staggering from side to side and slipping on the steaming blood pooling away from the twitching Ariq, holding his sword like a child’s toy. He smiled at Toghun. “Sorry, Comrade,” he said, raising the humming blade above his head. He closed one eye to focus. “I only did it for the people.”
Johnny’s vision went black.
When he opened his eyes Exida was smirking at him, Rayeln swaying at his side with a cautious smile on his face and his hands coverd ins cove co- in- in
“Johnny,” Exida said gently, “Johnny, I’m going to give you a little test. My good friend Rayeln here has to pay for his mistakes. But I consider myself to be a fair man, so I’m giving you the option of saving him from his own stupidity. If you can convince him- just for a moment, not any longer than that, I think that’s reasonable- to spare his own life, he can keep it. And so can you. Do you understand?”
The air was filled with dust and the sun was hotter than he remembered. The back of his neck felt numb from the heat. “I understand,” he heard himself say. Each breath was becoming an effort. The heat was crushing him.
“Good,” the deer smiled, smiling, turned his handsome face to the man with the sword and told him to do it.
Johnny didn’t even get a word out from between his lips before the blade made a noise like hot metal hitting water and the man-of-the-people fell, and fell, and fell.
And fell.
A silence spread out over the battlefield.
“Does it surprise you, Raptor?”
And fell.
The deer spoke to him like a god to a disciple. He heard his voice like a memory, surfacing. Like an unwanted face.
Like a pretty girl by a river.
“Did it feel like a game to you, before now? I’ve seen your type so often, boy. Just another page in an endless, boring book of stupid men pretending to be heroes. Hah. I was almost, almost, like you once, nineteen years ago. I hope you know what it feels like, now. I hate to see a hopeful man die.”
“I’m a hero,” Johnny tried to tell him. His mouth didn’t cooperate. He tilted to the side, the ground rebelling underneath his feet. “I’m Johnny Raptor.”
“Are you, though? Who are you, really?” A hoof hit him in the chest like a gunshot, shattering the silence and maybe his ribs too, and a couple of other things he’d forgotten about. He flew back through space and memory and the girl’s long lovely tangles of hair and the things she said and did to him and landed in the dust and blood of a battlefield, blood on his hands and on his tongue and a deer standing over him with eyes like red burning fire and a smirk that promised immolation. He turned his head. He couldn’t stand the heat.
The crowds of serpents started to shake, started to shed their skins, and he saw them burn up under the sun, turning into shadows and less than shadows. Cheap pulp paper and wet runny ink burst from their veins and fell to the ground in speech bubbles that all seemed to say the same thing, but he couldn’t read them, he couldn’t, she’d know and she
She
she
“Who are you?”
The man called Johnny Raptor turned his eyes to the deer, to heaven, to the black-and-yellow Ben-Day dots in the sky that filled the sun and the moon and smiled a weak, shivering, shimmering smile. There was nothing else to do; he had to play his part. He didn’t have a choice. He opened his hand and this time he felt it appear, forged from the script running endlessly behind his eyes. He shaped it from ink and letters and fiction and something from before when his name was different and what he made fell into his palm with the weight of a universe.
“Who-”
“My name,” he whispered, “is Johnny Raptor,” and he pulled the trigger.
He didn’t hear the explosion. He didn’t see the armies of creeping reptile-men hybrids dissipate, didn’t see the ships crashing from the sky like flaming deicidal arrows, didn’t see the Spire devour itself in ravenous billowing clouds and didn’t feel the kickback, though it knocked the gun from his hands.
All he really felt, as the deer stumbled once and sank to its knees before him, red flowers blooming from its mouth and chest and the crimson V dissolving from its neck around the pretty black hole in its shining fur, was like a hero.
From his the belly of his gunship, Exida gave the battle a three out of ten.
“What the hell is going on?” he barked, pressing his snout to the smoked glass that formed the cabin’s walls and leaving a wet noseprint that would later be enshrined in a reliquary on the outskirts of the Capitol. “Is that a goddamn horse down there? Thing looks like an impacted rhinoceros. I thought we had perimeters up by now! Damn you, I want men down there in containment five- ten minutes ago! Send people with names!”
“You’re a natural, Mr. Exis,” said 5106. He hadn’t left the deer’s side in over an hour. The agent’s soft voice was a subtle underline through the chaos and screams of the rabid crew. “One wonders why you hadn’t come to our attention before.”
