The Whorl burst out of the clouds, running faster and harder than ever before, and coming right at him. Hyperman tried eye-blasting him, but his eyes sparked and fizzled. He strained his eyes, trying to force the beams out, but it only hurt him more. However, he clearly saw Don pulsing at him, not thinking and barely looking, having become a charging engine of destruction. He’d put all his power behind this run.
Using all his reserves and willpower, Hyperman deftly sidestepped him and flung out his arm. He straightened and tensed it with all his remaining strength. The Whorl raced right into it without realizing what was happening or being able to halt his momentum. Hyperman’s arm took his head right off. Don’s headless body kept running right on through the clouds.
Before Hyperman had a chance to hate himself for that, his insides ruptured. His skin turned an unhealthy translucent blackish-red. This was it. The Diatomite-x was roiling and raging inside of him, ready to explode back out. With a great, grunting effort, he dove and sliced awkwardly down through the clouds back toward the real world.
As he dropped down from the hyper-speed reality, the clouds separated back into sights, sounds, and smells. The information overload blasted into him like a cannonball, hitting with Internet signals, voices, communications, auras, energy waves, and more. It hurt to take it all in. Yet, he managed to whip himself around and launch out into space. He wished he could have looked over the whole Earth (and Lindsey) one last time, but couldn’t spare a second.
Though he was losing speed, he managed to blitz on through a few galaxies, shaking and shuddering the whole way. Eventually, far out in uncharted space, he found a lonely, dying red sun, ringed by dead desert worlds. The Diatomite-x wouldn’t hurt anybody here.
He vomited it all out, letting the sun’s liquid-y red waves of plasma sweep over and burn it away bit by bit. The act racked and depleted him. Several sun-flares hit him, but he endured. He spat the last of the Diatomite-x out, and one final burst of sun-fire blasted into him and nearly knocked him out.
He drifted aimlessly through space, too weak to move. He shivered from the cold. Numbness soon replaced the pain. Eventually, his hyper-senses dimmed and failed. He waited for the universe to go dark. Hopefully, somehow, his mothership would find him.
EPILOGUE: NIGHT OF GHOSTS AND LIGHTS
The Glow flared a riotous, foamy blue in the dark. The mob soldiers surrounding him wore skin-tight body armor and wielded blade rifles. Their laser scopes flickered and slashed across the big house’s shifting shadows. The night-vision goggles on their helmets clicked and blinked.
“FIND HIM, DAMN IT!” the Glow roared. The bulgy, thick, middle-aged man lit up the gigantic living room with his radioactive skin, showing the antique furniture, ashy fireplace, and lovely old paintings.
The cameras and hearing devices secretly planted inside fed footage of what was going on to Nightshadow outside, where he crouched down low on a tall, lonely tree branch. His wing-suit’s stealth cloaked him amongst the brittle, green darkness of the dense woods. The massive fortress-like house before him sat alone out in the country sixty-five miles away from the Salome City limits. High monolithic walls surrounded the property.
Nightshadow had killed the power, and darkness had flooded throughout the house. Silky moonlight threaded in through every dark window. Floorboards creaked and the wind battered against the walls. The Glow and his men were jumping at every odd noise and would probably soon be shooting at every shadow.
Ever since they’d fled the city, Nightshadow had been hounding them incessantly, not even giving them the chance to sleep. His surveillance of the Glow’s townhouse and club had paid off. He had footage of several weapons and drug deals, not to mention he’d discovered old vaults full of all the jewels, art, and guns the Glow had stolen over the years. S.I.L.E.N.T., the police, and the feds now hunted everywhere for him and his men. The Glow had needed to use a few well-timed shoot-outs and bombings as distractions to get out of town. Fortunately, Nightshadow had tagged tracers onto the Glow’s vehicles, making him easy to track.
Crouching down on his tree branch, Nightshadow adjusted the settings on his visor for clearer, fuller footage. He needed to know the minute details of what went on inside to better judge his agent’s performance. After all, in many ways, this was his graduation day.
