Post by redsycorax on Apr 6, 2022 0:10:54 GMT
Unless they are gifted with immortality, no hero can live forever. And in the case of the Justice Guild of America, this is particularly and poignantly true. Most of the Guild and their allies and foes alike perished in the Third World War that resulted from the escalation of their Cuban missile crisis into a fully fledged nuclear holocaust in late October 1962. That is, except for their team's sixth member, Cassandra Astriides, the descendant of Agamemnon and Cassandra, gifted with the precognitive abilities of her legendary ancestor. She died several months before the outbreak of the war. This, then, is the Cassandra's last Justice Guild story.
++
SEABOARD CITY: MARCH 1962:
"Don't do it, Cassie."
Cassandra looked up from her desk at the Justice Guild brownstone headquarters in Jake Allon's concerned face. The Streak was the only JGA member who believed in Cassandra's precognitive vision that a nuclear war would inevitably break out in October 1962, along with his wife Irene. She downed an aspirin, even though her head was hammering with the pain of her neurological decay. Every time that she used her precognitive abilities, it caused further deterioration inside her cranium. It had long since reached the point where the decline had become irreversible. She had hidden her condition from her colleagues, except for her best friend and confidant Jake, Irene and Tom Turbine's lover, journalist Lyra Lewis.
With effort, Cassandra got up and crossed over to the window. At length, she said:
"I have to, Jake. If I don't do, then that crook will shoot Donna instead and kill her. She doesn't deserve that and nor does Ted."
"But Cass- you know it will kill you."
"In my condition, Jake, I'll die anyway. This way, I can at least go out knowing that I've temporarily saved her life and given her some happiness as things grind down to an end."
"You realise that this is the mark of a true hero- valour and sacrifice, putting the lives of others before you? It's why you're such a valuable member of this team- in fact, I'd say irreplacable."
"Damn it, I wish there was some way you could avoid this."
"But I can't. I've accepted that. At least I have some freedom in determining how it happens."
"Your presence here means that Irene and the children will survive the war when it comes, thanks to your forewarning and vision of them in that bunker. But Cass, my friend? You yourself deserve a lot more."
"And I've had that quality of existence, Jake, fighting alongside all of you for the last few years. But now it's time for me to go."
"You may accept it, Cass, but Irene and I won't. We will miss you and so will the rest of the Guild. There'll be a gulf in our lives where you used to be."
"Thank you, Jake. Thank you for your friendship and that of your wife. I'm proud that I was able to insure that at least some of you survive."
After the Streak had gone, Cassandra turned to the shadows: "You can come out now, Thompson. Come to gloat? It's pointless. I'm beyond that now."
As Ray Thompson stepped into the light, he had a sinister grin on his face- once more, a reminder that despite his innocent child's body, what lay inside his mind and within his cells was neither childish or innocent:
"Good riddance, Astriides."
"I'm curious though, Thompson. What makes you think you've won?
"Because I have. Very soon, you'll make a quixotic yet meaningless sacrifice to 'save' someone who'll be dead in six months anyway. At which point, I can finally come out into the open."
"Yes, even at the cost of both of your parents and your sister's life and countless thousands of others here in Seaboard City. And the hideousness of your body will finally match your cankered and twisted mind. Too bad I won't be around to see it."
"You won't exist. In fact, in my restored Seaboard City, it'll be as if you never existed. Because you won't be included within the classic Justice Guild lineup. No-one will remember you. No-one will engage in futile hero worship because not even your duplicate will exist."
"Oh, I see. An appeal to my vanity, you mean? You know, Thompson, believe it or not, I'm actually glad that I won't be included within your insane hallucinatory facade. Because that will never be the Justice Guild proper, it will be a gossamer fantasy world, no matter how much you want it to be something more substantive. Or is that what you want? Some confection, that you can control. I've got news for you, little boy. It won't last forever."
"It'll last longer than you!"
But as she left the room, despite the fact that she would be dead in only several hours, Cassandra Astriides laughed, leaving Ray Thompson with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. What did the precognitive know about the imminent and intermediate future that he didn't?
