Issue # 9

"Tournament of Champions"

Her master's ways were rarely hers to know.

The last time she had played a role of any consequence in his plans, his defeat had ensued. She had played her part perfectly, faithfully executing every aspect of the overall whole that was within her control. Yet in the end, her master had been lucky to escape. She had not escaped at all.

Had that been defeat, truly? Or had it merely been a single facet in the large and gleaming jewel which was her master's will? In the first days her abandonment had been complete, as she had been delivered to the American doctors and unable to sense the slightest hint of her master's mental voice. She had assumed that this was her well-deserved punishment, to be treated as a caged animal with a wall of silence separating her from the master, and she had accepted it, for her subservience was absolute and inviolable.

But now she felt guilt and shame for her lack of faith. She had interpreted the silence as a sign of her master's legendary anger, a consequence of his displeasure, borne of failure. Yet how could the master fail? She should have realized that his will was supreme, that he remained silent only as he patiently awaited the true need for her again.

In retrospect his plans appeared clearly to her, beautiful and elegant. He had designed her psibernetic bodysuit with failsafe upon failsafe, permanently grafting it to her otherwise old and frail form. And he had allowed the parts of her human flesh which remained exposed to retain their crone-like features, from her stringy white hair to her wart-crusted nose to her nearly toothless grin. She was the perfect embodiment of a ploy to be underestimated. The scientist-captors believed that they controlled the flow of power to her psibernetics, only supplying enough current for limited experiments under supervision. This much was true, so long as her master did not speak within her mind the words which would unlock all of her abilities and unleash her wrath. She should have known all along that the time would come when he would speak once again.

That time was now.

The sun was nearly halfway through its journey across the opposite face of the world. Her prison cell, the institute housing it, and the entire city were in deep darkness. She lay immobilized upon an examining table to which she had been permanently secured, the golden circuits of her bodysuit hardwired to hidden computer systems. As a yellow-orange energy began to bleed from her wrinkled eye sockets, however, she knew that her physical restriction was irrelevant. Her strengths were entirely neural, and with every passing moment the psibernetic circuitry was amplifying them, building wave upon wave of psychic energy into potential explosions.

She knew all that she needed to know. Her master required her to dispose of new threats to his plans. He had told her how to bring them to her, and what to do to them once they arrived. She obeyed gladly. She had sworn her life, and if necessary, her death to the master. His will would be done, as soon as the first captors arrived in the morning.

"You sure this is all you want to do with it?" More asked skeptically.

The strongman leaned against the barely recognizable wreckage of the Checkmate stealth jet that had transported Bad Blood to Chechnya and crashed in Vlatava on the return trip. The wreckage had been transported, along with the rest of the team, to an old airstrip on the periphery of Scott Air Force Base in Illinois via one of Enigma's warp portals. At Pierce's request, More had pushed the wreckage into a small hangar that appeared to have fallen into disuse.

"It'll be fine," Pierce replied, unconcerned.

"Fine?" Ember asked doubtfully. "That rusty shed doesn't even look like the door'll lock."

"Which is how it's supposed to look," Pierce answered. "There aren't many Checkmate hangars with logos painted on them."

"Why not take it back to Andrews?" Hangfire asked.

"Standard policy. Can't go back to the same place we left from," Pierce explained.

"Well, I know we're not exactly returning it in the same condition we received it," Karnival observed, "but still, aren't you afraid someone might find it here and strip parts from it?"

"Trust me, when we leave it will be secure." Pierce approached the battered aircraft, pulling a small disc out of his gauntlet, and reached through the jagged maw where the windshield had once been located. He affixed the disc to the twisted remains of the pilot's chair and stepped away, then pressed a combination on a keypad concealed just inside the hangar door. As Pierce walked back out onto the airstrip, the floor of the hangar began to descend, lowering the wreckage into the ground to the sound of well-tuned motor servos. A moment later a different set of mechanisms slid a new floor into place, covering the shaft into which the stealth jet's remains had disappeared.

