Crossover Earth '98

by Paul Cocker and Michael Surbrook

Jakob Khan shook a mound of tobacco into the paper and casually leaned against the bar in the Hell's Kitchen pool hall. He slid his pouch of tobacco back into his barn jacket, looking past the pool table at the misty windows. A police car sped by and sent a sheet of water up splashing against the walk and window pane. He watched the reflections of the pool players in the window, listening to the sound of the rain beating time. He let the cigarette perch on his lips for a while, and turned to face the bar, slapping his hand on the counter to grab the attention of the bartender. The bartender, who busied himself polishing mugs and glasses, looked up from beneath a liver-spotted brow beset by a few stubborn strands of gray hair, finally making eye contact.

A moment of shock struck the bartender.

"Gotta light?" Jakob let the crude cigarette bounce slightly as he talked through his teeth.

A guy with a cue ran a table nearby, cracked seven stripes down and banked the eight ball in the side pocket. A jukebox spun the bombastic bass lines of retread hiphop. Chairs scraped, ice melted and clinked in distant glasses, winners stifled grins, losers swore. This was where the sharks swam.

At the corner of the bar, two older men, most likely a couple of good grifters in their day, were sweet-talking two young ladies. Every now and again their glances, however, would pass over in Jakob's direction. They looked at him not in curiosity, not in disdain, but rather in fear. Like the bartender, they acknowledged his feral manner and tall, husky build, and immediately assumed the worst. It was like they had just saw Mastiff or something. Although, such thoughts were by far no stretch of the imagination for Jakob Khan was indeed Mastiff.

Jakob just ignored the old men, knowing all too well that he would draw attention where ever he went.

"A light?" He looked at the bartender sideways, his head canted down slightly, sussing him through thin slits in a way he knew made him nervous.

"Yes." The bartender almost begged.

The flicker of the lighter bounced in the dull mirror behind the bar. Through the mirror, Jakob saw the door of the pool hall swing open, followed by an arrogant, cocky, staccato cadence of a small gang.

"Hey, Jake!"

"Yo!"

"Whazzup?"

The murmurs that followed their entrance made Jakob sneer. He immediately rose from his stool and headed to a private table at the back of the hall. The gang fell behind him, giving him the point like the lead dog in a pack of wild hounds. It was no wonder Jakob called his gang of toughs the Dog Pack.

Around the table stood the most dangerous scum one could ever hope to run into. Rottie, the burly one that was about to sit next to Mastiff, had an obvious mean on for anything alive. Rumor had it that he killed a man for spilling his beer. The truth was that he killed the guy for offering to buy him a beer he didn't like. Coydog settled down across from Funboy. He was a reedy thin, angular kid in his late teens, whose dark eyes and sharp nose added to his devious presence. The twin brothers, Jackie and Lee, sat poised and silent, their wiry muscles always at the ready. Both originally came from a Chinatown street gang and had a bite that was far worse than their bark.

"Flea, who's the meat?" Mastiff asked.

Flea was a small, friendly looking man, with a hidden vicious streak wider than the Hudson Bay. "He's with me, Mastiff," he replied. "He's cool. He needs a hookup, though, so's I brought him here. Is that cool? I mean..."

"What's your name, meat?"

"I let my friends call me Tibor," the newcomer said.

An ash grew as Mastiff sucked back on the end of his gnarled cigarette, harsh smoke swelling deep into his lungs. As the tar and nicotine contaminated his blood, his accelerated regeneration factor immediately worked on nullifying its toxic effects. Behind the gray plumes of smoke, hard eyes narrowed on the recruit. "An' your enemies?" he went on.

"I don't have any enemies capable of speech anymore."

"Ooh, tough talker. Outta my face, meat. We don't need any talkers here."

"Fuck you, man."

Hair stiffened on every neck at the table. Flea whimpered quickly. Rottie licked his lips anxiously. Even Jackie and Lee perked up. The Dog Pack sat in silent anticipation, and stared at the imminent corpse called Tibor.

Mastiff took another drag on his cigarette, reducing the remainder of its length to a glowing coal, and exhaled jets of smoke out into the gloom. For a moment, the smell of burnt tobacco veiled the countless faint odors his keen nostrils brought him with every breath. A moment later, he put out the burning cigarette in his palm, causing a large, raw blister. All the while, his eyes stayed on the "new guy."

