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                                   CALFORCE
                                  Episode 116
                           (Brutal Light, part six)
                             "The Devil You Know"
                                      by
                                 Gary W. Olson

                                 |||---^---|||

     Erlington, New Hampshire is not exactly the kind of place you'd expect
a prospective dominator of the world to hail from.  Despite having fallen
on hard times, the city had retained a new-englandish sort of quiet, small-
town charm, the kind of vision of rural america not often seen these days,
without the help of lots of valium.  The streets were mostly clean, the
storefronts were crisply decorated for the upcoming holiday season, and the
parks were ablaze with the changing colors of the leaves.
     The Erlington Central Memorial Park, named for some guy called Erlington
for reasons no one remembers, was typical of such parks.  The wind that
cut through the thick oak trees was a bit colder than what would be considered
seasonal, and the squirrels tended to be a bit bolder than your average small
mammal, but it was popular with many of the citizens, due in part to it's
beautiful scenery, the freshness of the air, and the old country politeness of
the muggers.
     Another reason the park was popular was because it was the home of a
twenty foot tall statue of an evil magician, rendered in solid marble.  It was
rather a strange subject for such a prominently placed art-object, many out-
of-towners would comment.  But the residents of the city, with quiet patience,
would inform the out-of-towners that the magician in question, Dar, was their
city's sole claim to fame, and if the out-of-towners didn't like it, they could
just go back out of town and stay there.
     While the town had charm, its occupants were still working on the concept.
     Such efforts received a not-inconsiderable setback when, late at night,
a Gargantuan Nuclear Sit'n'Spin descended from the sky and crushed the statue
utterly.  But seeing as the residents of the city were not in the park at the
time, there's no real reason to go into too much detail as to their exact
emotional responses to the accidental demise of a valued piece of town history.
     So, um, just forget I mentioned it, okay?
     A door opened in the side of the Sit'n'Spin, and a number of colorfully
dressed heroes, and one not-colorfully-dressed civilian, emerged from the
craft, and looked around.
     "Hmmm, not too busy," Manny noted.
     "Well, it is 1 a.m, local time," Tom pointed out.
     They looked around some more.
     "I don't see any battle," Key commented.
     "Hang on," Shadebeam told them.  "There's a lot of action going on just
south of here."  As if on cue, a large, dramatic exposion occured, blowing
the roof off of a colonial house about a mile to the south.
     "Hmmm," Michael Petron (the civilian) commented.  "Don't see that
happening often."

