Hate Ball #2 (of 4)

Restraineded

Marvel at our rather wiry young hero as he struggles to escape from some sort of floating, mechanized restraint system that's holding him several feet off the ground. He's surrounded by several other beings, all seemingly alien in origin, who are similarly restrained... to a point. Of course, a lot of them have spare tentacles and such that they're using to explore the immediate area, which happens to include the space Russell is occupying. And he looks quite annoyed at that.

(That should do for a 'cover', shouldn't it?)

Notice for the faint of heart: the following tale isn't precisely what one would consider G-rated in nature. It contains a plethora of excessive and unnecessary violence, not to mention a surplus of other content that might see it burned, were it in a printed form, by the more fanatical elements of various societies across the earth. In other words, if violence, robots, and mad science offend you, you've been warned.

(That should do for a 'disclaimer', shouldn't it?)

***

He found it was becoming a familiar feeling, waking up and not knowing just what on earth was going on. But at least this time he wasn't about to sacrifice a perfectly curvy woman on some freakish altar... again. No, this was a bit different, in that he was hanging from some strange metallic clamps that were completely concealing his hands and feet. He tried to reach out and do... things with his mind like before, but it wasn't working.

Apparently he just wasn't angry enough?

"Good Morning, Mister Barnett!"

Maybe not enough yet, but having heard that voice, he was starting to drift there.

Looking down, he saw three men in what could only be described as metallic, mechanized combat armor - which naturally made the techie geek inside him start drooling. His techno-lust was dampened by the fact that they were apparently pulling his old 'friend', Clarence Davidson, off of restraints similar to his own. "It's too bad for you that I woke up first, I imagine. It would appear that sorcery is a capital offense on this world.

"And I told them all about your strange powers and magical sword. Pity."

"Clarence..."

But Clarence wasn't listening any more, being led away as he was by the three guards. He was chuckling, though, this Russell could clearly hear over the metallic footfalls of his guards. Russell imagined them carrying the jerk off to safety, having a beer or three over the 'confusion' and thanking him for delivering this 'sorcerer' into custody. The mere thought of it caused Russell's bile to rise, and before he knew it he was feeling the Power again.

CLICK.

The sound echoed throughout the immense chamber, which appeared like a seriously long hallway that was filled to the brim with similar restraints. Dozens of other entities hung from like shackles in each direction, but they hadn't just been released like he had. Falling to the floor, Russell landed on his side and lost his breath, the pain of the impact only serving to make him madder. And Russell could feel the Power growing within him. It was so simple that it made him sick.

All these years, he could've done so much more, if only he'd given in to his dark impulses and let himself be a hateful, spiteful jerk. But no... only now, wherever he'd found himself, was he finally able to nurse his sweet, sweet hatred to the point that it empowered him. He looked back up at the shackles that so recently held him in place, and saw the advanced (compared to earth technology) science within them... and began to co-opt it.

His eyes flashing with power, Russell caused the entire contraption that was holding him mere moments before to collapse. Engaging in strange works that he barely understood, he refashioned the shackles into flight boots and twin hand cannons, both fueled by the power of the anti-gravitational technology that held him aloft in captivity. Once he'd manufactured enough gear to feel dangerous, he started to walk after Clarence.

Hearing hoots and hollers as he focused on his nemesis, Russell thought his fellow prisoners would be a great diversion, and willed all their shackles to dispense their charges as well. He didn't know where he was but anyplace dumb enough to lock him up while letting Clarence go deserved to be overthrown. He started to have grim designs on the place, and would've done even more damage if he hadn't spotted his target and the guards that were freaking out at the sudden escape.

Watching Clarence flee with the outnumbered guards, Russell wasn't too cognizant of the prisoners wandering up behind him. Not that they were about to inflict any ill will upon him, for he'd just given them a shot at freedom! "Hey buddy," one of them said. "I know this is sort of a long shot and all, but you wouldn't happen to know anyone named Charlie Chicanery, would you? I mean... that would be sort of awkward and all, me having to kill someone who just broke me out of jail..."

