Chapter Seventeen
GIVE ME LIBERTY
Additional
material by Steve Mollett
The cloud flashed in the night sky and the top portion of a Sentinel, its body blown in half by one of Col. Nick Fury’s fighters, became visible as it tumbled out of the mist. Zero Man veered hard to the right, avoiding the still-twitching wreckage as it fell. Zero Man’s eyes--and the beams that emanated from them--were already on the Sentinels behind it that were slicing jet fighters into flaming debris with orange blasts. Genni-Cide dodged behind the plummeting robot torso, pivoted around it and exploded up into the side of the two American Knights who were pursuing her.
Thud hovered several dozen meters below the thick of the aerial battle over Washington D.C. He looked up and saw Supernova blast one of the giant, purple robots to slag with an energy beam so hot that the slag almost instantly boiled away into incandescent gas. Thud thanked God for small favors: Thud was warping gravity to propel tons of shrapnel away from the heart of the city and was at his limit. Past it, actually; his face a contorted, sweat-covered mask of exhausted determination.
In the distance, he saw the sky glow a bright green--emerald more properly. Three Sentinels flew through the patch of green, chasing the armored bulk of War Machine, who carried a blond woman in his arms. The Sentinels suddenly veered off in all directions, their formation blown. Two collided and exploded, while the third simply started flying straight down toward the ground, a dark streak against the explosions and flashes of energy from the battle above.
Thud mouthed a haggard curse and tried to fight gravity pulling and the completely disoriented Sentinel’s thrusters pushing. At his best, it would have been difficult, but Ben Grimm was stretched too thin.
The Sentinel rocketed into the heart of the Washington. The impact was like a bomb going off. The entire city shook.
The building that Catwoman was perched on rumbled and quaked. She dug the claws of her right hand into the chimney as she rubbed her eyes with her left. At the moment, all she could see was purple and green spots; she’d caught only the most fleeting glimpse of Lightstorm before Wraith’s shadows had chased him back down towards the street, but it had still left after-images on her retinas.
The building was still shaking, and the rumbling grew louder. A sudden, terrified shriek for help from the next street over focused her attention. There was then a loud whoosh. The glow of a large fire started to peek above the building across the street, followed by more frantic, panicked yelling.
It was “Eternal Flame,” presumably. Why help hold off the JLA like he was probably ordered to do when there were innocent people of a different color to kill? Legion could give him a new name and uniform, but The Grand Dragon still wore the same white sheet underneath it all.
Despite her impaired vision, Catwoman leapt from the roof into the darkness between buildings, her whip extending with a crack towards a far ledge. She didn’t need eyes for this; she knew it would find purchase.
She would always land on her feet.
Her vision clearing as she swung through the cold night air, Catwoman spied the nation’s capital dome silhouetted against the angry, flashing sky just as The Iron Maiden erupted from inside the dome and followed gravity’s rainbow straight into the Potomac.
Inside the House Chamber, plaster and concrete rained down from the hole in the ceiling created by The Iron Maiden’s Titan-assisted exit from the combat. Terrified politicians, already desperately trying to escape the melee in the chamber, became even more frantic. Ominous cracks, like black spider webs, spread from the breach across the inner surface of the dome.
Blue Beetle backhanded Moses Mayhem across the chamber and shot into the air. He made it to the ceiling just as a large section gave way. He caught the falling section, and pushed it back, bracing the ceiling in place with his shoulders. The TV cameras that were still running in the House Chamber rested on him for only a few moments, lest they miss the action taking place elsewhere. The cameras craned back down to the chaos in the chamber.
Modesty Blaise and the Gray Ghost herded civilians and Congressmen through the exits as The Professional covered their backs and traded fire with The Punisher, who was using a dark-haired, waif-like little girl as a human shield.
An American Knight judo-threw Titan through the floor of the gallery and spun around to face Harley Quinn. Harley delivered a spinning kick to the back of Captain Cold and danced around his falling body. Emerging from behind Cold’s other side, she snap-aimed her boinger at the American Knight flying towards her and fired. The American Knight jetted straight up, the sonic wave passing underneath him and shattering the far wall. Harley chirped a quick “Oi” and then somersaulted backward, the American Knight slicing through the air she occupied a moment before with a bright blue laser beam. A jet of orange fire from Johnny Storm then struck the armored enforcer in the side, knocking him down.