The Glow’s soldiers stalked the long, lonely hallways throughout the house, checking the closets and under every bed. In the living room, the Glow crossed his arms on his chest and watched his private guards swarm over the first floor of the house. Nightshadow chuckled at the soldiers being snatched away one after another around dark corners and into the shadows. The Glow nervously paced about, looking pale and sick despite his luminance. His skin had even turned a faint, will-o’-the-wisp orange.
“Holy shit!” one of his men shouted and threw open a window curtain. Outside, a gleaming, ghostly white web stretched out across the nearby trees. The Glow’s other men dangled down from the web, strung up in little cocoons.
As if on cue, Danny crashed in through the front windows, wearing his own stylized version of Nightshadow’s wing-suit. The design saw red webbing blazing through the gritty black padded body armor. A shadowy spider crawled across the blood-moon emblem on the chest. The mask even featured a sharp-edged tarantula with crooked, flaming legs.
Danny bolted into action. Springing off the furniture, walls, and ceiling, he dodged razor-fire and the blades embedded themselves in the walls and furniture. Using his quickness and agility, he punched, kicked, and shot webs that exploded and covered his attackers’ faces. Within a minute, he’d disarmed and webbed all the gunmen up to the walls but one.
Laughing, the last soldier tossed his rifle aside and looked over at the Glow. His boss had scurried into a corner where he now crouched down behind a bookcase.
“Might I?” the soldier asked.
“YES! OF COURSE!” the Glow screeched.
“Fantastic,” the soldier said and transformed.
His upper body grotesquely bloated and bulged. Disproportional, obscenely veined muscles bulked up across his arms, neck, and chest. With a wrenching scream, his head exploded into brains and blood that dashed against the wall and his webbed up comrades. In its place, eight crusty, craggy serpent heads rippled out. Purplish-red with leathery-armored scales, the snakeheads snickered and hissed. All sixteen of their sallow, sick eyes glared at Danny. Their fangs snapped and dripped smoky, sizzling acid that burned down through the floor.
“Hydra-Man,” Nightshadow muttered to himself back at his post on the tree branch. It took a supreme effort of will to not barge in there and take care of that mutated beast himself. However, this was Danny’s night, and he could handle this. He’d certainly beaten enough monsters before.
Back-flipping away from the snapping serpent heads up onto the ceiling, Danny began blasting webs into Hydra-Man’s faces. Their acid ate through the webs, but gave Danny time to hurl a flash grenade into the air. Piercing, diamond-fragmented light exploded throughout the house. Hydra-Man’s many eyes dazed and whirled about in their sockets. He teetered and stumbled about before smashing down onto an antique table. In the chaos, the Glow made a run for the back door, but Danny hit him with a web that tripped up his feet. The Glow fumbled and crashed down to the floor.
Hydra-Man was mounting noisily and awkwardly up to his feet. Danny crouched down predator-like across the room from him and slipped escrima fighting sticks down out of his sleeves into his hands. He tossed those two into the air, slid out another pair that he threw upward, and then after pulling out a third pair, he juggled all six.
After snagging them all with webs, he whirled them around and around. He came at the still reeling Hydra-Man, jumping here and there off the walls and ceiling all around him, bashing and battering at him with the fighting sticks. He moved too fast for Hydra-Man to grab or hit. The monster was still obviously disoriented from the flash grenade, but he tried ducking and covering up.
Nonetheless, Danny procee
ded to beat him down to the floor where he quickly emptied his web shooters out onto him. Having buried Hydra-Man in messy, sticky web slop with the fighting sticks lost somewhere in there, Danny flipped a small switch on his utility belt. Electricity flared and flicker-flashed out of the fighting sticks, shaking, shocking, and shuddering Hydra-Man inside his web cocoon. The webbing heated up, sizzled, blackened, and smoked. However, Hydra-Man roared and tried tearing up through the webbing.
Danny slammed his heel palms into Hydra-Man’s lower back and pressed down on him with his bio-electroshock. He held on as Hydra-Man struggled, shook, and screamed before finally dropping back down to the floor. He lay motionlessly, but his heaving chest showed that he was obviously still breathing.
Outside, Nightshadow almost applauded.
Whipping around, Danny found the Glow, despite his webbed-up feet, diving down on top of the razor-rifle Hydra-Man had discarded. He fumbled with the rifle and aimed it up at Danny.
