On a distant world, a mummy-robot and a brown-robed monk silently
made their way to the center of a blasphemous cathedral.
Though the robot lurched ungainly, it's servos making an uneven
whirring sound as they moved the broken machine through
black-stone hallways, it held it's bandaged head high, the ghostly
Pschent crown floating just above it. The robed figure kept his
head down, hood over his bald head and a silver gong in his hands
which he occasionally struck. They unerringly navigated a maze of
hallways that had been designed to drive mortal minds into
madness, traveling deeper into the evil cathedral until they
entered the central auditorium.
In the cavernous room they found a dozen of the planet's alien
inhabitants, naked and twisted in piles of two or three. They
seemed to be arranged geometrically around a massive
space-pentagram that had been painted on the floor with blood,
bile and chalk. Every one of them were dead, their faces contorted
in ecstatic agonies.
In the middle of the room, in the center of the space-pentagram,
stood a thin red man with greasy black hair, a pencil moustache
and a curled goatee. He was dressed in a formal tuxedo, had an
opera cape over his pointed shoulders, and an iron two-pronged
pitchfork in one hand. A chill filled the entire auditorium, like
a sense of crawling villainy that oozed out from his evil presence
and sucked dry any hidden heartbeats that might remain in the
surrounding corpses.
When red man looked up and saw the two newcomers, he smiled and
gave them a friendly wave. "Hello there! I'm the Devil!"
"Greetings and salutations," said the hooded figure, bowing with
carefully neutral respect. "I am one of the Invisible Monks. I
apologize that you cannot perceive me. My space-kung-fu is so
powerful that it entirely erases me from all sight." He gestured
to the undead machine beside him. "This is Emperor-M, ruler of
Planet-M."
The mummified robot used a mechanical arm to lift a troublesome
piece of gauze from its video-eye and examined the odd positions
the alien bodies. "Server-ping-boolean-response-required,
were-these-flesh-things-fornicating-when-attempting-to-communicate
-with-you, end-query?"
"Yes," the Devil said with a sigh, looking about at piles around
him. "The space-incantations to summon me to this non-hell realm
only requires some mystic sentences and a single brazen act of
evil, but more often than not, these cults create unnecessarily
elaborate rites that involve hours of consensual physical
activity. At first I thought they were confused, that they
believed natural biology was somehow a terrible, forbidden
thing... but then I realized they just liked the rutting."
The undead machine stared at the bodies without understanding.
The monk rung his silver gong once. "The super-civilizations have
agreed to a tournament, a series of space-champion challenges
never before recorded in any space-history-book."
"Yes, I know. That's why I am here."
The monk rung his silver gong again. "It was said that you
perished, an egg dropped and shattered by the very wizard that you
now wait to face in space-combat." { Diabolical Devilman #18 }
"So I was," he replied, "fatally murdered to death. All things can
die... even I. And there is a terrible place reserved for the
denizens of Hell when they pass on, with punishments and
sufferings a hundred-fold more harrowing than anything found in my
own realm..." the Devil's voice cracked with the memory.
But he opened his fist, revealing a tiny bit of parchment no
bigger than a playing card, the writing on it smeared and
illegible. He seemed to regain his courage looking at it, and
grinned maliciously. "But I made a deal to regain my freedom. And
thanks to the sacrificial death-rites performed by these
alien-cultists, I will show the Super Wizard From Space first-hand
the tortures I had to endure."
"Battle-calculation-function-results,
we-estimate-a-less-than-zero-point-six-repeating-chance-that-you-
will-be-able-to-defeat-the-Super-Wizard-From-Space-in-single-space
-combat, end-statement."
The Devil looked at the piece of paper in his clawed hand.
Clenching it in his fist he crumpled it satisfyingly. "Winning
isn't my intention."
A deep rumbling thunder rolled in from outside somewhere, echoing
off the black stones and filling the auditorium. The sky was
cracking open. Someone was arriving.
"You two best be going," said the Devil, pulling a black domino
mask from a jacket pocket and placing it on his face with fond
remembrance. "Cosmic tournaments of this sort forbid more than two
space-champions in combat at once... and it sounds like the first
of them is arriving now."
The Invisible Monk rung his gong a final time and bowed to the now
masked man. The robot broadcast a series of radio-hieroglyphics
from his phantom crown, opening a sarcophagus-shaped portal, a
glowing space-doorway which he and the monk retreated into before
it snapped shut with a creak and a pop.
The Devil took the few moments alone to psyche himself up,
breathing in and out quickly and shaking his hands to relax them.
It felt good to be wearing his old crime-fighting costume again,
felt good to be on the mortal realms. If things went well, this
would not be the last time.
