The Horsemen

Kill-O-Matic BIGG GUNNS Weapons Armament Repository Center #456 was a tall, formidable-looking steel building, surrounded by thick walls of omnium steel. Each of the gates were covered by three gun turrets and several armored Jeeps and Generic Motorized Power Armor Units. In short, the place looked pretty well proof against just about any type of assault you cared to name. At least, for now.

*

Sargeant Major Generic Smith IX and his personal squadron of mech pilots (The Generic Generics) were taking a morning patrol through the outskirts of the W.A.R. Center's demesne. They were ready for anything, as far as they were concerned, although there really wasn't much of a chance of resistance. The populace were certainly in no shape to challenge the KOMBG troops, and all the superheroes were concentrating on knocking out the Deathmoons and various other obvious threats. Certainly the Deathmoons were impressive, but no one could rule a planet without ground troops. Suddenly, Smith was broken out of his reverie by a call from the lead scout mech, manned by Ensign Smitty. [Sargeant, I'm picking up some odd readings down the alley.]

Smith grinned. [Set up an encirclement pattern. Maybe one of those Superheroes finally decided to show up.]

The other ten members of the squad signalled their acknowledgement. Smitty lead the way down a side alley, dark and so cramped that one of the assault mecha needed to rip the wall off of a building in order to fit through. After a few hundred yards, the alley opened up to a wide, abandoned parking lot, so old that the concrete was spiderwebbed with hairline cracks. A single figure was barely visible in the center, silhouetted against the dim light, tall, black, and apparently humanoid. In one hand, it held a long, ebony staff.

Smitty's 'voice' was laiden with shock. [Sir, the power level I'm getting from that thing, it's off the scale!] (Of course, this really wasn't that unusual. KOMBG had applied a good portion of its scientific knowledge to the problem, but it still hadn't figured out to make Scouters which could accurately read a hero's power level. They had managed to make the things stop blowing up, though, which was a good compromise all around.)

Smith nodded, then triggered his chin switch, setting for external audio. "Attention unidentified target! Present your identification papers for processing!"

No answer. Smith smiled happily. This was the fun part.

"Unidentified target, if you do not identify yourself, we will be forced to use... well, force!"

The 'Unidentified Target' shrugged.

The Sargeant clicked his chin switch once again. [Medium power burst pattern. Fire.]

The darkness of the back alley dissolved in a brilliant flare of light, each of the twelve mechs cutting loose at once. Chunks of concrete whistled through the air, essentially shredding everything surrounding the mecha, and causing several thousand dollars worth of collateral property damage. Not that they particularly cared, of course.

The smoke took a few seconds to clear. When it did, the black form still stood there, apparently unmoved the chaos. Then, it raised its head. The face revealed was grinning, not that it could really do anything else.

[Jesus! It's Ramon! It's smegging Ramon!]

NO. BUT, I GET THAT ALL THE TIME. MY NAME IS-

[Fire!]

Laser fire lanced out once again. This time the smoke took much, much longer to clear. Finally, the figure walked out of it on his own, apparently bored with the proceedings.

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. MY NAME IS SAM, AND I NEED TO BORROW YOUR MECH FOR A LITTLE WHILE.

[Fire!] This time, only the Sargeant's own weapon fired, the blue-white beam fading to nothing before it could get anywhere near Sam's skin.

WILL YOU PLEASE STOP SAYING THAT? An edge of irritation touched Sam's voice, and the smoke cleared. Behind him was..... nothing. The other mecha were nowhere to be seen.

[Fire!]

*SIGH*. The scythe swung through the air in a glittering arc, and all was silent.

*

Chakos stood alone in his guild quarters, staring at a map of Khazan. It was a pretty detailed map but unfortunately, like everything else around here, the map was enchanted. This would have been a great help to some highly learned half-brother, but it was starting to get on his nerves. "Look, I told you I want to find the Horsemen!" That billiards room better bloody well be there....

replied the map.

"Look, this is really the WRONG time for Haikus here!"

With a superhuman feat of will, Chakos prevented himself from tearing up the enchanted paper into little bite-sized chunks and using it to line the extradimensional cage of the Guild's servant zombies. "Who had the bright idea of making a map that spouts poetry, anyway?"

"Map, just shut up, please?" In spite of himself, his hand was slowly edging inside his trenchcoat.

Without taking care to aim, Chakos threw three knives in quick succession. They blurred across the room, thunking into the wood with the finality of nails into a coffin. He waited for a moment, but there was no haiku response. Tchuu'd probably wonder why his map was broken later on, he'd think up some excuse. Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked over to the wall and made as if to pull the first knife from the map. That was when he noticed it. The three knives were lined up in a perfect triangle, their points touching in exactly one place: a KOMBG weapons vacility just outside of downtown Khazan. He *knew* that was where he had to go. At least the map had been useful for something. "Well," he mused to himself, "I think it's time for a road trip."

