A Momentary Lapse of Ethics 03

A Momentary Lapse of Ethics 3

By FinalStand

(The battle for the Tri-Cities heats up)

*If you want your enemy dead, cut off their head; anything less isn't trying hard enough*

A little background: In the fictional place called the Tri-Cities which are a combination of a West Coast-based New York Metropolitan Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Greater Las Vegas. ~ 25 million people

- The Midnight Mask (deceased) the Tri-City's former defender and founder of the Tri-Cities Alliance {TCA}; killed by the Eternal Flame (currently serving Nineteen Life Sentences in Copperhead Super-Max Prison) a few years before our story begins.

- The Crimson Veil -- Female leader of the Tri-City Alliance; former kid sidekick of the Midnight Mask.

- Technetronic -- inventor and bankroll for the TCA; uses a host of non-violent means to stop evil while flying around in a suit of self-made powered armor.

- Jackal Girl -- At the start of this chapter she is a mystic female sleuth with the ability to call upon the powers of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon and can turn into an Egyptian Jackal.

- T-Rex -- Paleontologist with the ability to turn into a variety of dinosaur-like creatures -- usually becomes a Utah Raptor by default.

- Lady Dynamic -- newest member of the team until the arrival of Dr. Life in Chapter One; a young, flying, super-strong heroine; protégé of the Crimson Veil.

- Dr. Life -- enigmatic master of Life Force Energy as well as being an actual Emergency Room Trauma Specialist. He has served on battlefronts around the globe as well earning him a variety of contacts.

(RESISTANCE, DAY ONE)

[IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE REGENTS OF WRATH]

"Do you want to stay alive?" Corpse Wail whispered to T-Rex as her ghostly, clawed hand caressed his chin.

"Yes and I hope that condition continues for some time to come," the paleontologist answered politely. She studied him for moments, seeing if he was mocking her before deciding he wasn't.

"Come around to our way of thinking and you could do much better than this prison," she promised him.

"I have a moral and ethical obligation to advance the frontiers of Humanity which preclude me from engaging in any form of societal control," he answered. Corpse Wail was now clearly confused.

"What he is trying to tell you," Technetronic chuckled through the pain of earlier interrogations/tortures, "is that he won't join up either."

The ephemeral villainess waved a hand through the trapped hero's ribcage, causing T-Rex to scream in pain.

"Fuck you!" snapped Jackal Girl as she flexed her body and spirit against the magical constraints keeping her pinned, spread-eagle, suspended in mid-air. Corpse Wail laughed at the trapped Egyptian sorceress-sleuth.

"Ha! Maybe we should have Razor Claw have a little time with you, Dog-Bitch," Corpse Wail laughed. Any further conversation was interrupted by Razor Claw dragging Dr. Life in.

The metallic monster hoisted the doctor up into his magical shackles; suspended by his wrists off the ground with his ankles also spread apart.

"Has Psychic King broken him yet?" Corpse Wail asked Razor Claw. The metallic villain made a series of whirring/clicking noises the others couldn't translate. Razor Claw retrieved T-Rex next. The hero didn't dare fight back against him because the villain would easily lacerate his captive into so many ribbons of quivering flesh unless the hero was transformed into one of his more durable dino-forms. Out they went.

"Dr. Life, can you talk?" Jackal Girl called out. She'd already faced Psychic King thrice and she knew her own mental protections were slowly being eroded. She didn't know how T-Rex, or Technetronic, were holding out at all. Maybe Psychic King was afraid of burning out their minds before he thoroughly corrupted them with his mental domination.

She and Dr. Life would last longer yet were not indefinitely immune. It was only a matter of time before each succumbed. As Razor Claw stepped out of the spacious common holding area one of Corpse Wail's superior, armored minions stepped into the room and walked up to its mistress. She didn't even look at it.

"What?" she demanded imperiously. The minion hammered a blue, glowing baton into Corpse Wail's back. The witch howled!

Corpse Wail spun around even as she flailed backwards.

"How dare you!" she screamed. Crimson Veil pulled off the hood of her 'minion' disguise before preparing herself for a fight she doubted would happen. Crimson grinned as Corpse Wail back-pedaled/floated into Dr. Life. He caused a massive surge of Life energy to cascade through the wielder of Negative Life energy, resulting in the witch falling to the ground twitching and unconscious.