INTERLUDE:
His name was Lance Lawrence. In another life, he had had a short-lived abusive marriage to Donna Vance, the Black Siren. But then, one day, Donna had broken through the candyfloss fantasies of idyllic fifties domesticity and had managed to stop what turned out to be his final act of abuse within that marriage. To be more precise, she decked him and punched him back as her training reasserted itself. When he awoke from his unexpected come-uppance, he was shocked to see that Donna's clothes and personal effects were gone from their house. After several fruitless hours of hunting for any clue about her current whereabouts, a drunken Lawrence spent several further futile hours repeatedly trying to call bus companies or local airports for information about their passenger manifests. However, Donna had had the foresight to give an assumed name and prepare falsified personal identification details to evade him and thus, she made her escape to Seaboard City and rebuilt her life, ultimately becoming the action heroine known as the Black Siren.
Almost a decade passed. Donna pursued her heroic career and joined the Justice Guild of America, while Lance Lawrence fell further into a quagmire of his own making, continuing his alcoholic temper tantrums, petty crime and imprisonment, deserted by his surviving family members as they walked away from him in disgust and revulsion. He never took any notice of the distant mystery men and women in Seaboard City. They seemed to live in another, phantasmagoric world to his own stygian personal reality. And then, one day, he caught sight of a close photograph of the Black Siren and noticed an almost imperceptible scar on her right shoulder where he had attacked her with a knife once. Lance smiled to himself. After several false starts, he wrote to the Injustice Guild of America and sought their assistance. One way or another, he would make Donna Vance pay for humiliating him and escaping from him, into her new life.
And thus was born Grounder, a supervillain who could negate the abilities of the strongest assets within the Justice Guild of America. as Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman and the Streak found to their horror as their power belt, power ring and superspeed failed them. However, Lance Lawrence had reckoned without Tom Turbine's intellect as he worked on a canceller field to obstruct Grounder's metahuman ability blocker. As the Streak watched in despair, his eyes caught Cassandras as she left with the Black Siren and Catman, a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. She smiled back sadly at him. He knew he would never see her again.
SEABOARD CITY HILLS:
As soon as Donna saw him, she knew his identity. He had a maniacal grin on his face as he stood alongside the power canceller stack as the three Justice Guild members ran toward him, levelling his gun to fire at his hated ex-wife and take vengeance for his private humiliation and her escape from his control, unseen by Donna herself- but foreseen by Cassandra, who yelled:
"Both of you, get down." As Catman and Black Siren did so, she threw herself at Lance Lawrence as his gun went off. The bullet tore through the side of her left ventricle, but she hit him squarely in his midriff. His second shot went wild and ironically enough, wrecked his canceller device in the same instant. As Cassandra felt the final darkness begin to descend on her, Catman ran over:
"It'll be okay, Cassie. Hang on for a couple of minutes. Please. We can't lose you, not after all you've been through."
But Donna Vance had other things on her mind as she threw herself at her murderous former spouse and began to pummel him:
"Donna..."
"Stay out of this, Ted. This worthless pile of crap just shot my best friend and I want a piece of him!" Like one of the mythological furies, the Black Siren's years of training, self-discipline and repressed fury at her former tormenter now prostate before her took over as she began to relentlessly pummel his face and stomach.
"Donna, please. You'll kill him."
"He murdered Cass. He battered me. He doesn't deserve to live!"
At this information, Catman's brow furrowed beneath his cowl:
"You never told us."
"It's not something I wanted to talk about."
"You have nothing to be ashamed about. But you will if you batter him to death. We're heroes. Heroes don't act as judges, juries and executioners, no matter how much some filthy pile of woman-abusing offal deserve it after doing that to you."
"Donna, don't. Don't let Lawrence have that final victory, in corrupting you. He doesn't deserve that, not after what he did."
At the sound of Cassandra's voice, weak though it sounded, the Black Siren finally relented and turned her back on her worthless ex-husband, as Lance Lawrence groped for his misplaced gun. Fortunately however, Catman had seen him and stepped down hard on the other man's hand, his features transparent in the disgust and revulsion he felt at the other's past behaviour and involvement with the woman he loved more than anything else in this world. At the sudden surge of pain, Lance Lawrence fell into unconsciousness. Forcing himself to check the other man's pulse and heartbeat, Catman satisfied himself that his colleague hadn't fatally injured the murderer beneath him, then turned his back and walked over to Cassandra's prone form as Black Siren held her dying friend in her arms:
"Why, Cassie? Why did you do it?" Black Siren sobbed, as Catman put his arm around her shoulder.
"Because...I've seen the both of you. And I know how much you really love one another. And because, Donna, after what that vermin lying over there did to you, you deserve a lot more than to die on this battlefield."
"So do you, amiga. You didn't deserve this. He murdered you. I swear, I will make him pay for that."
"I know you will. But Ted's right. Not...by taking his own life in a moment of revenge for what he did to you... and for killing me. It's okay, honey. Remember me..."