"Nice trick," Valence commented. "What'd you put in the plane before you sent it down?"

"Mini-disc with a video recording of my fight with the rogue armor," Pierce stated.

"Why?"

"Recorder was at about wrist level. The video has a nice close-up of the device I attached to the awol armor that put it out of commission. Checkmate techies'll recognize it - it's one of their little toys. I don't particularly want Checkmate bothering us again, and this way they'll know the mission was accomplished."

"Sort of," More shrugged. "Except we trashed their plane, and they wanted the armor returned."

"Hey, we didn't trash the plane," Ember contradicted More. "Vertigo knocked Hangfire for a loop and that sent the jet into a tailspin, but you can't really say we trashed it." Ember considered his own words for a moment, then went on, "Well, I guess after that Valence managed to trash it pretty good, stripping the hull to wrap up Enigma. And bouncing the whole damn thing around the battlefield and landing it on More, leaving More no choice but to tear his way out. Whoo, yeah, you pulled a real rock star hotel room on that poor jet, Valence."

Valence was coiling his flexsteel cable. He shot a cold look at Ember, and the cable magnetically snaked into a shape in midair before him - a silhouette of a human hand with the middle finger raised.

"Spilt milk," Pierce said dismissively. "It wasn't Valence's fault any more than it was Hangfire's when we crashed, but Checkmate won't care about the condition the stealth plane was returned in. Or anything else except that the prototype armor is off the board."

"You know, Pierce," Karnival said, "one of these days you're going to have to tell us how you and Checkmate parted ways, and why they feel like they have leverage on you. As long as we all work together, we all need to know that story."

"One of these days," Pierce agreed with obvious reluctance.

"Well, one of these days I have to go back to IMHS," Enigma announced. "Assuming I still have a job there, that is. In fact, if you'll excuse me, I need to make a call there now. Then I'll get everyone back to the base and put in my appearance at the lab." Enigma walked a short distance away, pulling a digital wireless phone from its belt harness beneath his cloak.

"Cool, back to the base," Ember grinned. "You guys have a sweet set-up?"

"You'll have to take our word for it that we do," Pierce snapped.

"Still with this 'you're not on my team' bull, huh?" Ember laughed. "Come on, I fit in great with you guys. I'll pay whatever dues you guys have. And I hate to play the owe-me card, but I did bail you out in Groznyy ..."

Pierce bristled, "We had everything under control, and you are a completely unpredictable risk..."

"Now hold on," Hangfire interjected. "Aside from some obvious overcompensation issues..."

"Hey!" Ember cried, affronted.

"May I remind you of an extremely cheap shot you took on Dr. Light, knowing she wasn't in control of her actions, because the fight wasn't going your way?" Hangfire said sternly to Ember. Ember looked away. Hangfire continued, "Still ... I think this guy should be accepted as one of us. He obviously wants it. And there's no such thing as too much firepower, especially if we teach Ember here to apply that firepower a bit more judiciously."

"Gotta say I agree with Hangfire," Karnival added, "on all counts."

"Me too," More chimed in.

"I guess so, as long as I get to teach a couple of the lessons putting him in his place," Valence said with attempted nonchalance.

"That's a majority right there," Karnival pointed out. "Is there a particular reason you're objecting, Pierce?"

Pierce stood stock-still. "No," he finally answered. "Fine." He paused another beat and then finished, "Anything to shut him up."

Enigma rejoined the group. "No one is answering the phones at the Institute," he said.

"Is that weird?" More asked.

"Absolutely unheard of," Enigma insisted. "There has always been an element of danger in my workplace. I'm afraid something terrible has happened. We should all go there immediately."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Karnival shook his head. Turning to Valence, he asked, "Are you all right to go? You took a beating this morning ..."*

(* This and most of the other references in the above scene have their origin in the instant-FDC classic EuroGuard #8/Bad Blood #8 crossover - DWG)

"Completely and totally all right," Valence said, defiance coloring the edge of his voice. He squared his shoulders and swept his arm toward Enigma. "After you."