The rumble turned into a deafening thunder, then a series of
booming crunches as the object falling from the sky started
crashing through the upper levels of the cathedral. It went right
through the black stonework, the ancient masonry, the petrified
timbers, and finally exploded through the spiral-filled fresco
painted on the ceiling of the auditorium. As rubble smashed down
around the space-pentagram, some larger pieces crushing the piled
bodies with wet squishes, a pale glow filled the cavernous room
and the golden crowned Super Wizard From Space floated
majestically to the floor.
They stared at each other, the greatest of enemies, but once upon
a time, the greatest of allies. The dust settled around them for
seemed like space-eternity.
"My star-instruments alerted me the moment these alien-cultists
started the hell-rites that would allow you access to the mortal
realm," said the Super Wizard From Space. "I never truly expected
you to return. I was certain that my cosmic judgement had dealt
you a fair punishment."
"Fair? You didn't give me half a chance to explain myself. You
were happy to team-up with the Diabolical Devilman to fight
space-crime, but as soon as you accidentally discovered my secret
identity... that the Diabolical Devilman was actually
mild-mannered ruler of hell, the Devil... you killed me! Without
hesitation!"
A vibrational hum emenated from the Super Wizard From Space's
fists as unimaginable science-sorcerous power welled up. "And now
I must again. Space-justice demands it."
The Devil frowned, disappointed. He took up his iron pitchfork in
both hands and took a step back, preparing himself to strike.
"Surrender," demanded the Super Wizard From Space, pointing at his
opponent. "Your hell-powers were never a threat to me."
"Quite true, old friend," the Devil spit out with some venom. "On
these mortal realms, my hell-powers are a mere fraction of their
true potential..." he spun the pitchfork in his hand, and plunged
the tongs into the floor at their feet.
The black stone gave way and they both tumbled through a thick red
mist. Caught off guard, the Super Wizard From Space fell through
an infinity while also not falling at all, the impenetrable mist
seeming to grab and yank at him, dragging him down between seven
and eight and nine disc-like dimensions at a faster and faster
speed. Sound was nonexistent, light was nonexistent, but he could
feel the cathedral, the alien world it was built upon, the entire
universe that contained it whisked up, out, and away from him.
Then he felt the heat.
The red mist suddenly dissipated, and there was an unbearable
burning from his insides and outsides, a fire that was flaring
from every atom everywhere. His eyes snapped open and saw black
mountains, red clay fields, dried riverbeds, and fire. So much
fire. Everything on fire.
A boom as he crashed to the ground, but a ground that shattered
under his weight and engulfed him in a sudden freeze. He thrashed
and climbed and tried to push up, but the rock and ice around him
was too slippery, denying him purchase. It seemed to consciously
defy all his efforts to escape, strangling him with shards when he
tried to breathe, held him down with sheets of forming ice when he
struggled.
Inevitably, the stones and gravel morphed to water, infinite ice
that stretched in miles left and right, down and up, a lake beyond
imagining that froze and froze and froze until only dirty ice
remained. A glacier prison for the Super Wizard From Space.
Walking on top the frozen landscape, the Devil came to the spot
where his foe was imprisoned. The filthy ice was just clear enough
to make out the blue and gold suit, the strength of the blonde
face, all held immoveable hundreds of feet below the surface.
The Devil had abandoned his crime fighting costume, instead
reverting to the classic uniform of his hell-office. His cape had
turned red and ragged, his tuxedo disappeared leaving only a shiny
pair of black short-pants, and a fresh pair of stubby bone horns
protruded from his forehead.
He laid down his iron pitchfork and went down on one knee, placing
a clawed hand on the ice. "Yes, on your mortal realm, you would
easily be the victor," he said with a sneer, "but now, here in my
Hell, I am restored to my full strength! Here in Hell, only the
Devil can be victorious!
"I will leave you here, a prisoner of Cocytus the demon-glacier.
You will freeze for space-eternity... as all unrepentant traitors
do, contemplating your betrayal for all time!"
.........................................
Wil Alambre, follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wilalambre
"Hurry, uni-scribe! We have less than one space-hour to get to the
negotiating table before the Great Disaster arrives!" The desperate uni-diplomat paced back and forth in the room. He kept
looking at the space-clock, watching the moments tick away and
whinnying quietly under his breath. The light in the room was starting
to fade away as ominous clouds rolled in, covered up the twin suns. It
was as if the very planet understood the impending doom and was losing
hope.
"Very well, we agree. A tournament, then, to end this rampage. But you have witnessed the power at his disposal. He has a billion billion years of our science-sorcery at his command. Will all you great super-civilizations commit your super-champions to this?"
