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scans_dailyHe came as things were going on, arriving under the radar.
He reached out to the surviving one of the three brothers whom he'd been hired by to kill X.
He wanted to pick the game up where he'd left off.
His next moves eluded the eye of X, who was distracted by other things.
The boy who hung around the killer was the one who first saw their effects.
He was caught in a gang fight between some of the city's own and some outsiders..
.. and saved by Gamble.
X met some of those gangsters next, the ones who claimed to be working in his name- he repudiated them and shot down their helicopter.
One of them survived and got the drop on him, then got dropped on by falling chopper blades.
X went after Gamble, who was after his own ends:
(The kid's talking about the Monster that lives in Arcadia's sewers.)
He listened to Uri's Nightmares..
.. and saw Peter's.
X asked the last of the Llewellyns if he'd seen Gamble, and got a fearful denial.
" You haven't seen him since? "
" No! No! "
" You should have told me. "
(Part of X's approach to cleaning up his city is replacing its major malefactors with people who can do the least harm.)
Gamble went out after X, who doubled back on him.
He cut and ran, taking a woman hostage.
" Get back! I'll kill her! "
He rolled the dice..
.. and walked away, to welcome another player into the game.
The wheel spun on, now guided by McCone and the one-armed General he reported to.
The former set Arcadia to burning and dosed X with something that would screw up his remarkable self-recovery abilities (of the " take six shots to the chest, stagger off, and be recovered by the time one gets back to one's lair " kind) on the latter's orders.
X fled and fought back. He got far, then took a bullet and felt it like he hadn't before.
He pressed his attack, forcing the General to confront him on a pier by the river.
There, he killed the General's waiting men and was shot in the back by McCone.
Lying prone, he listened to the one-armed man's gloating and thought of his own origins, rooted as they were in the General's vengeance.
Then a shot rang out- McCone fell down.
X rose up, revealing that his abilities'd recovered from their affliction.
The General backed away from him, and bumped into the other big problem facing X:
That's Coffin, formerly the Ziggurat, a thug also involved in X's origins; he's the reason for the one eye.
That's Toby Klein, the psionic whose mind created the implaceable Chaos Riders and later merged with Coffin's to make that thing.
And that's X solving the both of them with a bullet.
(That guy vomiting's X's mandated replacement for Carmine Tango at the head of the mobs.)
The police showed up; things seemed over.
Gamble rolled the dice once more..
.. and came up snake eyes.
(The house really does always win.
Oh yes, pagecount- 1 of 22 from the story Penultimatum, 2 of 22 from Big Stars, 7 of 22 from Sinful Games, 1 of 22 from Dies Irae, and 4 and a sixth of 22 from Final Hand.)
He reached out to the surviving one of the three brothers whom he'd been hired by to kill X.
He wanted to pick the game up where he'd left off.
His next moves eluded the eye of X, who was distracted by other things.
The boy who hung around the killer was the one who first saw their effects.
He was caught in a gang fight between some of the city's own and some outsiders..
.. and saved by Gamble.
X met some of those gangsters next, the ones who claimed to be working in his name- he repudiated them and shot down their helicopter.
One of them survived and got the drop on him, then got dropped on by falling chopper blades.
X went after Gamble, who was after his own ends:
(The kid's talking about the Monster that lives in Arcadia's sewers.)
He listened to Uri's Nightmares..
.. and saw Peter's.
X asked the last of the Llewellyns if he'd seen Gamble, and got a fearful denial.
" You haven't seen him since? "
" No! No! "
" You should have told me. "
(Part of X's approach to cleaning up his city is replacing its major malefactors with people who can do the least harm.)
Gamble went out after X, who doubled back on him.
He cut and ran, taking a woman hostage.
" Get back! I'll kill her! "
He rolled the dice..
.. and walked away, to welcome another player into the game.
The wheel spun on, now guided by McCone and the one-armed General he reported to.
The former set Arcadia to burning and dosed X with something that would screw up his remarkable self-recovery abilities (of the " take six shots to the chest, stagger off, and be recovered by the time one gets back to one's lair " kind) on the latter's orders.
X fled and fought back. He got far, then took a bullet and felt it like he hadn't before.
He pressed his attack, forcing the General to confront him on a pier by the river.
There, he killed the General's waiting men and was shot in the back by McCone.
Lying prone, he listened to the one-armed man's gloating and thought of his own origins, rooted as they were in the General's vengeance.
Then a shot rang out- McCone fell down.
X rose up, revealing that his abilities'd recovered from their affliction.
The General backed away from him, and bumped into the other big problem facing X:
That's Coffin, formerly the Ziggurat, a thug also involved in X's origins; he's the reason for the one eye.
That's Toby Klein, the psionic whose mind created the implaceable Chaos Riders and later merged with Coffin's to make that thing.
And that's X solving the both of them with a bullet.
(That guy vomiting's X's mandated replacement for Carmine Tango at the head of the mobs.)
The police showed up; things seemed over.
Gamble rolled the dice once more..
.. and came up snake eyes.
(The house really does always win.
Oh yes, pagecount- 1 of 22 from the story Penultimatum, 2 of 22 from Big Stars, 7 of 22 from Sinful Games, 1 of 22 from Dies Irae, and 4 and a sixth of 22 from Final Hand.)
no subject
Date: 2015-09-07 03:11 pm (UTC)What the heck did I just read?
Date: 2015-09-07 03:22 pm (UTC)Re: What the heck did I just read?
Date: 2015-09-07 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-07 03:23 pm (UTC)If only all superheroes could hope for that kind of turnover. And vulnerability to bullets.
Love the panel where X tells That Man There "It's not over." The Iron Age art and positioning is perfect.