Enigma raised a hand before him and a shimmering red iris opened in the air above the tarmac. One by one the members of Bad Blood made their way into the warp portal. As Ember walked past Pierce, he offered him a wide grin. "See, Pierce, I would've ended up tagging along on another mission anyway."

Pierce said nothing as he followed through the warp.

Bad Blood emerged at the entrance for the Institute for Meta-Human Studies. A brick wall eight feet high like the perimeter of an Ivy League campus surrounded the facility, a plain, squarish six-story building. The team passed through the gates and made their way toward the main entrance of the Institute.

"Karnival," Valence said in a low voice as they crossed the lawn of the Institute.

"Yo," Karnival responded.

"You lured me into that warp portal with an illusion of a Dominator," Valence whispered, hissing the last word.

"I know. That was a low blow. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Valence waved the apology aside. "How did you ... know...?"

"That specific illusion would work?" Karnival asked. "I didn't know for sure, but I hoped it would. A while back you and I were going through those DEO databases that Pierce hacked into, the ones on aliens. You seemed a little on edge while we went through the Dominators entry. I figured it's none of my business so I didn't ask, but I didn't forget, either."

"So it was pure inference," Valence seemed to test the viability of the idea aloud.

"What else could it be?" Karnival inquired.

"You're the mentalist on the team," Valence pointed out. "Your power is putting images, ideas in people's minds. I just wanted to be sure you weren't poking around inside my head."

"I ... can't really do that. It's send-only," Karnival explained. He stopped in mid-stride to look at Valence. The eyes of his skeletal visage narrowed ominously, down to impossibly dark slits. "Is that answer good enough for you to trust me?"

Valence's features were impassive as iron, but finally he relented, "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"Good," Karnival nodded. Then he created the illusion that upper half of his skull was expanding, with his eyes widening until they yawned like bottomless pits over Valence's head. "But what are you hiding in there, anyway?" Karnival questioned his teammate, laughing immediately after to show that he expected no answer. They continued after the rest of the group, although a clouded expression passed over Valence's face.

Enigma led the way through the front door, into a marble-floored foyer dominated by a dark oak security desk. Two guards and a receptionist sat bolt upright behind the wide desk, completely motionless.

More waved one of his large hands in front of the staffers' eyes. "Are they ...?"

Pierce raised a hand to his helmet and scanned the guards and receptionist. "Alive, but in some kind of catatonic state."

"Hunhh," Karnival exhaled. "The air in here is ... charged up."

"Not as far as I can tell," Ember countered.

"Something has obviously gone horribly awry here," Enigma insisted. "Karnival, if you sense something, can you determine where it's originating?"

"I can give it a shot," Karnival acquiesced. He contemplated two corridors leading in opposite directions from the foyer, then chose one and proceeded down its length, followed by the rest of Bad Blood. As he continued to navigate the corridors of the Institute, the only signs that seemed to bear out the choices made at each intersection were catatonic researchers sprawled across the white linoleum hallway floors. Finally the team reached a doorway with an older gentleman slumped against it, his hand still clinging tenuously on the knob of the door. The man was slightly pudgy, bald except for a short ring of fine white hair, and wore wire-rimmed spectacles.

"Dr. LaGrieve," Enigma knelt at the man's side, pulling him away from the door. Enigma laid the man out flat on the floor of the corridor, checked his pulse, then stood to face his teammates. "Simon LaGrieve is the head of MetaHuman Psychology. He works on some of the most sensitive projects at the Institute, including any involving mental powers. I'd say we've found the end of the trail."

"You know who or what's in that room?" Pierce asked.

"I haven't been around in quite a while ..." Enigma checked the LED display beside the doorframe. "I would know if this hadn't blown out. But if it hadn't blown out, the whole IMHS staff probably wouldn't be vegetables, either."

