Dark Mystic stood rooted in place before the ice as Jalzabel moved his hand back and forth over the ice. Inside the ice with a stoic posture sat his best pupil, John Gothier.
Dark Mystic lay chained in a mortuary. His body moved slowly down a conveyor belt towards a cremation furnace. He writhed upon the table. Even the surging rage-driven strength of Jalzabel couldn’t break through.
The bulking Red Commodore grinned. “I would push you in, if not for the pleasure of watching you squirm like an animal, sorcerer.”
“That’s the problem with you villains!”
Dark Mystic glanced to the left. Standing in a solid blue lycra jumpsuit was Ice Cube. A freeze ray shot from his chest, freezing the Commodore and his men. Ice Cube fired a freeze beam from his hand at the furnace. “You talk too much, and play too many games.”
Ice Cube turned to Dark Mystic. “Let me get those chains for you.”
“Thank you,” said Dark Mystic. “I promise you, I’ll never forget this.”
And he wouldn’t. It would haunt him in his dreams forever. He stared at his friend’s steaming body, and looked down at the flamethrower in his hand and the flood of water he stood in.
No! I killed my best friend.
Jalzabel cackled. “You are the puppet, I am the master.”
“No, this is still my body! I have to be able to do something.”
He couldn’t stop Jalzabel from taking control, or going through the portal, nor could he turn the flamethrower on himself despite how badly he wanted to.
I have to be able to do something. Something that’ll give me some hope.
He strained against Jalzabel. Agony tore through his body and mind until, at last, he broke through for a moment, before falling back into the darkness. A tear trickled down his cheek.
Jalzabel whispered in the darkness. “A hollow victory, I assure you.
“One down, twenty-nine to go.”
Continued next week in…War Under Glass
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