The mad mystic stared at the dark box in his hands. They were his, finally! Most people believed that they, much as their former owner, were a myth. But they were real, oh yes they were. Ha. Ha. They were said to be made -no, rather they were "shaped"- by a mad Austrian magician and inventor to the specifications of their eventual owner. Smelted by blazing hellfire and cooled by the blood of Frost-Giants. Made by a mixture of Uru and the Empyrean metal of the terrible Seraphim, non-Euclidean sigils were inscribed upon it. Unlimited ammunition with horrible screeching force behind them. The perfect murder-weapons. Philosophers say that perfection calls to be used. The perfect musical instrument cannot help but be played and perfectly at that. The perfect plane cannot help but be flown, again, with perfection. These guns, the perfect killing machines, yearned to kill, to slaughter, to mercilessly mow down crowds. Yes. They needed to be sanctified in blood, the now even more mad mystic thought. They don't care whether it's mine of someone else's, but they need blood. He shrugged. Better someone else than him. And besides he was a mystic; it wasn't as if he was all that averse to the idea of killing. He found the sign to begin when a happy little girl, walking by with her happy little family, appeared to him on the street. He shot all of them, of course. First in the belly: to make them realize what had happened to them. Then in the head: for that dramatic explosion of brains. If one was to become a homicidal spree-killer, one had to do it with a certain panache, after all. He started walking down the street, killing everyone in sight. It was fun, as he knew it would be. The guns were being used for their perfect purpose, the destruction of lives, and it was rewarding him with power. Bang, bang, chortle, chuckle. He idly thought that there should have been more recoil, as he stared at the fire belching from the barrels of the guns. Finally, as they would inevitably would, the police showed up. The mad mystic smiled slightly; now had come the time to unleash at least some of the true might that the engines of horror held. Quickly dipping down and scraping some of the blood spilled onto the hot pavement onto the guns, he quickly muttered a weak unleashing spell. The blood boiled off quickly, though he felt no heat as such, and it began to shine an unhealthy shade of vermilion. He gently squeezed the trigger, letting loose a single bullet. With fire and fury, the bullet screamed its way to the police. When it reached its targets, it exploded, spraying evil shrapnel about. Men screamed, people died; a good time was had by one. The mad mystic saw the carnage and he felt very, very good about it. To put it as (melo)dramatically as possible, his dark heart was warmed by the evil he had caused. Yes, that would do. "My dark heart," the mad mystic said with a grin. As soon as the guns were satisfied with the kill, he would have to see about trying to get a dark heart. He had heard that they bestowed life ever lasting to their owners. While he was musing upon this, he totally ignored the remaining police. That was when they started to shoot at him. "Bastards," he hissed out, as the bullets tore through his mostly unfeeling body. "You bastards! How dare you!" In his anger and his insanity, he pressed the guns to his body and fed them his blood. He hollered out the incantation that would unleash the engines of death's power completely. He no longer felt even the slight sting of pain as more and more bullets riddled his flesh, biting chunks of it away. He would have gleefully slaughtered the remaining few that were left alive on the streets and gone on to more populated pastures, when a fist from nowhere crashed into his nose, knocking him down. Before he blacked out, he heard a few comments. "I can't take my eyes off you for a minute, can I?" said a voice, chiding. Then, with great disgust, it went on: "Mystics. They make rotten boiled cabbages seem intelligent." With that, the mad mystic went unconscious. When he awoke, he was faced with a great deal of grimly smirking policemen, all looking at him purposefully. He soon blacked out once more. Later, the police forensic department found that the bullets all had the names of their victims all engraved upon them. Including fifteen with the license plate of the car they had destroyed. ECLIPSE, EVIL'S DARK SHADOW Peter Parker tried not to let his head hit his desk too often. It was not only a practice in futility but also strained at his neck something fierce. He whimpered as he looked at the huge dusty files on his desk. He would cry, he really would. In fact, he could feel his eyes watering slightly. Must be the smoke. Wait, smoke? "PARKER!" J. Jonah Jameson barked at him. He tended to do quite a bit of barking, yelling, shouting, and other variations on the same theme. His face was perpetually red, his veins almost always stuck out, and his rock-like face seemed molded into a furious scowl. And his personality wasn't all that great either. "What are you doing?!" "Research, J.J.," Peter said as insolently as he thought he could get away with, which was not by much. "Sheldon found some indications that there were Marvels, actual Marvels before the Human Torch and Namor." Jameson very much wanted to have an excuse to yell some more at Parker. However since this was for Sheldon . . . "Harumph! Well then, get to work! I may not like these 'Marvels' of Phil's but . . . Get to Work!" "Yes, sir, J.J. sir," Peter said, snapping off a salute. Jameson tried to storm off but his heart wasn't in it. Peter smiled beatifically after him but his smile died slowly and with a great deal of pathetic whimpering. "I hate my life." He sighed, then got back to it. At Empire State University, a slightly vexed (and not, it should be noted, of the mad category) scientist stared at a crystal. It had been found in the ruins of a skyscraper on the West Coast and had been mistaken as a simple diamond. However, a qualified geologist had somehow gotten a look at it and found there to be certain . . . discrepancies. And so that geologist had brought the jewel to him, the slightly vexed but increasingly frustrated scientist. He had realized what it was straight off, right enough: a crystalline data storage matrix. Now he had to find the right frequency to read the information. He had been trying to find the blasted thing for three months now, near continuously. Blast, blast, DAMN! The cool wood of his desk calmed him somewhat, as did the lingering scent of the varnish. Patience was a virtue, after all. He almost fell asleep, his mind slowly falling into a state of no-thought, a sort of virtual nirvana, all alone and content. Then the beeping slowly pulled him out. "Oh, my," he muttered, his face going pale in a rush. He very carefully jotted down the frequency and then told the computer what to do. He sat and waited. Then, when the crystal finished expelling its information he allowed himself a smile. Yes, there were reports of, at least, one . . . proto-Marvel working in the West Coast, from about during the first World War to until just before the Second. There were varied reports, of course. There always were. Odd reports at that. Alien invasions, science experiments gone awry, and all the things that he had come to expect from today's newspapers. However these reports were so cloaked in such obtuse language that he could barely get to the truth. Now if he could only find what they had called him . . . THE ILLUMINATE, JUSTICE FROM ON HIGH -Murmur the Fallen Not Squadron Supreme; Sovereign Supreme ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MyPoints-Free Rewards When You're Online. Start with up to 150 Points for joining! http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/805 eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/xxy http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications