Anthology Two Presents

Mysteria
"Precious Things"
(Winter Act III)
By Jacob Milnestein

"Ooh-whoo the time is getting closer,
Ooh-whoo time to be a ghost,
Ooh-whoo every day we're getting closer,
The sun is getting dim,
Will we pay for who we been?"
- Tori Amos
'Happy Phantom'
 

She stood silently upon the unmoving wind, eyes flashing beneath the cowl of her cloak.

The sole inhabitant of the cramped apartment moved carelessly within, his movements languid as he flicked the switch on the phone and sank onto the sofa.

The glass obscured the sound of the message but it was plain to see, from the look of contorted pain that spread slowly across his tired features, that it was a message he was not pleased to be the recipient of.

It didn't matter.

Soon he would have another message he wouldn't be pleased to hear and Victoria Burke was quietly happy to be the messenger of such news.

All this time he had been harbouring those two criminals, all this time pretending to honour her father's memory.

That cold knot of pain and anger twisted in the pit of her stomach once more.

"Liar." She hissed through gritted teeth as again she heard his words echo through the space between times.

"I know I'm not you, Bruce." He said silently. "I'm not Henry Burke either but I promise you I'll do my best. I'll make both of you, wherever you are, proud of the name Millennium Man."

"Lying filth." She mouthed the words and tightened her fists.

At the back of her mind the scarab hollered for release, tempting her with its vast powers and the promises of what she would be able to do once she gave in to its pleasures.

Briefly she pictured them all falling before her: Michael Manly, Charlie and Shirley Winters, Albert Weisz, the mother that had abandoned her, even her own father. The image was fragrant and powerful, a potent whisper of the sheer magnitude of awesome abilities that lay dormant with the sleeping beetle's shell.

She watched as his grotesque masculine reactions as he listened to the answer-phone's secrets, the hatred growing in her with every passing moment.

The only person she had ever trusted with her dual identity, the one person she had believed would serve her father's legacy with honour was just as deceitful and vicious as the Winters themselves.

Silently she struggled to contain her anger, to suppress the growing urge to simply access the great power of the scarab and destroy the building with a single blast...but that would make her no better than those, as yet, unnamed parties that had destroyed the Tower only a month ago.

The knot in her stomach twisted once more and fell silent.

No, she was not like them.

She was not a terrorist. It was her role to bring those responsible for such heinous crimes to justice.

She was Henry Burke's daughter; she was Mysteria.

She watched on as Manly leapt from his chair, turning to look at the answer phone with rapt attention.

Moments passed and then she watched as he reached for the phone and began to dial a number.

"He knows," She hissed quietly to herself. "He knows!"

Charlie Winters stood on 43rd and St. Mikes looking nervous, the lights of Morris' Pub casting his shadow out before him and into the street and the passing traffic.

Something was wrong - Shirley should have been here by now.

His stomach flipped once more as he took a quick drag from the end of his burnt out cigarette, eyes moving erratically from side to side in a desperate attempt to keep both sides of the street under surveillance.

At his feet resting a crumpled rucksack in which remained the pieces of the cannon he had salvaged from the helicar. Having decided it best to dismantle the thing before boarding the train from Lorrington to Pacific City, Winters had managed to con a German tourist out of his rucksack in exchange for a couple of quid - a couple of quid that he really couldn't afford but still.

Benefits were awkward when you were a superhero.

Due to the anonymous and thankless nature of the superhero's lifestyle, money was often a matter of no small difficulty. Many superheroes had been forced to work long hours in the daytime which led to them being exhausted and unfit during their nightly patrols beneath their masks. This became more and more of a problem when Fast-Forward had fallen asleep whilst running down Oxford Street and impacted with the side of a double-decker bus. The bus had been destroyed and several people had died in the resulting pile up. Fast-Forward however, remained fine aside from being a little dazed.

After that had happened the DSS had been pushed to instigate a benefits plan for superheroes in Britain and, the Conservative government, being very determined to keep people in their pigeon holes had welcomed the scheme with open arms - especially seeing as the tax-payers were forking out for it.

