HUNTERS OF BOUNTY

Part I: City of Demons

By Hunter Lambright

The La Brea Tar Pits—Lair of the Pride
Thirty Minutes Ago

In a room off the main chamber of the Pride’s spacious, secret gathering place, Chase Stein sat in the dark. There were twelve seats in the theater-like setup, but in front of him was anything but a movie. Rather, there was a three-dimensional hologram of a strange being unlike anything Chase had ever seen.

The creature had green skin, pointed ears, and a large chin that appeared to be divided into segments. It was clad in a dark purple jumpsuit. One arm was rocky in appearance, while the other was covered in flames; one leg disappeared halfway down, and the other stretched elastically away from its body.

Chase lounged back, trying to act casual. Still, the blond teen kept an eye out in case the other man in the room—Geoffrey Wilder—tried to pull anything. Chase held his hands inside his mechanical Fistigon gauntlets, prepared at a hair’s breadth to activate their fire-pouring powers. Chase didn’t trust Wilder even for a second—he half-believed that the middle-aged, bald black man had something to do with his father, Victor Stein’s, untimely death. It seemed all Wilder wanted with Chase was to use him to do grunt work for the Pride, and that in itself was nightmare enough.

“What the hell is it?” Chase finally asked, unable to hold off his curiosity. He had a feeling that he’d seen it before, and then it clicked. “Is that the Super Skrull?”

“Not quite,” Geoffrey Wilder said, standing just inches from the hologram. “That’s Xavin, a Super Skrull in training. In this hologram, he’s shown at his full potential, but as an early recruit in the Skrull army, Xavin has only mastered the ability to use one of those four powers at a time, and with minimal skill.”

“So why use him?” Chase asked. “Why put him on a team to round up all of your kids when he’s unstable and sucks at using his powers? Kinda seems like a bad idea, don’t you think?”

Geoff sighed. It was the first sign of weakness Chase had ever seen Geoff show. Ever. “I’m not sure, either,” Geoff said, sighing once more. “The Deans chose him, and I can’t challenge their expertise on all things extraterrestrial. Things are bad enough after our kids ran away when it comes to friction in the Pride. I think Robert’s stirring the pot without looking at what he’s throwing in after…well, right. You know what happened…”

Chase looked down. That was a sore subject, and he wasn’t in the mood to think about the vengeance he exacted upon the Little Shoppe of Horrors and its owners. All he could think about from there would be why he did it—and that his father was dead. He pushed the thoughts from his mind.

“Fine. Skrull boy’s in, like I have a choice,” Chase muttered. “Who’s next?”

Geoff flicked through a couple of dials on his thick, complicated remote. The Skrull disappeared, replaced with a man dressed from head to toe in a skintight white suit. He had a pair of goggles on his head, and overall looked pretty stupid, in Chase’s opinion.

“This is Slyde,” Geoff said. “The man invented a frictionless substance and he coated a costume with it. He’s been a D-list threat to big-time ‘heroes’ like Spider-Man on down to low-class vigilantes. If I remember correctly, he once fought the Slingers. And lost.”

Chase frowned. “I thought you guys chose people who were going to get the job done, not people who are likely to lose to a group of kids with stolen powers. Are you having me take out the joke squad just so Molly can kick their asses?”

“Actually, Slyde was my personal choice,” Geoff responded. “Hiring people on par with our children may have been my idea, but hiring killers was not. He won’t kill any of them, and he’ll prevent anyone else in the group from doing the same.”

“At the rate we’re going,” Chase stated, “where would you find someone who would do that?”

Geoff began pushing buttons on the remote again. “How about the Robert and Tina’s choice?” Geoff asked, as a man in a red robe and gold mask appeared on the stage. The robe cloaked his arms and legs. In the center of the robe, mounted atop a golden circle, an empty, five-pointed star rested. “That right there is Master Pandemonium.”

“And what’s his schtick?” Chase inquired. “Yeah, he looks creepy, but what’s he got that makes him so damn dangerous?” He fiddled with a mechanical rod that rested next to his leg. It was his father’s last invention before his death—the Lightning Rod, a bazooka the size of a baton.

