Issue # 12

"Revisionist History"
By Dale Glaser

Chaos erupted in the small, quiet frontier town of Eagle Pass as the sheriff’s posse began shooting at the seven mute strangers before them, and the members of Bad Blood scattered to evade the deadly storm of bullets exploding toward them.

(No time for a recap now – if you missed last issue, check it out here! – DG)

Valence barely stopped himself from taking flight, a display which certainly would do nothing to improve the team’s attempts to remain inconspicuous. Instead he flung himself to the side and rolled up against the wooden porch of the nearest building. He extended a magnetic sheath around his entire body, which drew most of the incoming slugs to within a half-inch of his body and then immobilized them. Ember fell in the same direction, and was protected from bullets by Valence.

Hangfire and Enigma spread out to the opposite side. Hangfire kept himself between Enigma and the posse as the pair worked their way around a building. Shells ricocheted off Hangfire’s redirectional forcefield and into the dusty ground. Pierce jumped up, bracing one foot against the lip of a rain barrel beside the building and vaulting up to its roof, to disappear from the posse members’ line of sight.

More staggered backwards in a crouch, attempting to make himself as small a target as possible. Two bullets grazed his shoulders, and one tore through the fleshy part of his left hip, but none appreciably slowed him down. More’s backside struck the slatted batwing doors of the town’s saloon, and he tumbled into the cool, dim establishment.

Karnival plunged toward the sheriff’s posse, and flattened himself along the ground. He altered his illusory disguise to a pure black color, and slid across the dust like a shadow. Karnival positioned himself directly underneath Silencer’s horse, then rose up and solidified quickly, punching the animal in its underbelly. Immediately Karnival shed his third dimension again, as Silencer’s palomino bucked in pain, nearly tossing Silencer from the saddle. Karnival darted through the horse’s legs and under the sheriff’s horse, where he repeated the attack from below, this time punching even harder. The sheriff’s mount whinnied in pain and reared up violently. Now the other half-dozen or so horses were becoming spooked by the thrashing animals near them, and their riders focused their entire attention on calming them, rather than shooting at Bad Blood. Karnival gut-punched two more stallions to sow further confusion in the posse’s midst, and then slid away, while his teammates put as much distance as possible between themselves and the town’s trigger-happy lawmen.

"Trouble?"

The single word was spoken in a mild tone, almost apologetic in asking a question which might not be comfortably answered. The older, male voice seemed wise and gentle, prepared to hear any explanation offered, while not about to pry unwelcomed.

More pulled himself up from the floor of the saloon and glanced out the dirty window to the scene outside. The other members of Bad Blood had apparently escaped during the confusion of the posse’s horses going wild. Now the sheriff was chewing out Silencer for the ‘criminals’ getaway, while Silencer listened in a posture of evident boredom. The sheriff brought his mount around and dug his heels into its flanks, spurring the horse into a run out of town, and the rest of the posse followed.

More turned toward the voice he had heard a moment before. It had come from behind the bar, where a man stood toweling off freshly washed mugs. He and More were the only two people in the saloon at the moment. The man behind the bar had dark hair slicked back against his pate, and a waxed handlebar mustache. He stared back at More placidly, a bemused smile on his face, still ready for an answer to his initial inquiry, still understanding of More’s reluctance to answer.

"Yeah ... yeah, a little trouble, I guess," More answered, relieved that he was able to hear his own voice once again. He made his way toward the bar and leaned heavily on it with his hands spread wide. "Little case of somebody getting to town ahead of us and putting in a bad word with the sheriff."

The bartender nodded thoughtfully. "Sheriff Abbey isn’t someone I’d want to be on the wrong side of. You on the run?" he asked benignly.

More shook his head. "Nah, just ... a long way from home."

"I know," the bartender nodded sagely.

"Pardon?" More asked.

The bartender looked squarely into More’s eyes. "I know who you are, Les."

More made no effort to conceal the shock on his own face. "You ... how?"