“You know damn well why,” Exida growled. His furious red eyes glowed with a light that had been steadily building up since his last transmission, casting a baleful glare over his sunken cheeks and razor fangs. The V on his chest glittered with the cold finality of steel. “I had an empire. I had ten thousand soldiers following my every word, I had money. I had influence. I had so many politicians in my pocket that I jingled when I walked. The most beautiful woman on our unworthy earth called herself mine and I had power, dammit. No one stands against Exida Exis and lives! You want to see what a real villain can do in this amateur hour? I’ll crush this world beneath my hooves! I- ah, hell, you’ve got me doing it again.”
The agent’s eyebrows arced above his sunglasses. “Why, Mr. Exis, no one is making-”
“Yes, I heard you, ‘acclimation’,” the deer snapped. “Scaffolding, if you ask me. When did we start pandering to these people?”
“Not until just now, actually. It’s proven most interesting. I believe that horseman has begun eating one of your ships.”
“Son of a stag!” Exida motioned behind him with his antlers. The view on the cabin window rocketed in on the Khagan and expanded his image to near life-size. The deer watched the giant man punch clean through the chests of six consecutive snakemen and snorted. “What do you think? Deuteragonist?”
“Doesn’t have the charm.”
“No, look at those sweat stains. Disgraceful. Though his body count is more than enough… Minions! How far are we to zero hour?”
A small cabal of hissing snake-headed men growled a series of unintelligible numbers that Exida merely nodded along to. “Close, then,” he said, pawing at the floor with his hoof. Instantly the window sprang into a display of glowing green screens, most bearing orthographic drawings of Johnny Raptor strangling a varying number of serpents.
“Ready my ship,” Exida called, staring at Raptor’s beatific face with unabashed hatred. His cigarette sparked and fizzled, scorching the screen with showers of white-hot sparks. “We go terrestrial in ten. Bring the abomination. By God, Raptor, I hope you’re fully prepared to see exactly what kind of man you decided to fuck with.”
____________
He was.
Or, at least, that’s what he thought.
Johnny Raptor sped toward his date with destiny atop what was very likely a stolen motorcycle. In truth, he wasn’t actually sure where it had come from or how he had ended up riding it, but he definitely knew why. Motorcycles were cool. He was cool. It was a case of pretty self-consistent logic.
Although, he mused, ramping over the heads of a furious mob of Viper ninja-cops, it might have been more impressive if his teammates hadn’t deserted him for various reasons. Felgurd had been taken by the ever-groping hands of the Viper war machine, Artemis was most likely off canoodling with some girl by now and Sweet Uncle Sam only knew where the Khagan had run off to. It was a hard and lonely life, being the hero, but Johnny Raptor was used to it. He didn’t have a choice.
The motorcyle’s wheels shredded over Presidential lawns and Viper footmen alike as he sped towards the Spire of Gratitude, looming on the horizon like a dark needle piercing the heart of NeoTransAmerica. Viper gunships circled above like great dark birds, lazily pumping the occasional round of flak missiles into the action. A faint red halo had formed above the Spire’s apex that cast the entire structure into ruddy shadow. Funny, Raptor thought, he’d never heard of any Spire before- it must be new. Probably a monument to his countless victories against the ongoing threat of Viper, ha ha, yes! How ironic the deer probably thought he was being, staging a showdown in the very shadow of one of Johnny’s greatest accolades! Well the joke was on him! Johnny Raptor NEVER lost a fight!
(But you have, something whispered. You have and you have.)
He would emerge from this conflict bloodied, yes, battered certainly, but victorious, and he would mount that hellish deer’s head above the marble fireplace he was sure to receive from the grateful public. Perhaps if he were feeling merciful he might even let it become his faithful steed!
(And when have things ever gone that well for you?)
Johnny Raptor grinned triumphantly to himself as the Spire’s colossal form came nearer and nearer. He would always win. He was a hero. He was invincible.
___________________
“COWARDS,” the Khagan roared, scattering bodies before him like confetti from the hands of a child, “FILTHY COWARDS! COME! SHOW ME YOUR LEADER! SHOW ME YOUR WEEPING MOTHERS! JE SUIS TA MORT! LET ME SEE YOUR FACES!”