“He has nothing to live for—literally. Martin Preston cut a deal with Mephisto when he died after a stunt went bad, or something like that. Now he has to find his soul, although according to our latest intel, Mephisto may have been lying about that. Mephisto then replaced the man’s arms and legs with demons. Still, all we know is that he’s reckless and he won’t stop at anything to find a piece of his soul,” Geoff explained. “That includes rounding up your friends, because the Minorus promised to find a portion of his soul if this works out. It’s a dangerous move, and I don’t want him out there, but Robert and Tina forced my hand on this one.”

Chase nodded. “So we have Skrull-Boy, Demon-Guy, and the other guy…Slick or something, right? Is that it?”

“We have one more hired man,” Geoff said. “He’s the second of the two that I forced on the team.” Geoff flicked the remote. “The man calls himself Hobgoblin.”

In the center of the room appeared a hooded, masked figure in the guise of a cackling, crooked goblinesque creature. He rode atop a so-called “goblin glider” that was really a high-tech flight vehicle and the cause of the original Green Goblin’s death. The orange hood and yellowed skin matched the colors of the pumpkin-shaped explosives that were tethered to his waist. Chase was certain that the satchel on the Hobgoblin’s back held more nasty surprises.

“Believe it or not,” Geoff added slyly, “he’s the tamest of the group. He’s a college kid by the name of Rhett Carson who stumbled upon one of the original Hobgoblin’s caches, because one secret stash per villain is obviously not enough. Anyway, Carson came to us for protection when Kingsley, the original ‘Goblin, threatened him and his family. I figured it was time to use him, especially because Carson swears he’s never going to kill anyone. He’s a good kid in bad circumstances. I trust him, which is more than I can say for the rest of those psychos.”

Chase stood up. “Well, if that’s them, let’s get this thing over with,” he sighed, not truly wanting to fight the people who’d been his friends for years. After his chat with Cyanide, Chase was ready to do whatever it took to that one. “Where am I supposed to meet these guys?”

“Hold up a second,” Geoff said. “You have one more member, she’s just not hired. House-trained, yes, but not a hired thug.” Chase heard toenails scraping the flat ground behind him as he was knocked off his feet to the floor. Scaly, reptilian skin touched his back. Chase rolled over to see the brown-and-purple skin of—

“A dinosaur?! Where the hell did you get a freakin’ dinosaur?!” Chase asked in terror as the dinosaur proceeded to lick his face. He scrambled backwards after the friendly creature knocked his head with its large nose-ring.

“The Yorkes paid for it on one of their trips to the future,” Geoff explained. “It was supposed to be Gert’s graduation gift. Dale and Stacey have taken to calling it ‘Old Lace’ because Gert’s screen name was always patterned off ‘Arsenic.’ Old Lace will do anything you tell her to, but she won’t attack Gert. In fact, she’s mainly there as a tracker, because once she gets close to Gert, their latent telepathic bond will activate. The only reason it hasn’t activated is because they’ve never seen each other. Believe me, with a dinosaur on your side, Alex will probably give up without thinking.”

Chase disagreed, but kept it to himself. He had other issues with Alex—Geoff would be lucky to get his son back in pieces. Picking up the Lighting Rod from where it fell when Old Lace tackled him, he sighed. “Let’s get this show on the road…”

Outside the Calientísima, Los Angeles
Now

Chase, flanked on the left and right by his so-called “team” of villains, confronted Alex, Nico, Gert, and Karolina outside the shell of the Calientísima. He had already collected Molly and a boy he didn’t know from Ariel and Chance, the strip clubs managers. Chase eyed his former friends icily and put on a falsely courageous voice.

“So we have a choice,” Chase stated. “We can make it easy or we can make it hard. The easy way is, you guys come with me, all these nice people I brought with me go home, and you start listening to our parents about their jobs. The hard way is that you guys fight me and my friends here, and we bring you home and you start listening to our parents. So, what do you say?”

From underneath his turquoise, protective helmet, Alex Wilder smirked before activating the electric discharge from W.A.T.E.R., the smart-computer in the helmet. “We choose hard,” he said, gritting his teeth.