"Oh, Cass..." But Cassandra Astriides had just passed beyond the threshold of being able to hear her friend's final comment, whatever it might have been. As Cassandra died, Black Siren began to sob and wail as Catman held her, rocking backward and forward, lost in his own sorrow and suddenly more grateful than anything else in that world for Cassandra's valour and sacrifice to insure Donna's safety. And there they stayed until Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman and the Streak showed up a moment later, but also an eternity too late for what had happened.
EPILOGUE:
Neither Donna Vance or Ted Blake slept alone that night as grief and sorrow compelled them to seek consolation in each other.
At the graveside, Lyra Lewis bleakly held Tom Turbine close, Black Siren felt as if she were falling down an endless hole without relief or light, Catman felt numbness and emptiness, the Streak and Irene Allon consoled each other in the fortitude and strength of their marital bond, and Green Guardsman sobbed as Scott Mason held on to his own anchor, MI5 agent Harry Chance, for grim life, as if he would never let him go. They watched as Cassandra Astriide's coffin was lowered into the ground and as dust and dirt was layered atop it. Finally, there was a headstone in pink and white marble commemorating the hero, her life and her sacrifice.
Several months later, as nuclear holocaust consumed both sides of the Atlantic, Lance Lawrence escaped from his abandoned cell. Unfortunately for him, he had only reached the outskirts of Seaboard City as a belated thermonuclear explosion occurred only four miles from his location near the coast, where the Justice Guild had made their final stand, trying to halt the inexorable ruin and doom. He was almost instantly blinded, but that didn't matter as he was slammed against a brick wall. Pain erupted from his burns as the fire seared his body and his broken arms and legs and he lay screaming for help. any help and assistance amidst the ruins of a suburban house. And in such torment, he died, an hour later, because there was no-one left to witness his final fate and in any case, his injuries would have been fatal in any case.
Elsewhere, excluded from the funeral due to misperceptions about his ersatz innocence and incapacity to comprehend the final reality of death, Ray Thompson laughed maniacally, Cassandra's final comment lost to his memory. But forty years later, he would remember it as he lay dying on the radioactive soil of devastated Seaboard City, his body wracked with pain as his vaunted abilities ebbed and disappeared and he was finally exposed for who and what he was. And while Cassandra Astriides and the Justice Guild had gone to an eternal reward that they had so richly deserved, as his consciousmess ended, for Ray, that was it. Nothing more happened that Ray Thompson would see, hear or feel, not in this or any other life that might exist.
THE END
++
SEABOARD CITY: MARCH 1962:
"Don't do it, Cassie."
Cassandra looked up from her desk at the Justice Guild brownstone headquarters in Jake Allon's concerned face. The Streak was the only JGA member who believed in Cassandra's precognitive vision that a nuclear war would inevitably break out in October 1962, along with his wife Irene. She downed an aspirin, even though her head was hammering with the pain of her neurological decay. Every time that she used her precognitive abilities, it caused further deterioration inside her cranium. It had long since reached the point where the decline had become irreversible. She had hidden her condition from her colleagues, except for her best friend and confidant Jake, Irene and Tom Turbine's lover, journalist Lyra Lewis.
With effort, Cassandra got up and crossed over to the window. At length, she said:
"I have to, Jake. If I don't do, then that crook will shoot Donna instead and kill her. She doesn't deserve that and nor does Ted."
"But Cass- you know it will kill you."
"In my condition, Jake, I'll die anyway. This way, I can at least go out knowing that I've temporarily saved her life and given her some happiness as things grind down to an end."
"You realise that this is the mark of a true hero- valour and sacrifice, putting the lives of others before you? It's why you're such a valuable member of this team- in fact, I'd say irreplacable."
"Damn it, I wish there was some way you could avoid this."
"But I can't. I've accepted that. At least I have some freedom in determining how it happens."
"Your presence here means that Irene and the children will survive the war when it comes, thanks to your forewarning and vision of them in that bunker. But Cass, my friend? You yourself deserve a lot more."
"And I've had that quality of existence, Jake, fighting alongside all of you for the last few years. But now it's time for me to go."
"You may accept it, Cass, but Irene and I won't. We will miss you and so will the rest of the Guild. There'll be a gulf in our lives where you used to be."
"Thank you, Jake. Thank you for your friendship and that of your wife. I'm proud that I was able to insure that at least some of you survive."