                                 |||---^---|||

     "There," Chelsa said, smiling with beautiful malice.  "That got your
attention, I think."
     "You already had that," Dar told her.  "You say I'm your uncle, right?"
     "Correct," Chelsa answered.  "Rad is my father.  You're his brother."
     "I follow the logic," Dar said, with a touch of sarcasm.  "Wait...I
remember you now.  You and your brother were at the battle in Los Angeles
last December, right?"
     "Mmmm hmmm," Chelsa told him.
     "Radian kicked your butt, didn't she?" Hecate inquired.
     Chelsa glared at Hecate, who stuck her tongue out.
     "So, to recap," Marian said, as she sat up.  "You, Hecate, want to kill
Dar for sleeping around on you."
     "Essentially," Hecate replied.
     "And you, Chelsa, want to kill Dar..."
     "Kidnap him, actually," Chelsa told her.  "My brother will do the actual
killing."
     "Right," Marian said.  "Any need for me to hang around?  Because if there
isn't, I think I'll just be running away..."
     "Well, I could drink your blood, killing you in the process," Katsu said,
thoughtfully.  "I haven't had a chance to feed all night, and I'm feeling a bit
peckish.  And this way, neither of us will feel left out."
     "How heartwarming," Marian groaned.
     "Of course, I'll have to prevent you from killing him," Hecate told Chelsa.
     "Likewise," Chelsa told Hecate.
     "We can just sort of stand off to the side," Katsu told Marian.
     "May I say something?" Dar inquired.
     "No!" Chelsa, Hecate, Katsu and Marian chorused.
     "It's something important," Dar told them.
     "Like what?" Hecate asked.
     "Neither you nor Chelsa will be killing me tonight," Dar said, "as I will
be killing you first."
     "We'd better stand *well* off to the side, I think," Katsu suggested to
Marian, who nodded.
     "You might have the capacity to take the mortal," Chelsa replied,
indicating Hecate, "but you're no match for me."
     "I think you exaggerate," Dar countered.
     Chelsa gestured, and casually blasted Dar through the wall and out into
the back yard.
     "Ooookay, maybeee not," Dar called, unsteadily, from the flower bed.
     The bricks and plaster hurtled back into the room, pummelling Hecate,
Chelsa and Katsu, while miraculously missing Marian, who very wisely was
exiting the room, after having put on a robe.
     "Hey, this is just an idea," Hecate suggested, "but what say we put aside
our differences and kill him together?"
     "Why?" Chelsa asked.  "It's not like he's got an army with him."
     [stock footage: WWII soldiers shelling the enemy.]
     "Yow!" they exclaimed, setting up seperate personal shields as the house
crumbled under the stock footage attack, which was helped rather generously
by some nuclear force blasts, micromissiles, laser blasts, and some startlingly
accurate eggo waffles.
     "I was trying for grenades," one of the people who had landed on the lawn
outside explained.  "Sorry about that."
     "Iffff ohay," Katsu commented, as he attempted to remove several waffles
from his mouth, a task not helped by the fact that his fangs were buried into
the nutritious breakfast items, holding them fast.  "Ehwa ga any sirp?"
     "CalForce!" Hecate exclaimed.  She paused.  "But where's the rest of you?"
     "Beg pardon?" Confusion asked.  "I have lost a bit of weight recently,
but I didn't think I lost *that* much..."
     "He means where's the rest of the team, dickweed," Shadebeam said,
helpfully.
     "Ahem," Confusion said.  "My apologies.  Princess Charm is new to the
team, and doesn't have all the niceties of respecting the chain of command
down."
     "Sorry," Shadebeam continued.  "I meant, he means where's the rest of the
team, dickweed *sir*."
     "Skip it," Confusion instructed.  "Chelsa, I cannot allow you to capture
Dar.  I know your purpose here, so you don't have to exposit."
     "Hecate's trying to kill me, too," Dar said, informatively.  "You're
going to do something about that, right?"
     "Oh, go conjure up some clothes," Criticalman interrupted.
     "Eep!" Dar exclaimed, before proceeding to do so.
     "It appears I was too hasty in rejecting your offer of temporary alliance,"
Chelsa told Hecate.  "Shall we?"
     "Let's," Hecate said.
     "Let's what?" MeltDown asked.
     Hecate and Chelsa waved their hands in ritual gesture.  Hecate spoke some
arcane words, while Chelsa merely focused her eyes on the team.  The ground
started rumbling, and immediately, tree roots began erupting upward, snarling
CalForce and Dar.
     "You could have just told us!" Microvax yelled, as he attempted to reach
for his VaxAxe.

                                 |||---^---|||

     "Timmy!" Percy Grey bellowed.  "Get over here on the double!"  He took a
long drag off his Virginia Sleaze Ultra-High Nicotine cigarette (one of a new
line of cigarettes recently put out by Dr. Sleaze in a bid to rebuild his
fortune, despite the fact that he was still in jail), and grimaced upon seeing
Timmy 'weasel breath' O'Larson run into the main office.
     "Everyone else listen up too," Percy prompted.  "As you well know, there
was a battle that took place just a few hours ago, in the small town of Los
Requemados.  Now you know that this paper is looking for news 24 hours a day,
and we have a tireless staff of dedicated writers and photographers ready to
get the scoop at a moments notice..."
     "Are we getting overtime for this?" one of the reporters asked.
     "I got a call that promised free booze if I showed up," a photographer
said.
     "Quiet!" Percy ordered.  "Earlier tonight, a major battle took place in
Los Requemados.  Eyewitness accounts are sketchy, but it looks like Rad was
abducted by some sort of glowing villain.  Radian was on hand as well, though
it's not known whether or not she was captured.  Now the morning edition hits
the newsstands in five hours, and subtracting the time it takes to print a new
front page sheet, assemble the paper, and get it delivered to the stands, that
leaves us with about...oh...ten minutes to do some solid investigation into
this story.  Where's Kent?"
     "He must be out investigating the story," Flores Lame said.
     "Odd," another reporter said.  "I would have thought he'd be back, since
CalForce returned to their headquarters a bit ago."
     "Anyone got any leads?" Percy asked.
     "You need pencils, boss?" Timmy 'mitchell!' O'Larson asked.
     "I'll take that as a no," Percy said.  "Very well!  Here's what we do.
Clarice, I want the headline to read 'RAD ABDUCTED! RADIAN CAPTURED! YOW!'
Jerry, pull that picture of CalForce capturing Dr. Sleaze from this summer
and edit a file photo of Radian into it.  Flores, input the following words
into the random news story generator: 'Radian,' 'captured,' 'Los Requemados,'
'night,' 'breasts,' and 'naked.'  The rest of you go home."
     "What about me, chief?" Timmy 'are you still here?' O'Larson asked.  "You
called me in here by name!  You must have a special task for me!"
     "Oh, that's right," Percy said.  He reached forward and pulled open one
of Timmy's shirt pockets, and proceeded to tap out the ashes from his cigarette
into it.  "That'll be all, Timmy.  Scram."
     "Sure thing, chief!" Timmy said, skipping out of the room.
     "Twit," Percy grumbled.  He turned, and immediately discovered that Timmy
had tied his shoelaces together while Percy was talking.  He communicated this
discovery loudly to his co-workers (who uniformly ignored him) from where he
lay sprawled on the ground.