At those words, Karolina ripped her bracelet off. The tall, thin blonde erupted into a multitude of pastel-colored lights. Her body was swathed with swirling, cloudy radiance. Dark-haired Nico Minoru bit hard on her lip until she felt blood. Though her Staff of One was already in her hands, she didn’t want to stop bleeding and watch helplessly as the staff disappeared inside her body. The bloody lip was her idea of insurance against that happening. Even Gert got ready, brandishing a thick branch in front of her body.

The bounty hunters looked at Chase. He grimaced. “Do what you need to take them down, but not out, you got it?” he explained. Before they rushed off to their duties, he added one more thing: “Wilder is mine.”

In response, to this, Hobgoblin and Xavin took off into the air. Karolina lifted off to meet them, firing off light-blasts at the oncoming foes. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Karolina asked, referring to the Hobgoblin.

“Wrong me,” Hobgoblin said. “That one was, well, long story, really…” He pulled a pumpkin bomb from his waist and lobbed it at Karolina. “Sorry if this stings.”

It didn’t get anywhere close to Karolina. She pierced the pumpkin bomb with a laser burst of light, causing its gases to leak just as Xavin swung in using the Human Torch’s firepower. Xavin’s arm erupted in an explosion as the flames reached the explosive gas.

“You know not what your family owes me, wench!” exclaimed Xavin, nursing his injured arm. The Skrull shapeshifted the arm into a spiked ball that he swung at Karolina. She ducked the blow, but landed right into another trap. The Hobgoblin wrapped his arms around her.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” he exclaimed, tightening his grip around her waist. “Don’t do anything we’re both going to regret…”

“You’re the one who’s going to regret laying a hand on me!” Karolina retorted, as her hair brightened to a blinding capacity. The Hobgoblin released Karolina to clutch at his eyes. Karolina flew upward as the Hobgoblin’s glider began to spiral out of control.

Suddenly, Karolina’s jaw was snapped to the right by an invisible fist! Xavin had made use of the Invisible Woman’s powers and had snuck up on Karolina while she was fighting the Hobgoblin. Karolina immediately put up a protective shield of solid light, feeling the field shudder with each of the Skrull’s punches.

Once she was sure the jaw wasn’t broken, Karolina slammed her hands together, causing the field to disperse destructively. Xavin reappeared, this time in an outstretched form. “Do not underestimate the power of the Skrulls,” Xavin proclaimed, though from his heavy breathing and uncertain look, he wasn’t in a position to be posturing.

“Don’t underestimate the power of a girl,” Karolina responded, sweeping forward and clapping her hands over Xavin’s ears. Before he could pull her off, she had fired enough light from her palms into his head that he could not see, let alone hear or stand. Karolina caught Xavin as he fell, drifting downward onto the rooftop.

“I don’t give a crap what they promised you,” Karolina muttered as she dropped him roughly onto the rooftop, “but there’s no way in hell you’re getting it out of me…”

Back on the ground, Slyde dodged and dove around Gert. She managed to foresee a lot of his moves and was able to parry them off with her log, but never for very long. “Can’t you kids just give up?” Slyde asked. “If we bring you in to your parents, I won’t have to put this stupid costume back on ever again—and you brats want to stop that!”

“Well, it does happen to be my life on the line,” Gert said, grunting as she parried off another fist from the frictionless man.

Slyde grunted, shaking off his fist after its deflection. To win this, he’d have to stop treating these kids like kids and more like the smart, dangerous punks that they were. He began skating in a circle around the purple-haired girl as she held the stick to her chest, a last security against whatever he might be doing. As Slyde moved, he picked up speed, whipping gravel and dust into the center of his circle, tightening it ever so slightly upon each revelation.

“Ow!” Gert screeched as a pebble struck her in the nose, drawing blood. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“I’m stopping you,” Slyde replied smoothly. “Don’t get mad—it’s my job.”

Gert pulled her wide arms up in protection against the cutting gravel. Slyde sped up faster and faster and grew closer and closer until Gert only saw a blur mere feet in front of her eyes. Then, she struck.

WHACK!