On the other side of the chamber, Captain America, his eyes frenzied with hate, grasped The Joker by the throat and lifted him into the air with one arm. Despite gasping for air, The Joker still managed to laugh weakly and smash his over-sized novelty mallet into his attacker’s head even as the Crimson Fury emptied his automatics into Captain America, who showed no sign of slowing, or even feeling any of it.
Electro clapped his hands and a jagged arc of yellow energy surged toward the Crimson Fury. A second Captain America suddenly appeared, leaping in front of the cracking energy and putting his red, white and blue shield between the electricity and its target. Rolling in the air with the force of the blast, this second Captain America landed with a dancer’s grace and lunged toward his Joker-throttling double as Electro’s electromagnetic force field proved no impediment to the renewed attack of the Mighty Donar.
Captain America launched his shield at his phony facsimile. The shield was intended to rebound off the faker’s skull. Instead, the red, white and blue weapon sliced the upper half of the imposter’s head completely off, sending it to the floor with a sickening splat.
There was no blood.
The semi-decapitated body roared and dropped The Joker.
My god! Cap thought, catching his boomeranged shield instinctively, his mouth open; his eyes wide with shock.
"What the hell?!?" The Crimson Fury muttered in grim mystification, his hands still going through the rapid operation of loading two stacked clips into his two automatics.
The Joker stood calmly and silently, neither shocked nor mystified. He idly folded his hands behind him.
The severed crown of the fake Captain America’s head slid like a slug to the nearest leg and RE-ABSORBED itself into the body at that point. The entire body rapidly transformed from the familiar form of the star-spangled, super soldier into an equally familiar form of dirty, golden, clay-like flesh.
"So it is you, Hagen," The Joker said evenly with no hint of mirth.
"Yes," Clayface roared, his arms splitting into a fearsome array of multiple, upraised axes, cleavers and knives. "I’m Hagen...and you’re DOG MEAT!!!"
Captain America’s hand cocked back for another toss of the shield. The Crimson Fury’s guns had already snapped up, sending a new volley of .45 slugs into the clay-like form. As the last slug disappeared into the muddy horror, an absurd thing happened.
The Joker squeezed a bulb sewn into one of the tails of his purple tux jacket, sending forth a stream of liquid from a squirt flower in his lapel. The stream ineffectually spattered against the irregular, golden-brown flesh.
Fatalistic loony, The Crimson Fury thought as he fished out another pistol. The last great, futile act of defiance!
What happened next, however, froze both Cap and Crimson Fury in mid-action.
Clayface began to spasm in agony, his elastic body contorting into varied, wild forms! The Crimson Fury’s spent bullets "spat" out of various parts of the churning abomination.
"What’s happening to me?!?" he bellowed in anger and consternation.
The fearsome, clay-like monstrosity began shifting back to a recognizably human form.
"What did you do to me?!?" Clayface yelled as he took on the shape and appearance of Matt Hagen.
"Simple, Hagen." The Joker related with a peculiarly calm intensity. "During your little invasion of my Funhouse, you left a few residues for me to study. I have since perfected a biochemical compound that reverses the process that made you Clayface. That’s what you were just sprayed with. You’re finished, Hagen."
A panting, perspiration-sheened Matt Hagen jerked upright, regarding The Joker with a sinister leer.
"Go ahead, Joker," Hagen snarled maliciously, "Send me to Belle-Reve’s psycho ward....or to Arkham....or to whatever other loony bin you like! I’ll sit tight a few years! The doctors will judge me sane sooner or later, and I’ll be let out! I’ll become Clayface again, and next time I’ll REALLY show you death and destruction!! I’ll cause the greatest, bloodiest reign of terror the world has ever seen!!!!"
"No, you won’t." The Crimson Fury hissed evenly, sending a lethal slug through Hagen’s all-too-mortal skull.
The Joker snapped about to glare at The Crimson Fury, his face like that of a vinyl clown doll: smiling, yet devoid of any real emotion. Struck silent, the Clown Prince of Crimefighting then simply walked away, heading across the room to the one facet of his life that gave him an island of meaning in a world of madness: his wife.
Harley spun about, still in the thick of it with the American Knight. She only caught a glimpse of The Joker as he made his way through the chaos, walking obliviously to it all as he approached her, but she recognized the look in Mr. J’s eyes.
She would dance for him tonight.
She would help him forget the pain.