Cocytus the demon-glacier had the Super Wizard From Space engulfed in its icy grasp, forever to be a frozen prisoner of the ninth circle of Hell. Meanwhile the victorious Devil stood atop the massive field of ice, grateful to be back home. The Devil tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and just basked
On a filthy cobblestone hell-road outside the infinite walls of Double-Dis, the Super Wizard From Space stared up at the triumphant face of the Super-Devil. The monster's massive grin dribbled thick lava as he shouted out "Hey there, jerks! Welcome to Double-Hell!"
In the ruins of an ancient city of pillars, an alien octopus pointed eight dangerous looking ray-guns at a white-bearded hermit. "You best be giving me that there data-cylinder, Gavrilo, or I'll vaporize you right where you stand, I done swear it!"
Two figures hurtled through a scarred green warp tunnel underneath the skin of the universe toward the lost planet of the silver skull machine. The Super Wizard From Space was leading the way, encased in a cocoon of hard light that protected him from the rigors of space travel. His companion, a filthy bearded hermit,
The Super Wizard From Space and the Hermit Wizard From Space were trapped in an asteroid belt by a swarm of gigantic space-bees! As it's fellow drones circled uniformly, one particularly grusome space-bee broken from the formation. It was as massive as any of the drifting asteroids, it's gigantic yellow black body big enough to drag smaller free-floating
A monstrously giant bee made of hollow electricity used its clawed legs to peel open the hull of the crashed rocket-ship. It glowed brightly with a pale light, partially transparent and seemingly fragile as it opened up the armored cockpit as if it was made of tinfoil. The ship's two occupants didn't even have a moment to shake off the shock before
The two super wizards stood stock still as the two floors of the building above them were eaten by the ghost of a cosmic megalodon. Bigger than a rocket-ship, it nonetheless hung effortlessly in the air, it's fifty-five rows of cleaver-like teeth surrounding their room as it floated vertically above them. The daylight of the alien sky shone
I am Theodor. I am a rainbow blue fish. I lived on a planet far away. Then I died. But that is was not the end. That was the beginning. I became a ghost. I became part of the infinite school. Thanks to wise Rex. This is the story of Rex. He is big fish. A big shark. Many sizes big. From a far away blue
It took nearly every ghost fish of the infinite school to confidently herd Sharkasaurus Rex into the depths of the invisible galaxy. The megalodon's monstrous instincts were near impossible to fully understand, a hundred million space-years of predatory instinct and insatiable hunger. The spectral school's entire telepathic concentration
"Oh dear me!" shouted Brody Dharma to the marble diamond hall, his gecko eyes spinning in shock as the ghostly forms of Geisel and Theodor circled over the sticky yellow remains of Queen Buzz. "Fish! Please! Contain yourselves!" "Tyrant!" flared out Geisel angrily, telepathically sharing horrific
"Master hero! Master hero!" cried out the young boy, frantic enough to ignore his disciplined training. "A terrible occurrence! The infinite school have lost their hold on their grisly teacher! The cosmic crown reacted suddenly and cut off their psychic leashes! Sharkasaurus Rex is loose!". The young boy wildly rang the same small gong all the monks in this
Geisel was gone, his phantasmal form torn apart in savage fury by the recently de-crowned Sharkasaurus Rex. The equally ethereal Theodor watched the entire sudden rending in still shock. As did the rest of the infinite school, millions of fellow ghost fish that had all gathered to psychically leash the mighty megalodon.
"Sharkasaurus Rex is feeding on the simple people of this planet," said the
Super Wizard From Space, pointing to where a sticky-looking red hue spread in
the red mist for a space-minute before the fin moved on. "He's converting their
psyches into spiritual mass, growing exponentially. This incredible instrument
is our only hope."
He was lying on the ground. Still at the top of the mountain
monastery. Yes, he was certain of it. There was no mistaking. He
remembered the feel of these particular stones. And the scent of that
particular moss. But he could not remember how he had came here. It
was like his mind was rattling around in his head while at the same
time trying to swell larger than his skull could contain.
I warned him not to use the Gong Ago, as the volume required from that sacred instrument would have unintended side effects. But like an old mule wearing ragged blinders, he rung it out anyway. And that powerful pitch has freed me and my like-minded brethren. My name is Andy Dharma. I am the master villain of the Invisible Monks.
In a clearing at the center, a nine-foot lizards bowed respectfully to his duplicate. He dressed the same way. He moved with the same simple grace. He stood with the same relaxed posture. And he looked back at him with the same calculating eyes, measuring the short distance between them, judging the smallest of movements.
