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Mob Rules, part 10 Friday, 24-Sep-1999 08:50:05
Chapter Ten Masamune looked pissed. Visionary supposed she had a right to, considering that he had demolished the front of her club, chased off her entire crime family and nearly strangled her to death. (She still wore her battered, pink Manga armor, in fact.) Still, having those huge Manga eyes narrowed into such a piercing glare didn’t bode well for this meeting. “Did I… uh…” Visionary began carefully, “…Did I mention that I was sorry? Really, really, *really* sorry?” She didn’t answer. Fairly rude behavior, in his opinion, especially since this all really wasn’t his fault. Well, not *totally* his fault, anyway. After destroying what NTU confirmed was a psionic amplifier, the rest of them were released from the mental sway they had been subjected to… finally able to see things as they truly were. It turned out that Cheryl had not been abducted by Masamune, which made the Legionnaires’ attack on her organization a bit of a faux paus. In turn, the Yakusa produced a tape which they claimed showed Jarvis conspiring with a rival crime family, but which, on examination, only proved to be a recording of the ‘Teletubbies’. After confirming that the evidence had not been taped over, and a brief discussion by assorted Legionnaires over which Teletubbie lead the ‘alternative lifestyle’ (followed by a lengthy discussion on how you could tell which sex they were anyway), Masamune and Visionary had agreed to a private meeting to work out their differences. “Um…” Visionary tried again. “I really am. Sorry, that is…” Finally, she broke. Sighing, she held her head in her armored hands. “I could have gone into the black market supplement business like my cousin” she muttered to herself, “selling rhinoceros horns and tiger phalluses for big bucks. “’Aphrodisiacs, that’s where the money is’ he told me …but nooooo. I had to be where the *action* was…” She lifted her head, and her eyes now only seemed slightly irritated and extremely tired. “Why don’t you start by explaining what the hell is going on here. Then, maybe later, I’ll just shoot you and forget the whole thing.” “Ah… tough, but fair.” He agreed quickly. “Okay, I suppose for you to really understand, I’ll have to start with the time I was beaten to death.” She gave him a hard stare then lowered her head to her hands once more. “Right” she sighed. “Well… at least it should have a happy ending…” “Would you be a dear and get me some more tea?” the young woman asked politely from the comfort of the leather bound recliner. “Hmmm? Oh! Yes… certainly.” Brother Harold rose quickly and went to the antique tea kettle. “Lemon? Two lumps, right?” “You remembered” she said approvingly, nodding. She accepted the cup with a friendly smile and the cultist returned to his place by the fire. “Now then…” she began, sipping the hot liquid carefully. “what were you saying? About your father?” Brother Harold began pacing back and forth across the cozy little study. “Well… he’s never been one to encourage me. He was always saying I wouldn’t amount to anything…” The man threw himself down in the chair opposite her. “But now that we’re about to control the world… Do you think...? I mean, should I… I’m wondering if I should call him…” “So you can finally get the approval from him that you so desire?” she finished for him. She tapped a finger to her lips thoughtfully. “We keep coming back to that driving need, don’t we? I wonder, perhaps, if you might not be more content if…” she broke off as the door to the room banged open. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” the one called Brother Bartek roared, appearing in the doorway. “Why is this prisoner out of her cell?!” Harold flinched. “His Holiness told us to treat her with maximum courtesy and respect…” he began feebly, alternating between frightened glances towards his superior and apologetic glances to her. “And you couldn’t do that with her safely locked away?” Bartek asked scathingly. “I wanted some tea” she said simply by explanation, taking another sip. “And I found my cell to be entirely too drafty. You know, this plan of yours is rather crude… men know so little about real control… still, in it’s own crude way, it just might work.” She gave him a sweet smile. “I was especially impressed to find out about the bomb… those items are rather hard to come by, aren’t they?” Bartek stood, stunned momentarily. “You told her our plans?!” he hissed in disbelief towards Harold. “You… I…” He had to fight to get his emotions back under control. Finally, with a scowl, he continued. “Get back to your room and meditate on what you have done. I