Gert’s stick splintered into pieces as it collided with Slyde’s forehead. Because of his own velocity, the man was knocked out cold, his frictionless body sliding across the ground. Gert smirked somewhat as she looked at the body gliding away on the street.

“Adults,” she scoffed, “They never get their jobs done right.”

Nico’s back dug into the ground as she held the Staff of One with both hands, forcing it into the open jaws of one of Master Pandemonium’s demons—his left arm. As she rocked it back, Nico gained leverage and forced it back, kicking it soundly in the stomach.

Standing up, Nico looked at the demonic man and scowled. “Too bad there was already a Master P on Dancing with the Stars,” she muttered. “Because I think those things qualify as having ‘two left feet.’” The demons that made Master Pandemonium’s legs flowed freely from his body, forming small, lethal groups of three to four monsters, which quickly advanced on the young sorceress.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she added nervously afterward.

Master Pandemonium’s face did not feature an amused look. “I tire of your quips, child.” His robe gestured forward impossibly without an arm to raise the sleeve. “Forward, my brethren!”

Nico looked around before turning back to the oncoming squadron of demons.

She was alone.

The La Brea Tar Pits

“Are you watching this?!” Tina Minoru asked in shock, watching the demons advancing upon her daughter through the television screen. “They’re going to kill our children!”

Geoffrey Wilder’s face was stone. “The man attacking your daughter is the one you assigned to the team, Tina. Do not pin this on me,” he said coldly.

“It was your idea!” Tina retorted. Her eyes were glued to the television, but her voice was directed straight at Geoff.

Geoff’s face remained unchanged as he spoke. “I didn’t ask you to recruit super-villains!” he said, raising his voice. “I said super-people! I wanted to find ones we could trust not to kill our children—not people you lied to about their goddamn souls!”

Out of nowhere, Robert Minoru spun Geoff around and grasped him by his collar, pulling him close to his face. “Don’t yell at my wife, Wilder,” he hissed. “Nobody has that right.”

“Speaking of Rites,” broke in Dale Yorkes, brushing his mustache off his lip with a pinky, “We need to present our children before the Gibborim for their ‘moment of truth’ in less than four hours. Tonight is the Rite of Thunder.”

“And you so-called super-people are losing, Geoff,” added Janet Stein in a seething tone.

The eleven-member Pride looked at the screen for a moment in silence. Finally, Geoff broke it. “Suit up,” Geoff ordered. Surprisingly, no one challenged him.

“What are we doing, Geoff?” asked Catherine, his wife. She looked concernedly at the television, which focused on two technologically empowered teens.

Geoff sighed. “We’re doing this the way we should have done it from the start. We’re going to go out there, ground them, and take our runaways back where they belong—before Chase and Alex kill each other…”

The New Little Shoppe of Horrors

Surrounded by clattering metal cages that were marred with wear, a boy stood in the darkness as sunlight faded into dusk. An old radio chirped in the room of the store, and the boy moved to turn twist the dial. A plain, white cutoff shirt hung off his shoulders, revealing his thinly toned arms and the recently-healed burns on his pale skin.

Matti Falcone had been glued to the radio ever since he first heard the reports of a giant green bird attacking a strip club. He had lost a lot of respect for his brother in the last moments they’d spent together, but they were still twins. He knew something was wrong.

“Primo, what the hell did you get yourself into, man?” Matti asked aloud. He stood inside the new storefront off one of the darker streets in Los Angeles. After he’d run back into their old building in the fire, Matti had managed to recover almost all of their money, nearly untouched beneath the floorboards. He also managed to save something much more important to business—his father.

Matti walked into the back half of the store, where the living quarters were. “How’s it going, Dad?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t receive an answer. Arturo Falcone leaned back in an old armchair that was in better condition than his old one. The man was nearly wrapped from head to toe in bandages that Matti had to change twice daily so that his third-degree burns wouldn’t become infected.

Arturo Falcone was drunk and asleep, with a Springer rerun on mute on the small, fuzzy television in the corner. Matti walked over and took the empty beer can from his father’s loose grasp as the subtitles flashed across the screen. He quickly slid a new, lukewarm can in the crook of his arm. Then he changed the television screen to a local news channel.