Of course it had been several years after Winters or any of his extended family had been declared supervillains that the scheme was introduced and, unfortunately, such benefits as Income Support for Costumed Avengers (form IB51a from the local Benefits Agency office) was not available to supervillains - though they were still expected to pay Income Tax.

He took another staccato drag on the end of his cigarette and looked around.

It had been half-an-hour since he had phoned Shirley and 20 minutes since he had left a message on Michael Manly's answer-phone. If Mysteria got to either of them before he did.

He shuddered, suppressing the terror that rose within him.

"Charlie." A sudden, whispered voice called to him.

He span round, startled, the cigarette falling from his mouth.

Adrenaline raced through him, accentuating the terrible fear that all but engulfed him.

Shirley Winters stepped respectfully from the shadows as a gasp of relief escaped his lips. Without another word she collapsed into his arms, sobbing gently as he held her head close to his chest.

"S'alright." He whispered. "Everything's going to be alright."

Shirley Winters continued to cry, soft tears streaming down her face for the first time in 24 years.

Not since that horrific night in 1977 when they had seen the true face of the Imperial Magistrate's hideous Bowler had Shirley Winters been so emotional - oh, there had been the odd solitary tear and misty eyes during the arguments and most definitely when her brother Johnny had perished but she had never truly cried, not since that night.

He held her close and kissed her head.

"Its alright, baby," He whispered. "I promise it'll be alright."

But in his heart, Charlie Winters felt nothing but the dead weight of eventuality.

He remained uncomfortably still throughout the duration of the interview, manacles of super-cooled liquids clammed firmly around the pale blue skin of his wrists, ankles and neck.

Aside from the look of distaste he wore, the Vapour was as naked as the day he was born (or alternatively as naked as the day he had been bio-genetically engineering, depending on what origin story you believed and who you spoke to). His ice-cold flesh was devoid of all body hair, a fact that his nudity could not help but draw attention to.

In some ways, Tage reflected, he looks like an impoverished child.

The doctor's eyes sloped downwards and remained there for a moment before he quickly turned away, barely suppressing a shudder.

Drawing his fur-trimmed anorak tight around him, William Tage looked up at the Vapour once more.

The silent drip of water echoed throughout the frozen depths of the supervillain's cell as neither doctor nor patient spoke.

Tage sighed and reached for his packet of cigarettes, a small amount of satisfaction settling upon him as he watched his patient squirm away from the flame of the match.

Not that mattered. Tage knew as well as any other that the Vapour could survive in flame just as well as he could live within his current confines.

Tage drew deeply on the end of his cigarette and fixed his patient with a cold glare.

"How are you feeling, Heinrich?" He asked, drawing the words out slowly and languidly from between the whispered clouds of cigarette smoke.

The Vapour drew a deep breath, never once taking his eyes from the other.

"I am most dissatisfied, Doctor Tage," He began, words etched in that familiar German accent of his. "In fact I would almost go so far as to say that I am in fact angry, Herr Doctor. Why is it that I have been confined to this underground..." His lips curled with distaste. "...chamber when the facilities above ground were more than adequate to cope with my admittedly unusual demands."

Tage allowed himself a short drag upon the end of his cigarette and sighed inwardly.

"We felt that you were exploiting your environment upstairs a little too frequently and so the decision was made to move you. I've told you this before Heinrich. This is not a holiday camp, this is a hospital."

The Vapour turned away, the first sign of emotion burning in his eyes.

"A hospital that will not allow its patients basic human rights." He murmured.

"Heinrich, please don't talk to me about basic human rights, you don't even qualify as human anymore. Your biological makeup is so radically different from that of a human being that it is only in your appearance of that you give you the impression of humanity. You are not a human being are therefore you do require 'basic human rights'."

"Then am I to be treated like the beasts of the field?" The Vapour cried out, suddenly enraged.

