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                              RADIAN & SHADEBEAM
                                  Episode 50
                                      and
                                   CALFORCE
                                  Episode 118
                           (Brutal Light, part ten)
                                  "Black Sun"
                                      by
                                 Gary W. Olson


                          "This is heaven
                           This is hell
                           This is living
                           This is tale to tell
                           This is drive wheel
                           This is cog
                           This is master
                           This is snarling dog
                           This is hammer
                           This is spanner
                           This is no sir
                           This is table manners
                           This is history
                           This is how it's been
                           This is over and over and
                                 over and over again"

                                        - Chumbawamba
                                            "Bad Dog"


                                    -<=*=>-

     Twenty feet was all the distance Rad needed to cross.  Shadebeam watched
the calm, easygoing movements of his muscles as he walked, and did her best not
to murmur her appreciation.  She glanced at Akane, who was not focused on
Rad, but rather on Ian and Hecate, who were standing twenty feet away from
the assembled might of CalForce, in front of the C Building, noting that her
tension had risen dramatically in the seconds since Ian's arrival.
     Beside her, Dar was watching as well, guarding Chelsa closely.  Chelsa
seemed more alert than she had been a few seconds before, but was making no
move to intercept Rad.  Shadebeam could feel the effects of the anti-
teleportation spells that Dar had cast earlier, and knew that Ian, Chelsa,
and Hecate had to be aware of them as well.  Unfortunately, they also had the
effect of distorting her magic vision, much like heat rising from asphault
distorts light waves, which frustrated her considerably.
     They would make a move at some point.  The question was when, and what
they would attempt.
     Ten feet.
     Five.
     One.
     Rad passed by Mighty Guy, who immediately shifted after Rad was past to
shield him with his Mighty frame.  Ian seemed unmoved by this action.
     "There," Ian said, smoothly.  "Was that so difficult?  Now, if you'll
be so kind as to let Chelsa walk forward..."
     "You'll be on your way, no doubt," Confusion said, a note of sarcasm in
his voice.
     "No doubt," Ian answered.
     "Let her go," Confusion instructed.
     Shadebeam watched Dar step away from Chelsa, and watched Chelsa start
forward, each step showing a little more life than before.  Had she really been
as incapacitated as she seemed?
     Ten feet.
     Fifteen.
     Nineteen.
     Chelsa turned, abruptly, and smiled, looking directly at Dar.
     "He's powerful, brother," she said, sounding a bit amused.  "He'll surpass
your every expectation, I would imagine."
     "Now, now," Ian said, calmly.  "Let's not upset them with such talk.  See
how antagonized they look?"
     "I can't imagine why," Hecate said, also focusing her gaze on Dar, who
tried to make himself inconspicuous, without any success.
     "It is time for us to depart," Ian said.  "You've won this round,
CalForce."
     Something was wrong, Shadebeam thought.  They couldn't be giving up this
easily...
     ...They raised their hands, and began to weave a spell...but the movements
and the words were wrong for teleportation...
     "An attack!" Dar shouted, his hands already gesturing to begin the
incantation for a counterspell.  He never got a chance to finish.
     Rad pivoted on his heel and launched himself at Dar, ramming into him,
carrying him outside the circle and into the night sky.  HotFlash launched after
them almost instantly, avoiding the eruption of the ground beneath her
teammates' feet that occured seconds later.
     "Yikes!" Shadebeam exclaimed, as she fought to regain stability in the
air.  She caught Criticalman as he was falling back to Earth, and dropped him
down to the ground, gently.
     [stock footage: old ladies applauding]
     "I'll take that as a thank you," Shadebeam said, sardonically, as she took
off into the air, using the blazes of flame that HotFlash was shooting out to
determine the current location of the dueling Rad and Dar.  Swooping underneath
the overhanging top part of the C Building, she nearly collided with them, and
barely dodged a blast of flaming plasma.
     "Let me go!" Dar growled, as he fought to cast a Spell of Real Butter (Not
Margarine) so that he could slip free.  Rad did not speak; instead, he was
using his psychokinetic power to keep Dar pinned to him and to keep his arms
and hands from making the movements they needed to.  He shouldn't have had to
struggle so much to subdue Dar, Shadebeam realized.
     "He's been mind-controlled!" she exclaimed.
     "Well, *duh!*" Dar exclaimed back.  "Just get him off of me!"
     "I'll take care of that for you," a dark, dangerous voice told them.
Chelsa emerged from the wall of the C Building (from an office below the
magic-shielded section that comprised CalForce headquarters) and blasted
Shadebeam with a full-force fireball.
     Shadebeam screamed as she felt herself falling, unable to reverse her
descent.

