Mistress Strange floated above the rest of her allies (even those that flew themselves) and kept her sight on the large black tower that covered the entire area of what use to be Toronto. Ororo could feel such darkness coming from that building. It came at her in waves and washed over her like a tree caught in a tsunami. If it weren’t for her extensive training in dealing with such darkness she would have fallen out of the sky. The Sorceress Supreme had only seen that kind of darkness one place before…in herself.
Clarice looked up and saw that Mistress Strange was
trapped deep in thought. All of them had
been. Hardcase had been killed and
Bluestreak gravely injured in the fight at The Nucleus. She had a great deal of respect for Hardcase
and she looked to Bluestreak like a little sister. To see one dead and the other one wounded
broke her heart. This world was far too
much like the one she had hailed from.
The stench of death hung around like the friend that had long worn out
their welcome. What would Mr. Creed tell
her to do right now? How would he guide
her?
If only you were here with me. Maybe I might be able to bear this
responsibility.
“We’ve only got a few more miles and we’ll be at the Tower. Once there Majestic is going to catch the attention of Sinister alongside Meggan. Then we’ll make our move,” Xavier explained.
“Works for me.
Let’s just hurry,” Blink replied wanting to just teleport that Tower
into the ocean to never be seen again.
Seeing an object in the distance coming straight for
Blink the bald telepath pushed Clarice to the ground as an orange disk smacked
full force into his forehead. The disk
stuck to his head like glue and began to emit an awful wailing sound. Xavier cried out in agony, as did Jean Grey
and Mesmero.
Only a few seconds later all three fell to the ground dead and bleeding
from their eyes. The attack was a
shocking one that caught everyone off guard.
Blink quickly equipped herself with two javelins as she heard heavy
boots collide with the ground.
Standing in front of her was a man with a
two-colored face. Half of it was a dark
orange and the other half was black. The
armor the man wore carried enough weapons within and on it to take down entire
armies. The menacing smirk couldn’t be seen under his faceplate, but it was
there. Deathstroke
hadn’t faced anyone that was an appropriate opponent in years. This collection of superpowers had been
enough to take down the Brotherhood, Factor X, and destroy The Nucleus. They were to be respected, but they had never
seen the likes of the Marauders.
“I call that lil device a
telepath disrupter. It emits a signal
and all the mind readers go boom,” Deathstroke
exclaimed as he held out his palm and a red energy sword appeared for him to
grasp. He was going to tear these
mongrels apart piece by piece.
A large quaking went through the ground and everyone
struggled to keep his or her footing.
The event had signaled the arrival of the Hulk and on his left shoulder
was sitting the feral Wolverine. On his
right shoulder was the Joker who was clapping wildly being thoroughly amused by
the ride that Hulk had just taken him on.
Wolverine let loose his claws and gave a toothy grin, “Open season bub.”
Sliding in on an ice bridge was the last of the
Marauders, Mr. Freeze. Mr. Majestic and
Lady Death recognized him as the man who had helped in capturing their team
back in Korea. If there was any reason
to fear this group of men he was it.
Victor looked upon the collection of heroes coldly, “Lets kill them and
be done with it.”
The Marauders immediately went to work. Hulk leaped into the mass of heroes and
snatched Lady Death’s scythe from her with his index finger and thumb. He grabbed the lithe figure with his other
hand and ran her through with her own weapon.
Lady Death let out an agonized cry before she was lost to a land she was
all too familiar with. She-Hulk and
Hippolyta charged forth from behind hoping to conduct a sneak attack. The green behemoth heard them coming a mile away. He flicked the weapon through the air like a
young child would whip a thin stick through the air. The weapon sliced She-Hulk in half and
decapitated Hippolyta. Needless to say
Hulk had garnered himself very easy victories.
Storm was barreling lightning on his armor, Magma
was trying to melt his glass helmet, and Lorna was trying to rip his armor to
pieces, but none of this was having any effect on Mr. Freeze. Long ago he had Deathstroke
install a device that created a shield around his entire body. The shield absorbed any form of energy and
simply converted it into power for Freeze’s various weapons. With an emotionless stare Freeze simply
lifted up one of his more elementary freeze rays and turned the three women
into lifeless ice cubes.