"No, Heinrich," Tage sighed wearily. "You are to be treated like a criminal. Last January you managed to single-handedly empty the Gallery of Antiquities of its precious stone collection and attempted to insulate the stones within your own body in order to take them out of the country and resell them on the black market. This is why you have found your privileges to be limited."

The Vapour's expression blackened.

"It will not always be like this, Herr Doctor." He warned. "Trust me on this. One day it will be I who is on the outside and you who are on the inside."

Tage rose wearily from the cold seat of his chair and nodded to the two guards on either side of the ice covered metal door.

"Somehow, I very much doubt that, Heinrich." He sighed and turned away, waiting for the guards to open the mammoth door of his patient's cell.

"I would not be so certain, Herr Doctor." The Vapour called out.

Tage turned and was rewarded with a momentary expression of emotion from the Vapour before his face sunk back into passive neutrality.

"Next month I shall be 130 years old and this is not the first prison I have been confined to." Tage shrugged and dropped his cigarette onto the icy ground, grinding it out with the heel of his boot.

Behind him the door opened, framing him in the light and warmth of the corridor outside.

"But this will be your last, trust me, Heinrich. No one has ever escaped from Alhazred. No one."

The Vapour smiled thinly.

"Then it pleases me that I shall be the first."

Tage scowled one last time and then turned his back, the guards following behind him and the light fading away as the door slammed back again leaving the supervillain with only himself for company.

And amongst the clouds of evaporating ice, Heinrich Goethe smiled quietly to himself.

Silently he adjusted his baseball cap and bomber jacket, catching a quick glance of himself in the dust covered full-length mirror of the hallway.

It was nothing like his discarded Millennium Man costume and that, in itself was appealing. The idea of garbing himself once more in that stained and desecrated uniform filled him with a very palatable dread that he could not quite understand aside from the vague fear and disgust that accompanied the recollection of Finnegan's death.

A sudden rattling at the window caused him to turn abruptly, those old fears already filling his mind as he tried desperately to recall the Tai Chi katas that Jian had taught him.

The waxen features of Victoria Burke, the upper half of her face shrouded by the cowl of her cloak, wavered slowly into light beyond the window, her lips tight and unsmiling and her head high.

He tried to quieten his fears despite the instant dislike that welled up within him at the sudden way in which she had surprised him.

Her expression remained unchanging as he stood solemnly on the thin air outside his window.

"Open the window, Michael." She mouthed, her lips moving slowly so as to give him ample opportunity to register the meaning of her words.

He nodded hesitantly and with trepidation stepped across the room and unlocked the window, pulling it up and greeting the cold wind beyond.

Stepping backwards, he watched as she glided blissfully inside, the heels of her boots remaining just above the floor.

A sudden chill ran down his spine and that ominous dread returned to him once more.

Without drawing the hood back she turned and looked down at him.

"Where are they?" She demanded, voice firm and austere.

The dread rose in volumes within him.

"Where are who?" He asked, a slight frown forming beneath the brim of his baseball cap.

"Don't play coy with me, Manly." She snarled viciously. "Where are the bastards that murdered my father?"

Adrenaline began to rush through his body as his heart started beating faster.

He tried to focus on the positive, despite the nagging voice at the back of his mind which shared more than a few similarities to that of his new Tai Chi teacher. She still hadn't found them yet, that was a good thing, if he could perhaps stall her or reach them with enough time to learn what had really happened.

"Listen, Victoria." He said soothingly, reaching out to touch her arm.

She recoiled violently, the lower half of her face contorting with rage.

"Don't call me that!" She screamed. "My name is Mysteria! Are you so retarded that you don't understand the concept of concealing identities? Are you that much of an idiot, Michael?"

He stopped, suddenly wordless in the face of this unprovoked barrage of insults.

"You've been harbouring those murdering bastards here in my city since the Imperial Magistrate turned tail and ran away and you still have the audacity to talk with me as if you're my friend?" Her voice trembled with hatred. "You're filth, Manly. A disgrace to everything my father stood for, you're not even fit to lick the dirt off his shoes."