The deafening clamor of the battlefield was like a symphony to him. The percussive chatter of the popping shells and the clattering of marching boots, the subtle lyricism of each enemy’s dying breath (each lung an wheezing woodwind, each bubbling tongue a tremble of strings), his own roars a maestro’s conduction over the orchestra’s bloody swell... He stopped to wipe away a tear that burned a hole through the cheek of the snake-man it fell on, who died screaming underneath Ariq’s hooves. More followed. Toghun did not keep track.
He rode through the hordes in a surge of crushing fury, overpowering man and machine alike. Tanks were crushed like dollhouses beneath him and men died by the frothing dozens. Occasionally their bullets hit him but he noticed no more than if they were moths nibbling at his vest. It was as though he was at the head of his own armies again, riding down his foes to the admiring cries of his men- ah, yes, but that was wishful thinking. Very wishful. If he wanted to return to them he must first destroy these squalling excuses for warriors. Hardly a challenge for the Khan of Khans!
The Khagan stopped Ariq short and kicked him into a rear, surveying the field as his horse screamed with rage and raked the air with his monstrous hooves. The fighting was grouped into tight clusters scattered around the base of the Spire, the largest now keeping a respectful distance from Ariq’s hooves and only reluctantly throwing themselves into Toghun’s line of fire. The rest- he frowned- were… standing? A quick spur of his heels sent Ariq rocketing forward into a cluster of screaming snakemen whose gurgling cries the Khagan thoughtlessly tuned out as he peered over the masses. Standing, yes. And- talking? Did that one have a crossword out?
He shook his magnificent head. Where were the opponents? Where were the coursing armies, the enemy ships?
Where was the war?
“JOOOOHHNNNNYYYYYYYY RAPPPTOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRR!”
The motorcycle shot over a rampart in a haloed blaze of igniting gunpowder and stage makeup, flames and empty bullet shells raining down from its rims into the hissing swarms. It flew into the sky like a steel and rubber Icarus, pausing in its ascent long enough to blot out the sun and cast an eagle-shaped shadow over the battlefield. When it landed a shockwave of atomized Viper chattel flew out for miles.
Johnny dismounted and flipped open the kickstand in a single, imperceptible motion. He would have discarded his helmet had he been wearing one, but he was not. Helmets were for babies.
“WHO HERE,” he yelled through teeth so white they could have been seen from space, “IS IN CHARGE?”
There was no response. Thousands of glittering yellow eyes stared back at him, most vaguely surprised and a little incredulous. It must be the motorcycle, Johnny decided. The flames might have been bigger.
“I AM LOOKING,” he said, “FOR THE ONE CALLED EXIDA EXIS. HE IS A DEER. I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM IN PERSON BUT HE IS ABOUT-” he gestured in the vague area of his own head, “-THIS HIGH AND LOOKS LIKE A DEER.”
“I HAVE BUSINESS WITH HIM,” he added helpfully.
One of the foremost snakemen scratched his head and shrugged. He pointed upwards in a way that suggested press X to continue.
“DO you, though, Mr. Raptor? Or do I… have business with YOU?”
And for the second time in as many hours, Johnny found himself staring up at the sky at the belly of a descending Viper gunship, except that this time the deer sneering down from it was real.
Open blast doors folded out like angel wings from either side of a slick black machine that was to a helicopter what an ICBM is to a throwing dart. Its engines whirred and roared frenetically, drowning out all sounds of struggle in the field below; haloes of dust and shrapnel encircled the machine and filtered the sunlight into murky obscurity. At its center was the head of a pure white deer. Watching. Smirking.
Black-clad soldiers bristled in behind him, their reptilian silhouettes distorted by the addition of machinery and high-powered rifles strung from their spiny shoulders. Their heads poked over the beast’s shoulders and hissed at Johnny jeeringly, but the man took no notice. Any interest they might have held for him was overtaken entirely by the spectacle of Exida himself. An unbiased observer might have identified the creature’s species as a cross between a deer and a professional wrestler; a biased one would have called him a marketing masterstroke waiting to happen. But Jonny was not truly either of these things, and what he saw as the gunship came to rest in a cloud of blood-sodden dust was this:
An imperious white stag with antlers like two ivory trees bursting from its skull, their tips crimson with blood and corruption. Virulent red streaks ran down them into the beast’s eyes: two beautiful rubies glittering with a cold malevolence that made Johnny grit his teeth in anticipation. Despite its reek of evil the deer shone through the clouds of dust and smoke with a pearly radiance that washed all color from its surroundings. It was a beacon. It was a god. And Johnny knew, with every manful fiber of his incredibly fibrous being, that it existed for him and him specifically.