                                 |||---^---|||

     MeltDown twisted and turned, blasting free from a group of roots, only to
be tangled in more, until Dar released her with a simple counterspell.  She
blasted Hecate back with a few force blasts before turning her energies to
freeing her comrades.
     A single force blast ripped away the roots holding Microvax's armored arms
back, and he immediately unsheathed his VaxAxe, and proceeded to make short
work of the rest of the roots.  Confusion focused his mind-befuddling powers on
Hecate, knowing that she was more vulnerable than Chelsa to such an attack.
Reels of film flew from Criticalman's downturned thumbs at Chelsa, only to age
and corrode into dust before they could touch her.
     "Enough of this," Chelsa snarled, lashing out with an arm.  Microvax froze,
his armor suddenly transformed into stone.  MeltDown's nuclear force blasts
were deflected into Katsu, knocking the waffles from his mouth.  He leapt at
Confusion, who quickly ducked, allowing Katsu to sail overhead and run into
Microvax.  Groaning slightly, he sank to the ground.
     "Keep her away from me!" Dar exclaimed, as Chelsa began floating forward,
pushing past determined opposition with quiet power.  The film from
Criticalman's thumbs turned upon him, enveloping him in a celluloid cocoon
composed, coincidentally, of 'Cocoon' movie scenes.  Dar blasted away at her,
but she deflected his attacks with ease, often into Shadebeam or MeltDown,
forcing their attention away from her.
     "You can't escape, uncle," Chelsa said.  "Why do you fight it?"
     "I'm not terribly keen on dying," Dar explained, as he hid behind
Microvax.
     "It's not dying, per se," Chelsa told him.  "Oh, as an individual entity,
you will die, it is true.  The same will be true of my brother, Ian, when I
bring you to him to claim.  But togther, you shall live, far stronger than
either of you were before!"
     "What?" Hecate asked.  "I thought you were just going to smush him against
a rock!"
     "Hey, he said I could forego the expositing," Chelsa said, pointing at
Confusion.
     "Well I wasn't around when they got their expositing," Hecate said,
pouting.  "And if you think I'm going to let you take him without killing him
completely dead, you're mad!"
     A wave of blue energy erupted from Hecate, slamming into Chelsa like a herd
of bison.  Chelsa staggered at the force of the attack, which was soon added to
when Dar focused a wave of continual attack spells on her.  MeltDown added her
nuclear force bolts, and Criticalman, who managed to get his arms free of his
celluloid prison, added bolts of electricity and stock footage of atom bombs
exploding.  Confusion, while his mental powers had little effect on Chelsa,
did his part by lobbing waffles at her.
     It looked like they were going to win.
     Then...she stood.
     And smiled.
     She closed her eyes.  A wave of tremendous physical force erupted from
her, blasting everyone still standing into and through the surrounding houses,
trees, and telephone poles.  The sky echoed the sound of the blast for minutes.
     She opened her eyes, and regarded Dar, who was pressed against the stone
foundation of the house next door, looking at her with stunned horror.  Chelsa
glided towards him, reaching him before he could raise his arms to cast
another spell.
     "Now now," she whispered to him.  "The party's over, uncle.  You're
coming with me."
     "Hey, lady," a female voice just off to the right of her asked.  "Why
don't you..."  Chelsa turned, ready to blast the woman into small, fleshy
pieces, and was startled to have something warm and syrupy slapped against
her face.
     "...have a waffle!" Shadebeam finished, as she pressed the syrup-covered
waffle against Chelsa's face.  Chelsa struggled to cast a spell, but the
thick maple syrup smell and the gross feeling of syrup on her face prevented
her from recovering from the initial surprise.  Instead, she flailed her arms,
trying to pry the waffle away from her face...
     ...until finally, she passed out, from lack of oxygen.  Shadebeam removed
the waffle from her face.
     "Whew," she commented.  "Never underestimate the power of Aunt Jemima."
     Dar stared at her.
     "What?" Shadebeam asked.
     "Oh, nothing," Dar said.  "It's just that you look a lot like Akane
Moroboshi.  Except for the yellow spiked hair, I mean.  And the ear to nose
chain.  And the strange glitter mask you're wearing."
     "Just a coincidence, nothing more," Confusion said, as he extracted himself
from the plastic pink flamingo that had been, until a few moments ago, standing
in Marian's next door neighbor's yard.
     "Say, speaking of Marian," Dar said, looking around.  "Where is she?"
     "Over here, lover," Marian said, as she emerged from behind a dingleberry
bush.  "You didn't tell me you had this much fun."
     "I don't, usually," Dar said.  He looked at Confusion.  "Well, er, thanks
for your help, but now that you've captured her..."
     "You'll have to come with us," Confusion told him.  "Her brother will be
hunting for you.  We'll extend you our protection - in exchange for your help in
keeping Chelsa from regaining consciousness for a while, at least until we
can get back to headquarters and regroup."
     "It seems sensible," Dar said.  "Better the devil you know, eh?"
     "Something like that," MeltDown said, as she climbed out of the wreckage
of the other neighbor's house.
     Dar looked at Hecate, who lay unconscious in a flowerbed, and looked up
at Marian.
     "Marian..." Dar started.
     "Yes, I'll accompany you," Marian told him.
     "Um, just one thing," Confusion said.  "Could you help Microvax over
there?"
     "Of course," Dar said, casting a spell to reverse the earlier one.
Microvax retrieved his VaxAxe and resheathed it.
     "Going to need a complete oil job when I get back," Microvax commented.
MeltDown tittered.  "For the armor, I mean."
     "Let's go," Confusion suggested.  "We don't got all night."