The leader of the Dog Pack leaned over the table and whispered something in Tibor's ear. The others didn't hear what he said, but whatever it was it removed the color from the young punk's face. And fast. Mastiff began to laugh.

"Heh heh, I kinda like ya, Tibor," he said. "But try and spout attitude at me again an' I'll end ya."

Funboy, a blocky youth with a shaved head, strong jaw, and bulbous nose, was stretched out beside Rottie. "Man, you're one lucky sonnuvabitch, Tibor," he snickered.

"Ha, no shit, eh!" Butch, the brute from the seedy outskirts of 41st Street, added.

"By the way, Tibor," Mastiff continued, "I hate your name. From now on your name's T-Bone."

"Ha, T-Bone!"

"T-Bone, yeah."

"Hey, I like it."

The new recruit nodded, still white from Mastiff's private comment. He was a flawed thug, but there was always room in the Dog Pack for guys who didn't mind bonework, and he might serve as a good armbreaker.

Mastiff's hard eyes narrowed on the gang before him. "Alright, let's get down to friggin' business."

"Avalon, why exactly are were here?"

Avalon glanced at Katsumi for a moment, before handing her a small plastic vial. "To learn more about this."

Taking the vial and the melted chip it contained, Katsumi examined it closely, squinting slightly as she shook the tiny object around in it's equally small prison. "And you really think they will be able to tell you anything... or will even admit to having made this?"

"Not really," Avalon replied with a shrug, "But it is the only lead we have at the moment."

Getting out of the car, Avalon glanced around, taking a close look at exactly what "here" entailed. Quickly Avalon decided his wife-to-be's skeptical tone was justly deserved. The electronics factory that he'd been directed to as the source for the computer chip Sapphire had removed from a certain thugs skull was a towering structure that looked vastly out of place amid the lesser and more mundane warehouses and rowhouses that surrounded it.

"This is a factory?" Katsumi's voice sounded even more cynical. "It looks more like something from Disneyworld."

Another shrug being his only response, Avalon stepped away from the car -- a rental, which was the only kind of car a sane man would leave unattended in a neighborhood like this -- and started walking towards the front gate. "You do not have to come with me. You can stay with the car."

"In this place? Get real..." Straightening her jacket and tie as well as the short skirt of her business suit, Katsumi hurried after her teacher-turned-fiancé.

New York City's warehouse district wasn't a good place to be at night, unless you were a 300-pound monster called Mastiff.

Bordered by old houses and junk cars on the street, its warehouses and factories stood idle and abandoned for the night. But the night was necessary for some things, some things just could not bear the light of day. The pimps and pushers came out at this hour, selling their stock and trade, in hopes to tempt another wayward soul.

Wisps of clouds, stirred by a warm breeze, streaked the moon sitting high in the sky. Unsettled shadows fled over the rooftops, yet they were enough for the powerfully built Mastiff who raced with them from chimney to chimney. A worn duffel bag swayed off his left hip with every bounce of his stride. Possessing the untamed instincts of something wild he melded with the drifting shades, and was invisible to even the eyes of the city-born hustlers below.

The roof Mastiff traveled came to an end, and peered down into the blackness hiding the asphalt of the street, five stories below. A black mask made his icy ochre eyes stand out, but his face, framed by a wild mane of brown was obscured by the scant piece of leather. He sized the next building, a fieldstone cube with a frieze of scrollwork running all the way around it two-feet below the roof.

"And that flamer calls this a factory?" Mastiff muttered sarcastically to no one in particular. "Heh heh, looks more like something outta merry ol' England."

Mastiff's keen eyes looked down at the base of the large building, the sprawling shadows not inhibiting his vision whatsoever. He could clearly see members of the Dog Pack stationed about the factory. Rottie, Butch, Jackie and T-Bone were hidden in the bushes and watched the factory windows, their pistols and shotguns at the ready. Flea, Lee, and Funboy kept watch from elevated areas, strategically covering the exits of the factory with well-aimed rifles. And he knew Coydog waited along a nearby sideroad in a stolen Ford van. They were exactly where he wanted them.

From deep in his throat came a hard growl. The alley spanned a good twelve paces, although it was the narrowest of the four roadways that surrounded the nearly palatial structure. At first, this approach seemed sound to him -- eyeing the distances from the ground two nights ago. But what his inspection failed to point out was exactly how steeply sloped the far roof was.

"Sheeyit."

