March 2001
"Can I Play With Madness?"
by Toby Kernan
|
March 2001 |
"Can I Play With Madness?" by Toby Kernan |
"You know the rules, Frankie," said the team's current teleporter, Quartzite, to Commando, a.k.a. Frank Bohannon. "Just hit the locator button when you are ready to get out, and I will come arunnin'. Good luck, I would stay, but I can feel my lips chapping already. Have fun."
After Frank watched Quartzite teleport away, he turned around to survey the wonderful ‘team' Sarge Steel had stuck him with this time. He didn't like it one single bit. In all his years he had spent leading Suicide Squad missions, he had been forced to work with a variety of crazies and criminals. This group was a different breed altogether. This group was very stealth-heavy, meaning that there were no bulky muscle men or high-tech, huge gun totting mercenaries. Frank was saddened by this fact, because he had been a soldier all his life, and he knew how to deal easily with those types. That type respect two things, money and power. This lot, with the exception of constant companion Pathfinder, was a completely different breed.
To keep better tabs on them, Frank made a quick mental catalogue of his new ‘colleagues', all recent additions. First, there was Kuroko. Known as the Black One, Kuroko was a former pacific coast crime lord who ran afoul of some super-vigilante named Shroud in Los Angeles and got herself thrown in jail. She seemed to have formidable martial arts abilities, and swung a mean katana. She also had a mutant ability to make herself invisible to normal human sight, although Frank noticed that her abilities don't work against his infra-red cyber goggles. That was good, because it would make her escape from Squad almost impossible, even without the explosive device strapped around her upper left arm. She also seemed to be the most sane of the four new recruits, and had been very cooperative with him on the last mission to Cuba. Frank wasn't really worried about her.
Next was the female Whiteout. Her history was completely shrouded in mystery, as was her identity. Doctors at Belle Reve have yet to get her to remove the all white outfit which covers her entire body, save for the face, which is cloaked in shadows from a deep cowl. She was apprehended by Blue Beetle and Ant Man just days before the tragic plane crash which took both their lives*, trying to free all the animals from the Miami Animal Reserve. When the doctors at Reve ask her why, she simply said, "To feel like home." She also has a mutant ability. She can generate a pulse of psionic energy which can render a target unconscious, the victim seeing a bright, white light before the pain hits. Frank assumed this was where the name Whiteout originated from. She didn't worry Frank too much, because both he and Pathfinder had been outfitted with headsets that would prevent Whiteout from using her powers upon them.
*(Batman #2)
Next to her was Janus. A brilliant painter, Janus was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and psychotic tendencies. He ‘celebrated' by killing his therapist, his secretary, and nearly everybody on the seventeen floor of St. Joseph's Hospital in Chicago. He was apprehended by Black Lightning, and was placed in an asylum. Unfortunately, Hydra agents within the facility performed experiments on him, and he was granted the ability to create a duplicate of his body. Not long after he escaped, and was defeated again by Black Lightning. He was then placed into Belle Reve custody. He is a certifiable crazy, prone to switch from mild-mannered to manic at the drop of a hat. Frank looked at him in disgust, he hated the crazy ones, they were far too unpredictable, and he was thankful that Janus wore an explosive collar around his neck.
Finally, Frank turned to the man he had almost begged to be left off the mission. The one villain Frank had prayed he would never have to be stuck out in the field with. He was Jonathan Crane, known to world as the Scarecrow. He was Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs come to life in chilling, grisly horror.
Jonathan Crane had it all. He was wealthy, brilliant, and considered one of the foremost psychotherapists in the world. But behind it all, there was a secret life. One filled with obsession and fear. He wanted to master it, and to do so, he sold his soul to some devil named Neron in order to gain the ability to psychically see what others fear and use it against them. Not long after, the disappearances at his University began. Bodies started showing up in a variety of gruesome fashions. It took the combined efforts of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents Oliver Queen and Kate Neville nearly a month to decipher Crane's identity. When they did discover it, Agent Kate Neville paid for it with her life.