*

Four motorcycles were parked outside Joe's Olde Fashionede Bare and Grille, just three blocks away from the KOMBG Center for World Domination. Even the Horsemen have to get some R&R once in a while.

Pestilence glanced up over his no-alcohol lager at Uriel, who was sitting across from him, his perfectly cut Armani suit looking quite out of place amid the remains of the bar. "What's the matter, Uriel? Starting to miss the Heavenly City?" He tried to grin afterwards, but one of his teeth fell out and plunked into the lager, which he proceeded to sip gently.

Uriel sighed, then waved disgustedly over his shoulder. "Does she really have to do that?"

The other shrugged. "War, can you please stop? I think you're disturbing our friend here."

The beautiful, feminine figure, its' head still covered by the motorcycle helmet, shrugged, her figure rippling like a cat's with the movement. The mortals had evacuated the place several hours ago, but had any been there, they would have been virtually paralyzed with desire. Then she gave an offhand throwing motion, as if she couldn't be bothered to aim at anything in particular. Across the room, the dartboard crumpled like a sheet of paper when a heavy rock is thrown into it. The spork quivered, centered exactly in the bullseye, buried through the stainless steel back of the dartboard and into the concrete wall.

Suddenly, Pestilence's eyes blazed with the flames of oblivion, opened so wide that most of his eyebrows fell off. "He's here."

From across the room, Famine raised his head. He had gotten a bit bored ever since the last of the humans had given up trying to find any food on the premises. His voice was little more than a whisper, cutting through the low currents of background noise like a knife. "Of course he's here. That's the whole reason we're here, after all."

"No, I mean he's here. He has revealed himself.

Uriel grinned, almost insanely. "Finally!"

Pestilence raised his hands and clapped them gently, the pressure causing the skin of his left palm to nearly explode, revealing the seething black mass beneath. "Okay, people, road trip!"

A KOMBG mech (specifically, the one which had belonged to the late Sargeant Major Generic Smith IX) sauntered into the mecha lot of the KOMBG W.A.R. center and powered down, the hatch sliding open to reveal a nondescript man in a standard, insignia-less interior ware jumpsuit, dead black in color. The man's thin lips split into an evident grin as he touched down uncontested. So far, so good.

Sam turned and walked out the door, again uncontested. Humans had become accustomed to not seeing him over the years, and, therefor, he wasn't there for them to see, at least as anyone special. As far as the average trooper was concerned, he was John Q. Soldier, nobody worthy of any notice whatsoever. This had its advantages. If he had actively started to fight them, then matters would have been different, but as things stood, he had a considerable degree of freedom, at least for the moment. Two more turns, and he entered the glistening, stainless-steel lift, hitting the button for the armaments level on the thirty-first floor. That was where most of the heavy equipment was stored, according to his mech computer. Most enemies would think that mecha were kept on the ground floor or one of the sub-basements, while the aircraft were quartered higher-up, but zero-g lifts and personal teleporters made the whole normal layouts irrelivant. Yet another feint in vK's chain.

The lift doors gave a happy mmmmmmm..... of pleasure as they slid open. "Have a nice day," said the door, which then proceeded to shut behind him. Sam was alone. At least, alone if you count being on a floor composed mainly of several acres of mobile ARMUR weaponry as "alone". They lined the hall in long, long lines, glittering like knife-blades, the deactivated tubes of their railguns hanging like giant, lethal saltshakers on the end of long, powerful hydraulic arms. The mirrored windows of their cockpits glinted in the overhead blacklights. It was virtually impossible for the ARMURs' instrumentation to be disrupted by standard flourescent lights, or, really, by any kind of light, but the UV lighting gave the entire scene a threatening, insidious cast which could not have been obtained by standard flourescents. The fourteen-foot tall "KOMBG For A Beter Tomorrow" logo on the far wall glowed bright neon-white. Of course, there were regular white lights, but the engineering team had them turned off, because it gave them a nifty place to play Vampire. He grinned ruefully. They were going to have to find a new place to play. This building had been.... condemned.

Sighing, Sam dropped any semblance of normal humanity. He stood there for an instant, seven feet tall and skeletal, one bony hand gripping his scythe. With a grin, he started to work. The scythe slashed a deadly half-arc through existance. A wide swath of mechs simply... vanished, their very components loosing cohesion and melting back into space-time. Above him, the UV lights switched off, the flourescents activating, coating the room in their blinding glare. In the distance, a klaxxon began to wail. Sam swung again, annihilating even more mechs.