"Thanks for the assist," Crimson Veil stated grimly. She was already moving rapidly to Jackal Girl and placing nine idols at specific cardinal points around the Egyptian mystic. The sorceress began chanting. Crimson Veil swept back to the door to listen for the footfalls of the expected onslaught of guards. When the bonds on Jackal Girl failed, she fell to the ground.

"Get Dr. Life free next," Crimson Veil hissed. She knew they didn't have much time.

They had even less time than she thought. Seconds later a red wound opened up in space and Princess Bloodstone stepped through. The Princess' gaze fell on Jackal Girl first. While she was preparing to launch a devastating barrage on the one in her sights, Crimson Veil blindsided her. The blood sorceress went sprawling, but was able to raise a personal force field before Crimson Veil could follow through with her assault. Still, she kept Princess Bloodstone busy long enough for Jackal Girl to finish freeing Dr. Life.

Faced with the three superheroes -- even as exhausted as two of them were, Princess Bloodstone erected a barrier wall to hold all three of them at bay. They were in the Regent's Secret Subterranean Fortress and help was coming her way. Dr. Life charged it and punched the shield with so much power the Princess' protective wall promptly collapsed at the price of shattering his fist into a blood pulp. The move stunned Princess Bloodstone. Before she could recover Crimson Veil fell on her with several hard blows, collapsing the female villainess.

Right then several of Corpse Wails regular undead minions shambled into the room followed by the onrushing whirl of Razor Claw not far behind. Jackal Girl gave Technetronic a pained look.

"We'll come back for you," she promised.

"RUN -- damn it!" he yelled. "We'll hold out as long as it takes."

As one, the three heroes raced into the waiting numbers of minions. Crimson Veil kicked and bludgeoned her way into them with Dr. Life at her side. Once outside the prison cell's mystic wards, Jackal Girl arranged her idols in such a manner as to open a portal to the Egyptian Land of the Dead. The heroes were gone before the rest of the Regents arrived.

[***]

Back at the Regent's headquarters, Psychic King was furious. His completely and utterly perfect plan had been screwed up by his vastly inferior co-regents. Now Crimson Veil -- a mere human! -- had been allowed to rescue Jackal Girl and Dr. Life, and Princess Bloodstone had been unable to track them down. She claimed they were on another plane of existence, leaving Psychic King doubting her competence yet again.

[***]

Had he been aware of what the heroes were planning ...

The three fugitive heroes were not where they were supposed to be. Instead of being in the gloomy, perpetually moon-shadowed Egyptian Land of the Dead, they were in a subterranean chamber which had been utterly shattered -- its once majestic nine foot tall statues now broken rubbles of stone & dust, the walls artfully covered in hieroglyphics had been carved over and the perpetually renewed offerings which once graced the foots of each statue scattered, or stolen.

A piteous, "Noooo ...," escaped from Alisha al Ryahda / Jackal Girl's throat.

"Oh, this can't be good," Dr. Life looked to Crimson Veil for an explanation seeing as Jackal Girl had collapsed to her already heavily scarred knees in tears.

"This is Alisha's Sanctum Sanctorum," the crimson hooded heroine began.

"It was the place of the first magical ritual performed by her Grandmother when she arrived here over sixty years ago. Here is where she worships her gods and goddesses, gives them their offerings and transports stolen items to their designated rightful homes. Most of this place was transported in secret from somewhere in the deserts of Egypt close to the Nile."

"This is more than destroyed ... it was desecrated," she shook her head.

"Who would do this?"

"Someone who should have known better," Crimson Veil let her gaze fall upon her friend. They had grown up fighting crime together, each mentored by another until such time as they were needed to take over the fight. Midnight Mask had been slain when Crimson Veil was only eighteen. The previous Jackal Girl had decided to retire from active crime fighting at the ripe old age of sixty-five, a few years after Midnight Mask's death. Alisha's Grandmother had since returned home to tend to the Grand Temple back in Egypt.

Dr. Life, having healed himself up from his torture wounds, padded over to Alisha to see what good he could do for her shredded flesh and battered psyche. It fell to Dakota / Crimson Veil, to spot the tiny speck of light which stood out beyond the norm of the wreckage wrought there.

"Alisha, what's this?" Crimson voiced softly as she approached the glimmer of luminescence in this otherwise dark sub-chamber.

