Overmaster Wars:
Delta City Doomsday: Act Four
The man in the devil-horned armor silently watched the malicious proceedings before him, motionless, an armored statue. Below him, the humiliated heads of the criminal underworld endeavored to escape from their cruel and unusual punishment, but it was not meant to be.
The Synturion standing over the beaten Golden Angel grasped the hilt of her embedded Golden Katana and liberated it from the floor. Coolly, it put the blade across its skeletal shoulders and walked to the human throne of its master. Kneeling meekly on one ball-and-socket knee, it held the wondrous weapon on both outstretched palms in silent presentation.
The armored lord took the weapon in one taloned hand, inspecting its otherworldly craftsmanship. In the meantime, the third Synturion had picked up the flaccid body of its owner in a full nelson, both icy metal hands cuffing now nude breasts. Covered with noticeable cuts and abrasions, the unconscious form of the Martial Arts Maiden resembled a bloodied rag doll, accented by glistening slivers of glass still embedded in her skin.
Halo, on the other hand, was still lying on the floor, squirming uncontrollably, in the throes of the Nano-Synturions controlling her brain and body. Her words had deteriorated into babble seconds ago, no doubt a last desperate mechanism of her heavenly will to regain dominance.
But no matter.
These two Protectors, this "Dirty Pair" would soon be...
A streak of yellow gold interrupted the armored man's thoughts.
Slender, alabaster fingers wrapped around his metal-clad neck in a time that had yet to be measured by humankind. He was lifted bodily out of his chair in a nanosecond, and shoved against the stripper pole directly behind him. It gave easily, and his uncontrollable push was finally halted by the large mirror display of the stage itself. The resulting cacophony from the shattered mirror was loud enough to drown out "Stuck In The Middle With You."
Still human, it took a precious minute for clarity to reassert his senses.
The streak had formed into a gorgeous female form, slender and easy on the eyes, with the exception of mammoth breasts clothed in a reflective golden yellow bra top. A matching pleated microskirt, epaulets, and platform stripper sandals were all that adorned her practically naked form. Shimmering green eyes were framed by a blonde pageboy haircut, which in turn was complimented by a golden phoenix-designed tiara on her forehead.
She was Sundancer, formerly Lady Solaris...currently one angry Protector.
"I don't understand." she growled through perfect teeth. "Why the hell would you want to lead me here...with practically no defenses against me?"
She suddenly felt the attention of six spotlights on her, and the glow of sapphire across her face. A blue lance of light was held mere inches from her cheek.
"Solarin. Extraterrestrial. Planet of origin, Solaris." the Synturion holding the lance droned mechanically. "Gifted with genes to transform solar energy into conduits for powers of super strength and flight."
"What? I'm suppose to quiver in my panties because Easy Baker Oven studied my physiology?" Sundancer snarled at the armored man in her chokehold. "All I have to do is crush your windpipe..."
"You really don't realize who you are dealing with...do you?" the man chuckled sinisterly.
"A King Arthur reject who got lucky with my friends?" she retorted sarcastically.
His response was silent, and unseen, delivered by the Synturion who quickly sliced into Sundancer's body with the blue lance. The effect was instant. Her whole body fell numb, completely paralyzed. With a cry of anguish and astonishment, her flight ability abandoned her, sending her limply crashing to the stage.
She landed with a scream among the mirror shards, partly of embarrassment, partly of bewilderment. Above her, the armored man slowly floated to the ground, the nature of his self-propelled levitation revealed by glowing discs at the bottom of his boots.
"Neuro-Lancers." he said as he landed gently and knelt down, grabbing a fistful of Sundancer's blond hair. "Every Synturion has them. The lances enter your body by transforming into hard light and completely disrupt the nervous system. Even yours. All it took for you is adjusting to that precious solar energy in your cells..."
"Who...who...are you?" Sundancer tried to put on a brave front, but failed.
"Have you heard about the Chaguanas Massacre?" the man let her head fall to the hard ground and rose to his feet, staring down at her. "It happened twenty years ago. Your former hot shot leader, Thunderbolt Woman, knows about it."
"By the Goddess Solaria..." the Solarin Protector marveled. "I've heard only the most minor of whispers about it...and most from the menacing criminals of this world..."
"For the sake of waiting for the effects of the Lance to wear off..." the man stepped over her, crunching the shards under his feet as he regally returned to his human-made throne."Let me tell you a story."
With a motion of his finger across his neck, he silenced the ad hoc DJ in the booth.
"Twenty years ago, there was a Protectors of Justice team like there is now." he began. "Port-of-Spain was their base of operations, and they went about the world, cleaning up the streets of crime. Thunderbolt Woman, Shining Star, Rohanna...the list goes on and on, right? So...they brought utopia to the cities, and all was well with the world."