"I have an interest in you, and the rest of Bad Blood," the bartender explained with a sanguine shrug, casually setting down the mug he had finished drying and picking another one out of a basin of water. With slightly more gravity in his voice, he added, "A vital interest."

More rubbed his face in his hands and leveled his gaze at the bartender. "Who are you?"

The bartender smiled. "You can call me Ray," he informed the large man on the other side of the bar, extending his hand. More eyed the proffered hand skeptically, until Ray said, "I understand that this is a bit hard to accept, but please believe me. I’m here to help you. I simply need you to help me as well."

More took Ray’s hand and shook it. Satisfied, Ray nodded and said, "So, may I continue explaining how we might help each other and thwart Kobra’s plans in the process?"

More was again taken aback by Ray’s uncanny knowledge of the situation, but nodded in affirmation. Abruptly he stopped himself and said, "No, no, wait. I don’t think you should have to explain it twice, and I sure don’t want to be the one who has to repeat it to the rest of the guys. We should regroup, someplace where Abbey isn’t likely to come looking for us."

"I have access to a house on a ranch not far from here," Ray acquiesced. "How should we let the rest of your teammates know?"

"Hmm," More scratched his head, and felt the weight of his subaudible transceiver within his ear. Tapping the circuit connection, More attempted contact: "Anybody else able to hear me? Anybody?"

"Yeah, I hear ya, buddy," Hangfire’s voice responded across the radio channel.

"Me, too," Valence answered. One by one the rest of the members of Bad Blood checked in, their transceivers automatically activated by the incoming signal from More’s. Ray explained to More the location of his ranch house, and More dutifully repeated the directions into his subaudible.

"All right, don’t everybody jump at once," Pierce instructed. "Too risky. More, you can go on ahead, then Enigma, then Karnival, Valence, Hangfire, Ember and me. Give it about twenty minutes between each person heading out there."

"Sure," Ember responded with some skepticism. "Hey, Karnival, how long are these disguises gonna be good for?"

"Long enough," Karnival assured his teammate. "I’m keeping them in the forefront of my mind, so they’ve got some permanence until I choose to drop them."

"Just lay low and then move fast," Pierce insisted.

"And don’t take any wooden Indian nickels," Valence added sarcastically.

As the sun began to set, Bad Blood sat in the rustic ranch house outside of town where Ray had led them. The lengthening shadows were offset only slightly by the slowly swaying flames in the fireplace and the few candles on the rough-hewn table in the center of the main room. Bad Blood, divested of Karnival’s illusory costumes, sat around the table on wooden benches, while Ray sat in a wooden chair at the table’s head. Ray, too, had shed the appearance of a small-town barman. He wore a single, seamless bodysuit of blue, so dark it was nearly black. His hair was still slicked back, but he had washed the wax out of his mustache, and it framed his mouth elegantly on three sides.

"We face a common problem, gentlemen," Ray said as the group finished the simple dinner he had provided. "A troublesome reptile in the timestream."

"Actually, the trouble seems to be our displacement in the timestream, not Kobra’s," Enigma pointed out.

"It seems that way to you," Ray countered, "because you only see half the picture."

"Feel free to skip the theatrical exposition and get to the whole picture," Pierce stated abruptly. He had foregone dinner, refusing as always to reveal the face beneath his helmet, and seemed to regard Ray with a more than healthy amount of distrust.

"Of course. I apologize," Ray bowed his head magnanimously. "To say that time is of the essence is a bit of a non sequitor when speaking of matters of time travel, but I shall be brief nonetheless." He leaned forward on his elbows upon the table and continued, "As you suspected, Kobra’s plan was for his troops to attack you with a chronal howitzer, exiling you to the past where you would hopefully be killed outright, or at least languish out of time a full century before his plans were to come to fruition. That plan was largely successful.

"However, the reason for his need to banish you from the early 21^st century is this: he has sent other operatives back in time as well. In your modern-day, you might have been able to procure a means of time travel of your own, and follow and oppose Kobra’s operatives. He assumes that here, in the 19^th century, no such options are available to you.

"He did not anticipate me."