Fabian Cortez was trying his best to land a decent
shot on Wolverine. All he needed was one
shot and he could obliterate the Marauder’s powers. Logan was just too fast though and he was
dodging every shot that Cortez threw his way.
Everyone else was too busy trying to take down the other Marauders so he
had taken it upon himself to handle Wolverine.
After all the man had slain many of his friends during this awful war
and it would only be right if he could destroy the man. All he needed was one shot.
“You’re a bad shot bub,”
Wolverine said as he stabbed Cortez through the abdomen and kicked his body to
the floor.
Logan looked around and saw that his Marauders were
doing what Sinister had sent them here to do.
He never doubted that they could get the job done. Not once.
Sinister made them the best and they acted accordingly. Nothing was going to keep from gutting these
punks and making them trophies on Sinister’s
wall.
“Weapon X!” Blink yelled
as she leaped forward and kicked Wolverine in the face.
“Such pretty ladies, but nothing to say of fashion
sense!” Joker cackled as he dodged the bullets of Silver Sable. With unnatural ease he slinked his way up to
Silver Sable and snatched the gun out of her hands. An acidic substance lined his white gloves
and burned the gun like it was paper under candlelight.
Meggan hit Joker with a
punch to the temple and sent the frail body man flying into the air. Landing on the ground with a thud the Joker
quickly dusted himself off and smiled, “Your mom should have cut back on
whatever she was feeding you toots!”
Joker threw out two darts that struck the necks of
Silver Sable and Meggan. He had flung the weapons out with such speed
and ease that the women never saw it coming until it was too late. They both began to laugh uncontrollably and
fell to the ground convulsing. Joker
walked across the battlefield, stood over them and laughed, “That’s the spirit
ladies. Don’t worry. Be happy!! Happy happy happy!!”
Hearing a loud crash Joker’s attention was turned to
the body of Mr. Majestic slamming into Hulk.
The Marauder began to laugh even harder, “Ol
Green beans always gets the hard knocks.”
Hulk wasn’t able to hear the comment as he was sent
flying backwards into a burnt out car.
The body of the behemoth ripped through the aged object like it was
wrapping paper. Hulk finally rolled to a
stop from Majestic’s blow. Quickly rising to his feet the anger was
evident all over his monstrous face.
Someone had gotten the drop on him and quite frankly it pissed Hulk the
hell off!!
“Bring it you sorry piece of shit,” Mr. Majestic
bellowed. The Hulk had killed the last
of his teammates. Lady Death had been
his only familiar face on this entire wretched world and that green fool had
made the mistake of ending her life. Now
he was going to make the inhuman monster never wished he had laid eyes on Lady
Death let alone kill her.
Hulk charged forward from the wreckage and came
towards the floating Mr. Majestic like a locomotive. Anger motivated sweat dripped down his
brow. He would break the fool who had
attacked him in half. The last person to
hit him that hard was Superman and it was during a training exercise that
Sinister forced him to hold back in.
Here his power would be unbridled and unleashed to its fullest.
Then he felt his entire body begin to move slower
and with less speed. Something was
actually holding him back. That’s when
Hulk finally took time enough to look at himself and see that he was glowing a
faint blue. Looking behind him he saw the
metal face of Xorn hard at work. Having lost his momentum and his advantage
Hulk began to be pummeled by punch after punch from Majestic. Eventually the strength and number of the
blows began to draw blood from the Hulk.
Growing tired of the assault on his person Hulk
grabbed Majestic’s wrist and squeezed. The former leader of the Titans team let out
a scream and crumpled to the ground.
Hulk was about to step on him when his body suddenly flew into the air
like it was air. Xorn had changed his gravity
so that he was like as a feather.
“This ends now Marauder,” Xorn said as he floated up
into the air and a black hole began to form in the middle of his chest. Hulk could feel the force beginning to tug
at him and there was nothing he could do about it. The hole kept growing bigger
until it was plenty able to suck in the body of the Marauder. Hulk could only let out one last unearthly
yell as he was sucked into the void.