In Reve, there is nobody generates the kind of talk like Crane. He is brilliant, quiet, and very unnerving. The other inmates use him as their one bogeyman, telling ‘newbies' horrific stories of his exploits.
"What is the plan Commando?" asked Pathfinder, as he nudged Frank away from his thoughts. The team was starting to look a little ancy for the most part. Frank could see it Nick Rodriguez, a.k.a. Pathfinder's eyes. He also noticed Janus had started to tap his hands and feet hyperactively.
"Okay, listen up," said Commando in a very serious, soldier-like tone. "We are about a half-mile outside the town of Al'Shahad, on the Quaracian border. Our sources have informed us that members of Jihad have been stationed in the city for almost a week now, and may be planning to launch a biological attack upon a nearby UN peacekeeping outpost. Our job here is to quietly sneak up on them, find out what they are attempting, and stop them if necessary. Now, you all know the rules. Stray too far away, and I blow you up. Make a move against myself or Pathfinder, and I blow you up. Screw up this mission, and I will blow you up. Got it? Good. Let's head out." Whiteout grabbed the arm of her assailant and flung her from her, she assumed several feet away.
"Now scum," said Veil in slow, drawn English, "my mist will suck smother the air from your lungs."
Veil watched as Whiteout gagged and fell flat upon the ground. Waiting several seconds, Veil let the mists dissipate, and tightened the grip upon her blade as she walked towards her, intent of slicing her throat from ear to ear.
The last thing Veil saw was the cowl of Whiteout quickly turn to face her, then a blinding white flash of light, then everything went dark.
Beneath her cowl, Whiteout managed a faint smirk. Commando had been right at their briefings back at Belle Reve. Jihad members were very arrogant. Veil had assumed that Whiteout was a breathing, normal human underneath all the white her clothing. Her mistake.
Whiteout began to whistle as she harshly kicked Veil in the ribs, then made her way to rendezvous with the rest of the team. Janus tried to walk quietly up to Jaculi, who was standing by a southern wall of a small building drinking water. He soon discovered that his attempt was in vain, because he had already been noticed. Janus quickly dodged behind the building a gust of wind whooshed by, and suddenly he felt a javelin impale the wall beside him. Turning he watched as the female Jaculi stood in front of him, evidently evaluating him.
"Are you ready to die, infidel?" asked Jaculi, in almost flawless English. Janus noticed from the tinge in her voice that she had obviously gone to an English University, probably Oxford or Cambridge.
"Not today, lady!" Janus announced as his duplicate sprang from his body and leaped at the Jihad soldier. Had it been anybody else, the assault might have worked, but Jaculi's power allowed her to have short bursts of fantastic speed. Before the duplicate reached her body, she sidestepped and pulled a javelin from her pack. The duplicate, as it moved through the air, was impaled upon the javelin, the weapon going clean through.
As Janus watched the display, horror filled his head, and he quickly fell to the ground, on his knees. This had never happened. He watched the blood spurt from his ‘other self', then fall to the ground lifeless. How could this happen. That duplicate wasn't some different entity, but part of his own personality. Now, it was dead. Part of him was dead.
Jaculi watched with disgust as her opponent's lookalike slumped against the wall behind him, sobbing like a small child. Her first thought was to put him out of his misery, but then she felt he was unworthy of her attention, and no longer a threat, and she quickly made her way back to the main building, to warn Rustam of an infidel attack. Rotwrap had been a devout follower of Hydra, who had volunteered for magical experiments as they looked for ways to enhance their army. She had been transformed into a living mummy, and underneath her enchanted bandages lie scorpions, venomous spiders, and other horrid insects. Crane had been impressed, and he was sure she was a fabulous inspirer of fear. That is why Crane had decided to let her live, but first he wanted to see what made her tick.