The subtitles popped into the middle of the helicopter reporter’s description of the scene below. Matti didn’t care about demons—where the hell was his brother? “Come on, come on,” Matti whispered to the television. “Show me Primo…”

The aerial view continued, and he saw a scruffy pink T-shirt and jeans. Some girl—young from the looks of her—was lying on the ground, and beside her—wait, could it be?—was a boy, thin and unconscious. His shirt was clouded in red blood. “Primo,” Matti whispered, turning to his sleeping father. “I’m going out, Dad. I’ll be back soon.”

To his shock, Arturo grabbed Matti’s forearm. “One’s…*kaff*…coming,” he muttered, still not quite awake. “Get it…’fore…you go…”

Matti nodded before running to grab a small cage from the front of the store. From his father’s bicep squirmed a small creature about the size of a potato. This one had rough scales and yellow, aquatic eyes. Matti cursed before caging it and dumping it into a Plexiglas container. Then he took the precious moments to fill a bucket of water from the faucet before the amphibious monster died from lack of moisture. Each creature that came from Arturo’s skin had some special ability or another. His mutant ability was his curse, and he began drinking years ago as a last-ditch effort to numb the pain.

After checking up on his father one last time, Matti went to leave. He locked the door and stood there for a second, preparing himself for what he was about to do. Run into a blazing fire for money? Sure. Run out to save his brother from a super-powered fight? Then, he was scared.

No. Primo was in danger. Matti lifted his shirt, revealing a coiled snake tattoo that had appeared there in the past few days. “You had to be my twin, didn’t you?” Matti sighed, as the yellow snake emerged from his flesh and grew to giant-size, encasing Matti in its energy form.

As the snake began slivering through the alleyway, Matti steeled himself against the possibilities he was looking toward. Demons, villains, and the chance that Primo was already dead all lay ahead.

“I hate this freakin’ city.”

Outside the Calientísima

Alex dodged another flame barrage from Chase’s gauntlets as he ducked and dove through the trash that littered the alleyway. “Where are the freaking police when you need ‘em!” he exclaimed, firing off two blue electrical bolts from W.A.T.E.R. at Chase. They’d been going at it like this for awhile now, neither of them getting in a clear shot. Still, Chase seemed to have a passion in this fight that Alex couldn’t really pinpoint.

“What’s your deal, dude?” Alex asked, as he hit the dirt to avoid a devastating shot from the Lightning Rod. “Why are you out for blood?”

Alex was rocked off his limbs and onto his back as Old Lace catapulted into his body. Her pronged claws dug into Alex’s waist, making it hard for him to breathe, let alone talk or attack. Her jaws opened wide near his face, but didn’t close. Hot, damp breath came out of her open mouth, but it didn’t get any closer.

“Because I know,” Chase said, breathing hard. “I know what you did to my father. Cyanide told me everything.”

“Wait—what?” Alex asked. “Who’s—”

“Get the hell away from him!” shouted Gert, running up on the scene. Old Lace looked up at Chase confusedly before obeying Gert and ambling to her side. A look of shocked realization spread from Chase’s eyes across his face as an identical one appeared on Gert’s. Her head filled with pink light as she felt her mind touching another for the first time, and yet, it felt as if she’d merely been missing a piece of her psyche. She and Old Lace were connected from the core interchanges of thought, and now very little could separate them apart from death.

Chase recovered quickly and pressed the Lightning Rod against Alex’s forehead before he could move to protect himself. “Don’t try anything,” he stated, “or I’ll splatter your genius brain across the pavement, you sick bastard.”

Alex could do nothing but lie there helplessly, wondering what had happened. There was one thing he did know: he had nothing to do with the death of Victor Stein…

Nico turned back over her shoulder, watching as the demons scampered over crates and boxes to get closer and closer to her. “Get away from me, you freaks!” she shouted, raising the Staff of One up high. “HOLY RAIN!”

The sky instantly clouded over, letting off a downpour of holy water instead of rain droplets. The nearest demon hissed as a droplet touched its hand, withering the slimy skin. Master Pandemonium felt the pain through the demon that composed part of his left leg and let out a yelp as the rain increased in volume.