“Johnny Raptor,” Exida said softly, stepping from the ship on golden hooves. His voice was as tender as a lover’s. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time.”
His henchmen opened fire in a roaring hail of bullets that Johnny dodged like a psychic dancer, flinging himself back behind his motorcycle as 51mm shells tore through the air. The bike’s frame shook and shuddered but miraculously held long enough for Johnny to dig (he had to have one he always had one) for the knife in his boot, tossing it expertly without looking over the motorcycle’s seat in the direction of the deer. There was a loud shunk and the sound of a few hundred pounds of meat falling to the ground; over the gunfire Exida’s voice screamed, “Stop, you idiots! Damn your incompetence, what part of ‘leave him to me’ was unclear to you? What part exactly?”
The bullets stopped. A few shells clattered to the ground distantly. Cautiously Johnny rose, winding a strip of fabric around his arm with surgical precision. He wasn’t injured, but he thought the situation called for it anyway. “Exida Exis,” he said. He looked away from the deer, watching the endless horde of Viper squadmen creep closer and closer, forming a loose ring around him like a slithering, reptilian ocean. Familiar territory. “I admit I didn’t expect you to show up in person!”
The deer tossed his antlers silently. His entourage fanned out from behind him, still cringing from their reproach and nimbly stepping over the body of the snakeman with Johnny’s knife extruding from his neck. The scopes of their rifles formed a ring of shiny black eyes around Johnny that waved in the foul breeze. “I can nearly say the same for you, Raptor,” the deer said coolly. “Or I could if I didn’t know exactly the kind of man you are. You’re all so painfully predictable, you heroes. So hungry for the cameras. So desperate for a little applause! I’m almost disappointed.”
Johnny guffawed (predictable predictable) and pushed the desiccated remains of his motorcycle to the ground. Exida’s henchmen twitched and hissed at the crash, though the deer remained stoic, only narrowing his crimson eyes. Johnny swaggered forward and spread his hands wide. “Are you going to have them shoot me, you curmudgeonly cervine?” he said, nodding at Exida’s henchmen with a square-jawed grin. They flinched. “Or are we going to do this like men?”
The deer inclined his head. “I shudder to think that you’d consider me impolite, Mr. Raptor. Back up,” he called to his men, kicking the curled body of the downed guard out of his path. “Fifteen meter perimeter, all of you. If I see so much as a foot out of line you’ll lose it.”
“I don’t have a weapon,” Johnny said, fingering the hidden knife in his sleeve.
The deer’s eyebrows arced elegantly. A puff of cigarette smoke floated from his nostrils. “Neither do I. Like men, as you said.”
“Fine with me.” Johnny shrugged off his jacket (he was wearing he had to be that’s the way it worked) and let it to fall to the ground. The dust it stirred swirled around his boots. “Now,” he said, raising his fists before him, “Let’s-”
“COMRADE EXIDA!”
Johnny wheeled around, clenching his knife as the deer swore viciously enough to make his guards blush-
An explosion of red and brown ripped through the gathered crowd like an atomic crowdsurfer, tossing a wave of bodies in its wake as a brilliant red sword slashed through wayward limbs and heads alike. A wide, beaming face appeared smeared with blood of various descriptions and bared its wolflike teeth at Exida, proudly displaying something that wriggled faintly over one giant shoulder. The soldiers nearest him had their weapons trained on him, if only mostly out of confusion; they appeared to be irritated that missing at this range would be difficult even for them. A few looked in Exida’s direction and coughed pointedly.
“Let him through,” the deer said. His ears quivered just slightly.
Slowly at first, then more willingly the crowd began to part around Rayeln the Scourge as he strode manfully forward, bearded face grinning childishly as he pushed aside the less nimble soldiers by the heads. When he was about ten feet away he gave his mighty shoulders a shrug; the body that had been draped over him was thrown into the air and crash-landed directly between Exida and Johnny, carving a large swath through the dust.
