BLOOD SYNDICATE # 42

PLAYING WIT FIRE: CHAPTER 3 OF 4

WRITTEN & ARTWORK BY STEVE REEVES

PREVIOUSLY IN BLOOD SYNDICATE # 41. The Holocaust upgrade seems to be a bit much for The Syndicate as his increased pyrokinetic abilities allow him to almost defeat each member one by one. During the battle, Oro grabs Wise Son and flies off stating "I got a plan."...

_________________________________________________________________

Dakota City, Midwestern USA

After the Syndicate team leaders unexpectedly left the battle field, Holocaust continues to play fire with the other members of the team. An air born Holocaust attempts to take out Third Rail and Brick-House who along with DMZ and KWAI attempts to do the same thing to him. Holly, whose pyro kinetic powers have reached new levels, catches Brick-House with a fire, powered punch that knocks her down. Brick lands into the arms of Third rail who is then shot in the chest by Holocaust and accidently lets her go. Third screams as the heat from the pyro blast continue to burn him. Brick falls on the bended knee but not before catching Holly with a wild haymaker that knocks Holly out the sky and on to the ground near an army of rats. As Holly recovers from Bricks’ punch, he’s then attacked by Boogie Man who cuts him deep with his claws.

Holly: Damn. Boogie…Boogie…Boogie. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to kill yo’ ass...I liked you.

Boogie attempts another strike but is blocked by Holly who fires a blast directly at Boogies rats. Boogie screams in pain due to his psychic link with the rodents and curls to the ground. Holocaust apologizes to Boogie for what he’s about to do..

Meanwhile:

Wise: What the hell is going on? Why did you take me away from the others?

Oro: Because I think you’re the only one that can stop him. He can burn Brick and D, he can evaporate Maria, my powers can’t do sh*t to him, Third can only take so much, Flash and Fade are out for the count. Holly can do this all day. He’s eternal flame. He can become actually fire man; Fire. If we don’t stop him now, he’s going to destroy all of Dakota.

Wise: I understand. So what’s the plan homey?

Meanwhile back at the Dead Zone:

As Holocaust postures to hit Boogie Man with a punch he may not recover from, DMZ once again swoops in and saves his teammate from a potential death blow. D drops Boogie down and flies back to go at it with Holocaust. Dmz and Holocaust are going blow for blow. Holly initially decided not to use his pyro abilities and go mano y mano but as the fight goes on; Holly grows tired of fighting this "non speaking weirdo”, grabs a hold of D’s fist, and begins to burn them. Holly then head butts D on the floor and begins to set him on fire. Aqua-Maria then douse DMZ and Holly.

Aqua: Pintche de madre!!

Holly: Oh sh**. Not this water b*tch again.

Just then Oro flings wise into holly. Wise grabs holly and attempts to weaken Holly making him invulnerable to his own power.

Wise: Shoot him now!! Oro begins to blast Holly and he feels it.

Oro: Wise, it’s working.

Holly: Nope, not gonna work this time Hannibal. I know you need to concentrate to do this and you know I cannot allow that to happen.

Holly breaks free of wise grip and throws him into Oro. He then fires a nova blast at Wise and Oro. Wise jumps into the blast. The temperature is hot enough to make him break a sweat as it burns the majority of Wise’s clothes off. Dogg tells Oro he may be able to absorb the energy from Holocaust. He tells Dogg, I’ve already tried that. Aqua shoots a hydro blast at Holly but it evaporates on contact. Holocaust looks at the syndicate and tells wise how soft they’ve become under his leadership. He also reminds Wise it was him that recruited him for the Syndicate. He tells wise he will never make it out of Dakota and that the syndicate will always be a gang of super powered thugs to majority.

Holly: Look at your Team Hannibal. I single handedly defeated them.

Wise: Get your punk-ass down here now and see if you can do the same to me.

Holly: Yeah…I think I’ll do just that.

Wise leaps toward Holly who blast Wise with series of pyro shots. Wise is blinded by the lights from the flames and becomes the target of repetitive body shots as Holocaust begins to molly whop Wise son. Oro flies in and punches Holly across the face. As Oro flies off, Holly flies in front of him, stops Oro and returns the punch sending him down. DMZ and Kwai flies up to attack again but gets caught off guard by a group of exploding cars. Holly notices a TV news Helicopter above the syndicate and himself. He smiles at the camera and points to the beaten Syndicate members.

Holly: “Look at them. Look at these broken and beaten fools. You’re so called heroes.

Hahaha! Just years ago you hoped and wished for their demise and now you praise them?!? You fools already lost Icon, Static, and the rest of these…Heroes. Now you will lose them as well.”

Fade & Flash: Not if we have something to say about it.

The two attempts to do the time freeze again but it doesn’t work. Fade believes it was timed wrong. Brick and Third punches Holly simultaneously who falls down from the impact. Wise jumps on him and attempts to get him in a bear hug to make him vulnerable as he tells the others to attack. Oro goes all out; releasing a series of blasts at Holly which appears to be affecting him as his begins to scream in pain. Holly tries to breaks Wise’s grip but it’s not happening. Holly then makes his body near nova hot as his body begins to form into a man-made fire. Wise even begins to feel the heat but maintains the bear hug around Holly. Holly with his arms pinned to his slide, wildly fires blast from his hands at anyone in fronts of him. He manages to get a good shot at a weakened Kwai who transforms back to Nina Lam after being struck by the fire blast. Wise, shocked to see Kwai return to her human form, allows Holly to break his grip and throws him into a flying DMZ. Wise tell Oro to “Blind him.” Oro blinds Holly as Brick and Third catches him with another powerful two piece combo. Holly is punched into a wall of a building which doesn’t stop the two from continuing to put a pounding on him. Holly doesn’t fight back and begins to revert back to his normal form. It seems that he too has finally weakened from this battle as it appears the Blood Syndicate will put another victory under their belts.

Unfortunately for them, Holocaust isn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. He begins to laugh hysterically as he once turns into fire then says something that puts fear of the face of the Syndicate members. That something sounded a lot like “Super Nova” and that means Holocaust is ready to let loose meaning He would destroy and burn anything in his way…including all of Dakota…unless they stop him.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN BLOOD SYNDICATE # 43

NEXT: HOLOCAUST GOES SUPER NOVA IN AN EFFORT TO DESTROY THE SYNDICATE ONCE AND FOR ALL. WILL THE TEAM HAVE ENOUGH TO STOP HIM AND SAVE NOT ONLY THEIR LIVES...BUT THE CITY OF DAKOTA AS WELL?! FIND OUT IN THE FINAL CHAPTER OF PLAYING WIT FIRE