"And who are you?" Pierce insisted. "That’s the real piece of the big picture we’re still missing."

"Does it matter?" Ray asked with a smile. "I’m a friend, an ally ... possibly your patron, in the future. No, I’m not speaking from firsthand knowledge of the future, for my relative frame of reference in the timestream is the same as yours. Merely expressing a hope."

Pierce said nothing, the stony angles and reflective visor of his helmet betraying neither emotion nor thought. Yet the air in the ranch house’s main room seemed charged with tension originating from the former Checkmate Knight, and the other members of Bad Blood shifted uncomfortably on their benches.

Ray remained implacable. "More simply, let me point out that I am your enemy’s enemy. I cannot sit by and allow Kobra to succeed. I know where he will strike, but lack the raw power myself to stop him. You lack nothing but the means to maneuver through the timestream, which I possess. Our alliance is practically inevitable. If you agree, I will transport us all to the point in history which Kobra has targeted for attack, and you will repulse that attack. Then I will transport us all back to the present, and share with you Kobra’s current whereabouts, so that you may confront him directly."

"And what makes you so sure we’re interested in either of those errands?" Hangfire asked.

Ray shook his head. "Come, come, Mr. Chancellor. Surely you grasp that I understand you, as a collective unity and as individuals. Had you come by the knowledge of Kobra’s full plans yourselves, you would have done exactly what I am suggesting. You would have made every effort to stop the assault on the past, as well as hunting down Kobra in hopes of halting his ceaseless machinations toward chaos. And I am handing you both of those objectives, on the proverbial silver platter, because I too wish to see them achieved!" Ray seemed on the verge of losing his temper, but never crossed the threshold. His voice was strident, but still not angry. He concluded calmly, "I have observed Bad Blood for some time. I know that you can stand against Kobra and win. I humbly ask you to accept my help."

A long, silent moment stretched out in the gloam, ended by Pierce’s emphatic and unwavering voice. "No. We can’t."

"Pierce, if this guy’s not on the level, we’ll know soon enough," Ember protested. "But if he is, he’s gotta be our best chance at getting back where we’re belong. And like he said, it’s not like he’s asking us to do anything we wouldn’t do on our own, anyway."

Pierce turned toward Ember. "We can’t just go wherever ... whenever ... Kobra’s main attack is supposedly happening. Not with Silencer still here and able to cause God knows what kind of trouble."

"Silencer," Ray chuckled. "Believe me, compared to the storm of chaos Kobra is unleashing elsewhen, Silencer is a barely noticeable irritant. He was meant to assassinate you, nothing more. And even in that, as you can attest, he was wildly unsuccessful."

"As far as I’m concerned," Pierce said with finality, "Silencer is unfinished business and we will deal with him before dealing with anything else."

"Pierce is right," Karnival concurred. "Even a piddly pain in the ass like Silencer could wreak havoc with history if we leave him in the dust. We’ve got to stop him."

The other members of Bad Blood nodded and uttered their agreement. Valence, under his breath, added incredulously, "You said ‘piddly’."

"Very well," Ray conceded. "As I said earlier, time is not ... necessarily ... of the essence. I had assumed that Kobra would summon Silencer back to his side soon enough. But I can arrange a forced return, assuming you are able to subdue him, without undue harm to Sheriff Abbey. He may have misplaced his trust in your enemy, but the good sheriff should remain an important figure in this town’s history for some time."

"We can handle Silencer, with or without the sheriff," Pierce assured Ray. "Come morning, we will. After that ... we’ll do whatever else we can to rain on Kobra’s parade."

As the sun began to rise in the eastern sky, seven figures entered Eagle Pass on foot via the main road. Together they made their way toward the jailhouse at the far end of the cluster of buildings.