Manly tensed, his own frustrations surfacing.

"Well, its just as well I'm not your father then isn't it?" He snapped in return. "Or is that perhaps what you want, Victoria? Do you need someone to hold your hand now that Daddy's not around? Well let me tell you this: I never, ever asked to be Millennium Man, nor did I want to be. The more and more I hear about your father, the more and more uncomfortable I feel about being his successor because the way I've heard it told your precious Daddy wasn't half the man Charlie Winters is."

A sudden blow connected with the side of his mouth and he felt himself impact against something hard and felt it shatter beneath his weight. It took a full ten seconds for him to register he was falling and a further two seconds to quell the sudden fear and remind himself he could fly.

Stopping himself in mid-flight he looked and saw Victoria Burke framed in the gaping hole where the window frame had been.

It was only when he registered that she had knocked him through the window that his back began to ache and he became aware of the tiny shards of glass that were embedded in his clothes and had scratched his face.

With distaste he spat out a mouthful of copper tasting blood and watched momentarily as a detached tooth spiralled down towards the city below.

Victoria flew down to face him and he was able to catch a glimpse of his apartment behind the missing window and his baseball cap laying abandoned and upturned within.

"Don't you ever talk about my father like that again." She hissed. "Now tell me where the Winters are."

He looked at her, gazing down at her tightened fists and white knuckles.

Sadly he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Victoria, but even if I knew where they were I wouldn't tell you."

A second blow caught him under the chin and he was forced to do a backwards somersault in order to prevent himself from falling further downwards.

His jaw ached terribly as he looked up at Victoria Burke, her cloak billowing in the wind and her right leg still outstretched in the kick that had caught him under the jaw.

"Tell me or I'll kill you as well." She announced, her voice still trembling.

Quickly he tried to calculate the swiftest way to put her out of action and knew that there wasn't the faintest chance in Hell of him being able to achieve it. Despite having made progress, his fighting technique was still incredibly rudimentary and, as if that didn't make things difficult enough, he had been witness to the full magnitude of Victoria Burke's powers once before.

He frowned once more as his eyes focused on a wisp of brown hair that danced beneath the hood of her cloak.

She still hadn't ascended to her most powerful form and if she wasn't using the power the scarab gave her then perhaps there was still a chance.

All further thought was cut short as she suddenly dived forwards and Manly found himself awkwardly defending against a barrage of kicks and punches.

Together they moved at a rate so fast that soon neither was able to ascertain how high up or low down the brutal movements of their dance was forcing them. Each moment was punctuated with a kick or punch and with every failed block Manly's head became more and more fuzzy.

Suddenly he felt rough fingers seize the short length of blonde hair he had allowed to grow since his operation and snap his head back.

He looked up, eyes boggling, just in time to see Victoria's fist connect with his face. His vision reeled and he felt a second blow and then a third as slow the rhythm of her punches increased. Sickness and nausea filled him as the bile and blood began to clog his nose and throat and he felt his body going limp until finally the falling sensation returned.

He teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, vaguely aware of the wind rushing in his ears and that when he eventually hit the concrete then gravity and physics probably wouldn't really care where he had an arsenal of solar based superpowers his spine would still shatter and he would paralysed for the rest of his life.

His stomach lurched and a new and incredibly painful sensation brought him back from the edge as he felt hands seize hold of him and slam him against the side of a building.

The shrouded features of Victoria Burke swam hazily back into view once more.

"I'm going to find them, Michael," She whispered. "And there's nothing you can do about it."

Leaving him standing awkwardly on nothing, she turned and faded into the air around, resuming her search for her father's murderers.

Slowly Manly allowed himself to drift to the pavement below before falling unconscious in the gutter and allowing the pain to fall silent for a brief moment.

Eric slouched languidly in the doorframe, his designer sunglasses perched on the end of his nose and his face carrying that oh, so perfectly bored expression that he had learnt to replicate from such seniors as Denise Delgado and Trevor Mason.