"You are unbalanczed. You cannot be truszted with coszmic power." Her hand closed into a fist and squeezed. From every direction, the spectral fish tossed out their determination in crisscrossing grey lines, trying to ensnare his mind.
"Andy, don't do this," whispered Brody, "You can't." "Yes I can! Yes I will!" he shouted back at him. "No more bad habits disguised as tradition! No more of yesterday's rules deciding today's fate! I will show you what change can accomplish!" He spat on the floor in disgust, and backflipped off the balcony.
On the side of a small lake, a simple man was fishing off the end of a rickety dock. The lake was usually a clear blue, filled with many delicious fish. It was not so now. It was murky, tinted pink and red, the fish preferring to stay closer to the bottom, where the water was cleaner and lines could rarely reach. It meant the man would be lucky for even a small catch, but that would be enough. He lived alone on this shore, in his cabin up the hill, and had only himself to feed.
He wiped his hands on his bloody apron, then stroked his long grey beard with a smile. It was with great experience that he could judge the quality and balance of a blade and in all the experience, he had never worked with such magnificent instruments.
A portion of empty space bubbled and bulged, like plastic melting in a fire, then peeled away to reveal the spitting green end of a warp tunnel. Wrapped and protected in a cocoon of pale starlight, the Super Wizard From Space blasted out of the tunnel opening at incredible speed. The wound in black reality mended behind him with a practiced flick of
Sharp super-lightening split across a sick dry sky as a lone yellow cab pulled up in front of a long abandoned university. The pale driver scratched at his unkept beard. Hunched over the steering wheel, he got a better look through the windshield at the derelict campus. "You sure this is where you wanna to be?" he gruffly asked the passenger in the back seat.
"I will not tolerate your
presence here. Nor your trickery. I will burn away every molecule. I
will crack every atom. I will unravel your infernal form down to the
minimalist components and grind the remains under my boot."
"Once upon a time, five dark lords of multiple underverses made the mistake of signing a series of magical contracts in an attempt to insure some level of trust between them. Inevitably, all five of them went back on their words and now the tangled wording of those contracts have trapped them in the stone sepulchres of Quinto-Hell."
The ashen remains of the gorgon sunk into the circling river of molten rock and disappeared down the sinkhole in reality, pulled toward the punishments of Triple-Hell. A bleating car horn sounded. The Devil tugged at the wizard's shoulder. "Come along, guv. Our ride awaits."
Somewhere in the dank musky darkness swamp, a single snapping growl was followed up by a chorus of hungry grumbles and hollers and howls. Jagged trunks of twisted trees creaked and cracked as something massive pushed through. Huge lungs filled up and expelled, making for a thunderous breathy bass echo.
Black glass and brittle shale and oddly shaped boulders all bashed against each other in the tornado ferocity of the space between conceptual realities. Every small piece was both nonexistant and an immense solidity to itself, dragging and throwing and colliding with its surroundings as the entire mess fell through infinite layers of fractal
Looking about, he could see endless desert interrupted by black stone squares, similar to the one they were taking refuge on. A long wind was blowing, picking up loose dunes, shifting them up and over and around in an ever-moving landscape. It gave everything a burnt look, a rising sea of sand that just faded without an horizon. The only thing cutting through the leather-colored sky was the sun, massive and oversized, ten times larger than it should be.
The Devil, The Secret Living Language, and the Super Wizard From Space stood upon a massive square of black stone half buried in blistering desert sands. "This is it, end of the line," the Devil announced.
In the seedy bowels of a seedy mining camp, Cephalo Paul roused from blurriness to found himself at the mercy of an unkindness of anthropomorphic ravens. The lot of them stood on four clawed talons, spoke through horrifying beaks lined with serrated edges, and had too many ruby-coloured eyes.
"My name is senior lieutenant Yuri Gigan Topithecus, last survivor of the once-mighty space-sasquatch race. I was a hero of my people and a triumph of my government, becoming the first of my planet to journey into outer space... and as I completed my first orbit in my prototype capsule, I helplessly watched the Super Wizard From Space destroy my world."
The Super Wizard From Space towed his wounded prisoner to a dying system in a lonely constellation. It was a place that had been full and vibrant when the universe was young, a very long time ago. Now, it's small, dense white star bled away its diminishing heat and weak light into empty space.
Across the vastness of galaxies, a nameless forager bee achieves a stable geosynchronous orbit with distant Planet M. The ladened insect has been in contact with appropriate representatives, has deposited it cargo. It now maintains a microwave relay with the surface, and only awaits permission from the Hive to open communications.