"Huh?" from Alisha then, "STAY AWAY!" she yelled, despite any risk of discovery. She scrambled over and excavated the sand and broken stone around that which glimmered.

As she dug up the final artifact of the old Sanctum, it began to glow stronger with a belligerent red brightness. Both supers closed in on either side of Jackal Girl. The small figurine -- at one time each of the nine tall statues had one of these in its chest cavity -- must have been knocked aside as the Sanctum had been torn apart and buried beneath a large fragment of another statue, eventually covered in dust and debris.

How the despoilers had missed this, seeing as how they had stolen the other eight highly valuable replicas was disconcerting.

"It is Set," Crimson Veil whispered to Dr. Life.

"Yes," Jackal Girl nodded. "It is Set, Lord of the Red Desert and he is summoning me to stand in judgement before my patrons. He is no friend of mine either."

"Don't go," Dr. Life immediately suggested.

"Would you consider never practicing medicine again?" Alisha looked with a tragic mirthfulness up and over her shoulder into his eyes. "No sooner could you ignore the suffering of others can I ignore this summons, Conrad. I let my Sanctum Sanctorum be desecrated and I must answer for that sacrilege," she added with a heartfelt sigh.

"Jackal Girl, is there anything we can do? Stand witness beside you?" Crimson Veil offered. Conrad nodded his willingness to travel along as well.

"This road I travel I must walk alone," she began laying her small idols out in the manner she now knew would lead her to the Land of the Dead ... no more deviations from her true path.

"How long should we wait for you?" Dakota inquired instead.

"I have no clue. Give me a week to present my case and for the Divine Ones to come to their judgement. After that ...," and she rose up and hugged Crimson Veil as if they were the closest of sisters parting ways for the final time. They broke that passionate embrace so that Alisha could shake Conrad's hand. After all, while she had known Dakota over half her life, as much as she liked the Good Doctor, she hardly knew the man.

The figurine of Set glowed with a blinding intensity then the pathway to the Egyptian Land of the Dead was finally open. Five seconds after Jackal Girl passed through the portal, it collapsed into so many magical sparks and broken mirror-phantasms of what lay beyond.

(THE TRI-CITIES ~ SIX NIGHTS LATER)

Crimson Veil and Dr. Life had been reduced to little more than scavengers in a city they had once swung from the rooftops of the tallest of buildings and protected with their lives. Now they had to stay close to the wrecked Antiquity Shop which had been the front business for Alisha al-Ryahda's secret War on Crime. Only inside could they be safe from a random mental scan by Psychic King. Physically, the Sanctum Sanctorum was three levels beneath the store with a subway line separating the two ~ so strangers weren't likely to happen upon it despite the five ton, perfectly balanced doorway having been broken down too.

They had raided just about every drink- and snack-machine in a two block radius to supply their growing hungers. They were also able to read their obituaries -- Psychic King had declared Crimson Veil and Jackal Girl to be deceased with closed casket funerals, rapid cremations and the resulting ashes scattered in the River of Angels.

Dr. Life was still 'in custody' thus unmentioned in the latest news reports. Technetronic and T-Rex had been at the funeral as the public face of the Tri-City Alliance ... and were now recruiting new members onto the team's roster. To claim to have seen the three survivors since then was a felony in the city, though that was on some really shaky Constitutional grounds.

The Tri-Cities High Commissioner and Supreme Council (they didn't call them 'Mayors' and 'City Councilmen' anymore and hadn't since the three cities united back in the 1960's) had rebuked a Federal offer to send in a squad of M.O.R.A.L.E. {the US Metahuman Organization for Registration, Aid and Law Enforcement} supers to make sure everything was okay. The humans in charge insisted they had everything well in hand.

Both Crimson Veil and Dr. Life wanted to make contact with some of their important sources in government and on the streets to get a better picture of events as they unfolded, but they had another critical consideration which caused them to cling to the shadows until Jack Girl's return. They had to accept they had temporarily lost their other two members.

Isolated from the outside world and with limited access to anything entertaining, Crimson Veil and Dr. Life did what came natural to them. They exercised, sparred, and practiced every spare minute of every day. Neither spent more than four hours sleeping anymore so all they had was working out ... and fucking. It was more than just sex too ... it was a bandage over the mental anguish which came from letting so many others down.