will see that you get the proper *chastisement* in due time.” Brother Harold turned white as a sheet, but bowed and quickly left the room. “Now then, you stuck up, spoiled, useless little bitch” Brother Bartek snarled, turning towards her once again, “You’ll tell me everything you know about us and our operations, you stupid f---ing whore, or I’ll pry the information out of you with white-hot hooks, no matter how His Holiness feels about you!” Her eyes went flat. “I’m sorry” Cheryl said in a quiet, and very dangerous, voice. “What, *precisely*, did you just call me?” “What is going on out there?” the Apostate roared. “How could that butler have possibly seen the truth?” “I… I’m not sure, your Holiness…” the cultist prostrating himself before his enraged leader answered hurriedly. “The amplifiers were working perfectly. Perhaps the telepathic woman…” “No… I would have sensed her interference with my hold over them” From his position trussed up on the floor, Jarvis watched as the armored man began pacing. “I have tested each of them in turn, and besides the telepath, only these two are immune to my powers” He gestured at the bound Jarvis and the altered Yo, who was still lost in some private nightmare. He stopped and turned back towards the monitors, which were now showing only static—presumably due to a jamming field erected by NTU. “With as personally as their leader Jarvis was taking the woman’s abduction, he should have torn the mobster limb… from…” He paused and turned to face his captives with narrowing eyes. “Hmmmmm… Now…” he hissed inquisitively “…why would he take the abduction of your wife so personally?” Jarvis’s hands were on fire. With a start, he shook them, but that only fanned the flames. He bit back a scream as the flesh blackened and cracked, and a sickening smell filled his nostrils. Fat deposits in his skin sizzled, and the pain was unbearable, immense. Suddenly he was being held aloft by the Apostate, and his hands were whole, untouched. “You aren’t him at all!” the horned man roared, his eyes burning with anger. “You’re not Visionary!” Now Jarvis’s entire body was burning, but slowly, agonizingly. He crumpled up on the floor, shuddering in horror as he felt his skin split and his organs boil. Then the sensation vanished again, and the real world came rushing back. “What is it?” The Apostate demanded, his attention turned away from the curled up man at his feet. “The woman…” a cultist answered from the door. “She’s escaped…” If possible, the armored figure seemed even angrier. “Get Brother Bartek and find her, immediately!” he barked. “That’s just it…” the man answered quickly. “Brother Bartek is….” He swallowed hard. “Brother Bartek is… ummmm…” The Apostate strode to the door to face the man. “Brother Bartek…” he began icily, “is… what?” “So this Apostate character traveled back into time, stole your wife before you could meet, and beat you to death.” Masamune said succinctly. “Is that about right?” “Yes” Visionary confirmed happily. “And this really happened?” she prodded. “Well, no…” the Legionnaire answered. “Not any more.” She stared at him long and hard. “I think I’ll shoot you now” she decided. “Uh… Yo used time travel to stop the Apostate from ever going back in time at all” Visionary explained quickly, “thus keeping this all from happening. Anyway, the ‘beliefs’ that everyone was suffering from seem to match Yo’s description of the Apostate’s powers, including my immunity to them.” His expression changed to one of worry. “It would also make sense of Cheryl abduction, since he’s shown interest in her before.” The Mob Boss tapped a finger to the side of her jaw thoughtfully as she leaned back in her chair. “With those kinds of powers, I could have this city under my total control in a matter of days. Hell, add the International Crime Cartel’s resources, and one could infiltrate just about any branch of power in the world…” She stopped to give Visionary an appraising look. “All this time I thought I knew what struggles for power were all about. You Legionnaires don’t play penny ante, do you?” He shrugged. “You get used to it” he said wearily. “The pay sucks, but at least the hours are long and the risk of personal injury is obscenely high.” “So why do you do it?” Visionary opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut again. He rubbed his hands guiltily. “I… I guess I just wouldn’t know what else to do” he admitted softly. “I… just don’t want to be useless. Can you understand that?” From the look she was giving him, he guessed she couldn’t. Visionary sighed. Perhaps there were worse things than being useless. He had tried to take a proactive role, to do what Jarvis might