> > "Things Change" Part One
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> > He's a ghost, he's a god, he's a man, he's a guru
> > You're just one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan
> > Designed and directed by his Red Right Hand
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> > - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Red Right Hand"
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> > It has been seventeen years since my mission began. I was chosen to receive great powers through exposure to an exotic energy source. The "Divine Spark" vanished at at the end of the process, but my abilities remained, abilities I used in service to America.
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> > Over time I became my country's greatest defender. I was put in charge of an entire agency dedicated to protecting it from enemies at home and abroad. It was not a position I enjoyed. In fact, the bureaucratic restrictions, the petty interoffice rivalries, the politics of it made me realize our own institutions were in the way.
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> > There were others who shared my beliefs. One, the Grey Eminence, reached out to me. After proving my dedication to the cause I became the power in service to the power behind a significant number of thrones. Our efforts to keep America strong were extralegal, unacknowledged, and unrewarded. They were also largely successful. We ended the Zemo Dynasty, liberated the rogue nations of Sybia and Badripoor, and routed the heresy that was Gah! The nation was safer than ever.
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> > Still, Grey's organization was flawed- filled with sycophants, opportunists, and outright sociopaths. It could not be wholly trusted to win the war. Even the old man was reluctant to make the necessary hard decisions.
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> > I however, was not.
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> > Under my stewardship the group became a corps of true patriots. Though smaller in influence, our zeal in supporting the cause kept us as effective as before, especially once my more proactive strategy was adopted.
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> > There was opposition. Chief among my enemies was the Lair Legion, a powerful cabal of secular progressives. I went after them in ways that would hamper their effectiveness to resist: media smear campaigns, congressional hearings, audits. I plundered the Legion's secrets by taking control of their mansion's artificial intelligence program.
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> > And they fought back. The group was nearly successful in exposing my operations to public scrutiny, which would have ruined us. Killing the Lair Legion became my top priority.
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> > An opportunity to achieve that goal appeared along with the return of the "Divine Spark." The government wanted to subject a female agent to its energies, in hopes of breeding us. Admittedly it was an excellent long term strategy, but I had more immediate needs. I seized the machinery that held the Spark for myself, and bathed in its power a second time.
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> > There was a miscalculation. My body was unable to fully absorb the dose of energy. It was ravaged, reduced to a husk. But my mind.... it is impossible to describe what happened to my conscienceness. The most apt analogy would be as though the entire world had been the work of a great magician, and now I had learned the secrets behind the tricks. A less devout man than myself might proclaim he had become omniscient.
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> > I built a new body for myself, one that could stand up to even the strongest Legionnaire. I demonstrated this physical might by beating the dragon to death, after which I skinned his corpse and sent it to Paradopolis. It took me three weeks to sanction the rest of the team.
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> > But not without cost. The algorythmic pathogen I designed to destroy the Shoggoth mutated and metastasized, becoming an airborne virus that attacked the cerebral cortex in humans, in particular the areas that regulated reason. I was immune to this "insanity plague", but the rest of the population was not. As I struggled to produce a cure the people of Earth devolved into violent anarchy. Within months they had managed to end all of civilization.
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> > It would have been easy to give into despair at this point, but I perservered. I knew I could use my genius to rebuild the human race. There were several options: but I chose chronal manipulation. I would construct instrumentation to travel back and hand pick the progenitors based on desirable physical and mental attributes. My mission would still succeed.
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> > Or it would have, if not for the interference of outside agents. That preening meddler Winkelweald manipulated the Parody Master to exile my Earth with several others that had been ruined by the actions of criminals who happened to be iterations of the Lair Legion. I'm sure the Hood found this manner of internment ironic. To me it was a nuisance.
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> > I eventually plotted my escape from these "Shattered Worlds," to an Earth that would allow me to renew my mission. I faced several obstacles, the major one being a temporary lack of a corporal form. But I plotted, taking what advantage I could of my situation. I waited until the time was right, when two of three men ever to beat me were destroyed. And then I acted.
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> > *****
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> > Rex Regent and his honor guard enter the room containing my cell at 7:45 am. He isn't even bothering to conceal his satisfaction at the recent turn of events.