                                    -<=*=>-

     MeltDown had been forced to stop firing nuclear force bolts at Ian, after
he used them to knock Willwarp and Kaoru through the lobby window of the
C Building.  Radian was trying to fight through Hecate to get to Ian, but she
was holding her own.  Mighty Guy was trying to dissipate a black cloud that
Ian had cast around his head with little luck, even though every pass through
the cloud he made with his hands sent strong winds tearing through the
courtyard.
     Chalandra moved quickly across the lawn that had become a battlefield,
dodging the blasts that Ian sent in her direction.  Her hands were upon his
throat in seconds, a development that caused him to smile, cynically.
     "Would you like a taste of my blood, parasite?" Ian asked, smiling
cruelly.  "I'm delighted to oblige!"
     She gasped as the side of his throat opened up, and the blood rushed out
in a stream towards her, slamming into her mouth and her nostrils, faster than
she could drink.  She tried to scream, as the blood tore through her insides
like battery acid, but the unending poisonous stream wouldn't let her...
     ...until it stopped.  She staggered back, her body suddenly feeling like
lead.  Microvax, she noted dully, was standing not a few feet away from Ian,
saying something Chalandra could barely make out.  Ian's fingers were clenching
around her throat, and she could feel them beginning to dig into her dead
flesh.
     "And if I refuse?" Ian answered, not paying attention to her at all now,
save for the choking hand.
     Microvax, in response, reached towards his VaxAxe sheath, which was
located on the armor for his right upper arm.  He patted around, and discovered
it wasn't there.
     "Odd," he commented.  "I was sure that I'd brought it."
     "Your mistake will be your doom," Ian promised, raising his hands.
     "Oh, wait!" Microvax exclaimed.  "I remember where I put it.  VaxAxe
recall!"
     There was a rustling sound, and the VaxAxe shot out of a car parked two
hundred feet behind Ian, making a direct beeline for Microvax's outstretched
gauntlet.  The blade sliced through Ian's right arm at the shoulder, severing
the limb and causing Ian to scream quite loudly.  Chalandra threw off the
severed limb just before giving in to unconsciousness.
     Confusion rushed in, to try to drag Chalandra out of the line of fire.
But Ian stopped screaming and gestured with his remaining hand.  The severed
arm leapt up and began strangling him, while fuzz-tone guitar music began to
play in the background.
     "One more step and he dies," Ian admonished Microvax.  Microvax thought
about it, and retracted the step he had been about to take, although he kept
the micromissiles he had pointed at Ian still very active.  "End this fight
now.  Allow Rad to bring Dar back down here..."
     His sentence was interrupted when Hecate's unconscious, bloodied body
hit him and slumped to the ground.  He turned to look at Radian, who was
advancing steadily on him.  For the first time since he had appeared that
night, his smile vanished.
     "Stay back," Ian warned.  "I'm not bluffing."
     "I know," Radian told him.  She clasped her hands together and hit him
in the chin, sending him reeling backwards.  Confusion's eyes bugged out as
the fingers around his throat squeezed tighter, even though Microvax and
Criticalman were trying to pull the rogue arm off.
     "You...can't kill me," Ian told her, as they struggled, rising into the
cold night air.  "I'm not mortal.  I have the appearance of flesh and blood,
but my reality is quite different."
     "That so?" Akane asked.  "Tell me, how do you like your internal organs
done?"