have done… and had only made a total mess of things. Masamune was right… the stakes were too high for the usual Visionary screw-ups… Masamune leaned back in her chair. “Hmmph.” She muttered. “Perhaps, instead of recruiting you for my team, I should have signed on to yours. It seems that’s where the real action is.” She folded her hands and addressed him again. “So this Apostate is fixated on replacing you, eh?” He was pulled out of his morose thoughts by the question. “What was that?” he asked intently, an idea forming. “Fixated on…” “Replacing you” She gave him a curious look. “Why? What, exactly, is going on inside that borrowed mind of yours?” “This way” Tina said, creeping cautiously down the sewer corridor. “I’m picking up some very familiar thoughts.” Lisa followed closely with the odd purple bunny in tow. “I knew about the ‘no white shoes after Labor Day’ rule…” she observed, shaking out a soggy foot, “but the fashion rules for spelunking the sewers are woefully underreported.” “You can write to the editor of Mademoiselle when we get back” Tina answered. “First, we need to find…” A maintenance door in the wall in front of them suddenly flew open, pouring out two figures. A rather large man fell backwards, his head striking the stone floor with a force sufficient to knock him unconscious. This was due in no small part to the blond woman on top of him, her fist caught in his hair, slamming his face into the shallow sewage. “Cheryl?” Lisa asked, stunned. “Um… need a hand?” Cheryl paused to peel back the man’s eyelids and give his pupils a look. “No thank you” she responded politely. “I seem to be all finished here.” She stood up, absently shaking the muck from her clothes. “Lisa, Tina… I hope you didn’t come all the way down here on my account.” “Well, we were in the neighborhood” Lisa answered with a flippant little wave, “and we heard the ambiance here was to die for.” The purple bunny gave a happy shudder and leapt joyfully into Cheryl’s arms. Cheryl smiled warmly. “The tea’s quite dreadful, though” she said, exchanging hugs with them around the bunny, “and the conversation is even worse.” Suddenly, the sounds of footsteps splashing through the water resounded through the tunnel. “SHE’S OVER HERE!!!” a voice yelled as two men rounded the bend to come face to face with the trio. Tina looked to Lisa. “Shall we?” Lisa grinned. “Can’t let her have *all* the fun, now can we?” The struggle was brief, messy and a foregone conclusion. “That one’s eyelids are fluttering” Cheryl noted to Tina. The telepath put a finger to the cultist’s temple and gave his thoughts a nudge towards unconsciousness. “Better?” she asked. “Much” Lisa said, dumping her cultist on top of the others. The purple bunny whapped them repeatedly in their heads with its huge hind feet before leaping joyfully back into Cheryl’s arms and snuggling close. “Well…” Lisa sighed, wiping her hands clean. “Shall we, ladies?” “Not quite yet” a voice called out from the darkness. Torches flared, and the women of the Lair Legion found themselves surrounded by Parody Master Cultists on all sides. In front of them stood the Apostate, his steel mask flickering brightly in the firelight. He calmly walked past the wary women to prode his three unconscious followers with a steel-toed boot. “Impressive” he noted. Lisa shrugged. “Just call us ‘Jarvie’s Angels’.” “Please don’t.” Tina and Cheryl chimed in unison. The Apostate turned to face them again. “Your Grace” he said to Cheryl, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m still a bit stunned by the reports of your escape… well, attempted escape.” He let out an evil chuckle. “Tell me… did you really make a eunuch of Brother Bartek?” Cheryl’s face was stone cold as the cultists turned to look at her, and even Tina and Lisa’s heads swiveled to regard her with surprise. “An exaggeration. We had a minor falling out” Cheryl allowed icily. “With a letter opener?” the villain pressed. “Isn’t that a little… blunt?” “I do believe Brother Bartek found it to be” she answered coldly. The Apostate shook his head in admiration. “My dear… we could do such wonderful things together… but I’m afraid such possibilities will have to wait.” He gestured and the cultists formed up around them. “If you ladies would be so kind as to follow me, I shall take you to your teammates.” He turned and walked down the tunnel as the women were escorted along behind him. “I think that I can guarantee you that the next few hours will be most eventful.” He laughed darkly. “I do believe that’d you’d hate to miss them.” Visionary |
| Mob Rules, part 10 (Visionary) (24-Sep-1999 08:50:05) |
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