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> > "I'm afraid there's been a change of plans, Clancy. You won't be let out today or any other day. Your mission has been scrubbed."
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> > "Why is that?" I ask, though the answer has already been made known to me. This is a delaying tactic, nothing more.
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> > Rex smiles, "The Dark Knight's been eliminated. Got sucked into a big ball of happy ending energy, or some such. Hard to believe that that crazy bastard gets to have a happy ending, but what are you going to do? The point is," the grin disappears, "We don't need you anymore. At least not out in the field. The Grey Eminence wants to keep you around for intelligence analysis and situational assessment, so you get to live at least. Which I think is pretty generous."
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> > "What would you do with me, if you could, Rex?"
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> > "Put a bullet in that souped up brain of yours and bury you in the salt flats with the rest of the spooks and soldiers who no longer serve a purpose."
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> > Regent fears me, and with good reason. My consciousness is now housed in the body of a powerful metahuman named Exemplary. His major ability was that he could manipulate bioelectric impulses in himself and others. That is why the Grey Eminence keeps me here, caged behind nigh-impenitrium bars, guarded by soldiers wielding high density ceramic weapons, monitored by billions of nano-machines coursing through my nervous system to monitor and, if neccessary, shut down my brain functions. And if I were just Exemplary, these safeguards would have worked.
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> > But my mind can see the true potential within this body. I know that every physical aspect to this world is held in place by electrical forces. All stimuli and responses have this "Divine Spark," and by manipulating it, one can achieve extraordinary things. For example, it lets me:
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> > shut down the nanites in my body, leaving me free to make my escape
> > transmute the cage bars from impenitrium to much more malleable titanium steel
> > enhance my strength and speed to where I can rip the bars free and drive them through the skulls of the guards that flank Regent
> > stop his heart (as his last words to me was a request to "Make if clean, for [his] family," and as churlish the man had been, he had fought the good fight, and I am not with out mercy)
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> > The complex's alarms begin the scream. I make my way into the hall and search out an access point to the power grid. Overloading the system will buy me the moments I need to retrieve the next part of my plan before escaping.
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> > Four floors down from my cell, held in one of the Eminence's secure labs, are the remains of future sent technology that I have been allowed to study in hopes of deciphering it. The machinery is inert, and circumstances have denied it of function. Until now. I give it purpose through my own will, sending it new commands into the self-evolving micro-circuitry that gestates in its ruby quartz housng. The instrumentation repsonds, replicating itself so that it literally grows out of its containment field and attempts to absorb me. I manage to override the defense protocols so that I assume full comand of the technology, allowing it to remain bonded to my right arm for the sake of convienience. It is vastly mutable, and powerful, and it will serve me well in my own future.
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> > As I stalk from the laboratory and plan my departure from the installation, I afford myself a small moment of pride. My enemies thought they had left me with nothing more than disembodied thoughts. But those thoughts contained plans which led to here, and the forging of a new body for myself that has unlimited potential. I have made it so that my goals are in reach, and that I possess the opportunity to grasp them.
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> > Next: Artemis and Glory bond amidst a deadly gang war, and a secret is revealed
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> > Footnotes:
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> > The Omni Competent: is an alternate reality version of Mister Epitome who for a time put his brain in the body of a giant albino gorilla. He gives a stream-lined and somewhat biased account of his backstory here. Readers interested in learning how he managed to escape "The Shattered Worlds" can type that title into the subject search setting and can get that part of the story (pretty uneven, but its got some good bits, and guest stars everybody's favorite Probability Dancer). More recently the villain returned to action when the Grey Eminence felt forced to use him to hunt down the Dark Knight, after the vigilante killed and threatened some of his agents (see one of the Untold Tales, I forget which). They found a new body for the Omni Competent: Exemplary, who was pretty powerful himself but had his head lopped off by ManMan (again, in an Untold Tales whose number I don't recall). The "ruby crystal futuristic technology" he takes control of is what's left of another dangling plot point, of which readers with good memories may recall. Taken all together the Omni Competent has assembled a fairly dangerous form for himself.
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