After the Streak had gone, Cassandra turned to the shadows: "You can come out now, Thompson. Come to gloat? It's pointless. I'm beyond that now."
As Ray Thompson stepped into the light, he had a sinister grin on his face- once more, a reminder that despite his innocent child's body, what lay inside his mind and within his cells was neither childish or innocent:
"Good riddance, Astriides."
"I'm curious though, Thompson. What makes you think you've won?
"Because I have. Very soon, you'll make a quixotic yet meaningless sacrifice to 'save' someone who'll be dead in six months anyway. At which point, I can finally come out into the open."
"Yes, even at the cost of both of your parents and your sister's life and countless thousands of others here in Seaboard City. And the hideousness of your body will finally match your cankered and twisted mind. Too bad I won't be around to see it."
"You won't exist. In fact, in my restored Seaboard City, it'll be as if you never existed. Because you won't be included within the classic Justice Guild lineup. No-one will remember you. No-one will engage in futile hero worship because not even your duplicate will exist."
"Oh, I see. An appeal to my vanity, you mean? You know, Thompson, believe it or not, I'm actually glad that I won't be included within your insane hallucinatory facade. Because that will never be the Justice Guild proper, it will be a gossamer fantasy world, no matter how much you want it to be something more substantive. Or is that what you want? Some confection, that you can control. I've got news for you, little boy. It won't last forever."
"It'll last longer than you!"
But as she left the room, despite the fact that she would be dead in only several hours, Cassandra Astriides laughed, leaving Ray Thompson with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. What did the precognitive know about the imminent and intermediate future that he didn't?
INTERLUDE:
His name was Lance Lawrence. In another life, he had had a short-lived abusive marriage to Donna Vance, the Black Siren. But then, one day, Donna had broken through the candyfloss fantasies of idyllic fifties domesticity and had managed to stop what turned out to be his final act of abuse within that marriage. To be more precise, she decked him and punched him back as her training reasserted itself. When he awoke from his unexpected come-uppance, he was shocked to see that Donna's clothes and personal effects were gone from their house. After several fruitless hours of hunting for any clue about her current whereabouts, a drunken Lawrence spent several further futile hours repeatedly trying to call bus companies or local airports for information about their passenger manifests. However, Donna had had the foresight to give an assumed name and prepare falsified personal identification details to evade him and thus, she made her escape to Seaboard City and rebuilt her life, ultimately becoming the action heroine known as the Black Siren.
Almost a decade passed. Donna pursued her heroic career and joined the Justice Guild of America, while Lance Lawrence fell further into a quagmire of his own making, continuing his alcoholic temper tantrums, petty crime and imprisonment, deserted by his surviving family members as they walked away from him in disgust and revulsion. He never took any notice of the distant mystery men and women in Seaboard City. They seemed to live in another, phantasmagoric world to his own stygian personal reality. And then, one day, he caught sight of a close photograph of the Black Siren and noticed an almost imperceptible scar on her right shoulder where he had attacked her with a knife once. Lance smiled to himself. After several false starts, he wrote to the Injustice Guild of America and sought their assistance. One way or another, he would make Donna Vance pay for humiliating him and escaping from him, into her new life.
And thus was born Grounder, a supervillain who could negate the abilities of the strongest assets within the Justice Guild of America. as Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman and the Streak found to their horror as their power belt, power ring and superspeed failed them. However, Lance Lawrence had reckoned without Tom Turbine's intellect as he worked on a canceller field to obstruct Grounder's metahuman ability blocker. As the Streak watched in despair, his eyes caught Cassandras as she left with the Black Siren and Catman, a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. She smiled back sadly at him. He knew he would never see her again.
SEABOARD CITY HILLS:
As soon as Donna saw him, she knew his identity. He had a maniacal grin on his face as he stood alongside the power canceller stack as the three Justice Guild members ran toward him, levelling his gun to fire at his hated ex-wife and take vengeance for his private humiliation and her escape from his control, unseen by Donna herself- but foreseen by Cassandra, who yelled:
"Both of you, get down." As Catman and Black Siren did so, she threw herself at Lance Lawrence as his gun went off. The bullet tore through the side of her left ventricle, but she hit him squarely in his midriff. His second shot went wild and ironically enough, wrecked his canceller device in the same instant. As Cassandra felt the final darkness begin to descend on her, Catman ran over:
"It'll be okay, Cassie. Hang on for a couple of minutes. Please. We can't lose you, not after all you've been through."
But Donna Vance had other things on her mind as she threw herself at her murderous former spouse and began to pummel him:
"Donna..."