Then, as soon as it had appeared, the rain lost its magic effect and turned into normal rain droplets. Nico looked behind her as a yellow-skinned, pot-bellied demon leapt at an impossible speed and attached itself to her back, biting into her shoulder blade savagely. She screamed in pain as a second one launched onto her leg, dragging her to the ground.

Master Pandemonium arrived slowly, his legless robe gliding over the ground. He paused over Nico’s fallen form. “You harmed my limbs, child—you will not get a second chance to cause me to fail in my soul-search.” His empty sleeve rose up, preparing to drop it as he set his demons loose upon Nico’s helpless form.

“RESTRAIN YOURSELF,” said two familiar voices. Nico’s eyes traveled skyward as two figures in blood-red cloaks descended. Green, shimmering lights traveled from their palms, coiling around Master Pandemonium and his limbs and binding them to each other so that they couldn’t move.

“Mom? Dad?” asked Nico warily, as her parents glared at the mad sorcerer rather than turn their eyes in her direction. They turned to leave. “Where are you going?”

“We’re putting the trash safely away, Nico,” said Tina. “Don’t run away—we’ll follow you. Tonight is going to be the most important night of your young lives…” With that veiled statement, the Minorus disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

After a few moments in shock, she stood up and brushed her clothes off. Then, without a second thought, Nico brushed her still-bleeding lip and rushed toward the sound of fighting. Forget her parents—her friends needed her now.

As Matti’s serpentine exoskeleton slithered through alleyways, he was shocked that he didn’t encounter a single other human being trying to escape or a policeman trying to get on the scene. Did the Pride have something to do with that, too? Was this whole thing engineered?

He didn’t have time to think of that, though, as he neared the scene that the news helicopter had captured on the screen. Coming upon his brother’s fallen form, Matti allowed the snake to withdraw back into the coiled tattoo on his upper hip. Leaning over Primo, Matti saw the shallow rise and fall of his chest and looked skyward. “Thank God,” he whispered, pulling his shirt over his head to press it against the profusely bleeding puncture wound on Primo’s abdomen.

“C’mon, bro,” he muttered. “It’s all gonna be all right…”

Without a single policeman in the area, and fighting going on just down the street, Matti knew that he had no choice: he would have to move his brother himself. Calling for his “snakeskin,” Matti lifted Primo and draped his still form across its back. He got up on the snake’s back and prepared to bust whatever speed that snake had all the way to the hospital, but his eye caught upon the form of the girl just lying there.

Forget her, he thought, but he couldn’t. He hopped off the energy-snake and sprinted over to her, preparing to lug her over to the snake with Primo. Then, out of the blue, his vision flowed red as electric pain coursed through is body. A telekinetic blade rammed a V-shaped cut from his shoulders to a point in the center of the small of his back.

Cast onto the ground, Matti looked up as two figures draped in burgundy clothing stared at him with their glowing pink eyes. From under netted veils, they spoke in unison. “Stay away from our daughter,” they spoke, as their prying fingers prepared to enter his mind…

Chase held the Lightning Rod over Alex’s head, watching as Gert regained her composure from her telepathic interlude with Old Lace. “I mean it—you move, and his brains are mush!” Chase warned, his hand shaking.

Gert looked him in the eye and shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “Don’t do it.”

“Why the hell not?” Chase asked, shuddering. A single tear dribbled down the side of his face. “He killed my dad, Gert!”

“Because I said you’re not gonna kill him. I don’t know where you’re getting your info, Chase,” said Geoff Wilder, holding a revolver to Chase’s head, “but you’re going to step away from my son before this all gets ugly. You got it?”

Alex looked up at his father, searching for something that let him know his “old dad” was still there—but all he could see was ice.

Geoff pressed the barrel harder against Chase’s head when the blond boy didn’t move away. “Step away, or I swear to god I’m gonna pull this trigger—and you’re gonna be seeing your father a hell of a lot sooner than you thought you would.

“You have all of five seconds, Chase. Five…four…three…”

Geoff’s trigger finger tightened.

“Two…one…”

BLAM!

NEXT: Wait—did Geoff just kill Chase? Or is something else going on? Stay tuned for Part II of Hunters of Bounty!