"So we just go in and smack down whatever's blanking out everyone's brains," Ember pressed.

"Yeah, that's judicious ..." Valence mocked.

"All right, we go in carefully and smack down with the bare minimum amount of force ..."

"Enough," Pierce silenced the two. "What worries me is that whatever's affecting the staff hasn't affected us. I think I should go in alone ..."

"Slow down, Pierce," Hangfire broke in, "I think maybe your head's a little too big since that crazy demon told you we all respected you the most. And you may have the mad skills going on, but we still need to function as a team. One on one you may be the best, but you can't hold a candle to all of us combined."

"So let's just go," More urged.

"Fine." Pierce spared a quick glance at Enigma, who nodded curtly, and then shot a powerful kick at the edge of the door. Most of the team pushed their way through before the door had finished flying open.

The enemies of her master crowded into the small laboratory room. They looked all around urgently, yet could not see her spindly body encased in psibernetics, or the waves of yellow-orange energy swirling around her. They did not speak, yet still could not hear the wild cackling of her parchment-dry voice. They moved further into the room, unmindful of the lab technicians they stepped on as they crossed the floor, unaware of the distant stare in the scientists' eyes or the runnels of drool on the scientists' chins.

The enemies began to move more slowly, silently forming a circle around the table to which she was still bound. Then they became as motionless as stone, showing no outward physical signs of life. The disconnection between their minds and bodies was complete.

"How did we get here?" More asked, dumbfounded.

Bad Blood stood on an unfamiliar city street, apparently the only people in the vicinity. Cars parked along the street were empty. The sidewalks were devoid of pedestrians. Large windows offering views into stores showed neither customers nor clerks within.

"Did somebody trick us and warp us out of ... of ..." Valence struggled to remember where they had been before appearing in the street.

Pierce raised a silencing hand, sweeping the area with his helmet sensors. "Be done getting my bearings in a second. Then I'll let you know what we do next."

"Ah, the hell with that," Ember spat, looking around for answers of his own. "Following your 'orders' already got us this far off course."

"No, that's not right ..." Karnival insisted, shaking his head. "Enigma was in charge ... and Pierce wanted to go in alone ..."

Pierce had already turned fully toward Ember. "Don't force me to make you regret your big mouth, Ember."

"What are you gonna do?" Ember demanded. His skin began to glow with a super-heated luminescence, and a moment later he rose from the ground as the hot orange glow enveloped his entire body. "Which one of Mr. Miyagi's secrets you think is gonna put me in my place?" he yelled.

Pierce shook his head and began to turn away from Ember. "Hey!" Ember called after him. "Don't you turn away from me!" Ember shot up through the air, looped once and with mounting speed began to rush toward Pierce.

"You little punk!" More growled.

Pierce spun on his heel, his gauntlets raised and brought to bear on Ember in the same motion. Twin sonic blasts erupted from the armor's hand-mounted weapon arrays and tore into Ember's fiery body.

Ember reeled back through the air, close enough to More for the big man to reach out and grab Ember by the ankle.

"Dammit, Pierce! We don't have time for this!" Enigma insisted vehemently. He tossed back his cloak and threw his arms at Pierce, opening a large red warp portal directly behind the Knight. Enigma pulled his fists to his waist as if he were reining in a team of horses, and the warp portal swept into Pierce and swallowed him. Another warp portal opened high over the street, and Pierce fell from its red depths. "How hard do I have to drop you on your head to get through to you?" Enigma bellowed up at his free-falling teammate.

More roared in pain as Ember's crackling form burned the skin of his hand, but maintained his hold on the flying man and pulled him close enough to deliver a solid punch to Ember's jaw. Ember cried out wordlessly as he suffered the impact. His vision blurred, but he could still make out More's massive shape. Ember flew at More, hands raised, and More caught both hands in his own reflexively in a wrestling grapple. "Wanna see who says 'uncle' first?" Ember challenged.

