Victory, Chapter 1

[DAVID: And so begins my next novel "Victory" which is long overdue for release but its coming can be measured now in weeks! It's the sequel to Legacy (ISBN 1425907431) about the last hurrah for super-powered heroes whose big heyday was methaphorically the day before yesterday. The story begins with the end of a sentence! It's been a few years -- this scene's set in August 2023 -- so I can say the sentence begins "With a wave of her hand,"]

            the Empress of Earth 314 felt life within Zenia Sinclair’s belly.

            With the power she’d acquired from between worlds courtesy of the Esperian world-engine global network, the monarch of the Uniforce peered into the expectant mother’s womb. As she’d frozen the world in time, the Empress could now do anything to anyone she pleased.

            When the Empress and her Gadgetmaster had former United States President and Uniforce operative Emmett Sinclair’s daughter kidnapped, Zenia was intended to become the Empress. In a perfect world, Zenia would have been the receptacle for the Empress’ mind and her own successor.

            But something went wrong twenty years ago, wrong enough for the Empress to rely on her own resources to perpetuate her reign. With Daniel James Gallatin at her side as the trusted hero Gadgetmaster acted on Earth below, an empire befitting the Empress was built by her knowing and unknowing servants. Slaves, with no will save her own.

            The Empress noticed the others frozen around her. With a gaze into her mind the telepaths of this world would have envied, the Empress briefly surveyed the life and times of Melody Danielle Thomason, born August 5, 2005 and the latest hero to call herself Miss Twirl. Despite no powers of her own, Melody was an accomplished prodigy, a formidable athlete, and even frozen as she was, the Empress sensed her anger, her anger so palpable it might have overwhelmed her mortal self.

            Her mortal self, the Empress chuckled. Since she’d gone through the passage the main Esperian world-engine at Intramoros had created and returned, the Empress was tethered to omnipotence and crowned with immortality. 

            Only the Empress could move, and she turned her golden, Aphrodite-garbed body to silver-haired Generis. Born Genevieve Victoria Landeris on September 1, 1985, the Empress sensed Generis’ insecurity. The Team Europa who Generis had led against the Revelationists, apocalypse-obsessed maniacs the Empress had no problem funding, had also come against the Uniforce in various guises through Eastern Europe and central Asia. After returning from the confines between universes, the Empress brought her and the other women fighters in Singapore here for her perusal.

            Staging the fight with Human Defense Leaguers, supplementing them with SPLITENDs, and convincing the population of the island city that the super humans there were at fault was so simple. Blocking Generis’ access to her energy form and Zenia’s access to her teleportation ability was even easier since in her younger days Zenia had spent so much time aboard the moon-orbiting Seat of Power. She just didn’t remember it, thanks to having had her memories crossed with an inmate at New Haven’s rehabilitation camp years ago.

            Beacon’s presence broke in on her reverie. The eldest of the heroines there, born August 22, 1966, had the most focus and promise. First among the Superstars as Ricochet, the Empress remembered Cindy St. Gerard Gallatin as taking no prisoners. The force field she generated around herself and projected in various forms against others sealed off her heart for a long time. There was no love for her to manipulate until she met Randall Obregon. They were brisk in their wooing, brisk in their 2006 wedding, and brisk in their … disappointment a year later.

            The Empress remembered she’d promised Cindy to Randall, her ex-husband who metamorphosed into the spider-like teleporter who now served her as Trapdoor, but she had to ask herself what Randall saw in the now graying-haired woman. For that matter, what did Beacon’s current husband Gadgetmaster (the real one, who married her in 2011) see in her that the Empress didn’t offer, even before her apotheosis, in abundance?

            The woman born Elisabeth Mercedes Petra cut off that thought. It was unbecoming Her Imperial Majesty.

            The Empress turned again to Zenia Sinclair, Zenia who’d been the source of more trouble than anyone had anticipated. Zenia’s face had a grim determination etched into it that seemed to dare anyone to cross her. The teleporter born October 18, 2001 to two already-pledged servants of the Empress would have walked through fire to save her and Keith Coleridge’s baby.