Suddenly, a dozen men in the green armor and distinctive helmets of the Sentinels Of Liberty ran into the chamber and sprayed the air with machine gun fire. Uncle Sam dived behind an overturned table, dragging NSA Agent Buddy Smith down behind it with him, bullet impacts exploding and splintering the table’s wood and brass. The soul-shaking crack of The Amazing Ghost Fighter’s Spirit Whip thundered again and again. Black Mask leaped into the corrupt government agents’ midst, his bokken becoming savage blurs. Darkman, again clad in black--his Nixon mask long since dissolved and discarded--dropped onto a second wave of the Sunderland-trained security agents from above as they entered the chamber, and began tossing them through the air with a maniac’s strength.
Scarlet claw marks suddenly appeared across the back of Darkman’s coat. Darkman didn’t feel it but heard the rips. He spun around, but found no one there. More deep cuts sprung into being on his chest. Enraged, Darkman lunged forward reflexively and his left hand brushed a shape unseen. Blood began streaming down his arm.
Black Mask finished his last opponent with a kick to his face and saw Darkman striking out blindly at empty air. Then something slashed Darkman’s side; something invisible. Black Mask made a rough approximation considering where the blow had come from and ran.
Darkman’s veins boiled with rage. Everything looked a deep, angry red as if viewed through a skein of blood. Suddenly, Black Mask sprinted right at him, his wooden swords spinning like vicious windmills. Darkman dived and heard a dull thunk as one of Black Mask’s wild swings caught a piece of the invisible assailant.
Surprised by being hit, the Vanisher flickered into view for only a moment. Black Mask’s second bokken swept toward the Vanisher’s head, but was intercepted by metal claws, the Vanisher’s form already melting away again. Black Mask jumped back, feeling a sharp wind whip inches from his nose. In front of him, he saw Darkman plunge his hand into a nearby desk and pull out an inkwell. Darkman began whipping the inkwell in a wide arc all around him, sending streams of ink through the air.
Blobs of black ink flew towards Black Mask. Some of them suddenly stopped in mid-air, flattened, hovered.
Black Mask twirled his wooden swords and moved in.
Back near the gallery, Titan pulled himself out of the crater in the floor. He was getting mighty tired of this. He scanned the melee for a suitable sparing partner. The Apostle was flying towards Beetle, who was still holding the ceiling in place. Titan bounded into the air, and spun into a two-legged flying kick delivered to Scutter’s chest. It was like hitting a brick wall, but it knocked the sack-clothe robed mad man out of the air. Titan recovered from the backlash and gracefully landed, creating another crater in the House Chamber’s floor in the bargain.
Titan hopped out of the crater, and instantly had to pirouette out of the way of an enraged Apostle. Scutter flew past Titan and took a swing in passing with his mace. It connected on Titan’s back, kicking sparks into the air as it scraped against Titan’s metal body.
The blow knocked Titan forward and once more... it hurt. Titan swiveled around with a two-handed rabbit punch to the side of Scutter’s body. His fists didn’t strike Scutter, but stopped a few inches short--a force field that gave a little but still felt like it bruised Titan’s knuckles.
Bruised his knuckles? Titan was metal. How what that even possible?
“Don’t sully me with you hands, Sinner!” Apostle yelled and swung the mace again, striking Titan across the jaw.
Titan bobbled on his feet, his head ringing. How was this happening? Titan had seen footage of Blitzkrieg and Blue Beetle’s battle in the 40s. Blitzkrieg’s mace never did any actual damage to Beetle.
“Unclean beast!” Scutter yelled and tried to bring the mace down on Titan’s head again. Titan parried the blow with his arm, the mace’s spikes embedding in the smooth metal of his arm. Pain shot up its length for the first time in a long while. Titan hauled back his entire body and delivered a dehabilitating blow with his right fist straight into the Apostle’s face. Again his punch stopped inches from the debased holy man’s body. That force field was impressive. It must be magic, too.
Magic. Like Blue Beetle. Too much like Blue Beetle. Probably why it couldn’t affect him all those years ago.
Titan wasn’t magical.
Oh, hell.
Titan jumped backward. He needed some room to maneuver. The American Knight he fought earlier suddenly flew over his head, having been hit by a blast from Harley’s boinger.
Titan was all about economy.
He leaped up into the air and grabbed the American Knight with both hands. The American Knight was surprised and started to struggle, but it was too late. As soon as Titan hit the ground, he threw the American Knight as hard as he could toward The Apostle.
Scutter, moving with an astounding swiftness that belayed his apparent age, backhanded the American Knight with the mace. The impact sounded like a cannon going off. The American Knight shot away and imbedded, headfirst, in the far wall, unconscious.