"Stay out of this, Ted. This worthless pile of crap just shot my best friend and I want a piece of him!" Like one of the mythological furies, the Black Siren's years of training, self-discipline and repressed fury at her former tormenter now prostate before her took over as she began to relentlessly pummel his face and stomach.
"Donna, please. You'll kill him."
"He murdered Cass. He battered me. He doesn't deserve to live!"
At this information, Catman's brow furrowed beneath his cowl:
"You never told us."
"It's not something I wanted to talk about."
"You have nothing to be ashamed about. But you will if you batter him to death. We're heroes. Heroes don't act as judges, juries and executioners, no matter how much some filthy pile of woman-abusing offal deserve it after doing that to you."
"Donna, don't. Don't let Lawrence have that final victory, in corrupting you. He doesn't deserve that, not after what he did."
At the sound of Cassandra's voice, weak though it sounded, the Black Siren finally relented and turned her back on her worthless ex-husband, as Lance Lawrence groped for his misplaced gun. Fortunately however, Catman had seen him and stepped down hard on the other man's hand, his features transparent in the disgust and revulsion he felt at the other's past behaviour and involvement with the woman he loved more than anything else in this world. At the sudden surge of pain, Lance Lawrence fell into unconsciousness. Forcing himself to check the other man's pulse and heartbeat, Catman satisfied himself that his colleague hadn't fatally injured the murderer beneath him, then turned his back and walked over to Cassandra's prone form as Black Siren held her dying friend in her arms:
"Why, Cassie? Why did you do it?" Black Siren sobbed, as Catman put his arm around her shoulder.
"Because...I've seen the both of you. And I know how much you really love one another. And because, Donna, after what that vermin lying over there did to you, you deserve a lot more than to die on this battlefield."
"So do you, amiga. You didn't deserve this. He murdered you. I swear, I will make him pay for that."
"I know you will. But Ted's right. Not...by taking his own life in a moment of revenge for what he did to you... and for killing me. It's okay, honey. Remember me..."
"Oh, Cass..." But Cassandra Astriides had just passed beyond the threshold of being able to hear her friend's final comment, whatever it might have been. As Cassandra died, Black Siren began to sob and wail as Catman held her, rocking backward and forward, lost in his own sorrow and suddenly more grateful than anything else in that world for Cassandra's valour and sacrifice to insure Donna's safety. And there they stayed until Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman and the Streak showed up a moment later, but also an eternity too late for what had happened.
EPILOGUE:
Neither Donna Vance or Ted Blake slept alone that night as grief and sorrow compelled them to seek consolation in each other.
At the graveside, Lyra Lewis bleakly held Tom Turbine close, Black Siren felt as if she were falling down an endless hole without relief or light, Catman felt numbness and emptiness, the Streak and Irene Allon consoled each other in the fortitude and strength of their marital bond, and Green Guardsman sobbed as Scott Mason held on to his own anchor, MI5 agent Harry Chance, for grim life, as if he would never let him go. They watched as Cassandra Astriide's coffin was lowered into the ground and as dust and dirt was layered atop it. Finally, there was a headstone in pink and white marble commemorating the hero, her life and her sacrifice.
Several months later, as nuclear holocaust consumed both sides of the Atlantic, Lance Lawrence escaped from his abandoned cell. Unfortunately for him, he had only reached the outskirts of Seaboard City as a belated thermonuclear explosion occurred only four miles from his location near the coast, where the Justice Guild had made their final stand, trying to halt the inexorable ruin and doom. He was almost instantly blinded, but that didn't matter as he was slammed against a brick wall. Pain erupted from his burns as the fire seared his body and his broken arms and legs and he lay screaming for help. any help and assistance amidst the ruins of a suburban house. And in such torment, he died, an hour later, because there was no-one left to witness his final fate and in any case, his injuries would have been fatal in any case.
Elsewhere, excluded from the funeral due to misperceptions about his ersatz innocence and incapacity to comprehend the final reality of death, Ray Thompson laughed maniacally, Cassandra's final comment lost to his memory. But forty years later, he would remember it as he lay dying on the radioactive soil of devastated Seaboard City, his body wracked with pain as his vaunted abilities ebbed and disappeared and he was finally exposed for who and what he was. And while Cassandra Astriides and the Justice Guild had gone to an eternal reward that they had so richly deserved, as his consciousmess ended, for Ray, that was it. Nothing more happened that Ray Thompson would see, hear or feel, not in this or any other life that might exist.
THE END