Doors slid open on all sides of the giant hall, guard squadrons pouring into the room, their weapons levelled at his black figure. The leader, a tall, swarthy man, his skin coated with power armor, spoke, his voice amplified hundreds of times by miniature speakers on his torso. "We've got you surrounded! Drop your weapon!"

Sam grinned. The scythe flashed through the air, annihilating one squadron before they could so much as pull the trigger on their weapons. Within moments, the rest of the troops had taken cover, weapons fire raining upon the Reaper from all sides. Light faded to nothing before it reached him, bullets melted out of existance before they could touch the folds of his robe. This was almost too easy. Amid the hail of small arms fire, he raised the scythe again. It faded into a blur as he swung, and several of the weapons, as well as their owners, died. Turning, he started towards the group which had taken position behind him, moving with a slow, surefooted grace. They continued to pour on laser fire for a few seconds before Sam closed with them. One by one, they lowered their weapons, staring at him with fearful apprehension.

PLEASED TO MEET YOU. I THINK YOU KNOW MY NAME.

*

The wailing of the alert klaxxon outside the W.A.R. Center nearly shattered the air with its urgent cries, but it could not succeed in masking the sound which approached. The slow, deadly bass rumble of motorcycle engines riveted the onlookers to their places. They could not have moved, even had they wanted to, which they didn't. Moving would imply getting closer to the figures on the bikes, or fleeing them. Any motion at all would attract their attention, and nobody wanted that. Quite the opposite, in fact. The four figures on their motorcycles made even the strongest-willed quake with subconscious fear.

They rode in a loose diamond shape, the three leather-clad forms leading, while the fourth, dressed in a prim, black business suit, trailed behind. Unchallenged, the group rolled through the outer gates, which opened without the slightest protest, and pulled up to the large, omnium steel main entrance. The laser-reflective coating gleamed in the late afternoon sun, light appearing to flow down the surface to collect in small pools at its base. The leader, wearing white leather, shrugged, flakes of skin falling onto the ground as he moved, decaying even as they touched the earth. Slamming down the kickstand, he dismounted and walked up to the door, reached up, knocked upon it with what looked to be the most exquisite care. Blood leaked from the seams of his gloves. Where they touched the metal, the bright gleam faded and twisted, rotting into a dead black which spread throughout the entire door as quickly as fire passing through a dry forest. Bits and pieces of blackened, decayed steel broke off and fell to the earth, the stain of corruption spreading for a few feet through the earth before it faded away. A low, almost inaudible groan arose from metal, heightened in a fraction of an instant to an unbearable, screeching wail, and then the door crumbled into dust.

Pestilence smiled beneath his helmet, feeling his taught, paperlike skin part with the movement. "Supid wizards are always loving the door. Love the door? Hah." His laugh was the laugh of something long dead and decayed. Turning on his heel, he walked back to his motorcycle. "Let's go."

*

Several minutes later, a dead black car pulled up to the desecrated remains of the door. The brakes squealed as it jerked to a stop, nearly rocketing its lone passenger through the windshield. Chakos didn't notice, though. He had requested it from the Guild so that he could get around Khazan; a few teleports with Gate was all he could take, but now he had more important things on his mind.Trenchcoat flaring behind him as he moved, he exited the car and walked the few yards to what had once been the KOMBG door.

He blinked in astonishment. The twisted, decaying remains of the once-proud door were lumped in a pile at his feet, nearly unrecognizable as metal, let alone a military-grade blast door. It's death cry had been audible for blocks, to whomever had the right kind of ears to listen, but even then he hadn't expected to find something like this. There was something wrong here, all right. No weapon or sorcery that he could remember could have claimed not only the door's physical existance, but it's consciousness as well. Just as well he was wearing his trenchcoat.

Gingerly, Chakos stepped over the unwholesomely steaming remains, crossing into the KOMBG W.A.R. Center's domain.

*

The last of the troops had just disappeared, fleeing in panic, when the first of the real opposition dropped from the cieling. Sam whirled to face the new arrivals, bringing his scythe up defensively, even though there really wasn't much benifit they could gain from getting in the first attack.

Three robo-ninjas stood before him, neatly positioned to block his path to the communications equipment at the far wall. Their swords gleamed under the flourescent lights. He grinned wildly. WELL, AT LEAST NO ONE'S GOING TO ASK ME TO SURRENDER...