Sundancer began to slowly feel her fingers regain their feeling and some means of control. "So, what happened?" she pressed.
"I happened." he said. "I could care less about crime. That's not why I became me. I became me...the devil...because superheroines were and still are a menace to society. The Protectors...this all-star group of superfriends...represented the epitome of my hate and rage. They had to be crushed. They had to be shown the error of their ways-"
"So..." Sundancer trailed off, making a fist with her hands with much effort.
"My wives and I attacked on December 4, 19-something. D-day, anniversary of Pearl Harbor." he said, rubbing his armored chin thoughtfully. "Drew those Protectors out and one-by-one, snuffed them. Ever heard of Panther Woman? Wondra?"
"No."
"Because I captured them, Solarin. And after your predecessors defeated me, they erased everything...they got together with the news media and wiped me out of existence."
Feeling control returning to her arms and legs, Sundancer submissed a moan as she shakily rose up on her haunches. Two Synturions stood over her, their glowing blue lances held in both hands, ready to slice the heroine if she moved once again.
The armored man turned on his living seat to face her. "Ask some of the older Protectors, Solarin, when you see them again. Let those whispers become full-blown horror stories. The wounds are there...the thousand-yard-stares, the tortures, the perils...they are still fresh. They thought they could kill me...kill the immortal superheroine bogeyman."
Sundancer could only look on weakly as her adversary stood up and declared with an horrible cackle, "They thought they could kill...The Overmaster! And with that...I must withdraw for tonight..."
The man revealed as Overmaster gathered his cape around him and took a step forward. Before Sundancer's astonished eyes, hundreds of spotlights suddenly shone from in front of him, rendering him a silhouette before a blinding field of white light.
"Running away?" she cried angrily.
"Yes." his shadowy horned head turned to the left, looking over his shoulder. "If it will make you and your friends fight with all of your might, draw all of your attention to me, then yes, I am...ahem, 'running away'..."
"You fiend!" Sundancer slowly rose to unsteady feet, fists balled. "This is a game to you, isn't it? That's why you had your creepy little robo-slut lead me here-"
"And it scares you, doesn't it?" he smirked. "To denote that this is a game means that I have more control over the proceedings than you would like to admit."
"I'm not afraid of you!" the Solarian beauty declared.
"You have it all wrong, my dear." the Overmaster only chuckled. "Fear is a good thing; it brings caution, scrutiny; all the things you would need to successfully overcome that which causes it in the first place."
His hand leisurely stretched to the right, towards the DJ booth. The redheaded stripper in the star-spangled bikini gulped nervously, shaking her fiery-tressed head furiously.
"Come." the armored villain ordered. "I have a stripper pole with the view of Delta City in my new headquarters. You will look marvelous practicing your profession with it."
Sundancer did not move when silvery hands roughly grabbed the poor stripper. She did not move when said stripper screamed her name, begging to be rescued from the silver horde, the decades-old menace whose clutches she was now trapped in. She tried to lie, blaming the after-effects of the Neuro-Lance, and the slowly return of the solar energy to her cells.
However, both her feet hovered an inch off of the ground.
The stripper was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the blinding light, followed by the armored man in the long, regal cape. He seemed to pause, glancing over his shoulder with a flourish of his cape one last time, before vanishing into the white.
And then all of the spotlights shut off at once, leaving her just as disoriented as before.
Yoshiwara was now deserted, save for the other two Protectors and herself. Various tables lay about in splinters, chairs were tossed about, and the stage and bar was in shambles. The chair, made up of all of the criminal bosses of Delta City, was gone as well. Also missing was Golden Angel's katana. With courage bestowing momentum in her limbs again, Sundancer quickly flew over to where Halo lay, still squirming violently.
"You're going to be okay!" she reassured her softly, brushing her cheek with her hand. The Angelic Angel could only nodded meekly, her face and hair wet with tears. With great effort, Sundancer gently helped her friend into a fireman's carry, and soared over the messy floor to the still body of the Golden Angel.
Propping Halo against one of the still whole tables, Sundancer knelt down to inspect Golden Angel. Although a myriad of crimson wounds and bruises, the Golden One's sweaty nude breasts still rose and fell steadly. She was still alive.
"GA...joked...a-a-about devil...worshippers today..." Halo stuttered, nursing her left arm. "T-to get m-m-m-me to c-c-come..."
"I would have done the same thing..." Sundancer said matter-of-factly.
"N-n-no...y-y-you don't understand..." the angelic being whispered. "I...I-I-I think w-w-we met the d-d-devil today. Not the one I-I-I already knew...a new one. A human one."
Sundancer said nothing, only reaching over to offer Halo a comforting squeeze on the shoulder. Meanwhile, a record scratch heralded a new song being played on the strip club's speakers.
It was Alice Cooper's "He's Back, The Man Behind The Mask".