Silencer sat near an open window in the front of the building, intersected by wrought-iron bars. He had spent the night in the same chair by the window, after spending most of the day before looking for Bad Blood with Sheriff Abbey and his deputies, and his bloodshot eyes showed how sleepless a night it had been. Nevertheless he could see the seven approaching, and recognized them immediately, Karnival’s illusory costumes notwithstanding. He lurched out of his seat with a suddenness that sent the chair clattering to the floor, and heaved himself up the stairs beside the two jail cells. On the second floor of the jailhouse, he entered Sheriff Abbey’s room, which was bare except for an aging bed in which the sheriff was sleeping. Silencer angrily cried out, "Zey are coming! Just as I said zey would!"

Abbey awoke with a start and in an instant had retrieved his six-gun from the floor beside the bed. He swung his legs out of bed and asked, "Them fellas from yesterday? All of ‘em?"

"Yes," Silencer confirmed. "You and your men must stop zem!"

Abbey’s face twisted in displeasure as he heard the wheedling orders from his strange visitor. "All you Pinkertons this brave?" he asked condescendingly.

"Zese men are ruthless," Silencer explained angrily. "Bloodthirsty killers. If you and your men had not allowed zem to escape yesterday, given zem time to plan an attack upon me, I would not be so alarmed!"

"Awright, awright," Abbey nodded, pulling on his trousers and tucking his nightshirt into the waistband. He stepped into his boots, took his hat off a nail in the wall, and brushed past Silencer in the doorway. The sheriff stomped down the stairs, and walked into a back room, where his three deputies – Nat, Cyrus and James – were sleeping. Cyrus, the oldest and most heavy-set of the deputies, was stretched across a sagging cot. Nat sat with his arms folded and his back against a wall, and James was sprawled across the floor.

"Mornin’, boys," Abbey bombastically awoke his deputies. Each one was startled, but made no complaint at receiving the usual wake-up from their sheriff. They silently awaited instructions, which Abbey was quick to deliver. "Grab your boots and your guns. Them killers’re back, after our detective visitor," he said, ironically emphasizing the last two words.

A minute later Abbey and his deputies were stepping out the front door of the jailhouse, kicking up dust from the main street. Bad Blood was nearly abreast of the building, but stopped their approach as the lawmen appeared.

"Silencer must be hiding inside," Pierce said softly across the subaudible channel. "And we’re going to have to dance with these good old boys to get to him. Remember, don’t hurt them more than you have to, and no pyrotechnics they’ll be telling their grandkids about someday."

"Great. Good thing I know some tae kwon do," Ember quipped.

"Yeah, but they’ve got guns," More countered.

"Well, so do we," Hangfire said, patting his sidearms.

"I sure do hope you all came here to turn yourselves in," Sheriff Abbey called out to Bad Blood. The two groups were standing fifteen feet apart in the middle of the road. Abbey and the deputies had guns trained on the disguised heroes.

"We don’t want no trouble," Pierce called back. "Just give us the man who’s looking for us, and we’ll leave peaceable-like."

Abbey shook his head. "Can’t do that," he admitted. "Wanted men like you, I should just take in so they can hang you proper. But if I shoot you right here, I don’t expect anyone’d complain all that much." He raised his six-gun and leveled it at Pierce. Cyrus brought up a shotgun, and Nat and James showed two Colts each.

"Now," Pierce hissed into the subaudible. Hangfire drew two pistols, and Pierce drew one, all three loaded with Hangfire’s rubber mercy bullets. The rest of Bad Blood scattered as Hangfire and Pierce began shooting, and the deputies and Abbey returned fire. Enigma and More ducked and ran to the left, toward the side of the jailhouse. Karnival, Valence and Ember ran across the street to the general store facing the jailhouse, and took cover behind several crates stacked in front of the store. The lawmen fell back toward the jailhouse, while Pierce and Hangfire stood fast in the middle of the street, guns blazing.

More used his massive body to block Enigma from sight, while his teammate created a small warp portal against the side of the jailhouse. Enigma passed through the shimmering red disc and entered the building. He began searching the first floor for signs of Silencer, but that level of the jailhouse appeared to be empty.