Xorn knew that he wasn’t
capable of closing the hole he had created without destroying himself, but that
was the sacrifice he had made. Too many
of his friends had already died and he would not see the Marauders kill anymore
of them. Besides he would go down in history as being the guy who killed the
Hulk. So with a somber smile he began
the process of closing the black hole and destroying himself.
“I will deliver death to the three of you quickly,”
Mr. Freeze stated as he ducked the flying body of Cannonball. His three opponents had proven themselves in
combat thus far and maybe if they had faced Victor during a time when he was
not as technologically equipped they would have beaten him. Today was a different day though and that
just simply was not going to happen.
Cannonball hated the fact that he wasn’t able to
nail Freeze. He had come so close, but
the lackey of Sinister moved too fast.
His armor looked clunky as hell, but he was able to move with such
speed. It shouldn’t have been possible
but he was able to do it and do it easily.
All this fighting reminded him of a very destructive event that happened
on his world when he first joined the Avengers.
An alien named Noh-Varr had managed to kill
Dr. Strange and pilfer his items. Then
he stole a Cosmic Cube from AIM and created a super-powered army. Not to mention that he used the Cube to
unleash Onslaught on the world again. It
had been literal war across the planet and Speedball, Wiz Kid, Captain America,
Dr. Midnight, and Iceman had all been among the many deaths.
Marcus Pezzini could feel the power of the Witchblade
begging to be unleashed. It wanted
nothing more than to scream forth at Freeze and do away with him. Marcus held the power back though if only to
allow it the chance to build up. Once
unleashed he would destroy this fool and move on to help the others. Running up on Mr. Freeze he tackled the man
to the ground and turned his arm into what looked like a crust-covered
knife. He was about to strike when his
body suddenly turned into ice. Victor
kicked the body off of him and shook his head in disappointment. The fool should have known that his armor was
made to freeze any who touched it long enough.
Cannonball was coming around for another pass at
Freeze and the Marauder knew it. This
time though he simply wouldn’t dodge the attack. In one of his hands a blue spear began to
form out of thin air. It looked like ice
crystals were gathering together to form the weapon. Victor leaned back and flung the weapon. Sam expanded his blast field, but Freeze’s
weapon passed through the barrier. His head
jerked back and he went spinning through the air as the spear struck him. Mr. Freeze turned back and saw Darkness
slinking towards him.
“Why do you even try?” Mr. Freeze asked as he held
out his palm and blue particles ripped forth from the metallic hand. The particles polluted the air of Darkness
and he knew that his end was coming soon.
Each particle ripped into the flesh of Darkness and began to turn his
body colder than ever. He gave Freeze
one last cold look of hate and a black mass flew forth from his neck.
The black goop collided
with Freeze’s helmet and Victor wiped away the mess that was on his armor. Suddenly, he gripped his stomach and fell to
the ground in pain. It had been years
since Victor had felt pain like the kind Darkness had inflicted on him. It was as if the ice in his veins was on
fire. Freeze would not shame himself by
screaming so he kept the pain within himself and rolled over on the ground
dead.
Reed Von Doom ripped his cloak off and threw it to
the ground as the acid from Joker’s shirt flower devoured his garment. The son of Doctor Doom was infuriated at the
attack on his person and even angrier at the ineffectiveness of his battle
partners. Senyaka
hadn’t been able to land a single one of his life draining tentacles on Joker
and Voght’s powers were proving more defensive than
anything else. Reed was the only one
proving his worth against the insanely dressed Marauder.
“Take your medicine Johnny!” Joker yelled as he
launched another squirt of acid towards Doom.
Reed flew back and blasted the ground in front of Joker. Dirt hit the Marauder in the eye and sent him
sprawling.
Senyaka ran to the Joker
and pulled out his sword. He was about
to cut into Joker’s shoulder when the Marauder stabbed the X-Man in the stomach
with a knife. He cut through Senyaka’s flesh in such a way that the wound was in the
outline of a smile. The X-Man’s
intestines spilled to the floor and fell to the ground dead.
