batkevin74

So with an angry heart and eyes full of rage...

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CORRUPTED: Mark of Cain Chapter 1

Tinasha, Republic of Congo

Mark stood silently in the alley under his lead lined umbrella, his breathing slow and deliberate in a technique he read about in one of his grandfather’s textbooks. The rain pattered down as he waited, watching the cars and the people flit before him yet oblivious to his presence. Mark slowly pushed the breath over his lips in a long, slow blow as one who cool a hot beverage.

Mark glanced up to the heavens, scanning for T-spheres or other nastiness as he slowly crossed the street perfectly in time with the gaps in the traffic. He looked around again before he entered the pawn shop.

An electronic buzzer sounded as he entered. The place smelt like wet dog and broken dreams. A woman sat in a cage watching television barely looking his way as he headed towards her.

“Did you receive a box today?” Mark asked as he folded down the umbrella.

“I received lots of things,” replied the woman, her eyes not leaving the screen “Cardboard, metal”

“A small wooden box”

She lifted up a plate of half eaten sandwiches “Like this?”

Mark’s eyes widened “Exactly! How much?”

The woman broke away from the screen “Well, how much do you have?”

“Enough to buy all the rubbish in this tip, three times over.” stated Mark as he fished a wad of notes from his pocket.

Her eyes widened at the money “Where’d someone so young get so much money?”

Mark locked eyes on her “My grandfather killed more people than cancer! But we both know there’s nothing it the box.”

The woman’s eyebrows raised “Excuse me?”

“You never quite get the eyes right” Mark kicked up the umbrella into his arms and fired a shot from it through the woman’s head. He spun around as two other Sandman agent popped out of almost thin air to attack him “Thought it was too good to be true!”

“There is no Tantu Totem,” chuckled the first agent “You’ve come on a fool’s errand.”

“This is Agent Puckett,” stated the second into a wrist communicator “Requesting T-sphere for corpse identification, someone took the bait.”

Mark pointed the umbrella at them “Are you going to fight or talk me to death?”

Agent Puckett leapt forward but the young man easily sidestepped and smashed an elbow into the back of his neck as he sailed past. Mark pushed a button on the end of the umbrella and green gas sprayed out the end into the other agents face.

“What the?” choked the agent.

Mark spun the umbrella and clocked him in the temple, turned back to Agent Puckett who was getting up and rammed the point into his back. Mark kicked him in the head and returned to the gagging agent. He clicked the handle and pumped a volley of bullets into his chest before clicking the handle again and changing it to an electrical burst. Mark turned back to Agent Puckett who struggled to his feet.

“You are supposed to be elite! Advanced training by Starfire, equipped by Cyborg, gadgets from Batman villains!” said Mark as he stood over him “How does it feel that you’re going to be killed by a fifty year old relic once owned by Oswald Cobblepot?”

Mark clicked the handle but suddenly the agent he’d killed was up on his feet, hands firmly around Mark’s neck. Agent Puckett stood up smiling.

“Sandmen don’t die that easy boy!” he growled as his partner squeezed tighter, Mark began to turn red, then crimson. He threw the umbrella like a spear and rammed it into Puckett’s eye before kicking the handle sending an electrical burst through his head, lighting him up like a Christmas tree. The agent squeezed Mark’s neck tighter and Mark went limp. The agent shook him to make sure before dumping him onto the ground.

“This is Agent Kelly. I need a mobile purple ray brought to my location”

Mark opened an eye and exhaled quietly, his grandfather’s technique had just saved his life. He hopped up and grabbed Kelly’s head and twisted it violently to the side with a loud crack. As the agent lay convulsing on the floor he picked up the umbrella.

“As you have now learnt, a Cain doesn’t die that easy either!” And with that Mark shoved the point of the umbrella deep into the mouth of Agent Kelly until the point stuck into the wooden floor.

**

Mark stood on the roof under his umbrella as the T-spheres arrived. Soon the area would be swarming with Hawkmen possibly even one of the League. He flipped open his notebook and crossed off Tantu Totem. He then scrawled a note

D,

No go on Vixen’s trinket. Off to check the Devil stick in London

Hope P.S went okay

M

He rolled the paper up and pinned it to the wall with a small spike, the end a pulsing red LED light. Code Red would be by to pick up the message. Mark looked down on the ever growing throng before running off into the night.

2034

David Cain stood in the background watching the beautiful chaos. The fury and the anger that poured from both hero and villain alike meant it was almost hard to tell who was who now. He smirked at the Orwellian nature. His gaze shifted to Batman and Joker, seemingly the centre of this bizarre tornado.

“I don’t believe it?” muttered Cain as he watched Batman’s hand curl into position “He wouldn’t?”

Cain watched almost in slow motion as and he threw it out with all the force he could muster, grabbed, wrenched and pulled back, the strike ripping Joker’s Adam’s apple out, leaving a large bloody gaping hole in his neck. Joker started to chuckled, a rasping, gurgling laugh through the hole. Cain holstered his gun and applauded as Batman roared like an animal over the din of lasers, sonic booms and superhuman blows.

“Welcome to the club Bruce,” David commended as he quickly got his guard up as a girl swung a bo staff at him “And which one are you?” He snatched the staff away and broke it over his knee like a twig.

“I am Yuki Yamashiro!” stated the girl as she backed up assumed a fighting stance.

Cain smiled “Karate in a war? Kid, your mother Katana was B grade at best, and obviously never taught you anything” He darted forward and jammed his pistol under her chin “I’m actually doing you a favour!”

BLAM!

“CAIN!” Batman roared as he crossed the battlefield and crashtackled his old foe. Bruce’s lip and gum dripped down his chin from the Joker’s final parting gift as he unloaded up David. The ferocity coupled with the extensive skill tore through Cain’s defences. David smiled through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth.

“What are you waiting for?” Cain as he spat a globule of bloody saliva onto the floor. Batman nodded and Cain turned to see Firestorm hovering nearby. The nuclear man’s hands churned with energy and in an instant he was a perfect glass statute.

“That!” Batman lifted his foot and smashed David Cain into a million pieces.

*

Mark clambered up the opaque rope ladder into the Dragonwing hovering cloaked in the sky, a ship his mother had procured years ago. Whenever he asked her about it she promptly changed the subject or hit him; more often than not she changed the subject BY hitting him.

"Plot a course to London!" he commanded the ship and it hummed to life.

**

**

Notes: Tantu Totem was how Vixen got her powers. Tinasha, Republic of Congo was where Batwing use to hang out circa 2013, Kelly Puckett created David Cain

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