“DIE, FREAK!” he shouted, but Danny slapped the rifle out of his hands before he could pull the trigger.
The Glow whimpered and burned a sulky purple. “Please!” he rolled over onto his back and squealed, pressing his hands together. “I have cash! Loads of cash! I can get you anything you want! Anything!”
“Anything?” Danny growled, his voice tinged with angry disbelief.
Watching, Nightshadow tensed up.
Come on, Danny! he thought. Don’t give in!
“Yes! Anything!” the Glow shouted.
Danny snapped out a hard, wild kick. His boot connected and knocked out the Glow’s fluorescent front teeth.
“Anything,” Danny muttered, turning away in disgust.
Sighing in relief, Nightshadow tapped a button on his utility belt. The moon emblem on his chest glistened and shone palely up into the dark, mournful clouds. S.I.L.E.N.T. helicopters tromped down from out of nowhere, skimming harsh white spotlights across the Glow’s property.
***
Danny and Nightshadow hitched a ride on a S.I.L.E.N.T. helicopter back to Salome City. The pilot up front regularly reported in on the radio, but otherwise kept quiet as the chopper blades above noisily whipped and whirled. Standing near the open hatch, Nightshadow and Danny held onto the safety rail and gazed out at the miles of wild, overgrown grass and the thin trees swaying in the wind.
“I’m proud of you, Danny,” Nightshadow said, patting him on the shoulder.
A quiet little smile spread across Danny’s mouth.
“It means a lot for me to hear that,” he replied and paused. “They all thought I was you. That scared them and made them stupid. They were too afraid to think straight.”
“I’ve built a reputation,” Nightshadow replied.
“Yeah, but they saw me using webs back there, so they’ll know something was up and will figure it out eventually. Word will get out in the underworld that it was really just me in your outfit.”
Underneath his mask, Nightshadow’s mouth arched up in a wicked grin.
“Will it?” he asked. “I have Ghosteyes patrolling Hong Kong and Scimitar Sword One down in Georgia City. They’re both wearing versions of my wing-suits. Wrath has a couple of S.I.L.E.N.T. agents we’re training to pick up the slack in New Daedalus. Dynamo-Man has a robot version of me he’s been tinkering with. The Answer’s even going to be performing missions for us part time with a new inviso-suit I designed that’s a cross between my gear and his. It’s something to see, believe me.”
“So what?” Danny asked. “You’re going to have an army of Nightshadows?”
“It’s going to seem that I’m everywhere and can do things criminals never imagined. They won’t know what to think and all that will play to our advantage.”
“Then that means the Spider-Specter’s done for good?”
Nightshadow nodded. “It’s probably better if everyone believes he died fighting Cold Snap. Wrath and I have set it all up with stories that will trickle throughout the underworld and tabloids. We even planted some false evidence. Nobody will come after you anymore, Danny. I guarantee it.”
Danny frowned, but nodded.
“Thank you again, Night,” he said. “For everything. I don’t think I deserve the second chance you’re giving me by letting me work for you.”
Nightshadow shook his head. “You’re working with me on this. I hate to admit it, but I’m getting older and can’t do everything myself, nor should I have to—not when I’ve been building up this network of mine for years. You’re my partner in this, Danny, you and the others. We’re all in this together. We have to be. It’s the only way we can all get by.”
***
S.I.L.E.N.T. had found Don’s headless body bobbing along in the Indian Ocean. Soon after, the Silver Seraphs had come upon Cal floating comatose through space, looking mostly dead and barely human.
Liandra probed the spirit world for answers and Gilgamesh called upon his divine relatives. Wrath’s telepaths searched for psychic residue. With their help, Nightshadow headed up a full investigation, using Danny’s testimony of his encounter with Hyperman as a starting point. Once Nightshadow put it all together, he thought he had a decent enough idea of what had happened between Hyperman and the Whorl.
A super-speed battle in a higher reality that damaged the real world helped explain the random firestorms and machine wreckage that had pelted a number of cities a few weeks ago. S.I.L.E.N.T. was cleaning it all up, but people were demanding answers. It was exactly the type of incident that Hyperman or the Whorl normally saved them from after all. Where had they been? Hyperman hadn’t been seen in a while. Was he safe? Was anybody safe without him?
