Mr. Epitome slowly opened to the door to his bedroom and crept in as quietly as a two hundred and forty pound man in combat gear could. Navigating the room despite the near darkness he sat at the chair in front of his work desk and began unlacing his boots.
“Dom?” a voice called from the bed.
Part of Dominic felt guilty that he had woken the source of that soft, Southern twang, but then there was the side of him that recalled the past ninety eight hours and how good it would be to have someone's help in forgetting them, “It’s me, Kat.”
There was the sound of creaking bed springs as Katarina Allen crawled across the mattress towards him. Once on the edge she reached out, her arms taking up a milky white sheen in the moonlight.
Dominic leaned forward from his hunched position and easily swept the young woman into his lap. After a somewhat awkward kiss, given the blackness, he admonished, “You should be asleep.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Kat replied as she cozied up to the big man, “My boyfriend’s been away fighting alien monsters in China for the last four days.”
“You should be used to that by now.”
“I’m never going to get used to that,” she corrected, her tone suddenly becoming more focused, “Are you hurt?” She breathed in, expecting and dreading the horrid stench of burnt flesh that so often accompanied Dominic when he returned home from a mission.
Dominic caught the sniff, “No burns this time. Just bumps and bruises. Still, I desperately need to take a shower.”
“Not yet,” the weaver from Bienville corrected as she shifted herself and began fumbling for the Man of Might’s belt buckle, “Later.”
“Later?”
Kat Allen giggled in the dark as her hands found what she was looking for, “Definitely later.”
*****
Seven and a half minutes later
Dominic Clancy gave a frustrated grunt, “This is not happening,” he muttered a statement that worked on more than one level.
Kat looked up into her lover’s tense face, “I… guess it isn’t,” she stood and slipped back into her nightgown, “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Yes. I feel fine. Well, excluding,” he made an ambiguous gesture to the root of the problem.
“You’re just tired,” the winsome blonde said consolingly.
“I’ve been up, er, awake, for longer periods than this without suffering any ill effects,” Dominic countered as he began removing the pouches still on his belt and slapping them down onto his desktop. Kat came up behind him, twining her arms around his barrel chest.
“Stress?” she offered.
“Hrm,” for the Exemplary Man, the possibility that his current condition could have psychological roots was far more galling than if it were physical.
“Don’t be upset. This happens more than you might think.”
The Paragon of Power shook his head, “I’m Mr. Epitome, dammit. I can throw an Avatank to the horizon. It would take a nuclear strike to kill me. I shouldn’t be having problems with, with, intimate functions.”
The young woman rested her chin on one of Dominic’s broad shoulders, “It’s OK, baby.”
Dominic was quiet for several moments, before he casually suggested, “You know, maybe with that cheerleader outfit-.”
“I still don’t think it’s going to fit you,” Kat shot back with a smile.
“Hrm,” Dominic repeated glumly. He reached back to stroke his lover’s hair, “Sorry.”
“For what?” she kissed his stubbly cheek, “You’re still my man, and you’re home. Safe. With me. That’s all I need.”
“Me too.”
“And if the other issue doesn’t sort itself out,” the young woman teased, “Remember there are several supposed experts here at the mansion who could give us advice.”
Epitome set his jaw, “You think that’s funny? That’s not funny. The less this freak show knows about our personal lives, the better.”
Kat was surprised by the vociferousness in Dominic’s protest, but she tried laughing it off anyway, “As family’s go, Dom, the Lair Legion is pretty normal.”
Dominic Clancy would have objected Kat’s designation of the Legion as “family”, if he hadn’t already disappointed the woman this evening.
*****
“How you feeling, Harmanda?”
Doctor Harmanda Barriere, Director of America’s clandestine security agency Special Protocols Against Metahumans, glowered at the plain-looking man in the brown suit, “I’m fine, Rex. Now if you would excuse me, I need to get back to work.”
“Sorry, no. You’ve been relieved of duty until we get this mess sorted out,” Rex Regent took a seat opposite Barriere’s desk.
“I have no idea how Burch got into the meeting. There’s no way he could have learned about it from SPAM,” she heard herself saying. The woman knew that in this bureaucracy, unlike so many others in the government, accountability was primacy and consequences were absolute.
“We’re still not positive it was the Dark Knight that killed our men,” Rex Regent admitted, “Though the attack has his general m.o. of batshit craziness.”
“That’s a fact,” Barriere snorted, “He’s paranoid enough to think we’re working with Factor X.”
“Right,” the second in command to the Grey Eminence leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead resignedly, “It would be so much easier if Vasillych were on our side in this, for what has to happen next.”
*****
“Greg Burch told one of my agents that he was dead, and now that the rules had changed,” Aldrich Grey announced, “Burch was half right.”
The man, who had just reached the century mark, propped himself up in the command chair that dominated his subterranean bunker. From this seat of power Grey could gain access to and support from any number of corporate or government entities. And with them he could raise and defeat entire armies, ruin economies, and destroy lives.
“Ever since Wilton was put in charge of the Earth Defense Force he’s been using his office to settle old scores. He captured Cromlyn with the help of that bitch Zemo and has been taking apart what’s left of the Shadow Cabinet with what he’s learned.”
The voice on the other end of the audio feed spoke, “Another Legionnaire was responsible for murdering the group’s former chief field operative, correct?”
Aldrich Grey nodded, “Yeah. Chopped his head off with a talking knife, if you can believe it. And normally I wouldn’t give two shits about Exemplary or any other of the Shadow Cabinet goons taking the big dirt nap, until Wilton decided to send another of his weirdoes after my people. So Burch was right: the rules have changed. What he got wrong was about being dead. That son of a bitch isn’t dead yet,” Grey coughed dryly and then wiped his mouth on his sleeve, “But you’re going to kill him. Whatever you need, and whatever it takes. And if any of those other Legionnaires fuck with our Company, they die too. You can do all that, right, Clancy?”
Miles away, in one of the most secure of the Grey Eminence’s safehouses, the disembodied brain of the Omni Competent concurred, “I have killed them all before, and can do so again. Given the proper tools, of course.”
This was the part that Grey dreaded, “What is it you want?”
“A body, Mister Grey. Don’t worry, it doesn’t belong to anyone you know. But it is currently in your possession, and with its unique specifications it will more than suit our needs. And through us, the world’s.”
It was the apocalyptic fate of the Earth of the Omni Competent that made the Grey Eminence wait so long before giving the creature anything closely resembling a whiff of power, but now, with his enemies closing in, he felt he had no choice.
“Fine. Let’s get you out of that damn fishbowl and into something that can be of use.”
To Be Continued
Posted from U.S. Company using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6/Windows XP