"You're on, loser," More answered through gritted teeth. Despite the agonizing burning in his own hands, he clenched his huge fists tighter, trying to pulverize the bones in Ember's fingers.

A whizzing manhole cover clanged across the back of Ember's skull, then skipped up like a stone and smashed flat into More's face. Ember and More released each other as they screamed almost in unison. Valence hovered nearby, and said reproachfully, "Either one of you really think you can take on me?"

More answered the inquiry by lunging at Valence like an enraged animal.

Enigma heard the click of a hammer being cocked beside his left ear. He flicked his eyes in that direction and saw Hangfire standing beside him, gun leveled at Enigma's temple. "Real bullets or mercy rounds?" Enigma asked.

"Why take a chance, either way?" Hangfire responded angrily.

Enigma chuckled as a small red portal opened above Hangfire's gun hand and covered the weapon. Hangfire made no reaction to the warp, instead unleashing his other fist and crashing it into Enigma's face. Enigma staggered backward as he yowled in pain. Hangfire unholstered another gun and aimed it at the teleporter with a slow, steady hand.

Pierce swung into Hangfire's sights, moving at lightning speed. He had thrown a grapple hook around a flagpole on a nearby building and used the line to break his fall. Now he continued his downward arc of controlled motion as it brought him within range to strike at Hangfire. One leg shot out to disarm the old mercenary; the other kicked at Hangfire's temple and drove him down to his knees.

Karnival cautiously approached Ember, who still lay on the street with both hands clamped across the back of his head. Using the toe of his boot, Karnival rolled Ember onto his back. "Open your eyes, sunshine," Karnival commanded.

Ember winced and opened his eyes slightly. He saw a huge weight across his chest, pinning him to the ground. His breath caught in his throat as his chest became paralyzed. Ember cast his eyes in Karnival's direction, a look full of both menace and pleading, and suddenly a calm overcame him. He slowly stood up, his body passing through the illusory weight, which began to evaporate to nothingness.

"Doesn't work too well when someone realizes it's an illusion, huh?" Ember sneered.

"Assuming I give someone time to think about it," Karnival said dismissively.

"Time's up, sucker," Ember threatened, launching into an airborne tackle at Karnival.

Karnival spread his feet and raised his arms to form an X shape with his body. More Karnival's formed all around him, identical duplicates emerging in front of him, behind him, to his left and right sides and at all angles to his body. In an instant Ember was faced with nine Karnivals, all scattering in different directions. Howling with fury, Ember rammed his body into one of the beaded and fringed black forms rushing past him. He flew through the apparition.

More swung both fists clasped together toward Valence's mid-section, but Valence was in flight and easily avoided the blow, rising higher into the air. With a wave of his hand Valence uprooted a streetlight, and sent it swinging toward More. More put all of his considerable weight behind a punch aimed at the middle of the huge steel pole, breaking it in half as it flew past. The sections of the streetlight doubled back for another pass, flying toward More like giant arrows. More caught one in each hand, and grinned ferally at Valence. Valence shrugged and pushed hard magnetically, sending the steel pole sections flying at high speed into a plate glass window - with More holding onto them.

More and the broken streetlight crashed into a florist's shop in the ground floor of an office building. More quickly regained his feet and screamed, "Did you think that'd stop me, Valence? That didn't even slow me down!!!" He began to move back toward the window, crunching flowerpots and shelves under his feet.

"Maybe this'll give you a breather," Valence smirked. He cast both hands toward the florist's shop and closed his eyes. Creaks and groans began to emanate from the walls of the shop. More stopped in his tracks to look around as the ceiling above his head began to quiver. Valence grimaced with effort, his entire body trembling. Opposite him, the office building trembled as well. With a cataclysmic shriek of rending steel and the thunder of shattering wood and plaster, the entire twelve-floor structure collapsed. More threw himself toward the street, but was caught in an avalanche of buckling metal and crumbling debris. Huge spumes of dust washed across the city street from the site of the devastation.