Delta City Doomsday: Act Four
The man in the devil-horned armor silently watched the malicious proceedings before him, motionless, an armored statue. Below him, the humiliated heads of the criminal underworld endeavored to escape from their cruel and unusual punishment, but it was not meant to be.
The Synturion standing over the beaten Golden Angel grasped the hilt of her embedded Golden Katana and liberated it from the floor. Coolly, it put the blade across its skeletal shoulders and walked to the human throne of its master. Kneeling meekly on one ball-and-socket knee, it held the wondrous weapon on both outstretched palms in silent presentation.
The armored lord took the weapon in one taloned hand, inspecting its otherworldly craftsmanship. In the meantime, the third Synturion had picked up the flaccid body of its owner in a full nelson, both icy metal hands cuffing now nude breasts. Covered with noticeable cuts and abrasions, the unconscious form of the Martial Arts Maiden resembled a bloodied rag doll, accented by glistening slivers of glass still embedded in her skin.
Halo, on the other hand, was still lying on the floor, squirming uncontrollably, in the throes of the Nano-Synturions controlling her brain and body. Her words had deteriorated into babble seconds ago, no doubt a last desperate mechanism of her heavenly will to regain dominance.
But no matter.
These two Protectors, this "Dirty Pair" would soon be...
A streak of yellow gold interrupted the armored man's thoughts.
Slender, alabaster fingers wrapped around his metal-clad neck in a time that had yet to be measured by humankind. He was lifted bodily out of his chair in a nanosecond, and shoved against the stripper pole directly behind him. It gave easily, and his uncontrollable push was finally halted by the large mirror display of the stage itself. The resulting cacophony from the shattered mirror was loud enough to drown out "Stuck In The Middle With You."
Still human, it took a precious minute for clarity to reassert his senses.
The streak had formed into a gorgeous female form, slender and easy on the eyes, with the exception of mammoth breasts clothed in a reflective golden yellow bra top. A matching pleated microskirt, epaulets, and platform stripper sandals were all that adorned her practically naked form. Shimmering green eyes were framed by a blonde pageboy haircut, which in turn was complimented by a golden phoenix-designed tiara on her forehead.
She was Sundancer, formerly Lady Solaris...currently one angry Protector.
"I don't understand." she growled through perfect teeth. "Why the hell would you want to lead me here...with practically no defenses against me?"
She suddenly felt the attention of six spotlights on her, and the glow of sapphire across her face. A blue lance of light was held mere inches from her cheek.
"Solarin. Extraterrestrial. Planet of origin, Solaris." the Synturion holding the lance droned mechanically. "Gifted with genes to transform solar energy into conduits for powers of super strength and flight."
"What? I'm suppose to quiver in my panties because Easy Baker Oven studied my physiology?" Sundancer snarled at the armored man in her chokehold. "All I have to do is crush your windpipe..."
"You really don't realize who you are dealing with...do you?" the man chuckled sinisterly.
"A King Arthur reject who got lucky with my friends?" she retorted sarcastically.
His response was silent, and unseen, delivered by the Synturion who quickly sliced into Sundancer's body with the blue lance. The effect was instant. Her whole body fell numb, completely paralyzed. With a cry of anguish and astonishment, her flight ability abandoned her, sending her limply crashing to the stage.
She landed with a scream among the mirror shards, partly of embarrassment, partly of bewilderment. Above her, the armored man slowly floated to the ground, the nature of his self-propelled levitation revealed by glowing discs at the bottom of his boots.
"Neuro-Lancers." he said as he landed gently and knelt down, grabbing a fistful of Sundancer's blond hair. "Every Synturion has them. The lances enter your body by transforming into hard light and completely disrupt the nervous system. Even yours. All it took for you is adjusting to that precious solar energy in your cells..."
"Who...who...are you?" Sundancer tried to put on a brave front, but failed.
"Have you heard about the Chaguanas Massacre?" the man let her head fall to the hard ground and rose to his feet, staring down at her. "It happened twenty years ago. Your former hot shot leader, Thunderbolt Woman, knows about it."
"By the Goddess Solaria..." the Solarin Protector marveled. "I've heard only the most minor of whispers about it...and most from the menacing criminals of this world..."
"For the sake of waiting for the effects of the Lance to wear off..." the man stepped over her, crunching the shards under his feet as he regally returned to his human-made throne."Let me tell you a story."
With a motion of his finger across his neck, he silenced the ad hoc DJ in the booth.
"Twenty years ago, there was a Protectors of Justice team like there is now." he began. "Port-of-Spain was their base of operations, and they went about the world, cleaning up the streets of crime. Thunderbolt Woman, Shining Star, Rohanna...the list goes on and on, right? So...they brought utopia to the cities, and all was well with the world."