Unlike say, Michael Manly or Bruce Todd, Eric had never been to the right schools or known the right people.

The old oak door opened soundlessly revealing a slim man with an aristocratic nose and faded silver hair. Beneath his piercing eyes rested a pair of spectacles that made him look so antique that Eric was sorely pushed to suppress the urge to laugh in his face.

"Yo." He smirked, lifting his expensive sunglasses and adding just the right tone of arrogance to his voice to carry the illusion of wealth off. "How's it hanging, old man?"

"Good evening, sir." The old man answered, his stiff upper lip getting in the way of his speech. "Is there perhaps some fashion in which you misguidedly believe I may assist you?"

Eric shifted from his slouch against the doorframe and looked up at the abnormally tall old gentleman.

"You better believe it, friend." He beamed and prodded an index finger into the oldster's chest.

The butler looked disdainfully down at the finger and brushed it away with a scowl.

"May I be so bold as to point out that I am not your friend, sir." The butler announced coldly.

Eric shrugged.

"Well, I don't know how you folks do things in Britain but."

"England, sir." The butler interrupted.

Eric paused and looked confused.

"I come from England, sir." He reiterated.

Eric shrugged again.

"Well from where I'm sounding I'd say you were speaking with a British accent."

"May I just point out, sir, that there is no such thing as a 'British accent', indeed in order for me to affect a 'British accent' as you so quaintly call it, I would have to have an accent composed of Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English accents and including all possible regional variations. Therefore you will forgive me in correcting you."

"Whatever." Eric shrugged. "You sound British to me."

"Indeed, sir. May I point out that this is, perhaps, because sir is an imbecile."

"Listen, buddy," Eric snapped. "Keep your Britishness to yourself. I'm Victoria Burke's aide and I'm here to see her on important business."

"I'm afraid that the lady of the house is otherwise engaged, sir. If you'd like to call back at another time, perhaps."

"Cut the crap, Jeeves." Eric announced brashly. "I know she's here. I've got a gift for these sort of things."

The butler regarded him with his cold and calculating eyes.

"I can see there's no fooling such a keen intellect as yourself, sir." He humbly said and stepped aside.

"If sir would like to step inside and wait in the drawing room I shall inform Miss Burke of your arrival."

Eric nodded and smiled broadly. Finally things were going right. He had known all along that all that was needed to play in the big leagues was a damn fine bluff. With a swagger he stepped past the butler and surveyed the wide expense of corridor.
The door closed softly behind him.

"Hey," He announced, suddenly aware of the building pressure in his bladder. "Where's the...?"

With a loud, wet cracking sound Eric's head twisted at an abnormal angle and he filled his pants. For a moment he stood there, his head back to front and still retaining that stupid, winning smile before the body gave up the pretence of life and stopped arguing with gravity.

Alfonse scowled as he looked down at the crumpled body and the spreading puddle of urine beneath it.

With a sigh he resigned himself to the fact that the young, and recently deceased, gentleman was in no fit state to clean it up himself and that the duty was now his.

Slowly he strode off towards the kitchen in search of a mop and bucket, humming softly to himself.

It was nice to kill people again and comforting to know that he hadn't lost his knack.

Smiling slightly he continued his search.

She crouched silently upon the thin needle of the KGPC Control Tower, watching out over her city below and knowing that somewhere therein dwelt the hideous cancer she so relentlessly sought.

Since the destruction of the main Tower and the loss of Millennium Man the Control Tower had seemed the natural place for her to take up residence. After all it wasn't as if there was anyone else strong enough to live up to her father's legacy. Michael Manly had tried and failed and all the others were mere vigilantes or idiots.

She was the last Science Heroine and the only one that could uphold the purity and goodness that her father had so exemplified.

None of them possessed power, not real power like she did.

She fingered the scarab nervously, watching the flickering lights upon the city horizon.

Somewhere...

Her body convulsed suddenly and she nearly toppled from her vantage point, the scarab wailing in her ears.

They were here!