“Hi, Johnny,” Artemis said sheepishly.
“Kid,” Johnny sighed, shaking his head, “We’ve really got to talk about where your sidekicking career is going.”
“Comrade, I am here!” Rayeln’s voiced boomed over the otherwise silent crowds as he trotted up to Exida’s side. He peered down at the deer with an excitement that bordered on fanaticism, ignoring that the latter’s teeth had nearly bitten through the cigarette clamped in his jaws. “Comrade, I have located one of the aristocracy’s spies! I have been steadily sabotaging their efforts to hinder the peoples’ liberation ever since you so wisely-”
“Shut up.”
Rayeln’s smile flickered. He tilted his head at the deer. “Comrade…?”
“You idiot. You great fucking idiot! Someone please tell me how someone- anyone- fucks up this extravagantly. Please! Tell me! Anyone? No?” Exida’s antlers butted into Rayeln’s chest, who twitched, stunned. “How long do you think I’ve been waiting for this moment, Rayeln,” Exida asked, his voice high. “Take a guess. Please. Now.”
“C-Com-”
“Take a guess.”
Rayeln looked helplessly to either side of him. His smile began to slip. “I… am not…sure-”
“Four hours, Rayeln. Four hours I was sitting in that dank cabinet of a ship breathing the smoke of my own cigarette. Four hours with that sycophantic son of a bitch whining in my ear about his rules and his manifestos, and these hordes of faceless idiots breaking into a mating cluster at the slightest hint of any form of excitement . Four hours waiting for yet another hero in what seems like a never-ending parade of mockery and cheap camp imitation just to have all my planning, all my masterminding ruined by a single incredible blow of incompetency and poor self-control, ruined by you, you pathetic sack of testosterone-soaked flesh. Can you imagine, you wretched imbecile? Can you possibly summon the last dying cells of your steroid-addled cortex and think for even the briefest fraction of a second of the setback you’ve caused me?”
Rayeln took a tiny step back. The laser sword’s tip fell to the ground. “E… Exida…”
“Don’t say my name,” the deer said coldly, red eyes clear with fury. The Laurels around his neck shimmered. “Do us all a favor and slit your worthless throat.”
The barbarian’s stricken face looked down at his sword, back to Exida, then back to the ground. His mouth twitched and he began to say something before he closed his mouth, squaring his quivering jaw. He lifted his arm gently, the sword’s pommel loose in his grip as the blade began to drift to his neck-
Johnny shouted “No!” at the same time that a hellish horse’s scream cut through the artificial hush of the battlefield. Something erupted behind him with the sound of a miniature landslide; he turned to be greeted by a faceful of fresh blood spouting from the half of a Viper soldier held in the hand of a triumphant Toghun. The Khagan was seated atop a snarling Ariq amongst a puddle of liquefied reptilians, one fist raised triumphantly high to the scorching sun. He held the recently emancipated skull in his hands, which he tossed casually to land in a wet, bouncing roll at Exida’s hooves.
“Exida Exis,” he said smugly, wiping the palm of his hand off on his armor. “For the glory of the Pankhaganate, I challenge you for the supremacy of this contest. Face me!”
The deer’s head moved from Rayeln to the Khagan with ponderous gravity. “Rayeln,” he said, slowly, tasting the words, “I’m going to have to ask you to wait for a moment. Something else has come up. My apologies.” A single golden hoof lifted, paused; it landed in a soft, inaudible puff of dust.
The two Viper guards flanking him sank to the ground and drew their weapons from their holsters in the same motion, shouldering the rifles as though the machinery had been born from their bodies. They paused for no more than the time it took to aim between breaths and pulled their triggers simultaneously.
Both of Ariq’s front knees exploded inwards like two huge, fiery blossoms, smoking blood sprouting over the horse’s legs and chest as it sank to the ground screaming in clouds of billowing steam. Red sparks spat out onto the ground, burning tiny craters into the dust around the kneeling beast, rivers spreading beneath it as it roared and roared, thrashing its enormous head from side to side. Toghun swore and tore at the reins but Ariq’s convulsions had nearly unseated the Khagan. He clung to his horse’s mane, shaking a bloody fist at Exida and opening his mouth for a battle cry-
“Again,” Exida said. “Hit the rider this time.”