            The Empress could empathize with that. When her attempt to imprint Zenia Sinclair with her own memories failed, the Empress decided to achieve that objective by her own child. Elisabeth Mercedes Petra presented herself to Daniel James Gallatin in love and presented to the world a girl, Zeta, on the fourth of July 2009. At fourteen and wearing the crown of the New Sovereignty she’d instituted, Zeta had been prepared to succeed and become her mother.

            Unfortunately for the people of Toronto, the Empress’ birth pangs made a trip to Mount Sinai Hospital necessary. She recognized a nurse there and couldn’t risk being identified for who she was.

            Whatever the Empress made her desire, she laughed at the thought, became the first priority of those who served her. Toronto was soon devastated by an e-bomb she’d considerably modified from its original design courtesy of Daniel Gallatin and Paramax, her partner from her own future.

            She could have made gifted the four immobilized heroes to her personal bodyguard and assassin, the tiger-striped Raksha. The Empress’ power from between worlds had also frozen her in mid-leap.

            Marlena Carlotta Pinchón, the TransAsia executive born on the last day of the People Power Revolution in 1986, had been encouraged to welcome the power of Raksha. Unlike the nameless, homeless women who’d accepted the “blessed burden” three times before, Marlena possessed the distinct ruthlessness as well as comprehensive submissiveness to obey her Empress without question.

            The Empress touched Raksha’s forehead. She landed on her feet and growled with pleasure.

            The former Marlena Pinchón forgot herself for a moment before she knelt low. “My Empress,” she moaned, “I praise you.” Raksha gestured as she lowered her head, “These infidels stand on your holy ground, My Empress! Permit me to,” she leered as she unsheathed her claws, “sacrifice them for their trespass.”

            “No.”

            After a pause, Raksha offered, “May I ... encourage them to serve you as I do, Beloved?”

            “They already do.” The Empress reached for Zenia’s protruding belly. “My sacrifice for their effrontery will be,” she punctuated as she reached into the teleporter’s womb and pulled forth her unborn son, “one they will never miss.” The Empress protected the unborn child with her aura and gave him her finger to suck upon.

            Raksha said nothing as the Empress’ eyes flashed once more and then left her alone with the unborn child.

 

            In the midst of the Singaporean street, the four women reappeared to Mariner’s surprise with the Defense Leaguers’ armaments pointed at them. Cadmus was positioned to take advantage of that, which he did by butting two guards’ heads together. Zenia leapt from the circle she’d been part of and reappeared beside the giant.

            “Back so soon?” Cadmus asked as she elbowed one guard.

            “You don’t want to know,” Generis grumbled as she used her energy-form to shield the teleporter and the giant from attack. “Now get out of the way!” The backlash from Generis’ energy form knocked Beacon shielding herself and Miss Twirl off their feet. Impatient with her, Generis growled, “Yo, Cindy! Three coming in!”

            “Out of my way,” Miss Twirl growled back to back with Beacon as the latter opened part of her force field for the former’s baton to stick through. An oscillating frequency from one end shattered the plastic-made weapons pointed at them. “Mariner,” she mouthed through the soundproof force field, “out of the way!”

            The crashed husband of Zenia could barely perceive what Melody Thomason tried to say, but he figured it out once the left epaulet of his armor started to crack. He ran and picked Dormouse out of his captors’ grip as he shot into the air.

            With shattered glasses, Dormouse looked at Mariner in a haze. “Oh, it’s you,” and uncharacteristically asked, “Where’d Sergey go?”

            Mariner’s chest panel sprouted a faint image of Image’s head and responded, “I’m here, but I’m not feeling good.”

            “How would you know?” Dormouse shouted as Mariner fell into Cadmus’ bulked arms as Beacon, Generis, Miss Twirl, and Transwarp covered their retreat toward the city center.

            “We’ll get pulverized if we stay out here much longer,” Beacon assessed as a radar-guided scramjet homed in on them as they approached the accident-gazing crowd.

            “I can’t argue with that,” Generis agreed. “Melody,” she snapped, “get out of the force field.”