Cyrus took aim at the crates in front of the general store, and a hail of buckshot blasted into them, shredding the wooden tops just above Karnival, Valence and Ember’s heads. Valence magnetically gathered the hot pellets into one cluster, peeked over the top of their cover, and used his power to sling the buckshot back at the deputy. Valence deliberately aimed high, but the shot tearing into the wall behind Cyrus’s head caused the deputy to drop to his knees.

Valence saw a flash of color in one of the windows on the second floor, and recognized Silencer looking out at the melee in the street. "Enigma, he’s upstairs," Valence informed his teammate via the radio circuit.

A flash of red light, barely visible to Valence looking up through the window, appeared behind Silencer. The assassin aimed both fists at the warp portal, lining up his wrist magnums as Enigma stepped out. Valence reached out with his magnetism to hold the bullets inside their chambers as Silencer fired on Enigma. Unable to move the jammed ammunition, the explosion of high-powered gunpowder instead sought release by any other avenue, destroying the wrist magnums. ilencer staggered backwards howling in pain, and crashed through the sheriff’s bedroom window. He fell to the dirt just behind Abbey and his deputies. Nat and James stopped shooting to look at the man who had just dove from the second story window as Silencer writhed in pain in the dust.

Sheriff Abbey stepped forward, holding his gun out like a talisman, and squeezed off a shot that caught Pierce just above his heart. Beneath the phantasmal attire created by Karnival, Pierce’s armor absorbed the slug’s impact, but Pierce spun and hit the ground beside Hangfire. Abbey turned his attention to Hangfire, whose redirectional forcefield continued to send bullets harmlessly straight down.

Pierce, meanwhile, removed a Derringer from Hangfire’s boot, one that had been specially loaded before Bad Blood had returned to Eagle Pass. He palmed the small pistol, performed a handspring to get closer to the lawmen, and brought the weapon to bear and fired four quick shots, releasing exploding capsules of knockout gas. The gas quickly began to dissipate in the outdoor air, but not before it affected Abbey and his deputies, rendering them unconscious.

Enigma appeared in the front door of the jailhouse, as the other members of Bad Blood converged around Silencer. Silencer’s hands were bright red with black scorch marks, and the cuffs of his ruffled shirt were singed as well. The assassin was groggy from the explosions on his wrists and the fall, but still conscious, and trying to rise to his feet. Ember hurried toward the villain, and delivered a trio of martial strikes to the back of Silencer’s head, sending him into a decidedly unresponsive state.

"Ancient Chinese secret, huh?" Karnival asked.

"Oh, hell yeah," Ember shrugged.

"Hey, works for me," Karnival replied. "And nice shootin’, there, Pierce. You’re a regular Wesley Dodds."

"Cute," Pierce answered. "Let’s get Silencer and get out of here." More obligingly hefted Silencer over his shoulder, while Enigma created another warp portal just inside the jailhouse door. One by one the members of Bad Blood entered it, to return to Ray’s ranch house.

"I have returned Silencer to his proper place in the timestream," Ray informed the team, as they had just watched the assassin disappear from the ranch house floor in a pool of light. "Specifically, to one hour after Kobra dispatched him here, chronologically, and to the foyer of Scotland Yard, geographically. I am sure they will be delighted to have him drop in."

"Then I guess we’re set to bust up Kobra’s phase two," Valence stated.

"Which is what?" Pierce asked pointedly. "You still haven’t told us."

Ray nodded. "It is the Battle of the Somme. France, 1916. Kobra intends to use his operative to alter the outcome of that battle, I assume leading up to the fall of Paris to the Central powers."

"World War One?" Ember asked with surprise. "Isn’t there some kind of supervillain rule that all the evil plots are supposed to involve the Nazis winning World War Two?"

"He doesn’t have to deal with any superheroes this way, a couple decades before the mystery men," Karnival pointed out.

"Maybe it’ll cut them out of the picture altogether," Hangfire mused.

"I cannot say for certain what Kobra’s motivations are," Ray confessed. "I have access to much information from within his organization, but not from within the shadowy labyrinth of his mind. All that I know is that the Somme is his target, and you will be all that stands between preserving our timeline and Kobra instigating a century of chaos of his own mad design."