Scutter wasn’t even slowed down. A second later, The Apostle was upon Titan, attacking wildly. Titan grabbed the arm that held the mace before Scutter could bring it around again, Titan’s steel fingers compressing the force field just enough to hold on. With his other hand, Titan grabbed The Apostle near the chest. As Titan lifted, Scutter delivered a left hook to Titan’s jaw. Super strong, Scutter’s fist knocked Titan’s head back a bit, but it didn’t hurt. Good sign.
“Vile demon! You can’t touch me! The unholy can not touch the holy!”
Titan’s hands burst into white flame.
“Ow!” Titan yelled, in surprise as much as pain. Baron Blitzkrieg couldn’t do that. Scutter’s mentality must be influencing the mace.
Bad sign.
Titan couldn’t hold him for long. He needed an equalizer. Fast.
Titan looked up and saw Blue Beetle still straining under the weight of the capital dome. No, that hadn’t worked in the 40’s. He needed magic, but different magic.
“Donar!” Titan yelled. “An assist!”
Across the room, Donar heard the call and stopped dribbling Electro like a basketball. He scanned the chaotic congressional scene and picked out Titan just as the metal goliath yelled in pain and released The Apostle. Titan’s metal hands extinguished but still glowed red, like a fireplace poker left in the flame too long. The Apostle hovered in the air and lifted the mace above his head with both hands, preparing to cave in Titan’s steel skull.
Donar was at Titan’s side in a single leap. A muscular arm that wasn’t really there pushed Titan out of the way of the blow. His deathblow denied, The Apostle looked at his new adversary.
“Another demon!” he spat. “Your monstrous ilk will never defeat the utter purity of righteousness! You will be consumed by the terrible fires of eternal sin that made thee!”
Donar brought his glowing silver ax up. All the people in this new age talked too much; Donar preferred to act. He swung his ax up toward The Apostle, but the ranting fool, still blathering meaninglessly, ducked to the side. The Apostle spun in the air 360 degrees and came around with his mace from the other side, striking Donar in the side.
Donar expected the insane villain’s weapon to pass right through his intangible form like everything else did, but instead it connected. There was a flash of harsh, purplish light where it hit. The pain in his side stabbed and burned like fire. Worse, there was dark recognition, a sickening familiarity. This mace was as ancient and powerful as Donar was. Not only that, Donar could feel the primal life force of the Fatherland coursing through it like molten steel. As similar as it was, it was not like him, however. The mace was a thing of primordial, blackest evil. The stink of Loki pervaded it. This mace was the diabolical essence of everything Donar despised and had ever fought against, forged into a black configuration of fire and iron.
“Yes, Demon!” The Apostle yelled. “Suffer the torments of the damned!”
Donar’s eyes filled with hate. “Defend yourself, madman.” He lunged forward. The Apostle swung his mace around to block Donar’s ax. That was fine with Donar; he wasn’t aiming at The Apostle. The silver ax and black mace connected.
There was a crack of thunder the like of which has not been heard since the creation of the world. The light of a thousand lightning bolts flashed inside the capital dome, momentarily blinding all inside. Titan threw his arm up to cover his eyes. His vision cleared and he saw the limp body of The Apostle hurtling towards him. Beyond, Donar lay on the ground, unconscious, his ax glowing a brilliant gold.
Titan reached up and grabbed The Apostle one-handed. Titan’s fingers wrapped around Scutter’s robes, The Apostle’s force field now all but gone. Titan turned Scutter around and looked at him. Scutter’s head lolled back like a rag doll. He still clutched the mace in one white-knuckled hand. Black smoke, smelling of sulfur, poured out of the mace’s head. Scutter’s eyes started to open.
Titan worked out the trajectory in his head and aimed for the hole in the capital dome. He drew back his other arm and made a fist.
“Say hello to The Iron Maiden for me.”
While the battle raged through the House Chamber, in the very center of the maelstrom, was apparent calm. Three people stood absolutely motionless: A thin, haggard woman with short black hair in a plain gray dress, grimacing; a frail, deformed dwarf dressed in a tuxedo with a large bald head, frowning and sweating; and the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, still standing behind the podium, looking down at the other two, his features a calm expression of utter serenity.
There was a terrible stillness around the three. The very air between them seemed to vibrate as if suffused with the potential for horrid violence and soaked with incalculable furies.
It had gone on for only a little over a minute now, but for Psilence and Mentalon it had felt like hours. Their heads pounded. The two telepaths had joined together their awesome abilities--her skill and discipline, his raw power--to shatter Legion’s pretense, free Eisenhower and drag the loathsome invading entity out into the open. For a few moments at the beginning, it seemed almost as easy as they secretly hoped it would be. Very quickly, however, a realization dawned on them, and their horror gradually grew.