Two more flowers bloomed on Ariq’s chest and the horse bellowed again, more machine than animal in the furious cacophony of its screams, but its voice paled in comparison to the roar the Khagan gave as the bullets pierced his abdomen a few centimeters shy of his ribs. His hands flew to his armor, shock overtaking his face at the thick blackish blood flecking his fingers. He raised them before his face, half in defense and half in fury, suddenly aware of how he shone in the sunlight. His lips moved wordlessly as he locked eyes with Exida. Rubies. Beautiful red rubies on a white, white plain.
“Rayeln. I’ve found a use for you after all.”
The giant approached like a drunk, staggering from side to side and slipping on the steaming blood pooling away from the twitching Ariq, holding his sword like a child’s toy. He smiled at Toghun. “Sorry, Comrade,” he said, raising the humming blade above his head. He closed one eye to focus. “I only did it for the people.”
Johnny’s vision went black.
When he opened his eyes Exida was smirking at him, Rayeln swaying at his side with a cautious smile on his face and his hands coverd ins cove co- in- in
“Johnny,” Exida said gently, “Johnny, I’m going to give you a little test. My good friend Rayeln here has to pay for his mistakes. But I consider myself to be a fair man, so I’m giving you the option of saving him from his own stupidity. If you can convince him- just for a moment, not any longer than that, I think that’s reasonable- to spare his own life, he can keep it. And so can you. Do you understand?”
The air was filled with dust and the sun was hotter than he remembered. The back of his neck felt numb from the heat. “I understand,” he heard himself say. Each breath was becoming an effort. The heat was crushing him.
“Good,” the deer smiled, smiling, turned his handsome face to the man with the sword and told him to do it.
Johnny didn’t even get a word out from between his lips before the blade made a noise like hot metal hitting water and the man-of-the-people fell, and fell, and fell.
And fell.
A silence spread out over the battlefield.
“Does it surprise you, Raptor?”
And fell.
The deer spoke to him like a god to a disciple. He heard his voice like a memory, surfacing. Like an unwanted face.
Like a pretty girl by a river.
“Did it feel like a game to you, before now? I’ve seen your type so often, boy. Just another page in an endless, boring book of stupid men pretending to be heroes. Hah. I was almost, almost, like you once, nineteen years ago. I hope you know what it feels like, now. I hate to see a hopeful man die.”
“I’m a hero,” Johnny tried to tell him. His mouth didn’t cooperate. He tilted to the side, the ground rebelling underneath his feet. “I’m Johnny Raptor.”
“Are you, though? Who are you, really?” A hoof hit him in the chest like a gunshot, shattering the silence and maybe his ribs too, and a couple of other things he’d forgotten about. He flew back through space and memory and the girl’s long lovely tangles of hair and the things she said and did to him and landed in the dust and blood of a battlefield, blood on his hands and on his tongue and a deer standing over him with eyes like red burning fire and a smirk that promised immolation. He turned his head. He couldn’t stand the heat.
The crowds of serpents started to shake, started to shed their skins, and he saw them burn up under the sun, turning into shadows and less than shadows. Cheap pulp paper and wet runny ink burst from their veins and fell to the ground in speech bubbles that all seemed to say the same thing, but he couldn’t read them, he couldn’t, she’d know and she
She
she
“Who are you?”
The man called Johnny Raptor turned his eyes to the deer, to heaven, to the black-and-yellow Ben-Day dots in the sky that filled the sun and the moon and smiled a weak, shivering, shimmering smile. There was nothing else to do; he had to play his part. He didn’t have a choice. He opened his hand and this time he felt it appear, forged from the script running endlessly behind his eyes. He shaped it from ink and letters and fiction and something from before when his name was different and what he made fell into his palm with the weight of a universe.
“Who-”
“My name,” he whispered, “is Johnny Raptor,” and he pulled the trigger.
He didn’t hear the explosion. He didn’t see the armies of creeping reptile-men hybrids dissipate, didn’t see the ships crashing from the sky like flaming deicidal arrows, didn’t see the Spire devour itself in ravenous billowing clouds and didn’t feel the kickback, though it knocked the gun from his hands.
All he really felt, as the deer stumbled once and sank to its knees before him, red flowers blooming from its mouth and chest and the crimson V dissolving from its neck around the pretty black hole in its shining fur, was like a hero.