"I know you are there interloper," said Rotwrap in Arabic, without turning to face him. The voice was a horrid, high-pitched whine, which sounded akin to nails on a chalkboard.
"And what, my little bug beauty?" inquired Crane nonchalantly as stood against the wall, looking as though he hadn't a care in the world. His own perfect Arabic seemed to take the ‘woman' by surprise, as did his laid back behavior.
"And," said Rotwrap as she turned to face him, "now you must die!"
"Not today, hon," said the Scarecrow as he watched Rotwrap turn and begin to move toward him. "Oh, and you might want to take a good look at your arm first?"
Momentarily confused by Scarecrow's comment, Rotwrap looked down at her bandaged arm. Curious, she decided to unravel a piece, and allow a few creatures to roam free, hopefully alarming her opponent in the process. Instead she was the one alarmed. No bugs crawled from beneath the wrap as she unraveled. Instead there was just perfect olive colored human flesh.
"No!" screamed Rotwrap as she began to unravel more of the arm bandages, only to find more human flesh.
"What have you done to me?" screamed Rotwrap. "What is happening? I am ancient evil incarnate? I am powerful? Not this frail human! NO! NO! NO!"
Crane watched in fascination as Rotwrap began to rip the bandages from all over her body. To his view, he watched as thousands of creepy-crawlies poured from the body, all over the desert floor. He watched them scurry around, obviously looking for instruction from their "master". They found none, because she was lost in a vision of her own greatest fear. It was consuming her, blanking out her very existence.
Crane watched in fascination as the confused creatures began to turn on themselves, and then their host. She didn't even notice as the mass of creatures began to sting and bite and eat one another, as their host screamed in oblivious anger and horror.
Beneath his mask, Scarecrow gave himself a glowing smile of satisfaction as he watched the pile of bugs and bandages dissipate upon the ground. Bored now, he decided to turn his attention onto the other opponents, hoping that somewhere he could find himself someone he could kill a little more up close and personal. Commando fired a few rounds of bullets at the beast, but none pierced its thick hide. As he searched for a vulnerability, he switched to armor-piercing bullets, but before he could attempt to shoot, the creature was upon him. It was a fierce monster, with large fangs and sharp claws, and a very feral sense of intelligence. It was little more than a beast. The creature was also fast, and it quickly chomped down on one of Commando's robotic arms, smashing circuits and sending small pieces of metal flying.
Then Commando decided on a course of action, As he dodged a swat of one of the creature's deadly claws, he aimed his free arm, with gun in hand, at the creature's eyes. With a sickening, splattering sound, the bullets pierced the creature's eyes, and through the now empty socket, the brain. Commando crashed to the ground as the dead creature fell atop him.
Now, Rustam watched as the infidel charging towards him, armed with a sword, disappeared from his sight entirely. Suspecting invisibility, he had seen enough, and knew he was outmatched in this encounter. He quickly whispered something as he created a giant ball of fire, and flung it towards the direction of his attackers. Commando and Pathfinder quickly leaped out the front door, as the entire building was engulfed in flames. It didn't take them long to discover the both the dead and living bodies of Janus. Both were still right where Jaculi had left them. Pathfinder grabbed the living one and pulled him up, and helped the sobbing, broken man to his feet.
Minutes later, Scarecrow came walking casually up to the group, his outfit splattered with blood.
"Take care of your target?" asked Commando, suspicious of Crane's abundance of red covering him.
"I did indeed," said Crane, as he began to whistle Elvis's ‘Jailhouse Rock'. "Found Veil and Whiteout also. Whiteout was already dead, and I took care of that nasty Veil as well. Not much spirit in these Jihad, and I thought that Holy War types were suppose to be fanatics or something."