                                    -<=*=>-

     Kaoru Moroboshi staggered out of the lobby, plucking small shards of glass
from his bloodless skin as best he could while helping Willwarp along.  He
looked up at they sky, and saw the flashing lights that indicated a close-
quarters battle.  His eyes could barely make out the shapes of the combatants,
though the flashes of flame were characteristic of HotFlash's power - they
seemed to be having little effect on their intended target.
     One of the combatants seemed to be growing larger.  Kaoru wondered, idly,
if a spell of Growth had been cast (if one existed, he reminded himself).
Presently a screaming sound reached his ears, and the truth of the matter
dawned on him.
     Or, rather, it fell on him, with the accompanying sound effect: WHAM!
     "Wham?" Shadebeam asked, as she forced herself to stand.  "That was a
pow, don't you think?"
     "I thought...it was...more of a...crunching sound..." Kaoru groaned, from
where he lay on the cracked pavement.
     "Kaoru!" Willwarp exclaimed, forcing the pain of his own injuries aside
for the moment as he bent over to check on the downed would-be superguy.  "How
many fingers am I holding up?"  He held up three.
     "Lederhosen," Kaoru mumbled.
     "Oh, get up," Shadebeam told him, as she grabbed his hand and hauled him
up.  "With that body of yours, you could take hits a lot harder than that."
     Kaoru shook his head, and peered at Shadebeam.
     "Hello," he said.  "This is a pen."
     "Of course it is," Shadebeam said, as she let his hand go and lifted off,
heading to rejoin the battle.  Kaoru watched her go, wishing he could follow.
MeltDown landed beside Willwarp, catching him before he could collapse again.
     "Are you all right?" she asked, and it took Kaoru a moment to realize she
was addressing him, and not her teammate.
     "I will live," Kaoru said.  "There is a battle going on above."
     "I noticed," MeltDown told him.  "The battle down here seems to be in
hand -- I'd better get up there and finish Chelsa off..."
     "Wait!" Kaoru exclaimed.  "Take me with you!"
     "But...wait," MeltDown said.  "You were created by magic, right?"
     "I was raised from the dead by magic," Kaoru told her.  "The broken
remains of my flesh and my cyborg body were melded into an organic steel by
that same magic, which also gave me my talons..."
     "...and your sunny disposition, I'm sure," MeltDown cut him off.  "Okay,
but keep quiet!"  Before he could answer, she spun him around and hoisted him
by a belt loop into the air.
     Kaoru thrilled with the sensation of flight, with the cool rush of the
night air against his inhuman skin.  The tingling sensation of velocity, the
dizzying lurching of his sense of balance, the sound roaring in his ears...
     ...the distinct discomfort of being given a nuclear force wedgie...
     "Yow!" Kaoru yelped, twisting his head around so he could see MeltDown.
     "Sorry about that!" MeltDown yelled back.  "Would you rather I grabbed
you somewhere else?"
     "Yes!!" Kaoru yelled.
     She grabbed him somewhere else.
     "Not there, either!" Kaoru exclaimed, forgetting about the wedgie factor
for a moment.  MeltDown giggled and continued her ascent.
     The battle was nearly over, and the good guys were losing.  Dar was
barely conscious, held up only by his brother.  Chelsa was fending off attacks
from both HotFlash and Glum, showing no signs of her earlier weakness, and
was guiding herself and Rad around the building, slowly descending towards the
ground.  From the look on her face, she didn't appear aware that her brother
was not faring as well as she.
     "Get your talons ready," MeltDown told him.  He barely had time to
comprehend her words before she hefted him overhead and shot him towards Chelsa.
He impacted against the tan woman, breaking through the shields that were
holding back flames and electric bolts, and braced for the impact against
the corner of the C Building.
     "Ow!" Chelsa exclaimed, as she narrowly avoided cracking her head against
the steel-reinforced corner.  "Let go of me, you monstrosity!"
     His arms were locked around her.  He folded his talons around her neck,
and smiled, perhaps a bit more viciously than he needed to.
     "Make me," he dared her.
     Abruptly, they started to fall.
     "Hmmm," Kaoru mused.  "This could be painful."
     "Let me go," Chelsa told him, "and I'll save your life."
     "It will be painful," Kaoru said, with more certainty, "but not fatal, for
me, at least.  Can you say the same?"
     Chelsa gave no answer, as she fought to move her arms, which Kaoru had
pinned.  The ground was rising rapidly towards them, and Kaoru noted, with
great sadness, that there were none of those annoying Dodge Neons available
below to wreck with a horrendous impact.  He braced himself for the collision...
     There was a collision, but not of the sort he had been expecting.  He
found himself speeding sideways, held securely by a tremendously overmuscled
arm, and noted that Chelsa was held solidly by the owner's other arm.
     "Do not fear!" Mighty Guy exclaimed, heroically.  "I have saved you both
from what would have undoubtedly been a horrific and messy death!"
     "Ack!" Chelsa exclaimed.  "Air!"
     "Yes, there does seem to be a lot of it around, doesn't there?" Mighty
Guy asked.  Kaoru looked up at his face, and noted a black cloud was hovering
around it.
     "How can you see?" he asked.
     "I cannot!" Mighty Guy replied.  "But fortunately, my Mighty Hearing was
able to pick up on the sounds of your struggle, and I used that sound to home
in on your position, just in time!"
     "Look out for that building!" Chelsa shouted.
     They collided with the apartment building, emerging on the other side, in
a shower of bricks and plaster, seconds later.  Mighty Guy pulled up sharply.
     "Thanks for the warning!" Mighty Guy exclaimed.  "How close did I come
to hitting it?"
     "Just...set...us...down..." Kaoru groaned.

(continued in part two, following...)
--
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)