"I would kill for a shower -- even a cold shower at this juncture," Crimson Veil panted into his ear. Even alone and deep underground, it was their instinct to remain quiet. They had already developed a pebble throwing game, in Morse Code of course. Memory games and 'Name That Location' had helped fill the time as well ... and dampen down the worry.

"I have three apartments around town ... all with warm showers," he whispered back playfully. "Some people are going to pay for keeping me from them."

"You two are the cutest couple," the voice of Alisha broke the near silence. Despite being nearly naked the two lithely untangled and rushed her. She absorbed their hugs joyously.

"YOU are alive!" Conrad whispered.

"I've missed you so much," Dakota added.

"... you are more endowed than I thought you were," she giggled in response. "And why are you both whispering?"

"I'll get dressed," Conrad backed off.

"What was the verdict, what took you so long, and yeah ... he is," Dakota snickered. "Oh, and we are whispering because we are wanted fugitives, who happen to be legally dead now."

"The verdict ... OH, by the Gods and Goddesses, they are beyond furious -- with whomever destroyed my Sanctum Sanctorum, and they are way past sending nightmares, poltergeists and the Ten Fucking Plagues!" her teeth shone in the twilight luminescence she herself brought with her.

"What's their plan?" Dakota herself smiled. After all, it was the general indifference with which the majority of Egyptian deities viewed modern life that had always annoyed Crimson Veil.

"We are reconstructing the Sanctum -- tonight. That's first. Also, from this point until vengeance is had, Set will be sharing an overview of my work here with his First Cousin, Nephthys' Son -- Anubis. Don't bring up their close kinship by the way. They are sensitive about it."

"Now get dressed and stand back. This is going to be thunderous," Alisha raised her arms so that her cloak's sleeves fell back past her elbows.

"What's the chance of the Regent's magicians detecting this?" Conrad worried.

"Oh, every true Magician within the lower Forty-Nine is going to sense this go down -- no more fucking around means NO MORE fucking around. My nine deities are of one mind on this matter and I thought I would never see that happen," she motioned the two non-Egyptians back beyond the edges of the Inner Holy Circle.

Eight new figurines were set in the rough place they would occupy once the ritual was completed. After that, Jackal Girl began to invoke each divinity.

First came the earth tremors, tiny really at first -- barely noticeable. They would rise up into one, terrifying yet highly localized level 9.5 magnitude earthquake with level 5.8 and 4.5 aftershocks going on hours afterwards.

Next came the winds whistling through the streets and tunnels of the city ... miles and miles of streets focusing the cyclonic forces bent on using their force alone to reshape and reconstruct the temple complex itself. Animals ran and hid, birds flew out over the bay if they were able and people were bloody terrified. Some were even picked up, whirled around and deposited miles away from where they had been taken from.

In some cases visibility declined down to only a few feet. Above-ground statues were buried in newsprint. The water in in fountains all over the place where whipped heavenly before other magical forces took over their fates. All and all, in was an unmistakable event few could even begin to comprehend and only three could fully understand.

The thunderous finale came when the first earthquake ceased and the winds came to an inexplicable stop. Sheets and sheets of water, thrown aloft and held there for nearly a minute came crashing back down ... everywhere. No exterior venue was spared. People who had been trapped outside, or under awnings, were drenched.

And, the only answer to it all, as enigmatic as it was, was posted across the city by an army of bots, created by Technetronic for Crimson Veil, for a one-time-only multimedia stunt should he ever be unavailable ...

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Back in the Regents of Wrath HQ, Psychic King was livid. How could he project his iron control over the city and everyone in it when shit like this supernatural calamity happened? Worse, none of his magical practitioners, new, or established, knew what to make of it.

"Well," he snapped at the assembly while the undead minions of Corpse Wail busied themselves tidying up the place -- hardly the most inspired, or agile, of cleaning crews. "What happened?"

The looks on their faces said it all.

"It was a damn earthquake!" he thundered. "Where was it centered?"

Again, the unsure, if not downright terrified by their own ignorance, looked ...

"I ... ah ... have some preliminary information," Digital Duke spoke up. Psychic King's harsh glare wasn't one to inspire much guessing, or lack of certainty. "It appears ... the entire city moved ... going out about ... thirty miles in all directions."

"Someone moved the entire God-Damn-City?" Psychic King. "How come we had no warning, no hint such a device might be out there, or their willingness to move against us before it actually happened?"

Digital Duke clearly had no further information, but was pinned by the King's attention because he was the last one to have spoken up.