            “Have I got a choice?” Cindy Gallatin shrank her force field skintight around herself. The force pushed Miss Twirl to her knees on the paved early morning roadway. She was ready to remark about her rude landing when she saw a black-striped orange arm whose owner stalked the rearguard heroes.

            What Raksha wanted after their early tea with the Empress couldn’t be good, especially since Beacon and Generis had their backs to her. Beacon expanded her field to cover both sides of the street as Generis placed her own energized hands upon her.

            “This worked in Kursk,” Generis encouraged Beacon, the conduit for magnifying her destructive energy, “and I wasn’t at full strength then.”

            “Don’t remind me,” Cindy countered. “I know this is going to,”

            Before Beacon said, “hurt,” a white light appeared that devastated the city block the force field touched, separating the pursued and their pursuers with tons of debris. Both women wanted to go to sleep, and they would have slept forever had Miss Twirl not caught Raksha off guard, a remarkable feat in itself, with her baton that she’d thrown at her head. The assassin reeled, and she turned to Miss Twirl in fury as the baton returned to her hand with Raksha holding it.

            “What’s this,” the former Marlena Pinchón snarled as she nailed Miss Twirl in her solar plexus and knocked her to the ground. “So you want to play?” Raksha raised her hand and unsheathed her claws. “How’s it feel when I play with you?” Melody Thomason looked up as Raksha readied to deliver the fatal blow.

            “I can’t blame her,” Mariner rounded the corner and faced the struggle with his wife who helped him to his feet. He pointed his right arm toward her, “I don’t like cats either.”

            “Then you’re next,” Raksha retorted as she delivered a blow that hit Miss Twirl’s raised baton and broke one of the assassin’s claws. The tigress had no time to react as Miss Twirl drove a blow into her lightly armored midsection and tried to roll away. Transwarp caught sight of Melody struggling and teleported near in order to get her out of Raksha’s path.

            Once Transwarp and Miss Twirl appeared by Mariner as he arrived with the unconscious Beacon, the youngest hero looked around and grumbled, “I feel awful.”

            “You are not doing that here,” Dormouse approached and exclaimed before Melody heaved onto both their garments. Dormouse backed away in disgust and felt Raksha’s jagged, unbroken claw around his neck.

            “Stop or he’s dead before he hits the ground!”

            Normally, Mariner and some others would have considered her offer. Dormouse had proven least willing to carry his weight and most willing to flee from danger.

            “Technically,” a voice bellowed from a figure that towered over Raksha, “he’s already on the ground, so he can’t fall to it.” With her open hand, Raksha raked the air and was halted near Cadmus’ bulging chest. The giant took Raksha’s furred forearm and squeezed hard. “I’ve heard about you,” Cadmus roared through gritted teeth. “You murdered Louanne in India, you stalked Musa in Senegal, and you’re ... just sick!”

            Cadmus’ expression made Raksha’s eyes bulge and Generis smile. “I knew Cadmus had it in him,” Genevieve Landeris sneered as Raksha’ furred arm began to swell.

            “I must be careful,” Raksha uncharacteristically offered as her grip on Dormouse’s neck became weak enough for Transwarp to teleport him away. “That’s another life, giant,” she punctuated with the claws from her free hand that raked Cadmus’ arm and broke his grip, “and I’ll relieve you of yours!” Taking separate positions around the tiger-faced assassin, Cadmus, Miss Twirl, Dormouse, Beacon, Generis, Mariner, and a reformed Image faced her down.

            “Go ahead,” Generis brandished her energy form, “make our day.”

            A spotlight then shone on Raksha from the cloudy sky. “RAKSHA, HEAR ME!” The others searched for the source of the voice.

            The world became nothing as the tigress knelt. “What is your will, my Delight?”

            “Leave them, slave,” the Empress said as she replaced Raksha with her own radiant, golden-garbed form. Image “looked” across the electromagnetic spectrum and couldn’t see who was speaking.

            “My heroes,” the Empress addressed them and, from each of their perspectives, made penetrating eye contact, “I now appear to all my servants in the world. But just for you,” she pointed to each of them, “I’ll tell you what I intend to accomplish.” Behind the Empress, a baby cooed that she next made appear in her cradled arms.

