Shape of Things
to Come
--------------------------
Author's
note: This serial revolves around a villain who acquires
the means to finally realize his dreams of
conquest and
also take his revenge on the heroines who have crossed his path...and
some who are just
unlucky to meet
him. This series contains scenes of sexuality, nudity and strong
language. If this offends
you, please
move onto another story. Otherwise, enjoy !
All characters mentioned are the property
of the respective comic companies which own them except for
the ones I make up. This story is
meant strictly as a parody.
Chapter 1 - Change in
Fortune
-------------------------------
The road was deserted late one summer night save
for a tan brown pickup truck that was slowly puttering down the road.
Behind the wheel was a black haired man in his early 40's wearing
a white and black robe with numerous bruises visible on his face. Sitting
on the seat beside him were several books based on the occult and others
dealing with astrology by various authors. On top of the books
was an iron wrought necklace with a large red ruby pendant though the
ruby seemed broken into several pieces.
To anyone who might have drove past the rusty
truck and seen the driver, they might have dismissed him as one of those
religious cult idiots who seemed to be everywhere these days. However,
the truth was the man was in fact a villain who had clashed repeatedly
with individual as well as groups of heroes and heroines over the years.
Amos Fortune, ironically considering his last name, often had schemes
that revolved around devices or items that involved people's luck ( good
or bad ). Unfortunately, his arrogance and mistrust of anyone who
worked with him often led to his downfall time and again to the point
where he was looked upon by fellow criminals as a bit of a joke.
As he sped down the road, Amos wondered if he should
change his philosophy about how everything in life revolved around
chance and luck ( both good and bad ). He was recently offered
a job by a cousin to work as a manager of a department store that was
a good paying offer. " Maybe it's time to stop going up
against all the super powered idiots of the world.... " he
muttered as he continued down the road.
" WHOAH!!! " the villain yelled as an
adult deer suddenly appeared in his headlights no more than a hundred
feet away. He managed to swerve his truck drastically to the left
and barely avoided hitting the animal but in doing so, Amos put his truck
into the ditch on the side of the road.
Stunned for a few seconds, Amos extricated himself from his truck
and climbed up onto the road. After quickly checking himself over,
he determined that aside from a nasty bruise on his right forearm, he
was fine. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for his truck
which was a total write off.
" Well, better find a house and see if I can call a tow
truck and a taxi as well. I think I see a house off in the distance
that might have a phone. " Amos muttered as he slowly trudged
up towards the chimney he spotted. When he got to the road, he
saw to his dismay that the house had been destroyed by fire fairly recently
and was nothing but charred ruins. Parked next to the house was a small
red Toyota with a security guard sitting behind the wheel to protect what
little of value there was left on the property.
Amos
figured the guard probably had a cell phone with him so he started
down the paved road towards the guard's car. As he walked, he
remembered the house in question had belonged to the famed archeologist
Charles Verlansky, who had just returned from exploring several ancient
crypts in Egypt as well as working in Romania. When Verlansky had
returned to North America just two day ago, he told the press that he
had discovered several rare artifacts which had not been seen by mankind
in a very long time. Unfortunately, a house fire had occurred
the first night he returned sending Verlansky to the hospital and nothing
but charred rubble to return to.
"
Tough break for Verlansky though I wonder why he's got a security
guard here..." Amos thought as he ambled up to the guard's car.
When he got within a few feet of the vehicle, he detected the
strong smell of Kentucky bourbon, which he had himself drank deeply
after more than one loss to the costumed heroes he so despised. He
looked inside the car and saw the guard was oblivious to the world around
her though whether it was from too much drinking or from simply falling
asleep was hard to say.
Seeing
no sight of a phone anywhere in the guard's car, Amos scratched his
head as he wondered what to do next. Glancing over at the blackened
house ruins, he stood still for a few seconds in silent contemplation.
" Well, if I've got nothing to do for the next little while,
I may as well poke around the ruins and see if Verlansky had anything of
value that survived the fire. " Amos muttered as he ambled
over to where the rubble was.
After checking
to make sure the remnants weren't still hot from the recent blaze, the
dark haired man stepped through what was the front door looking over the
various charred remains of furniture hoping to find antiquities, jewelry
or anything of value. Thirty minutes later, Amos found little
that he could sell of value from the remains and turned to walk out of
the ruins.
Unfortunately,
Amos had walked into an area where the floor had been more damaged than
what it appeared to be. He had taken just a few steps when the floor
gave away from under him sending the villain tumbling into the basement
below. Fortunately for him, he landed on a water logged mattress
and didn't suffer any serious injuries.
" It's
just not my night...not my night at all. Sigh.... " Amos
muttered as he stood up and looked around. Lucky for him, there
was a new moon in a cloudless night sky shining down otherwise he wouldn't
have been able to see more than a foot or two in front of him. Stepping
gingerly forward, the dark haired man saw nothing but ashes, blackened
pieces of furniture and puddles of water everywhere. He was about to
look for a way out of the basement when suddenly several more beams from
the ceiling collapsed in the far left corner. The lumber caused a loud
CLANG!! which reverberated through the basement as well as cause the light
from the moon to illuminate what laid beneath with more clarity.
To Amos' amazement,
the light revealed a large black floor safe lying under the timbers and
debris in the corner in question. As he walked towards it, he saw
that it looked to be one made around mid 19th century or so and the door
to it was wide open ( though whether the latter was because of the timber
falling on it, the fire that consumed the house or was just left open
by mistake was hard to say ).