Russell stopped, his train of rage derailed momentarily at the man's question. Turning around, he saw that the guy looked human like himself, just awfully... pink in disposition. Thinking it odd that all these other aliens would be existing side by side with apparent humans, Russell tried to puzzle this one out but failed. Seeing nothing else for it, he decided to engage in a small amount of small talk. "Er... nope, can't say that I do. Name's Barnett. Russell Barnett."

"Ah, a strong name, to be sure. I am Jorret of Mutfh *, and it is nice to meet you, o liberator!"

Russell looked Jorret up and down, and shrugged. "This 'Charlie', why would you have to kill me if I knew him?"

Seeing an opportunity, Jorret took it. "Well, the foolish man - and woman - offered me highly illegal faster than light flight technology in exchange for ... other technology. I performed the deed but I wasn't able to get away with my prize before the Buzz caught wind of what I was up to - the assistants I had in my lab ratted me out before I could get offworld. So they threw me in here until they could kill me for 'Crimes against the Empire.'

"Which was technically right, since I was only trying to get away. But now that you are here... we are on the march to Freedom!"

Raising an eyebrow at this, Russell shrugged. "Yeah, I know what you mean. They locked me up without even telling me why, and that rubs me raw. And they let that demon-worshiping slime get away from me... and THAT rubs me REALLY raw... and I..." Russell found himself stoping at that point, and his mind started taking over, reaching outward into the entire facility surrounding him. It disrupted all manner of systems and devices within a mile, give or take.

"I'm leaving. I don't know you, Jorret, but I'm making my exit. If you want to tag along, feel free; but I need to fetch Clarence there first." Following Russell's gaze, Jorret saw the fleeing form of Clarence, who was being directed by some of the armored guards.

"Ah, that one. He was muttering a lot about how he was going to 'get you' and then get back home to 'finish the job' or some such. As much menace as you bear for him, he cannot be up to any good."

Russell nodded, his attempted smile turning into a sneer. Kicking the transparent door through which Clarence and his guards fled through, Russell's mind worked on autopilot, forcing it open. Jorret marveled at his new friend's apparent mastery of devices, and wondered just how much trouble this was going to get them in. Sure, they'd both been sentenced to death, but Jorret knew his Jl'rtz captors, and knew that they particularly enjoyed experimenting on flesh.

Since they had none.

As soon as the door had been kicked open, various armored guards looked at Russell, and before they could even react, he opened up with his anti-gravity cannons, knocking them around like pool balls and smashing them up real good. He couldn't help but notice that they moved in weird ways, like rag dolls, and that when some bits of the armor like legs and the helmets broke off, none of the expected organic... leftovers poured out. No blood, no broken limbs or organs.

Just little balls of glowing yellow energy, and they pulsed in what looked like an angry fashion.

"Mm, that's the true face of the Buzz, my friend. Those Jl'rtz are just hopped up, bored little energy patterns, and don't really have all that much respect for us organic types. You can imagine why we have been trying to overthrow or escape the jerks, yeh?" Russell looked from Jorret to the balls of energy, and couldn't help but hearing a high-frequency buzz from them. It seemed to have some sort of regularity to it, so he got to work on some spare circuits he drug along.

Which started talking in time to the Jl'rtz noise. "KILL/KILL/MAIM, HURT/FLAY/BURN, DEFENESTRATE/CARNAGE/DISEMBOWEL..." Looking back at Jorret, Russell shrugged.

"Friendly bunch, then." Hoping his anti-gravity cannons would affect their complicated energy matrices, Russell opened fire and caused them to dart and dodge away in a panic; even if the guns were useless, the beams seemed to give him a distinct psychological edge, and the broken guards fled.

"Yeah!"

Blowing on the emitter of one of his new cannons for effect, Russell then made off after Clarence and his entourage. He'd seen them go through another door which was labeled with a sign he couldn't quite comprehend, and decided to kick it in again, his power doing the heavy lifting for him and cycling the thing open. Looking in, he saw Clarence on a huge platform, with several of the Jl'rtz floating around in strange, semi-spherical vehicles that sort of looked like control chairs.