"And what about you?" More asked.

"I will be ... nearby," Ray assured him. "And as soon as the threat Kobra has dispatched is neutralized, we will return to the present."

"All right, let’s do this," Valence expressed his impatience.

"Karnival?" Ray asked deferentially. "Would you care to accouter yourself and your comrades?"

"I’ll see what I can do," the illusionist answered. "I’ve seen plenty of westerns, but the last time I saw ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was in high school ..." A moment later, the team appeared to be outfitted in drab military uniforms that would blend in if not inspected carefully at length.

Bad Blood gathered together in the center of four small electronic devices on the floor of the ranch house, arranged in a diamond-like pattern. Ray nodded at the team, and a white beam of light connected the device immediately in front of them to the one to their right. Another beam of light emerged from that device, and struck the next device, which released another beam. When the perimeter of white light around their feet was complete, the light began to bleed into a pool, and Bad Blood became unanchored from the natural progression of seconds ...

Far removed from the trappings of earthly civilization, the man worshipped as Lord Naga of the Cobra Cult stood in a room which served as the nerve center for the terrorist organization. His hands clasped behind his back and hidden beneath his snakeskin-green cloak, Kobra stood before a wall twenty-five feet high and covered with monitor displays. His chin, tufts of black hair jutting from either side, was raised as his dark eyes scanned the uppermost monitors.

"Master?" a voice full of trepidations inquired from a doorway.

"Come," Kobra commanded flatly.

The Cobra cultist approached like a whipped dog. He reached Kobra’s side, and his master did not look down upon him. Kobra stood nearly two heads taller than the subservient figure beside him, with a broad, powerful frame to match his stature. Kobra continued to observe the flow of information, and soon his follower remembered the message he had been sent to deliver.

"The shuttle with the final components has arrived, my lord," the cultist reported hurriedly. Kobra remained impassive, saying nothing. The messenger blurted, "You asked to be told when it arrived."

Only Kobra’s head moved as he reoriented the direction of his gaze and glowered at the cultist beside him. "Do you pressume that I cannot recall my own wordsss?" Kobra hissed in a voice covered in scales of menacing, restrained fury. The orange bands of armor across his green chestplate swelled.

The messenger dropped to his knees instantly and prostrated himself before Kobra. "A thousand pardons, my master," he apologized, his voice muffled as he spoke almost directly into the floor, yet obviously on the verge of hysteria, "I presume nothing. I am nothing."

"Look at me," Kobra spoke with a gravity befitting a royal decree. The cowering cultist raised his head meekly between his shoulders. Kobra’s boot flashed out from the folds of his cloak and caught the cultist squarely underneath his jaw. The man on the floor was lifted up and flipped over as he sailed through the air from the blow. A spray of blood from a bitten lip or tongue spattered the floor as the cultist crashed down again.

By that time Kobra was already standing with face upturned to the monitors again, as implacable as before the messenger’s arrival. Sedately he said, "Inform the engineersss that I expect all componentsss to be asssembled within the next two hoursss. I will perssonally insspect their handiwork at that time."

"At once, my lord," the cultist agreed eagerly, scrambling out of the room with great relief to still be alive.

Kobra continued his vigil over the visual and text data displayed in flux before him. In concert, the displays covering the huge wall presented a vision of the entire world, its objects and forces, its causes and effects, all of mankind’s paltry efforts to create a semblance of order. It was a vision of a world overly ripe for chaos, a world which would soon find itself plunged into the fourth age. Kobra allowed himself a slight, cold-blooded smile at the thought of leading not only the Cult of Cobra, but the entire population of the planet, through the Kali Yuga.

Bad Blood reestablished alignment with the passage of time, standing in a grassy field at night. The unclouded starlight and the glow of a partially full moon provided just enough illumination to see the wide, openness of the countryside. A few trees dotted the landscape, but for the most part the area was broad and flat.

"Man, he better have put us in the right place," Hangfire sighed, looking around. "This is an awfully big battlefield to be looking for out-of-time bad guys."