The Truant had put the word out that there was a lot of money to be earned for the head of this particular figure. It was really no bargain as this target was by far no average civilian. But between bad luck and the law it was a contract Mastiff could not turn down. He agreed to the hit and price, and took a slight reward in advance, before he even knew where his target was to be located. Still, a bargain sworn to must be kept. At least, he thought grimly, there's no guards along its perimeter, as so many other wealthy businesses had.

Breathing deeply to charge his lungs, he crouched. Suddenly, like a hunting wolf, he pounced forward; in two strides he sprinted at full speed. His lead foot touched the edge of the roof, and he leaped, throwing himself into the air with arms outstretched, fingers reaching.

With a crash he landed at full length on the sloping roof, and started to immediately slide. Desperately he spread his arms and legs to slow himself; his eyes searched for a projection to grab, for the slightest nub that might hold him. Clay tiles shattered as his weight smashed his clawing hands through them; fragments rained past him into the shadows below. Inescapably he slid toward the drop to the pavement. In the space of a breath his feet were over the edge, then his legs. Wood then slammed into his palm; desperately he clutched. With a jerk that jarred his heavy shoulder muscles, Mastiff brought himself up short to swing from the five-story drop.

No friggin' wonder there's no guard out here, he thought, furious at himself for not questioning this earlier.

Suddenly the wooden roof-frame he grasped gave with a snap, and he fell again. Twisting as he collapsed, he stretched, caught the thin ledge at the bottom of the frieze by his fingertips, and slammed flat against the fieldstone brickwork.

"I'm not just gonna kill Avalon because I was paid to," he panted. "I'm gonna kill 'im for being in such a shitty location."

Mastiff tended not to dally when his course was decided. Slowly, hanging by his fingertips, he moved along the narrow ledge. The first two arched windows to pass beneath him glowed with light. He couldn't risk an engagement right away. The third window, however, was dark.

(Avalon?) The question went unheard by Avalon's escort, but was as clear to him as if Katsumi had spoken aloud.

(Yes?) Avalon too replied silently.

(I agree.)

Katsumi's misgivings are well justified, Avalon thought. No sooner had the two of them approached the front gates than he and Katsumi had found themselves in the office of a junior executive. After Avalon had explained an interest in the factories product -- and hinted that he might be interested in investing certain sizable funds into the company if the product met his as yet unspecified needs -- the executive was more than happy to give the sorcerer, and his quiet and demure "secretary" a tour. Avalon felt a trifle guilty about misleading the man, who seemed open and honest and was almost certainly oblivious to any possible wrong doing his company may be involved in. He could conceivably produce the funds as stated, but he'd have to go through Victoria, who took a dim view to Avalon involving himself in anyway in her management of his money.

So now Avalon and Katsumi found themselves standing on a catwalk overlooking the factory floor, surrounded by a small crowd of highly animated corporate suits, who all seemed to look and talk the same. Each was more than happy to point out the factory's highly advanced technical innovations, a habit that eventually wore out its welcome after the tenth such "innovation." Finally, the tour had ground to a halt at the highlight of the tour: the automated assembly line.

"So," said one black-suited man, "as you can see..."

Suddenly all the lights in the factory flickered and died. Everything was darkness.

"I... uh..." the exec's voice drifted out of the sudden dark. "Lights?"

The request was met by a sudden flurry of activity as several other officials made their way along the wall to a rack of emergency flashlights. Pulling them free of their cradles, they immediately switched them on, each one producing a narrow beam that stabbed through the dark, the circles of light drifting crazily over the factory's interior as the troop made it's way back to the tour guide and the two magicians.

"Does this happen often?" Avalon asked in a calm tone that surprised even himself.

"Uh... well, it's a new building... we are still working all the glitches out of the electrical system."

"Of course."

"Now, as I was saying," the man quickly armed himself with a flashlight and pointed it down into the ocean of dark that was the assembly line, "Oh damn... who's that?"

The bright circle of white light illuminated the upper half of a large, muscular and very hairy man. The man glanced up at the party and smiled, his teeth glinting in sharp contrast to the black leather of his mask, his arm deep within a duffel bag he carried.

But as the large man moved, Avalon and the others lost sight of him. Unaffected by the darkness, Mastiff seemed to be a man certain of his course.

The cluster of executives immediately scattered, the factory dancing with their bouncing flashlights; bright white beams zipping up and down concrete walls and steel machinery, the varying shapes giving off menacing shadows.