Righting herself she stood upright upon the spire.

She knew where they were!
Her face darkened and her fists clenched as she scanned the horizon once last time.

Bretonside...They were in Bretonside, heading up towards the Korean sector and the city centre.

Without hesitation, Victoria Burke threw herself out into the night sky, a trail of energy burning the sky behind her as she gained ever closer on her prey.

Holding tightly onto his wife's hand and to the bag containing the remnants of the cannon he had constructed, Charlie Winters ran through the crowded streets of Bretonside, pavement awash with eagle-eyed shoppers searching for Christmas gifts several months too early in order to avoid the December rush.

A small group of Nipponese businessmen staggered and pointed in shock as he barged through, crying out "Winters-san!" and looking genuinely surprised but he had no time to exchange pleasantries.

He could feel the weight of the city upon his shoulders and knew that any moment Mysteria would realise where they were.

They had to make it into the city central and hope that Manly had got the message and would have enough sense to meet them there.

The pavement before them abruptly splintered and exploded, knocking them both flying back against the ground. The bag skidded across the torn pavement and into the gutter as innocent shoppers screamed and fled the area.

Laying silent upon the ground was one of the Nipponese businessmen, his eyes wide open in shock and blood trickling down his face.

Charlie Winters looked up in terror.

Hovering silently above the body of the corpse of the felled businessman stood Mysteria, her arms crossed and her expression full of hate and rage.

"Y-You killed him." Winter stammered, his eyes flickered back to the dead businessman.

"What about all the people you killed in order to get to my father, Winters?" Mysteria announced, her voice uneven. "He's just another in a long line of people that have died because of your action, Winters."

Winters struggled for words as he rose slowly to his feet.

"But you killed him!" He protested.

"I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO IF YOU WEREN'T SUCH A COWARD!" The superheroine screamed.

In the corner of his eye, Winters caught sight of his wife struggling forwards on her hands and knees towards the battered sports bag.

"That's no justification." Winters continued, hoping to buy Shirley some time. "What kind of a hero does that make you if you just go round killing innocent people in order to get to the supposed 'villains', eh? Your father would be ashamed of you, Victoria." He smirked.

With a scream of rage, Mysteria lunged at him and, in the blink of an eye Winters had moved.

The young heroine impacted face-first with the pavement.

"I'm a speedster remember, love." He grinned, sparking up a cigarette. "You can't just go round running at me and hoping I'll stay still."

Mysteria pulled herself slowly up from the ground, her face and bruised and blooded from the harsh surface of the ground.

"Don't you dare presume to talk about how my father would have felt. You know nothing, Winters, you're filth, scum." She snarled through broken teeth.

"Hang on a minute, aren't you forgetting something?" He snapped, his own temper rising as he tried not to look in Shirley's direction for fear of giving the game away. "Me and your old dad were mates, right. We were friends. I don't care how much that pains you to hear but its true. He even saved my life one time."

Mysteria righted herself.

"And you repaid him by stabbing him in the back?"

"Yeah, I did." Winters shouted. "Because he became too complacent. He became an idiot. He was the first bloody person we told about the Bowler when we came back from Earth #746364 and even then we knew that he wasn't strong enough to take on the full might of the Bowler. He had 23 sodding years to find someone hard enough to take on the Bowler and win. 23 bloody years! And what did he do? He let his arrogance consume him, thought that he could take on any villain. But he didn't see the Bowler like we did. He didn't see the heroes of an entire Earth die because of this one character - and I'm not
talking about just your father, I'm talking about the lot of us - Chastity, Fast-Forward, FireKing, Magenta, Lady of Knives, Doctor Creep, Sparkfly, Deadboy Smith, even hardcore heroes like Freelancer and Champion, even us - the Bowler killed all of Earth #746364's superheroes.