            Transwarp gasped at the now-perceived void in her belly. She braced herself to tear her child away with one hand and into the Empress with the other.

            The Empress sensed this and froze her limbs in place. Zenia screamed, “You monster!”

            “But the child isn’t born yet, dear Zenia, just conceived. You might hurt him.”

            Mariner arced toward his wife as the sovereign spat at them. “I am the enemy you never defeated. I am the enemy you can’t defeat!”

            “Get to the point, Empress,” Beacon seethed. 

            “My ‘point,’ Cynthia,” the Empress related and made Beacon wince, “is your recognition of me is long overdue. I am the Empress of this world.” Then she exulted, “I am the Goddess of this world!”

            “And the biggest blowhard,” Image snickered.

            “Your brother didn’t think so, Sergey,” the Empress burned into him with her gaze. “Oh, that was before he died in my arms!”

            The hologram deduced, “You killed him!” Cadmus tried to restrain him, but it was hard to hold a hologram.

            “Please,” the Empress dismissed Image by scattering his holographic form to the four winds, “I released him from his mortal coil as I stepped forth from mine.”

            “We will find you. We will stop you,” Beacon roared and the others affirmed.

            “It’s too late. But here’s what you can do.” The Empress outlined, “I seek the praise of my people. I have saved them, and they will praise me. I have made them whole, and they will worship me.”

            “Alleluia,” Mariner muttered when he turned from his wife. Keith Coleridge pointed to the sovereign. “Do you,”

            Mariner froze before the Empress spoke again. “That’s better. All over the world, my people will prepare their ultimate expression of their love for me. They will proceed from my temples in their heart and prepare their offerings to me on my throne. Their complete and total surrender to me will come at the Olympics in ten months’ time. That’s enough time for all people and nations to get their affairs in order, don’t you think?”

            “Or enough time for us to get a head start to stop you!” Generis flexed and shot her energized arms toward the Empress. In a panic, Zenia teleported in its path and blocked them. Mariner turned toward Generis with rage.

            “She’s got my baby,” Transwarp cried.

            “Our baby,” her husband Mariner corrected.

            “You might get your wish,” Generis growled as she retracted her arms.

            “Please don’t fight over me,” the Empress addressed them. “There is room for all of you, slaves, at my altar.”

            “We … are … no … one’s … slaves,” Transwarp forced out as she recovered her breath.

            “You have ten months,” the Empress concluded, “to ask yourselves why not. I … am … your … Empress.” Then she and the infant disappeared, an act that left the heroes and some stragglers through debris in early morning darkness.

            Several heroes and most of the crowd fell like their strings had been cut. The appointed leader, a potbellied magistrate who’s been roused out of bed by the struggle, faced Transwarp. “Mi hermana,” he betrayed his Filipino birth, “did you say you’d lost your child?”

            Zenia Sinclair heaved before she got the words out. “Yes. The Empress took him away from me.” She corrected under Mariner’s soul-searching gaze, “From us,” as she took his bare hand in hers.

            The man fingered a rosary in his pocket and prayed over her, “Mi Dios, give unto this child of yours the peace that passes all understanding.” He placed a hand upon her, “Vaya con Dios, my child. My wife miscarried five years ago.”

            “Out of my way,” Generis raged and brushed him off. “Zenia, get up.”

            The teleporter lashed out, “Shut up!” She slapped Generis across the face. When she buckled from the unexpected blow, she looked astonished and her super human companions talked among themselves. 

            “What’s the big idea?”

            “I am Rodrigo Ruiz de Montoya, and no child-stealer will command us!” The rosary-bearing man stood erect and addressed Mariner. “You are her husband, yes?”

            “Yes,” he trailed off.

            “We must get her to a hospital. All of you,” he beckoned, “there’s a hospital three blocks away.” Then Rodrigo turned to the disaster relief personnel and others who’d assembled behind him. “We must help them, my friends!”

            Cindy St. Gerard Gallatin looked and sighed relief. The mob she’d expected to confront with the others stood behind them on a mission. As Image began to reform inside Mariner’s encased power source, Cadmus, Dormouse, Miss Twirl, and Generis were in danger of being carried away on a wave of goodwill.