"You're too late, Barnett. TOO LATE!" With that, Clarence vanished in a puff of light and dust, leaving Russell and Jorret with the check - and a lot of angry energy-based life forms on their hands. Growling, Russell's eyes flashed with dread cyan light, and he started to get a 'read' on what was going on here, his super-active mind determining that this was some sort of matter transmission platform, and it wouldn't be ready to transmit for another hour.

"Hm... one hour... by then it'll be far too late..."

Almost reading his mind, Jorret shook his head and grinned. "Yes, the platform usually takes about that long to recycle, but would be useless to us at any rate. As I see it, we only have two hours to get to your world - there's no way we could manage that in time, at least without our own ship..." Looking up, Russell found himself confused on one point.

"Two hours? Why two?"

Kicking over a control panel, Jorret shrugged. "It takes about two hours for living beings that gets transferred by these platforms to congeal out of hyperspace into normal reality at the destination; your friend is already at his destination, but he has not been reassembled yet - it's pretty complicated as I understand it. He's just an energy pattern right now, like the Jl'rtz themselves, at least until the proper amount of time for his mass has elapsed.

"So we could conceivably arrive 'before' he does, though we'd need something that could move staggeringly fast..."

When Jorret's hints finally hit home, Russell grinned. "Ah, I see where you're going here. You want something that can get us to my planet in, say, two hours or less... and I imagine you'd be more than happy to fly me there in exchange for the vehicle itself?" Seeing his friend's look, Russell nodded. "Okay, let me get some sort of coordinates for earth out of these clowns, and then we can go steal us a space-ship; I bet I can build this gear into some sort of hyper-engine.

"I think?"

***

Just under two hours later, Russell was focusing all of his hate at this nemesis, Clarence the Ologyologist. He wasn't sure just what he was going to do with that clown once he got his hands on him, but DEFENESTRATE/CARNAGE/DISEMBOWEL kept popping into his head. Jorret proved to be a very good pilot, and could navigate this weird extra-spatial realm quite easily; Russell had no idea what he was going to do with the technology grafted into this flier, but didn't really care.

The Jl'rtz could bite him, as far as he was concerned.

Jorret landed the ship just a few yards from a crater in his yard that Russell presumed had come from his overload of the Death Ray. ** And then, he resolved himself to wait. Waving to Jorret, he watched as the strangely human-like alien flew off, noting the rather large grin on his face; he wasn't sure who this Charlie Chicanery was, but he'd managed to make up for the damage that fellow had done and made a new friend in the process.

He started to see a glow inside the crater, one with a decidedly humanoid shape, and climbed down into the semi-spherical hole. It was at about this point that Russell realized that he didn't have any technology on him whatsoever; he'd used every last circuit at his disposal to cobble together the faster than light drive he'd spot-welded into that flier there - itself only really designed to fly at sublight speeds. He'd have to wing it when Clarence reappeared.

Which he did imminently, cackling all the while.

"Ha ha ha, stupid 'hero'. I-"

Turning around, Clarence saw Russell waiting for him, and the look on his face was a priceless one. Before he could continue, Russell punched him square in the jaw, knocking him out cold. Smirking, Russell found himself happy to have defeated this clown with his own bare hands for some reason. "That's right, smart guy. I'm the stupid hero. Who just took you down. How do you like THEM apples?" Russell then stomped on Clarence's testicles for good measure, and walked up to the family house.

Grabbing a beer and some rope, Russell resolved to tie that clown up and do something terrible to him, but by the time he got back to the crater his shenanigans had generated, the villain had not only woken back up, but had fled! Spitting into the now empty hole in the ground, Russell shrugged and knocked out his beer in one big gulp. It wasn't all that big a deal that he got away, now was it? After all, Russell knew exactly where Clarence was headed.

* Last seen in Charlie Chicanery #4 (if you hadn't guessed by his rambling).

** Last issue?

***

Having made his way back home from the strange, alien world that his last ditch effort against Clarence the Ologyologist had deposited him on, Russell found that he had unfinished business to deal with. He had to Rescue the Girl, for one thing, not to mention take down the Ologyology building in New York City - to the very last atom, if possible. Of course, all of his super-hero gear was gone now, so he'd have to build some new devices first.

***

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