"So yeah, we killed your poor old dad because we knew that he couldn't take the Bowler. We killed one Millennium Man in a thousand, shit, one Millennium Man in a million! It...doesn't...matter! Your father was not the only Millennium Man, Michael Manly is not the only Millennium Man!" He gestured wildly up at the sky. "Out there behind the stars there's an entire armada of Millennium Men from an another dimension, the strongest Millennium Men from each world all chilling out together and waiting for the time when they can take their place as the rightful rulers of the known universe. Your father and poor Mikey don't even warrant their attention. Neither of them are good enough! I've seen the real Millennium Men and one of these days they are going to come down and blow the shit out of all of us!

"So don't you be giving us this stupid little sob story about 'Oh, big bad Winters killed my Daddy-waddy'. I don't care! Piss off into space and get yourself a new one. We did what had to be done to take out the Bowler. We brought ourselves some time. The Bowler, the Magistrate, they're just the tip of the iceberg. Not even Majestic Man would have been hard enough to take out those guys up there. If any of us hopes to stand a chance in the future then we're all going to have to ascend - not just you, but all of us...and we're going to have to work together. So I killed one Millennium Man, so what? In the universal scheme of things it doesn't matter!"

Mysteria was silent, her face openly shocked.

"I-It does matter." She finally said, her words slow and pained. "He was my father. He mattered to me." Her sentence ended in a sudden scream as the vast power of the helicar's modified cannon hit her square in the back, burning her cloak and setting fire to the smooth flesh of her back.

She screamed, her arms flailing uselessly as she staggered about the torn landscape of the decimated street.

Shirley Winters stood triumphantly behind her with the cannon in her hands and attached to her torso.

Charlie smiled, taking a long drag from his cigarette and watched the fire.

"Nice one, love." He smirked. "Nice one."

Neil Ashwood sighed and closed the folder of his desk, the bleary Cyclops eye of his desk-lamp fluctuating as he stretched out and stood up from his desk.

He had been desperately struggling with the firm's lawyers in a pitiful bid to keep Burke Fashions from going under but all to no avail.

Despite his hard work he was slowly acknowledging that he was fighting a losing battle and that maybe it was time to call it a day. After all if Victoria Burke herself couldn't make the effort to come down to mortal level and deal with her company's financial troubles then why should he bother?

Sighing he lit another cigarette and picked the file up from his desk, triumphantly depositing it in the wastepaper basket.

It was too late in the day to get so over worked up a fate that was already etched in stone.

Burke Fashions was dead, long live Neil Ashwood.

With another sigh he flicked the lamp off and headed out of the door, closing it behind him for what he deemed to be the last time.

Until Victoria Burke came back to work he didn't see any reason for him to.

Suddenly feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Neil Ashwood left the building and headed towards his car.

The useless form of Mysteria staggered forwards, flames raging from her body and threatening to engulf her all.

Charlie Winters smiled jubilantly as he watched the daughter of his once friend consumed by the rapidly growing flames, the cigarette smouldering and forgotten and the corner of his mouth.

Screaming and convulsing, Mysteria stumbled further towards the ground.

She cried out on her hands and knees, digging into the exposed soil with her bare hands and then suddenly fell silence.

A feeling of dread terror rose in Winters' stomach.

With a scream that shattered glass for miles around, Mysteria jerked upright, flaming dove feather wings exploded from her back. Her skin paled and her hair flickered from black to blonde and back again.

"Oh shit." Winters whispered. "Oh Jesus, no."

Despite the flames that still ravaged her body an expression of serenity and calm seemed to settle over the fallen Science Heroine's face.

"She's changing." Winters whispered soundlessly. "Oh God, she's changing!"

Turning suddenly, the tips of her wings collided with him, slicing through clothing and cutting deep into his chest.

Screaming in agony, Charlie Winters fell backwards, blood spurting in vibrant arcs from the large gaping wounds upon his body.

Shirley Winters stood frozen before the transforming heroine, her hands still tightly hanging onto the helicar cannon.

Charlie screamed a useless warning, his hands clutching at his wounds and darkening as he tried and failed to keep the blood from spilling down him and to the ground he lay sprawled upon.