"We could split up," Enigma suggested. "Just for fifteen minutes or so, searching in various directions, then regroup."

Suddenly, screaming voices began to make their way to Bad Blood’s ears. Faint at first, then growing louder, the screams came from a handful of French soldiers sprinting across the field, limbs flailing in terror to propel them forward. The soldiers were clearly only teenagers, and wailing like frightened children. The newly arrived heroes tensed, and Valence commented, "Something tells me we might be able to cancel the ‘looking’ part."

From the darkness behind the fleeing young soldiers, a destructive burst of scarlet energy rushed through the air, striking the ground just beside on soldier’s feet and sending up a shower of dirt and rocks at the point of explosive impact. The soldiers’ screams redoubled, as they angled the direction of their running slightly away from the smoking crater the energy beam had left behind. Scant seconds later, another burst sliced through the darkness, this time catching one of the young soldiers squarely in the back. The unfortunate teen was lifted off the ground by the force of the scarlet beam, and quickly reduced to a charred, smoldering husk only barely recognizable as formerly human.

"Ugh, that’s just wrong," More griped, not quite successful in covering his profound disturbance with nonchalance.

The terrified soldiers continued their desperate flight, passing close by Bad Blood and not sparing them a glance. Bad Blood began to move in the opposite direction, toward the soldiers’ pursuer, with Hangfire and Pierce in the lead. Another blaze of scarlet cut toward the heroes, but Hangfire’s forcefield easily deflected the incoming energy. Then, from the shadows ahead, a powerfully built figure began to emerge. Moonlight glinted off the silvery armor, as well as the blood-red metal of the massive energy rifle held in its right hand. The figure moved purposefully but unhurriedly, and when it realized seven soldiers were bearing down on it, it stopped and spread its legs to a more stable stance.

"Genocide," Pierce correctly identified the armored killer. "Of course."

"Hey, come on, we’ve taken on this guy before," Valence reminded his teammates.

"But we haven’t actually stopped him," Enigma pointed out. "One or the other of us has always retreated."

"At least we have him outnumbered this time," Karnival suggested.

"So let’s make the most of that, and cut loose," Ember urged, tiny flames licking across his face as the surface of his body began to heat. "What do you say, fearless leader, has the time for subtlety passed."

"I’d say so," Pierce confirmed. "Let’s take him down as fast as possible. Assuming he’s the only one Kobra sent here ..."

"Hey, come on, Pierce, it’s 1916," Hangfire observed. "Guns still don’t work right more than fifty percent of the time. Anything more than Genocide and his bazooka from hell would be overkill, right?"

"Kobra excels at overkill," Pierce answered grimly.

Hangfire said nothing more as Bad Blood spread out in a rough, arc, and Valence and Ember took to the air. Immediately Valence reached out magnetically for Genocide’s weapon. As the energies Valence manipulated made contact, the futuristic gun became like a living organism, extending several tentacles from the back of the barrel which wrapped themselves tightly around Genocide’s armored forearm. Genocide smiled humorlessly and fired four blasts of red energy rapidly into the night sky. Instantly heavy clouds began to roll in.

Hangfire squeezed off round after round at Genocide, knowing it would serve as nothing more than a distraction to the armored gunner. Pierce fired a volley of sonic blasts from his gauntlets, buffeting Genocide with compressed vibrations to as little effect as Hangfire’s bullets. Karnival projected illusions of an entire row of gigantic laser turrets unleashing a barrage of bright yellow lances of light, while More stood ready to take advantage of any physical weakness which Genocide might show, but no such opportunity was presented.

 Ember looped through the air behind Genocide and came barreling down on the villain’s back. As his fiery hands made contact with Genocide’s armor, however, a bolt of lightning cracked down from the stormy sky above. Ember was thrown off of Genocide by the electrical discharge and landed on the ground two hundred yards away.

At the same time, a narrow funnel cloud plunged down from the cloud cover, separating itself from the ceiling of nimbuses overhead. The swirling winds picked up dirt and debris and quickly became a towering dust devil that bore down on Valence and engulfed him. Valence strove against the winds, seeking escape, but was tossed about like a rag doll inside the twister.