Shaking his head, Avalon stepped back from the rail, one hand reaching out to quickly find Katsumi's.

(I don't know, keep alert and get ready to cast what ever attack spells you have readied.) Avalon peered in the darkness, watching his light expand across the floor. He could see nothing.

Suddenly the darkness stirred, a leathered blur, an animal quickness carrying it out the doorway and behind a stack of crates. The tall, muscular man-shape disappeared into a corner of the room, and was gone as soon as it was visible.

Laughter rang out, a profane and deadly howl that echoed from darkened corners, bouncing off cast iron and aluminum structures and back upon itself. Instinctively, Avalon whirled around and found Mastiff's shape leap over a guardrail on the factory floor. The sorcerer raised his hands, murmured something the madman could not catch. The air around his fingertips quivered with the force of his incantation.

Mastiff staggered from a sudden jolt of unseen energy, causing him to fold over in pain. Avalon's spell permeated his skull, an overwhelming intensity that exploded between his ears. A lesser man would have passed out or died, but Mastiff endured the shock. He never encountered mind-magic until now. Its searing agony reminded him of the electro shock torture that Omega Corp. used on him so many times.

Mastiff lifted his head, a grimace of pain and rage etched into his face. "Big mistake," he growled. Muscles tightened in Mastiff's neck as he fought to control his wild side. He straightened his massive frame and laughed, suddenly, menacingly. "Heh heh, but I've gotta hand it to you, Avalon -- I didn't know what to expect from you, an' that mind trick had me for a sec. I'm lookin' forward to this."

Suddenly incandescent smoke exploded from the surrounding windows as bullets slammed into several fleeing executives. Their bodies spun around, crashing bloody and unmoving onto the giant concrete floor. Men and women continued to scurry, wailing and screaming, as gunfire bit into the walls and sparked off machinery. A few made it to various doors, but were cut down by a hail of lead coming from the outside.

Avalon heard the chaos below, but his eyes became drawn to the silhouette of Mastiff looming over a nearby machine. Again, the large man seemed to be reaching in his duffel bag. Without pause, the sorcerer ran across the catwalk towards the feral figure, and a runic staff instantly materialized in his hands. Mastiff sensed the air ionizing directly behind him. It might have been a fraction of a second's warning, but he took privilege of it, dodging the energy blast that came from the tip of the magician's mystic staff.

"Wicked bagga tricks ya have there, Mister Wizard," Mastiff smiled at the spell-binder condescendingly. He threw himself at Avalon, to land with a crash on the catwalk that encompassed the factory floor. Metal squealed in protest as the railing bent under his grip. Reaching out, his steely hands tore the arcane staff from the sorcerer's grasp. "I'm gonna pop your skull like a zit, little man."

Mastiff snarled and stayed low, leg muscles tensed, nostrils flaring. He was about to lunge forward, to claw Avalon, when a sudden and massive pain blinded the madman as thousands of invisible barbs stabbed directly into his brain. With an agonizing howl, Mastiff fell back away from Avalon. He looked up to see a beautiful Oriental woman.

"Thank you, Katsumi,"Avalon said to the sorceress who now stood at the top of the staircase, one hand still glowing from the force of the spell she had cast.

Katsumi exuded boldness. Even facing a criminal psychotic, like now, there was something about the way she carried herself that Mastiff instantly marked her as one vixen to be reckoned with. He slightly regretted that he had to kill her; the utter depth of the bitter disgust in her eyes aroused him like not many women could.

Mastiff smiled at Katsumi, but kept Avalon in the corner of his eye. He apparently bit his tongue from the mind jolt for his teeth were now bloody. "So, doll, whatcha doin' with a squirt like him?"

It might have been interesting to hear her response to that, but more gunfire erupted about the perimeter. Stray bullets made their way to the catwalk. The slugs careened away from the two magicians, hitting the floor as quarter-sized disks of lead.

Mastiff licked the blood off his lips, the wound in his mouth already healing. He's a man who's been in many fights, and by all rights his body should be a jigsaw puzzle of scars, but his rapid regeneration made him a warrior unmarked by battle. "You're so dead," he promised Avalon.

Raising one hand, Avalon chanted a series of unintelligible syllables. His finger described a short arc and a brilliant bolt of white fire lashed out to engulf Mastiff's bestial figure. The attack instantly galvanized Mastiff's mind with wrenching psychic pain. His entire brain charged, its gray matter heating up. The mind-magic seemed to boil within, urging him to madness.