Legion was toying with them.
Legion had been feeding for months off the negative psychic energies generated by its sick parody of America. Legion had become vastly powerful and soon it would overwhelm them. Then the JLA would fall. With no serious opposition, Legion’s influence would grow until its malevolent designs eventually ensnared the entire planet. Its deathless madness would reign forever.
Legion pounded at their defenses and howled inhumanly in their minds. Mentalon and Psilence wearied and their allies fighting all around them had no idea that victory was slipping away.
But then Mentalon heard a voice from directly behind him--a voice calm, familiar and filled with weary resignation and arrogant distaste: “This just isn’t working, is it?”
Despite Annette’s directions to keep his concentration centered on Legion no matter what, Mentalon couldn’t help turning to look. He only caught a glimpse before his own contracting defenses compelled him to face Eisenhower’s grinning, pale visage again. Mentalon had seen enough, though: A multi-colored coat, a black cane with a gleaming gold handle and a frowning plastic mask.
Out of the corner of Mentalon’s left eye, he could see that The Patchwork Man now stood behind Psilence. Her discipline, however, was complete; she didn’t look away from Eisenhower.
Despite the deafening chaos in the chamber, Mentalon could hear The Patchwork Man’s words in utter clarity. “What would you people do without me?” Mentalon saw a flash of sudden movement from behind Psilence. He knew he’d only have time for a quick glance, but he took it, looking over just as The Patchwork Man drove the tip of his cane into Psilence’s back. She began to burn.
The mask was smiling now.
Psilence screamed in Mentalon’s head. Legion laughed and redoubled his assault, forcing Mentalon to face him again. He could still feel Psilence presence right beside him, though, defiantly holding the line, pouring her pain into their shields.
Psilence was a pillar of red and yellow flame now. She collapsed forward onto the ground, sending sparks shooting across the marble floor. The Patchwork Man pulled his cane away from her incinerating body and nonchalantly tapped the tip of it against the ground to dislodge a smoldering ash. Psilence had stopped screaming.
“Fun’s fun, you understand,” The Patchwork Man said to Annette’s burning body. “But Douglas and Anthony's little game of ‘let’s pretend’ has to end now. He’s endangering the world and I can’t allow that.”
The Patchwork Man gestured to the rest of the chamber, filled with battling metahumans, masked vigilantes and terrified people trying to hide or escape.
“After all, you’re all *mine*.”
The Patchwork Man walked behind the plume of smoke spilling from the fire that had once been Annette Rosenberg and disappeared.
Mentalon felt Psilence’s mind flicker and die. Her half of their gestalt was gone. Legion screeched in victory and came for Mentalon, full bore. Mentalon’s shields shagged violently and cracked. He saw the immense dark hands reaching around him, crushing. He felt panic rising in his stomach.
“Yes, freak!” Legion snarled in Mentalon’s mind. “Fear me! Let your simpering terror eat away at you! Let me in even sooner to tear your little heart out!”
Mentalon ignored him. Annette had told him that he was incredibly powerful and had barely begun to discover his abilities. All he needed was patience and experience. Clinging desperately to this memory he went as deeply into himself as he could and tried to find those hidden reservoirs of power and channel them properly.
He tried to put everything else out of his mind, even the fact that the fire started by his friend’s murdered body seemed to be spreading and getting even hotter. Mentalon focused everything he knew and what little she had been able to teach him. He felt his defenses surge momentarily.
Legion laughed and gibbered. It mocked him, congratulating Mentalon on adding four seconds to his life. Legion pounded away again.
Mentalon sagged. Legion’s power seemed limitless! The heat of the fire behind Mentalon was now stifling; the intense glow was casting harsh shadows of the JLA fighting for their lives against the far walls of the House chamber. Mentalon concentrated on reassembling his shields, but felt the cracks deepening. It wouldn’t be long now.
Then, oddly, Legion’s attack suddenly abated. Mentalon noticed that Eisenhower was no longer looking directly at him anymore, his eyes raised, staring behind and above Mentalon. He saw much anger in Eisenhower’s face, but also fear.
It had also become much quieter all of the sudden. Mentalon saw that many of the combatants throughout the chamber had stopped fighting and were now also staring up at the same spot behind him. Mentalon slowly turned around.