“You guys play rough! I love it!” Joker yelled with glee as he jumped
back flung a dart into the mist form of Voght moving towards him. The dart energized the gas form and
dissipated the woman into the air.
“Good you got rid of the ruffians! Now we can focus on each other,” Reed growled
as he flew towards the Marauder.
Joker leaped into the air and slammed his feet into
Reed’s head. The son of Doom crashed
into the ground and rolled over groaning in pain. A sinister smile hung over Reed’s face. Pulling out a long gun that stretched for a
few feet Joker pointed it in Reed’s anger filled face. The son of Doom could not believe that such a
fool had put him in a position of disadvantage.
“This is the killing joke baby,” Joker smiled as his
finger itched to pull the trigger.
SWIKK!!!
A head rolled to the dirt and it was not that of
Reed. Joker tipped over and fell on top
of the son of Doom. Pushing the body off
of him Reed von Doom saw a smiling Stepstone with a bloody sword. Illyana held out a hand to help Reed to his
feet. The Exile pushed away the hand of
his fellow dimension hopper and said, “I need no help! I could have won on my own!”
“Sure. Lets just help everyone else,” Stepstone,
replied. She didn’t have time to be
annoyed with Reed.
Mr. Majestic and Dr. Light backed Wolverine into a
corner and the feral man crouched low prepared to make his last stand. Dr. Light smiled at the easy prey and elbowed
Majestic slightly, “Man I got this!”
“Wait!” Majestic yelled as Dr. Light took off
towards Wolverine. He wasn’t waiting for
anybody else. He was going to take down
Wolverine and be done with it. The man
had slaughtered too many good soldiers and he was going to pay for it. With his ability to harden light the good
doctor flung dozens of light knives the way of Wolverine.
The Marauder charged forward letting the daggers rip
through his flesh. The pain was
nothing. He would take down as many of
these fools as possible. Hulk, Freeze,
and Joker were all dead. He had never
seen this coming. The Marauders were the
best, but if they had met their match he would be damned if he didn’t go out
with style.
Doctor Light wasn’t expecting Wolverine to plow
through his daggers and was unable to protect himself as the Marauder leaped
through the air and stabbed him through the head with his claws. Majestic balled his fists as Light’s body hit
the ground and made his way to Wolverine.
Grabbing the Marauder by the neck he lifted him up into the air, “I hope
you enjoy being a satellite!”
With one strong throw
Majestic threw the diminutive man into the atmosphere of the Earth. Long before he reached his destination
Wolverine was simply a skeleton. Mr.
Majestic knew that the forsaken man was dead and turned a weary eye to the last
of the Marauders. Soon all of this would
be over.
Deathstroke
simply smiled in the face of all his enemies.
His Marauders had managed to slay many of them, but in the end they had
all failed. It was pathetic to watch,
but Slade was a man of many plans. He
was second only to Sinister in the empire and he would prove why in just a few
seconds.
Suddenly, the sky ripped open above the infidels
fighting his master. Hundreds of robotic
copies of himself rained down from the sky and surrounded the fools. They began to fight ruthlessly against the
robots all in the hope they might end up fighting the real Slade. Deathstroke was far
too smooth for that though. Looking for
his most powerful opponent, Slade prepared his sword for attack. He found it flying in the air destroying mass
amounts of his robot copies. Leaping
into the air he stabbed his opponent through the chest.
Mistress Strange let out an unearthly cry of pain
and mumbled something in a language no one could understand. A light covered Deathstroke
and his weapon and he was gone. Falling
out of the sky the Soceress Supreme landed in the
arms of Stepstone.
Over gurgling blood she managed to say, “I sent him
to a hellish world.”
“You did good then.
You did right,” Stepstone replied trying to stay strong in Mistress Strange’s final moments.
“I did it by accident of course. Do one thing for me?”
“Anything.”
Smiling weakly Ororo said,
“Tell Bluestreak I appreciate her being there for
me.”
Then with that final comment Ororo
Munroe passed on into the realm of the dead where Stepstone hoped she would
find the peace she never had in life.
Looking to Sinister Tower, Illyana wiped away a single tear. She was going to kill Sinister and she would
hear him scream before she did it.