Valence had little time to admire his handiwork, as Ember rocketed through the air toward him. "Forget the skull-head. You're the one who needs to go down!" Ember hollered.

On the street below, three combatants were locked in a deadly, ammunition-exhausting formation, a triangle ten feet on a side. Pierce made himself an impossible target, spinning, ducking, and jumping in an arc-shaped pattern to avoid being shot by either the clown-colored assault weapon wielded by Enigma or Hangfire's custom semi-automatic pistols. Pierce returned fire of his own, releasing barrages of sonic bursts and electric currents at both his adversaries. Hangfire's personal forcefield redirected his share of attacks, sending as many blasts as possible back at Pierce. Enigma's warp portals achieved similar results.

Hangfire, Pierce, and Enigma were so intent on destroying one another they hardly noticed a mob of Karnivals moving to encircle them. Karnival observed his targets with rancorous greed, relishing the thought of ripping their minds to shreds. Yet somewhere in the back of his mind, something seemed out of place. The gun in Enigma's hand he hadn't seen since the gang conflagration at the Superdome. In New Orleans. The city around them now was not New Orleans ... it was ... where were they? Who were they? Bad Blood ... one name for many, a team ... a team struggling to kill each other ...? Karnival focused on the death urge that gripped him, ignoring the unsettling thoughts gathering strength at the edge of his consciousness. Four visions of Karnival bolted into the midst of Hangfire, Enigma and Pierce's firefight.

Four grinning skulls sprouted gunmetal gray spikes across their pale surfaces. Four spiked craniums blew apart and filled the air with gleaming purple, yellow and green caltrops, a rapidly expanding cloud of festively colored hazards. At the speed of thought, the small, spiny projectiles expanded to the size of bowling balls, and their spikes became flailing limbs ending in hooks, tearing savagely at Pierce, Hangfire, and Enigma. The confetti-colored weapons hovered around their targets like birds over a carcass.

Enigma opened a gaping red disc beneath his feet and dropped out of sight. He emerged from the other end of the warp directly behind one of the Karnivals in the outer ring, and swung both fists into the back of the illusionist's neck. Enigma's hands passed through the false image. He sank into a red portal and rose behind a different vision of Karnival, which proved to be insubstantial as well. None of the Karnivals in the circle reacted to him, as all of the true Karnival's concentration was focused on the continued mental assault on Pierce and Hangfire. Enigma's fists finally encountered resistance as he bashed between the shoulders of the third Karnival, who went down to his hands on knees on the street. As the hook-wielding floating balls faded from sight, Enigma kicked Karnival in the ribs, sending him sprawling, then returned his attention to Pierce and Hangfire, who both opened fire.

Valence and Ember flew in tight twisting patterns around each other, Ember straining to lay a burning hand on Valence, while Valence attempted to snare Ember in a steel cable. Valence's success came first. Bound in the length of flex-steel, Ember found himself suddenly traveling at high velocity on a powerful magnetic current. He streaked toward a gas station at the end of the street, and his body was driven hard into the base of the gas pumps. A tremendous explosion resulted, sending billowing black smoke toward the sky accompanied by a terrible thundering. The city street seemed to shudder from the shockwaves.

Enigma reacted almost instantaneously, casting a warp portal directly above the exploding gas tanks down the street. The other end of the warp opened in a convex shape before Hangfire and Pierce, spewing flaming gasoline out at both of them. Amid screams of equal parts fear, pain and anger, Pierce and Hangfire dropped to the street, rolling to extinguish the flames.

Enigma backed away from his half-immolated opponents, then whirled around as he heard a violent disturbance behind him. From the pile of rubble that had once been the building demolished by Valence, More erupted with a triumphant howl. His body was bruised and bloody, with dust and debris clinging to every inch of his body. More jackhammered his fist into the street, knocking Enigma off-balance, then in one flying leap tackled Enigma and brought him down hard against the asphalt.