                                 |||---^---|||

     Ian materialized, and his eyes scanned the sky.  She had been here, just
moments before, as had Dar.  But he could feel no triumph in this spot.  At
least, none that belonged to his sister.
     It was nearly morning.  The battle was several hours old, and a number
of emergency authorities were on the scene.  He froze their movements with
a contemptuous gesture, and advanced on the woman who was slumped in the
nearby flowerbed.
     He raised her to her feet, and snapped his fingers.  Her eyes fluttered
open, and she gazed at him in consternation.
     "My name is Ian," he said, not unkindly.  "I believe you are...Hecate.
I remember you from the Magestrix briefings.  You fought well in defending
Peking."
     "They've...already left," Hecate told him, through clenched teeth.  "I
don't know where they've gone."
     "I know," Ian told her.  "How would you like to get back at them?"
     "How did you...never mind," Hecate said.  "I would like to, very much."
     "Good," Ian told her.  He clapped his hands, and the two vanished in
a flash of light.  The people around the scene were unfrozen in the same flash,
and spent a number of minutes blinking their eyes and murmuring to themselves
that some of the waffles must have exploded.
     Katsu, who had been watching from the roof of the house across the street,
smiled grimly, and finished his waffles.  It would be dawn soon, and he needed
a place to rest...
     His eyes fastened on the mostly destroyed frame of Marian's colonial
house.  Aboveground was a wreck, but it was entirely possible that the basement
was intact...
     He moved forward, observed by no one.

WILL KATSU MAKE MARIAN'S FORMER HOME HIS NEW HOME?
WHAT DOES IAN HAVE IN STORE FOR HECATE?
WHAT WILL THIS HALF OF CALFORCE FIND WHEN THEY RETURN TO CALFORCE HQ?
WHAT WILL THEY FIND WHEN THEY READ THE WEEKLY WORLD SCHMOOZE THAT MORNING?
WILL ANYONE HELP PERCY UP?

The story continues ever onward in Radian & Shadebeam #48, only on SUPERGUY!,
where you're not going to pay a lot for a good muffler.
--
Gary W. Olson         swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu         swede@drycas.bitnet

       "Mine brain has meditated on the spinning of The Chao
        It is hovering o'er the table where the Chiefs of Staff are now
        Gathered in discussion of the dropping of The Bomb
        Her Apple Corps is strong!"
                     - The Battle Hymn of the Eristocracy (first verse)