Shirley's face turned white with fear, tears streaming down her face and her mouth but wordless.

Cupping her hands together, Mysteria pulled her arms back, her expression silent and unreadable.

"No." Charlie whimpered. "Jesus Christ, no."

Brilliant white light exploded with a roar from Mysteria's hands, a serpent of pure light burning through the oxygen between them.

Shirley Winters shook her head slowly and closed her eyes, warm tears rolling freely down her cheeks and leaving gentle stains of the fragmented concrete beneath her feet.

Mysteria's blast caught her perfectly in the chest, blossoming out as it tore through flesh and incinerated bone.

She tried to speak but found no words.

The light grew steadily, eventually engulfing her entire physical form.

Her body was ash before it touched the ground.

Silence.

The angel rose into the air, her hair black and her transformation unfinished.

Winters stumbled to his feet, blood and tears staining his face, hands still clutching the wounds on his chest.

"You killed my father." Mysteria announced, her voice strangely melodic and soothing. "Now I'm going to kill you."

She glided forwards, wings beating slowly behind her.

Winters wept bitterly, unable to say anything.

"Stop." A sudden voice commanded.

Mysteria's head snapped upwards in the direction of the voice, that familiar expression of anger once more etched into her ashen face.

"Who dares...?" She demanded.

A thin man wrapped in a light material of pale silver stood atop one of the decimated buildings above her.

"I do." He answered emotionlessly.

"You." She whispered, suddenly uncertain. "You're the Silver Shadow, aren't you? How dare you interfere."

"Silence." He commanded in a voice full of authority. "Look at yourself. You're pathetic. Your power is corrupted by petty vengeance and hatred. Your father is dead, he will never return. Nothing you can do will change that."

"H-How did you know...?" Mysteria gasped, suddenly fearful once more.

"Because I know you, Victoria Burke." The Shadow continued. "And I know you're making a terrible mistake. Leave. Now."

"Y-You can't talk to me like that!" Mysteria raged.

The Shadow leapt downwards, landing firmly on his feet between them.

"I can and I did." He smiled carelessly. "I'm taking Winters with me and I'm leaving. The kind of justice he deserves is not one that you can offer."

"BUT HE KILLED MY FATHER!" Mysteria screamed.

"And you killed his wife." The Shadow countered.

"That doesn't begin to make us even." She snarled.

The Silver Shadow laughed mirthlessly.

"Then what do you plan to do, Victoria? Kill everyone he has ever come into contact with? But that logic you'll have to kill Millennium Man and I assure you that will not be an easy task."

"What?" Mysteria sneered. "You think your pitiful training will have given him strength enough to face me? Or skill enough to outwit me? Don't make me laugh."

The Shadow shook his head slowly and laughed softly.

"No. You can't kill him because, whether he chose to or not, your father made him the sole heir of his legacy. Michael Manly has lived up to and exceeded your father in ever way possible. Its time to accept that."

"No. My father was a great man." She protested.

"Your father is a dead man." The Silver Shadow corrected. "Now, I'm going to turn around and carry Charles Winters from this place and you're not going to stop me. Is that understood?"

Before she could answer, the Shadow had turned and lifted the wounded villain in his arms.

"Y-You can't do this!" Mysteria cried out. "Its not fair!"

"Get used to it." The Shadow called out as he walked slowly away.

Winters' eyes flickered and he slumped gratefully into unconsciousness.

"This isn't for you, Winters." The Shadow murmured through gritted teeth. "And I'm going to go to great lengths to explain that to you."

"I'll kill you!" Mysteria screamed out behind him. "I'll kill you and I'll kill Millennium Man!"

"No you won't." The Shadow smirked without looking back. "Because you're too weak."

She stood alone as the Silver Shadow walked away, her wings slowly drooping and retreating back within her body.

Flames still burnt around her blackened body, the businessman's dead fish eyes looking up at her in awe.

Sobbing she collapsed to her knees amongst the ash.

In the distance, the sirens of police cars grew steadily closer.