The ninjas moved before he could finish speaking, the first one closing with him in less time than it took an eye to blink, mono-edged katana slicing through the air, coming down straight for his head. It connected in a flash of unlight, accompanied by a terrible, screeching noise. The robo-ninja looked down in a fair approxomation of shock, to find that his blade ended a few inches past the hilt, still smoking from its virtually instantaneous disintigration. SORRY ABOUT THAT... The Scythe sliced through air, body armor, synthetic flesh, muscle, and power conduits without the slightest protest, continuing on to intersect the blade of the second ninja, which was even now streaking straight for him in a blurred arc of steel. This time, the sword was not destroyed outright, but bent almost double, at a ludicrously unusable angle. He felt the third ninja closing, kicking out at him, only to have his leg somewhat shortened by the reality of Sam's existance.

*

Josh Stone glanced down at his dice and the mounds of paper spread liberally across the dark, oaken table, then back to his companions. Their forms loomed around the game table, enwrapped in a darkness which would be worth the life of any ordinary mortal to penetrate. These figures were Archetypes, their true natures transcending any names mortals could give to them. A grin crossed his face. "Dang, this is good." A pause. "Okay, everybody roll for initiative...."

*

The Scythe blurred once again through the air, it's bluish-white blade slicing easily through the reality of the second ninja. Unfortunately, the third was already moving, dodging and weaving as well as he could, which was surprisingly well, considering the fact that his left leg currently ended three inches above the knee, in a sparking jumble of revealed electronics. Two shuriken sliced through the air, the ninja's aim unerring. Unfortunately, the metal was broken down into its component quarks by Sam's own existance. Once again, he sliced with the scythe, and the ninja fell, its head neatly severed from its body at hundred paces.

In the aftermath of the madhouse of combat, the former storehouse for most of the ARMUR units in this section of Khazan was unnervingly silent. The *clank* of the ninja's body hitting the floor plates echoed through the room as if it were the only sound in the entire world. You could have called it 'Quiet as the grave', but the bad metaphor police would then proceed to kill you and eat your corpse. The grave is quite a loud place, actually. You just have to have very sensitive ears.

Still and all, there was something profoundly wrong about this silence, something which it took Sam a few seconds to place. The klaxxons were no longer sounding. Nor, in fact, was anything else. He couldn't hear the quiet humm of electricity that always pervades urban areas, or the ticking of the computers, or the cars which he knew were down below, on the highway. Even the computer monitors weren't making their customary, high-pitched whine. Everything was poised, the whole world waiting expectantly, its collective breath held. Waiting.

He felt the presence behind him, then, rising out of the placid pool of existance. Not just one presence, either, he noted with surprise. Still, he waited, carefully reminding himself to remain calm. There was no use in jumping straight into things. Especially not a fight he almost certainly couldn't win. Best to let the opposition take the first move.

"So, brother, we meet again."

Sam turned slowly, majestically, the blue-white points of light nestled in his eyesockets glaring at the figures assembled before him in their phalanx-like formation. Pestilence, his face bare and grotesque, a parody of health, eyes bright like diamonds, proud and reckless, his grin as cutting as a knife in a dark alley. Famine, his gaunt, sunken features and yellow, palsied skin standing out in stark relief to the cold steel. War, still helmeted, as always, beautiful and slender, the Sword hilt rising above her shoulders. Her long hair spilled out the back of her helmet, falling in waves of cascading fire down to the small of her back, highlighting her dangerously appealing figure.

SO WE DO... BROTHER. He almost hesitated to add the title, but Pestilence had given him his due respect. There was nothing for it but to return his courtesy in kind. His gaze flitted to the dark-suited figure behind them, whose bare feet did not quite touch the ground. I SEE YOU BROUGHT THE PRETENDER. WHAT DO YOU WANT HIM TO DO, LEAD THE CHEERLEADING TEAM?

Uriel's too-perfect features did not display so much as a hint of anger. "Oh, no, Death. I'm here to take up the responsibilities you were deemed unworthy for."

HA. UNWORTHY. IF ONLY YOU KNEW THE MEANING OF THE WORD, URIEL, I MIGHT HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR YOU. There was a very long pause. WHAT I SAID BEFORE ABOUT THE MOTORCYCLE STILL APPLIES. IF THERE'S SO MUCH AS ONE SCRATCH ON THAT THING WHEN I GET IT BACK-

"Oh, I don't think you're going to have to worry about that, Brother. You see, your sentence has been commuted. From exile-" That knife-like smile again, so confident, so sure of himself. "-to destruction. Your power is to be drained away, your mantle conferred on Uriel, here, and you are to be cast into the under-Abyss."