Paul Wrath concocted a cover story about Phoenix Bright escaping captivity and having a big showdown with the Invincibles on Mars. There was some fallout from the fight that hit Earth, which explained the firestorms and falling wreckage. However, Hyperman and the Whorl sacrificed themselves to exile Bright to another realm and ended up lost in time. The Invincibles would never stop looking for them, but painful as it was, everyone had to pick themselves back up and move on with their lives.
The press and Internet exploded, gushing with praise for their heroes. Statues and monuments went up in every city. Memorials were held, both for them and the other superheroes and S.I.L.E.N.T. members who’d died on Mars. Books and movies were planned.
At their secret cemetery on the moon, the Invincibles held a quiet service for the Whorl and buried his body next to Miracle Merlock and Night Flower, two of their founding members. The Invincibles put up a memorial for Sea Devil on the moon too, but Atlantis insisted on placing his remains in an honored undersea tomb.
Nightshadow attended a memorial for El Dorado, though he’d never actually met him. The only other attendee was Wrath. El Dorado had shamed his family and they had disowned him, so they didn’t want to acknowledge his life, let alone his death. S.I.L.E.N.T. went cheap on the funeral expenses, since nobody wanted to break the budget for a dead super-villain. So there was just a plaque and a wreath in an old upstate New York cemetery. It might have been better than what El Dorado deserved. Still, Nightshadow wished there was a grave and a body in it.
S.I.L.E.N.T. was cutting up the body and probing it for the secrets behind its powers, which disgusted Nightshadow, but what they’d found was already paying dividends. It’d helped them devise a new anti-radiation treatment for Mutagen, who had hung on so far and was now looking like he’d make it. With those results, Nightshadow found it hard to argue with Wrath over the whole thing, but it bothered him deep down inside. He vowed to do whatever it took to prevent S.I.L.E.N.T. or anyone else from performing such grotesque experimentation. He’d accept whatever consequences came his way.
In the meantime, Nightshadow asked S.I.L.E.N.T. to turn its attention to any cults that worshipped superheroes. So Paul Wrath bankrupted each and every one of them, whether they worshipped Hyperman, the Whorl, or any other superhero. Wrath claimed that they had caused too much trouble already and none of the I
nvincibles were comfortable with letting them stay around.
“The world’s better off without them,” Wrath had said.
To ensure the cults didn’t somehow survive and regroup, Wrath rigged up a number of fines and violations for all the more affluent and influential cult members. That’d keep them busy and tied up in too much red tape to ever reform their organizations or make any kind of waves. Still, S.I.L.E.N.T. would be watching all the individual members closely. If they worshipped privately in their own homes, there was nothing S.I.L.E.N.T. could do. However, if they ever thought of causing any problems, Wrath’s agents would be onto them right away.
Nightshadow hadn’t heard whether or not he had a cult dedicated to him, but he preferred not knowing. It helped him sleep better and not feel sorry for poor, misguided people who should be placing their faith in themselves.
He did make a point to watch out for Alexander Mors in the future, especially with Hyperman not being around to keep him in check. Mors held a big press conference to announce that his company would be using all its resources to seek out Hyperman and the Whorl, no matter where they were. They could be in another corner of the universe, lost in time, another dimension, universe, or a realm unlike anything the human mind could process. They had survived far worse, and he vowed to dedicate his life to saving them as they’d done for him and so many others.
As per usual, Nightshadow, Wrath, and all the Invincibles were chomping at the bit for a chance to pounce upon Mors. They were all keeping an eye out for the right time and the right evidence to bring him up on charges. Until then though, they’d face down any new monsters he created and repair any damage their battles did.
At Nightshadow’s insistence, Wrath put Cal’s friend Lindsey and her parents into witness protection. They all sorely needed new lives. Lindsey’s parents had needed to start taking anti-anxiety medication to fight back against their panic attacks because they worried Hyperman or his enemies might come for them. Lindsey, on the other hand, had become a basket case. She’d shut herself up in her apartment, refusing to come out or answer her phone for weeks. According to Wrath’s spies, she shrieked at the slightest sounds and no longer slept at night, certain that Hyperman would fly down out of the sky for her at any second.
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