When the
balding man got to the safe, he saw it was full of stock certificates,
legal papers and other such documents. However, it was a fairly
large black box with intricate engravings over the cover that drew Amos'
attention. He opened it up to find a black leather bag with a folded
document tucked underneath it. Opening up the parchment, Amos held
it up to the moonlight and saw the writing was in ancient Latin. Drawing
upon the courses he took in college, he managed to decipher the first part
of the writings.
The document spoke
of a gem unearthed by accident by Roman soldiers around 500 BC in northern
Italy. They brought it back to the foremost soothsayers of the time
in Rome, who immediately recognized the mystical properties of the gem.
However, after an ' accident' one night, the emperor, fearing the power
of the 'Gem of Transformation' ( loosely translated), ordered the gem to
be taken out of Rome and be thrown into the deepest parts of the Mediterranean
Sea before its power resulted in the destruction of the empire.
Unfortunately, the Roman
legion assigned this task were attacked by barbarians shortly after leaving
Rome and were completely slaughtered. After that, it disappeared
for several centuries until it wound up in the hands of a scholar in Naples,
who performed several tests on the gem. He determined that the jewel
could be used to change human beings into inanimate forms of the bearer's
desire for an undetermined amount of time. Amos was very frustrated
to find that the drawbacks that were listed had been smudged or faded over
time and couldn't be read at all.
" The smudged part
must be the reason why Verlansky had this item locked in his safe. He
was afraid that the cost of using such power was too high and might even
cost him his life. However, I'm willing to take a chance that the advantages
far outweigh the disadvantages. " Amos said smugly as he read
the parchment again for details on the gem's usage. Apparently, the
holder of the gem would point it at the intended target and speak the form
he wanted the target to assume with the result being almost instantaneous.
Smiling broadly, the villain shoved
the pouch containing the gem as well as the parchment into his robe pocket
before looking around for the stairs leading up to the ground level. Amos
had just started to walk up the stairs when he heard a loud cough and the
unmistakable cocking of a handgun's hammer. He looked up to see a
very awake security guard staring down at him with her gun pointed at his
chest.
" All right, feller. Get your
ass up here slowly and don't try anything funny. " the guard
barked down at the surprised Amos. Sensing that she might be asking
a few questions that would be difficult for him to answer honestly, Amos
reached into his robe pocket and gently shook the gem from the pouch into
the pocket itself.
" Sorry if I've created any hassles,
ma'am. I was hired by Mr. Verlansky to make sure that some of his
more valuable possessions stored in the basement weren't damaged by the fire.
My name is Nick..Nick Chance." Amos said hoping his hastily conceived
lie would fool the woman staring down at him.
However, the security woman was not believing
his excuse at all. " If that was the case, my boss would have told
me you were coming by tonight. Walk slowly up the stairs and stand
by my car while I make a call to the police." she said gesturing Amos
up the stairs with her gun barrel
Sighing, Amos slowly walked up the
stairs and followed the red haired woman back to her car. However,
when the woman, still feeling the effects of her liquor consumption from
earlier, stumbled and fell to the ground, Amos took that opportunity to
strike. He grabbed the gem in his pocket and pulled it out with a
flourish as the woman rolled onto her back. Pointing it at the prone woman,
he shouted " Crystal statue !" in a dramatic fashion though he secretly
wasn't sure what exactly was supposed to happen if anything.
" What the...? " the security woman shouted
before going silent as a beam of energy shot out from the gem and enveloped
her fully. She felt her body go rigid and unresponsive to her thoughts
no matter how much she wanted to move and get away from the madman and his
gem. To her horror, she saw her hands were starting to transform into
cold glistening crystal devoid of any humanity. She saw with her fixed gaze
that the same change was rapidly starting to affect the rest of her body with
her legs and lower torso with flesh and blood quickly becoming brilliant crystal
that reflected the moon light where it wasn't covered by her clothes.
" A CRYSTAL STATUE !!...WHY?....I'M ALIVE....I
CAN THINK...NOOOO!!!!.... " the woman screamed mentally before
her thinking winked out as the change claimed the rest of her body and a
statue of pure crystal rested on the ground draped in the outfit it wore
when it was still a living woman.
" Hmmm...the clothes weren't affected by the gem
at all.. interesting..." Amos muttered as he looked at what the gem's
power had left. After a minute or two of quiet contemplation, the
villain bent down and began removing the clothes from the statue in a methodical
statue. He had to roll the statue on its' side several times to remove
the jacket and pants not to mention the underwear. Once stripped of
its' clothes ( which Amos threw in the front seat of the woman's car), Amos
slowly dragged the statue over to the car and pushed it into the back seat.
After covering the statue with a blanket and securing it as
best he could, Amos closed the back door and leaned up against the car exhausted
from the exertions of the last hour or so. After wiping the sweat off
his face, he climbed into the car and sat silently behind the steering wheel
for several minutes in silence before turning around and facing the back seat.
" Well, my crystalline figure, I think I'll be finding you
a new home at a gallery in a nearby town. I happen to know several
owners who would pay handsomely for such a realistic statue. Once that's
taken care of, I think it's time I used this power to
take some revenge on the heroes who have foiled me in the past. I've
heard Black Canary and a few friends are cutting the ribbon at a new building
a few miles from here. Maybe I'll pay them a visit and reward them for
their civic minded attitudes..or is it reward me ? " Amos said with
a loud evil laugh as he fished the keys for the car out of the guard's pocket
and started up the car.
The car slowly headed off onto the road with the statue headed
to a new home and Amos heading to start his latest plan of evil....
With power to wreak some terrible consequences...
To be continued....