Massive hailstones pelted More, Hangfire, Pierce, Enigma and Karnival. Karnival shifted to his two-dimensional form, allowing the hail to pass through his flat body harmlessly. Hangfire’s forcefield repelled the hailstones, and More’s thick skin and Pierce’s armor provided them some protection. Enigma opened a shimmering red warp portal overhead to suck in most of the hailstones, and shot them out another portal aimed directly at Genocide. Genocide ignored them completely, as his huge red rifle began to morph further, fusing with his armor across his arm, shoulders and chest.

Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet began to shake, slightly but undeniably. "All this and an earthquake, too?" Hangfire wondered aloud. "Genocide seems to be one-man overkill, all right."

Pierce disagreed. "This is outside his scope. Earthquakes aren’t a function of the weather. And the pounding under our feet is too regular to be a seismic disturbance ..."

"Just as long as it’s not freaky worms again," More muttered.

As if in answer, the trembling of the grassy earth was soon joined by a mechanical sound like a vast system of engines working in concert to move tremendous weight. The noise of grinding metal grew steadily louder as its source approached. Then Bad Blood could see the massive construct shaking the ground: a gigantic steel wheel rolling toward them, edged in plow-like teeth which dug into the dirt of the field. It was easily one hundred and fifty feet tall, and fourteen separate gun emplacements on its circular surfaces stood ready to train on any target.

"The War Wheel," Hangfire said incredulously. "The goddam War Wheel! In the wrong War!"

"I take it things have gotten significantly worse for us," Karnival commented wryly.

"Son of a bitch," Pierce spat. "He didn’t say anything about this. Kobra doesn’t want the Germans to take Paris. He wants them to crush it into the ground."

"So let’s knock the oversized pie-plate on its side. Can’t do much crushing if it can’t roll," More offered.

"Won’t work. The stabilizer mechanism’s one of the most advanced pieces of technology to come out of Nazi war R&D efforts," Pierce insisted. "Even you’d have a tough time knocking a War Wheel over, More."

"We’re going to have to destroy it," Enigma said, reaching the conclusion along with the others.

"And get through Genocide first," Hangfire grumbled.

"It’s what we came here to do," Karnival nodded.

"Then let’s do it," Pierce urged, and his teammates assented. They moved as one toward Genocide and the looming metal monstrosity of the War Wheel, prepared for a fight to the finish.

TO BE CONTINUED in next issue’s EXPLOSIVE finale!!!!!

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send e-mail correspondence to badblood51@hotmail.com

Here's a note from the FDC mailing list that made me smile, penned by our very own Chuck Burke:

Hey, slugfest fans, heads up!

You know, for a "to be continued" issue, Bad Blood #11 packs in one helluva gang fight between the team and a well-armed, well prepared, and unusually intelligent group of terrorists. Interplay and references to events that have transpired before make it clear that this is a part of the greater saga that is Bad Blood, and all of the characters get their licks in here.

I like the twist that Dale is giving Karnival, and it will be interesting to see where this leads. I find Ed to be one of the more interesting characters in the FDC universe, and this will take him even further.

The predicament at the end of this issue is a sticky one. Can't wait until 12 comes out!!

Chuck
aka, da 'Cat!

Thanks, Chuck, and to everyone else: READ WILDCAT! It's awesome. Anyway, I hope this issue didn't disappoint. Hopefully it was everything you expected and more. And just wait 'til you see what we have in store for ...

NEXT ISSUE: Bad Blood fights for their lives ... and the history of the 20^th century ... in a battle that may require everything they have to give. If they fail, who will stand against Kobra in the present? If they succeed, how will Bad Blood find the cult and stop the final phase of their plan to usher in the Kali Yuga, while Pierce confronts the madman against whom he has sworn vengeance? All of these questions and more will be answered in the super-sized Issue 13, the final chapter of the anniversary story arc! Be here then!

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