Sundancer began to slowly feel her fingers regain their feeling and some means of control. "So, what happened?" she pressed.
"I happened." he said. "I could care less about crime. That's not why I became me. I became me...the devil...because superheroines were and still are a menace to society. The Protectors...this all-star group of superfriends...represented the epitome of my hate and rage. They had to be crushed. They had to be shown the error of their ways-"
"So..." Sundancer trailed off, making a fist with her hands with much effort.
"My wives and I attacked on December 4, 19-something. D-day, anniversary of Pearl Harbor." he said, rubbing his armored chin thoughtfully. "Drew those Protectors out and one-by-one, snuffed them. Ever heard of Panther Woman? Wondra?"
"No."
"Because I captured them, Solarin. And after your predecessors defeated me, they erased everything...they got together with the news media and wiped me out of existence."
Feeling control returning to her arms and legs, Sundancer submissed a moan as she shakily rose up on her haunches. Two Synturions stood over her, their glowing blue lances held in both hands, ready to slice the heroine if she moved once again.
The armored man turned on his living seat to face her. "Ask some of the older Protectors, Solarin, when you see them again. Let those whispers become full-blown horror stories. The wounds are there...the thousand-yard-stares, the tortures, the perils...they are still fresh. They thought they could kill me...kill the immortal superheroine bogeyman."
Sundancer could only look on weakly as her adversary stood up and declared with an horrible cackle, "They thought they could kill...The Overmaster! And with that...I must withdraw for tonight..."
The man revealed as Overmaster gathered his cape around him and took a step forward. Before Sundancer's astonished eyes, hundreds of spotlights suddenly shone from in front of him, rendering him a silhouette before a blinding field of white light.
"Running away?" she cried angrily.
"Yes." his shadowy horned head turned to the left, looking over his shoulder. "If it will make you and your friends fight with all of your might, draw all of your attention to me, then yes, I am...ahem, 'running away'..."
"You fiend!" Sundancer slowly rose to unsteady feet, fists balled. "This is a game to you, isn't it? That's why you had your creepy little robo-slut lead me here-"
"And it scares you, doesn't it?" he smirked. "To denote that this is a game means that I have more control over the proceedings than you would like to admit."
"I'm not afraid of you!" the Solarian beauty declared.
"You have it all wrong, my dear." the Overmaster only chuckled. "Fear is a good thing; it brings caution, scrutiny; all the things you would need to successfully overcome that which causes it in the first place."
His hand leisurely stretched to the right, towards the DJ booth. The redheaded stripper in the star-spangled bikini gulped nervously, shaking her fiery-tressed head furiously.
"Come." the armored villain ordered. "I have a stripper pole with the view of Delta City in my new headquarters. You will look marvelous practicing your profession with it."
Sundancer did not move when silvery hands roughly grabbed the poor stripper. She did not move when said stripper screamed her name, begging to be rescued from the silver horde, the decades-old menace whose clutches she was now trapped in. She tried to lie, blaming the after-effects of the Neuro-Lance, and the slowly return of the solar energy to her cells.
However, both her feet hovered an inch off of the ground.
The stripper was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the blinding light, followed by the armored man in the long, regal cape. He seemed to pause, glancing over his shoulder with a flourish of his cape one last time, before vanishing into the white.
And then all of the spotlights shut off at once, leaving her just as disoriented as before.
Yoshiwara was now deserted, save for the other two Protectors and herself. Various tables lay about in splinters, chairs were tossed about, and the stage and bar was in shambles. The chair, made up of all of the criminal bosses of Delta City, was gone as well. Also missing was Golden Angel's katana. With courage bestowing momentum in her limbs again, Sundancer quickly flew over to where Halo lay, still squirming violently.
"You're going to be okay!" she reassured her softly, brushing her cheek with her hand. The Angelic Angel could only nodded meekly, her face and hair wet with tears. With great effort, Sundancer gently helped her friend into a fireman's carry, and soared over the messy floor to the still body of the Golden Angel.
Propping Halo against one of the still whole tables, Sundancer knelt down to inspect Golden Angel. Although a myriad of crimson wounds and bruises, the Golden One's sweaty nude breasts still rose and fell steadly. She was still alive.
"GA...joked...a-a-about devil...worshippers today..." Halo stuttered, nursing her left arm. "T-to get m-m-m-me to c-c-come..."
"I would have done the same thing..." Sundancer said matter-of-factly.
"N-n-no...y-y-you don't understand..." the angelic being whispered. "I...I-I-I think w-w-we met the d-d-devil today. Not the one I-I-I already knew...a new one. A human one."
Sundancer said nothing, only reaching over to offer Halo a comforting squeeze on the shoulder. Meanwhile, a record scratch heralded a new song being played on the strip club's speakers.
It was Alice Cooper's "He's Back, The Man Behind The Mask".
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