Mastiff writhed as his thoughts regressed to a time not so long ago. He heard bells now, and hissing doors, and alarms, and the heavy tread of boots. His skin crawled away from burning intrusions, from fine points shooting into his skin, as something warm and smooth coursed through his distending veins. A helmet clamped into his skull, and a high-grade frequency peeled away the layers of his sanity.

Even in the heart of his anguish, Mastiff's instinct of self-preservation endured. He set his teeth, sinews flexing in his neck, spittle running from the corners of his mouth. He would not yelp or bawl. Instead, he threw his duffel bag down and leaped, driving himself upward with such tremendous momentum. Mastiff twisted his body as he struck a ceiling vent. There was a clamor, a booming crashing sound that could be felt as much as heard. Metal shrieked and tore as the steel grate bowed with the impact of Mastiff's body, and then the large man disappeared.

"RUN!!" Mastiff's voice echoed from the air ducts.

Stumbling backwards from Mastiff's spasm, Avalon virtually fell into Katsumi's arms.

"Are you all right?" she asked, glancing about to see if any more threats would spring from the shadows.

"Yes," Avalon rasped, "As well as can be expected. We need to..." His voice trailed off as he looked out into the center of the factory.

"What? What is it now..." Katsumi's questioned died as she glanced up to see a translucent figure hovering in the air. It was the Spectre, the portent of great disasters throughout history. He was known to be present whenever great destructive forces were unleashed, forces that were usually the result of sorcery.

Glancing from the Spectre's sad figure, both sorcerer and student found their gaze drawn to the duffel bag Mastiff had dropped on the end of the catwalk.

"Katsumi?" Avalon said in a surprisingly calm voice, "I love you."

Mastiff didn't pause. He turned on his heels and fled up the alleyway. He climbed to the top of a dumpster and leaped, his fingers grazing the bottom rung of a fire escape ladder. He tightened his grip and pulled himself aloft, the rusty structure rattling under his massive weight.

Down below Mastiff watched the stolen Ford screech around a corner. It stopped in the middle of the alley, and the Dog Pack jumped in through its side door. The van then spun rubber, fishtailing up the alley. Skidding around another corner, the Ford disappeared from Mastiff's sight.

With the Dog Pack out of harm's way, Mastiff pulled out a small remote control from a pouch attached to his belt. A scowl etched his features as he looked at the factory behind him, a furrowed, hard glare intended for the figures within the edifice than the actual structure itself. His thumb hovered over a single button on the device as his grimace turned to an inhuman smile.

"Seeya in Hell, asshole..." Mastiff's thumb then stabbed the button.

Suddenly, Mastiff felt himself propelled violently backwards as the factory exploded in one, great fiery blast. Its roof quivered as waves of force fanned out from the heart of the eruption. Weathered mortar crumbled to ash, bricks shot out as fireballs. The factory's walls heaved, gave way, and ripped free of their foundations. They toppled down, like rippling curtains of debris that shattered completely as they struck the streets below. Billowing plumes of flame belched out aimless circles of heat. Rank odors challenged the air -- blistering rubber blending with wood, the smell of noxious chemicals melding with the foulness of charred humanity.

Mastiff rolled to his feet and looked at the damage he had wrought. He wanted so badly to kill Avalon with his bare hands, but the plastique explosives had to do. Watching the black smoke corkscrew skyward, blurring the blaze and rubble, Mastiff pursed his lips in mock content.

He began to walk across a nearby rooftop, finally realizing that he still held Avalon's mystic staff. "Well, well, what do I have here?..." he said.

Mastiff stared at the staff for a moment. It seemed fashioned to nearly six-feet in length and was as thick as a young sapling, yet it looked so delicate in his large hands. Strange engravings, archaic symbols, gave the artifact a ridged and grooved feel. Both ends were capped in gold, one of the caps adorning a large white crystal.

"Heh, and this fancy stick nearly singed my ass."

Moonlight refracted off the crystal, prismatic rays casting rigid angles across the hard lines of Mastiff's face. His pointy incisors gleamed as a thievish smile curled on his lips. "Hmm, I just might getta pretty penny for this thing."

And with a slight snicker, Mastiff bounced across the darkened rooftops, leaving the carnage and ruin behind him like he had so many other times.

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