"I-hereby-challenge-the-Super- Wizard-From-Space-to-combat," spits out Emperor M, the bile broadcasted from his loudspeaker face, "and-you'll-bear-witness-to-it , you- insufferable-bitch."
In the clarity of the desert night, a single point of light smolders against the blue-black curtain. And it slowly grows the closer it gets, falling toward Us through immense distances. The Super Wizard From Space is coming to Planet M.
Emperor gestures back to the great monolith and declares, "At-the-behest-of-our-electronic-ennead, I've-entombed-the-Super-Wizard-From-Space-within-the-Pyramids-Of-Ka! His-power-will-feed-our-preservation-batteries-for-countless-cycles."
"The Szuper Wizard From Szpace is sztill alive. And He sztill has Hisz coszmic crown." We say it aloud. Not to anyone. To ourselves, as swirling shaking thoughts become cold and real. This is real. This is happening. "Why? Why have you done thisz?"
If you'll indulge me, I'll tell you a story about how some people ( who were much too smart for their own good, I'm afraid ) tried to find an easy, quick solution; by doing so, they doomed countless lives to AGES of suffering.
Now, I was halfway through a tale about countless doomed lives... and yes, my friend, I do know the difference between 'countless' and 'seven'. Those tragic academics were only the first direct victims of these newly formed cosmic crowns. What happened next was intended to prevent more loss of life, but it actually placed the entire universe in peril.
"Hello Dragutin. I wouldn't be here if things weren't desperate. But things are desperate, and seeing as you're partially to blame, I think it appropriate to give you the chance to resolve it."
Vaso sneers at the world below. "I don't trust Sixth Columnists, General. They're an unstable bunch, every lot of them. And they splintering apart. Hard to be sure what bent their worship takes."
"A swarm! A monster swarm! Oh! Oh gods, they were everywhere. They killed everyone. They stabbed them and killed them. And the dead changed into more and went to do the same. Stabbing and changing and stabbing. Everyone's gone!"
Long spear-length stingers, glints of wet toxin at the tips. Wide crystal wings banging against torsos, making thrumming thunder. It's a *blanket* of angry buzzing. Getting thicker as they crawl over each other. At me. Looking to smother me. Kill me. If I'm lucky.
"What I'm doing, it has to be done. Because someone has to do it. Because no one else is doing it. They're scared of what might happen. Scared of what they could lose. Scared of things they can't change. We can't live like that."
Do you have any idea how this looks? We aren't at war anymore. The tournament is supposed to *prevent* this exact sort of conflict from flaring up again. You can't just go around dropping armies on the *home planets* of the universe's seven super-races."
His ancient race long ago unravelled the laws of physics, and they then learned how to redefine them. They harvest fusion fire to sustain themselves, and they hollow out suns to build their private strongholds. They are guardians of the spaces they know and explorers of the spaces they don't.
Somewhere on Planet M, a forlorn survivor is losing her grip on her unusual authority. "I'm... what? A surrogate? A stopgate? Why keep me and then lie to me? Why save me and then despise me so much?"
"The philosophies of your unconventional brother go against your own... he would do _anything_ to ensure your safety. With his assistance, we will prevail."
Andy Dharma bent over the Stringer's prone body, wrapped both arms around his head, and with a single fast wrench, broke the super-wizard's neck. KRACK!
He'll head toward Genovefa. Maybe not immediately, but inevitably. She can't hide from him any more than he can avoid her. The Cosmic Crowns draw them together. Its a drive. Its a feverish heat.
"The Schrivener has the Crown. The cosmic tournament is between him and Queen Buzz. Walk away from all this devestation. Put an _end_ to this madness."
"That's exactly what I intend to do."
"We've _sztudied_ you for thiz entire Tournament! Without your cosZzmic weapon, you're no threat! You're little more than a ztubborn _nail_ for me to hammer down."
“Iz thiZs what you’re reduced to? A cockroach, sZcurrying and hiding underneath the firmament? If make Uz chasZze after you, We will bring the heavenZz down upon you.”
Reality stretches like canvas pulled taut. Time stutters and scratches and skips, between moments and months. The Wizard takes refuge within the umbra of the system's innermost planet, little more than a corner to be backed into.
"Born of cozmic power, with a mind the sZzize of the universZze... and you thought death would stop her? What szort of sZzimple idea did you take her for, that she'd die szo quietly?"
In the calm eye of it, I can just make out Melisende's massive shape, pacing and stomping and _screaming_ at them, her voice amplified overtop the cacophony. "Are you happy now? That'z it! It'z over!"
Playing tour guide's certainly been more agreeable than playing babysitter. As far as pointless distractions go. If nothing else, its been interesting visiting old haunts, if only to see what's left of them.