Sam blinked, or, at least, he would have blinked if he had eyelids to do it with. What actually happened was, the two blue white points went out for a brief instant, then returned. ON WHOSE ORDERS?

"If you must know, the High Tribunal. The Time is coming, when the Diadem of Conquest shall rise, and We shall Ride Forth upon the wings of the storm." At this reference, Uriel's face assumed an expression of beatific delight. "Waiting for your reformation would take too long, as I have pointed out to the Tribunal. The Plan might be curtailed. Therefor, it is in the best interests of the Plan and both Factions, upper and lower, that you be replaced by someone more... open to the goals of the Ultimate Test." At this small praise, Uriel's face beamed even more, if that were possible. "I've got you now, Brother. There's no escape."

YOU'VE STILL GOT TO TAKE ME.

"Which we shall do... now."

Sam's skeletal hands gripped the Scythe-haft tightly. AT LEAST YOU WON'T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE BY ASKING ME TO SURRENDER.

His blue-spark eyes locked with Pestilence's chill diamond. A low humming filled the room, the air vibrating as if existance itself had been plucked like a violin string. The game had begun.

*

Josh picked up his dice, then dropped them in a mix of astonishment and pain. They were red-hot, glowing brighter every second. "Damn!" He shook his hands angrily in the air, trying to cool them down. The character sheets and other piles of paper scattered across the table began to smoke, then burst into outright flame. In moments, there was nothing left of the carefully organized chaos of the gaming session but a few piles of charred ash, and melted plastic and mythril, haphazardly spread across the gleaming, unharmed wood. He glanced up nervously. "Ummm... I don't suppose any of you have backup copies?"

Without a word, each of the dark figures produced a character sheet, completely indistinguishable from the first. If Josh had been able to see things on the quantum level, he would have seen that they were, in fact, perfect duplicates. The figures placed them upon the table, and within a few instants, the backups were reduced to ash as well. Josh smiled as winningly as he was able. "Welllllll..... anyone mind a taking coffee break?"

*

Chakos swallowed furtively as he climbed the last flight of stairs, his legs aching with the effort. What idiot had designed the elevator so that it could be easily blocked by a pile of rubble? Actually, he reflected, knowing KOMBG, that was probably intentional. Harder for enemies to take a building if they collapsed from exhaustion after reaching their intended floor, of course. Unfortunately, that also made it harder on whatever good-natured paranormal investigators happened to come along in the aftermath. "Whew.... Thirty-One!"

He rose to his feet, eyes quickly taking in the scene, then immediately dropped down into a crouch. There were five figures directly across the room from him, staring intently at one another, and there really wasn't much doubt that they were the ones he was looking for. After all, what else could a group consisting of a seven foot tall skeleton wielding a scythe, a man who looked like he was decaying before Chakos' eyes, a beautiful, deadly looking woman with a longsword dressed all in red, and a famine victim possibly be? He couldn't quite place the man in the suit, but he noted with a bit of interest that his feet did not quite touch the ground. The skeleton was facing off agaisnt the other four, the space between them writhing and convulsing, and, in short, appearing as if it would rather be anywhere but here. All in all, this did not look very promising.

Chakos blinked. There was something familiar about the skeleton, and it didn't just come from the long, twisted scythe it held in its bony grasp. He knew this person from somewhere. But where?

If it were possible, space twisted even more, the typical laws of reality bending, warping, and finally fleeing outright from the expressed force of the Horsemen's will. Whatever they were doing, it was getting more powerful. He could see a faint glow starting to emerge from each one of them. Red, black, white, and a color which could best be expressed by the word, "pale". The age old question had finally been answered: "What color was Death's horse, anyway?" Well, it was pale. "Pale what?" To which Sam would eventually reply, PALE. WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP BOTHERING ME? After which people inevitably did.

Whatever. Chakos could *feel* that something major was about to go down, and skeleton-man was outnumbered four to one. Suddenly, in a dimwitted epiphany rather more like a dim flashlight shining down from the top of a stepladder than a light from heaven, he realized who the skeleton was. He had seen him before, in the ring. The man (well, person, anyway) was an FPL fighter, and a hero, no less. Damn. Right thing to do vs. the safe thing to do. Since coming to work for the Guild, he had been faced with quite a few of these decisions. As always, his intelligence-challenged side won out. A pair of stakes suddenly found themselves in Chakos' grasp. Well, he had figured out what side he was on, at least. For a very, very brief instant, he wondered whether the Horsemen would be harder to go up against than a vampire, and smacked himself mentally over the head. Everything was tougher, stranger, and more dangerous in Khazan. He ought to have realized that by now. He rose up, with a smile, getting ready to throw the things at the first sign of trouble.