Commando eyed Scarecrow suspiciously, then turned from him in disgust. 'Well,' he though to himself, 'another wonderful mission. Two and a half Squaders dead, another half demoralized, and the insane sociopathic killer returns without a scratch. At least the mission was accomplished,' considered Commando, as he watched the fire from the building spread to everything surrounding. Then he called Quartzite for pick-up, ready to get the hell out of there. President Marlo smiled as he noticed the sarcasm that dripped from the voice of Dr. Doom. The two had watched, thanks to cameras strategically placed throughout the test sight, the entire battle between Suicide Squad and his Jihad.
"You think not?" said Marlo, his arrogance unmistakable, "I believe it went just fine. Granted we will have to make modifications to the Manticore model next time, and remove that whole eye vulnerability. Also we will need to do some tinkering on Veil, but Jaculi worked wonderfully, and this woman we apprehended may well prove of great use. Invisibility makes for wonderful assassins. I'll just talk to the Hand about making the adjustments and get them into training, and they should be ready in no time. Interested?"
"I'll consider your offer, Marlo. It shall be most helpful to my destiny," said Doom as he regally escorted himself out of the viewing chamber.
Thanks to Pathfinder's ability to find any trail, the six members of Suicide Squad easily found their way to the village Al'Shahad. Upon arrival, it was obvious that the village was home to something more than poor Sufi pheasants. There was a large central building, and members of Jihad were often filtering in and out. From Commando's infra-red viewing, he had seen the green mist generating Veil, the javelin-throwing super speedster Jaculi, and the mystical Rotwrap. The team had circled the sight and had found no traps and no outside sentries. This had always been Jihad's greatest flaw, as far as Commando was concerned, because they were very arrogant and so sure of their abilities that they didn't take smart precautions. That would be their downfall on this occasion. Commando issued his orders, and the Squad moved in.
Whiteout followed the Jihad member known as Veil to what appeared to be an outhouse. As the woman went inside, Whiteout quietly made her way to the small stone structure's side and crept around to the front, prepared to throw the door open and stun her opponent. As the wooden front door flew open, the air surrounding Whiteout and the structure was quickly filled with thick, green gas. Unsure of what to do, unsure of which direction to move, Whiteout turned around and smacked into the structure's wall, falling to the ground. Seconds later, she felt a knife strike into her shoulder, not deep enough to do great harm, but painful all the same.
Janus drew the unenviable task of stopped Jaculi. He didn't want this. To be quite honest, he didn't give a damn about whatever petty squabbles were occurring between Quarac and the United States. The only reason he was putting up with this whole game was because, in exchange for his aid, they had offered to transfer him from Belle Reve to a small prison in Puerto Rico. Janus wasn't stupid, he knew they wouldn't let a psychopathic murderer go free, but in the prison he would have a cell to himself, and a view to the sunrise, and the ability to paint his pictures.
Scarecrow walked silently up to a scrubby tree not to far from Rotwrap, and calmly plopped down against the tree. He had been waiting for this opportunity. He knew all about this enemy. Thanks to a well placed bribe to some guards and some software from his ‘friend' the Tinkerer, during one of his many visits to Belle Reve, Jonathan had managed to spend three glorious night hacking into Reve's private files, which contained profiles on nearly every "supervillain" known. It had been very interesting reading, to say the very least.
Rustam heard Rotwrap's horrid screams only seconds before the explosion at the front door shook the building. Then he saw the three infidels, and knew that they were under attack. Quickly he ordered his bodyguard, Manticore forward. The creature took a swipe at Kuroko, would easily evaded, and made her way to battle with Rustam. The large lumbering Manticore decided to target the slower looking Commando instead.
As the building burned to a crisp, Commando and Pathfinder decided they had better see if any of the team was still alive. He had tried, in vain, to find the figures of either Kuroko or Rustam somehow fleeing the blaze, but the flames interfered with his infra-red, and Pathfinder found no traces of foot prints leaving the scene.
"Well, Marlo, that certainly was a glowing success."
The Week of Doom continues in Cheshire and Viper!