Karnival, recovering from Enigma's attack, watched More with fascination. More had broken free. Somehow this seemed overwhelmingly important to Karnival. More had fought against everything around him, and broken free. Broken ...

Karnival remained on the ground, trying not to make himself a likely target again. At the same time, he tried to focus himself as best he could. He ran through mental images as quickly as he could, collecting them, memorizing them, stockpiling them. He was dimly aware of Ember flying back from the gas station, and Pierce and Hangfire regaining their feet, as Enigma and More wrestled and Valence hovered overhead. He mentally attacked them all.

The city street became a deadly, demented nightmare. Jagged laser beams fired from traffic signals, snaking irregular paths through the sky. The street surface lurched like seawater in a hurricane. Creatures the shape and size of humans but composed of insect body parts stormed through the streets, carrying silver pitchforks. Spinning buzzsaws dripping blood and flying on giant bat wings made diving runs. Free-floating man-eating plants snapped hungrily at the air. Rabid unicorns stampeded. A green and blue mushroom cloud blossomed across the horizon.

"No ... can't be real ...," Valence grunted, defending himself against a flailing raingutter dripping corrosives.

"Unhh ... doesn't even make sense ...," Hangfire muttered, running the back of one hand across his eyes while the other brandished a gun at a furry, menacing were-hydrant.

"Gotta be ... fake ... all of it ...," Ember panted as he tried to outrace a rocket-propelled meat grinder.

"Say it ... come on, say it ...," Karnival begged under his breath. His vision swam as his mind began to ache. In the blink of an eye the entire surreal, hellish scene was thirty feet underwater.

"No. It's not real. NONE OF THIS IS REAL!!!" More screamed.

The seven heroes stood in a circle around a steel examining table. On the table a desiccated old woman in a black and yellow circuit-laden body suit winced uncomfortably. A dry croak of protest escaped her throat. A faint yellow-orange glow spilled from the corners of her wrinkled eyes.

More collapsed to the lab floor. Pierce knelt by the big man's side and tended to him. Enigma stepped backwards quickly and found a set of switches on the wall. As he threw them, the old woman's frail form convulsed and then stiffened. The eerie light emanating from her eye sockets disappeared. "Emergency neural overrides are a wonderful thing," Enigma said quietly.

"Holy Mary Mother of God," Valence exhaled forcefully. "What was all that?"

"Is More all right?" Karnival asked.

"He should be, when he wakes up," Pierce stated. "He just took more damage than any of us. And to answer you, Valence, the bitch on the table happened to us. She trapped our minds in an illusory world. And gave us all a deep desire to kill each other."

"Or played off what was eating at each of us anyway," Hangfire interposed.

"But Karnival kicked our heads until we reflexively fought our way out," Pierce continued, standing up. He turned to Karnival. "Overlaid his own illusions on hers, goaded us into punching through both layers. Good plan."

"Thanks," Karnival nodded.

"What about you - you all right, K?" Ember asked.

"I think ... I need a drink," Karnival admitted.

"If this is who I think it is," Pierce indicated the rigid crone on the table, "I think we all need a few drinks ... and to do some serious talking."

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send mail to badblood51@hotmail.com

The influx of fan mail has abated once again, but hopefully this issue will stir things up again. Recognize the unnamed villainness in this story? If you're a fan of JLA prestige-format one-shots, you probably do. Whether her identity leapt out at you or not, anyone who wants to hazard a guess is more than welcome to write to the e-mail address above. I guarantee a personal response to any and all fan mail, including an autographed .jpeg of the author wrestling naked with a drunken alligator. Of course, if you'd rather not correspond, the answer will be in the coming-real-soon ...

NEXT ISSUE: A Round of Drinks! What a great idea! The action moves back to the Big Easy, for a tale in which the team tries to enjoy a quiet evening and a few drinks while answering the question, "Are we paranoid ... or is someone out to get us?" Will they find answers and succeed in staying out of trouble for one night? Magic 8 Ball sez: "I highly doubt it ..." Be here then!