The fire started by Psilence’s body was now an inferno that reached to the ceiling of the House Chamber. A terrible, bright white, the fire undulated and pulsed. Mentalon thought it looked almost like a living thing and, as he watched, Phoenix spread her wings.
The two sheets of fire opened and swept out over the chamber to reveal the human form that hung suspended at the fiery bird’s blazing heart. Mentalon recognized it was Annette, but not the Annette he had met. Not the Annette of 1955, after years in asylums both real and imagined; an emaciated, pale woman with shorn hair and gaunt features made prematurely old by the loss of almost everything she held dear. No, this was the Annette who forever stood with her friends in the painting that hung above an empty glass case in a far away mansion. This was Annette as she had been; young, strong and beautiful.
Annette Rosenberg reborn.
She was now clad from head to toe in green, a gold satin sash tied around her waist fluttered in the churning air. Framed by a lush mane of black curls that danced in the wind, her eyes were a total, pristine white--no iris at all--and seemed to glow.
Eisenhower screamed in rage and every ounce of Legion’s dark power surged toward Mentalon and Phoenix.
Phoenix smiled, her teeth gleaming in the firelight. Legion’s attack scattered like night in the face of dawn.
Mentalon turned back around to face Eisenhower. He and Phoenix finally went on the offensive. They almost effortlessly reached through Legion’s defenses, shattering them completely.
Legion was slippery and vicious, a serpent made of razor wire. Despite even their amassed power, it took every ounce of Mentalon and Phoenix’s concentration to grab a hold of Legion, much less start pulling him out of the President’s body.
Eisenhower began to have a seizure. Black, acrid smoke began to pout out of his mouth, eyes and nose. As the oily vapor coalesced in the air above Eisenhower’s body, it began to resolve into a nightmarish mass of organic surrealism. Dozens of screaming, hissing heads churned into form: Horses, lizards, spiders, wolves, goats, monkeys, flies....
It was all they could do to maintain their grip. Holding Legion was like holding mercury, and bringing it out into the open was making the thrashing monstrosity even harder to control. It was a cornered animal. It convulsed around their fingers and swung out tendrils of pure hate that sliced deep into their defenses.
The final slimy tendrils were ripped from the President and his body crumpled to the floor. Totally concentrated on fighting its evictors, Legion didn't even attempt to kill the puppet as it usually did. Legion strained against Phoenix and Mentalon, attempting to phase into insubstantiality and merge back into the background radiation of the universe. Nature was on its side. Fully freed of any material attachment, hanging onto Legion was now like trying to grab onto steam. They couldn’t hold it for long.
But then they didn’t need to.
Uncle Sam ran towards Legion and charged his Fist Of America. Greasy, ropey, inside-out versions of rottweiler heads vomited out of the black mass and sprung out on long stalks toward the patriotic icon, their translucent teeth gleaming, but the heads were intercepted and nearly decapitated by the true Captain America's mighty shield. His path clear, Uncle Sam leapt up, somersaulted into the air and came down fist-first into the heart of the thing.
Thunder boomed as Uncle Sam passed through the malignance. Legion screamed; it sounded like the screeching of a dozen cats having their throats cut. The dark monstrosity shuddered and ultraviolet light poured out of it from a long gash down the side. Uncle Sam landed on the floor directly underneath Legion. Trying to catch his breath, Uncle Sam looked up and saw four huge, spiked appendages grow out of Legion’s side and rear up to crush him.
From the ceiling above, a bright blue beam of energy lanced down from Blue Beetle’s scarab into the wound in Legion’s side. Legion’s black strikers dissolved back into a foul mist. Beetle, his back still straining against the ceiling, wasn’t satisfied and yelled again. A bright pulse shimmered down the length of the beam and the other side of the diseased, fleshy fog exploded outward, revealing a shiny, black substance throbbing at its very center.
The Amazing Ghost Fighter had been standing motionless beneath Legion all this time, calmly waiting for his shot. He now took careful aim and drew back the ethereal string of his Ghost Bow. An arrow of pure, white light came into being, pointed directly at the exposed heart of Legion.
At that moment, Mentalon could taste Legion's undisguised pure terror and saw, in his mind, the entity's pretense scoured away. Legion now floated bare before him. It was a set of Siamese twins joined at the chest; their ancient, wrinkled, gray skin hung limply from dry bones. Two sets of moist, despairing eyes looked at Mentalon. A single, cracking voice issued from the twins.
"I just wanted to have some fun…." the thing that had once, long ago, been two human beings said.
The Amazing Ghost Fighter let his arrow fly.
Chapter Eighteen: “The New World”