A Once Crowded Sky (32 page)
Devil Girl #75
DG examines the gray statue in front of her. They’ve thinned out Survivor’s face, made his skin smoother, his nose less crooked. There’s almost a gentility in the mask, a spot of grace hiding a life of torture and murder. Runt’s done a fine job picking out this grave marker for his father.
DG reaches up and strokes the granite cheek the way she used to when men like this came before her and begged in the days of judgment. How pitiful to have lived that way, how depressing to have that fixed as part of your soul. In that way, the statue and the man buried below it are similar, she supposes, and the Devil giggles.
“What’s funny?” Soldier walks up from behind her.
DG twirls around and smiles. “Nothing.” She goes up to him, wraps her arms around him. “I don’t think you’d understand.”
“You knew I’d come here?”
“You come here a lot.” She looks up at him. “I got lucky, I guess.”
Soldier nods, then reaches down and pulls her in with one hand, and DG hugs him close. He rubs his nose in her hair, and he’s quiet for a little bit, and then he shivers, and DG holds him tighter. “It’s okay,” she says.
Soldier swallows and steps back. He turns away, wipes at his face. “I’m sorry. I killed three men tonight. Almost helped another go. I don’t mean for it to bother you.”
“It happens.” DG reaches in her bra and pulls out a cigarette. She lights one up and walks back to the gravestone. “Another battle won. Well done. Well done.”
“I never knew what that meant,” Soldier says, his back still to her.
“It doesn’t mean anything. It just rhymes.”
Soldier stays quiet, his eyes fixed on the lines of graves.
“I come here sometimes,” DG says. “I knew a lot of them, you know. More than I knew you people. I don’t know why it didn’t get me.”
Soldier turns and looks back at her. “You were better than them.”
She doesn’t say anything, she just smokes quietly in the dark as she looks at his face. It’s been so long. He was so young for so long. Eventually, she looks away from him, starts again to rub her hand over Survivor’s statue. “You know, he’s practically my father-in-law now. How freaky is that?”
Soldier licks his lips. “How is Runt?”
“You think Survivor’ll be back? When all the powers burst free, will we see this proud little monster again?”
“Yeah.” Soldier dips his toe into the dirt. “I think he’ll be back.”
“So then you guys will have to fight again all the time? Every month? Boom. Boom. Pow. Boom pow-pow. All of it again?”
“I suppose.”
“He shoots you. You shoot him. Forever.”
“As you say.”
“Yup”—DG takes a long drag—“there’s going to be some awkward moments at this wedding.”
Soldier hesitates, then laughs, and DG smiles. All these years and his laugh hasn’t changed all that much really.
“Do you want to come back?” she asks. “Do you want us all to do it again?”
Soldier catches his breath and coughs. “No. No, I don’t.”
“What about Ultimate? This thing controlling him? Don’t we kind of have to?”
Soldier looks back across the graves. “If the powers come back, and we fight this threat and we defeat it, it’ll just come back too. Like Survivor, like all of them.”
“Like you.”
Soldier shakes his head. “Maybe there’s another way to do it. Maybe I don’t know what it is. But maybe there’s some way. Just get them to go down and stay down.”
“Does that work?”
“I killed three men today. I saw another man decide to live. These things, I don’t know, they should mean something.”
DG snuffs out her cigarette and tosses it into the dark. She flicks Survivor’s head. “Runt wants it back. He misses his family. I think he still has some connection to them. All that evil. Sometimes when I touch him, I feel it sort of reach out to me. It’s pretty wicked.”
Soldier looks up. “What about you? You want it back?”
DG wrinkles her nose. “I guess I just want everyone to be happy.”
“Why would the devil want people to be happy?”
DG reaches over and takes Soldier’s hand the way she used to take all of their hands as they begged and begged. Redeem me. Cleanse me. Send me home. And she’d grin, and she’d nod, and she’d send them all on down. Down to burn. Every last one.
DG squeezes Soldier’s hand, feels his scars. “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know why.”
Soldier grunts, and DG smiles and jumps up. “C’mon!” she shouts as she runs out into the night. “I think I saw some shovels over here! We’ll dig up Survivor and take turns shooting him. It’ll be awesome, and, really, it might be our last chance.”
Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #580
PAGE 15
PANEL 1: We are above Pen, looking down. Pen is looking up.
PEN: How do I get them back? We need to fight. Tell me how to get the powers back.
STAR-KNIGHT: It’s not hard.
PANEL 2: Closer in on Pen.
PEN: Well then &%$#ing tell me!
PANEL 3: Close up. Star-Knight, weary, smiling.
STAR-KNIGHT: It only takes the smallest of efforts.
PAGE 16
One shot, whole page. The Blue spitting from the ground. The Blue is only beginning to trickle out, and inside each “trickle” are stories, comic representations of their heroic lives.
STAR-KNIGHT: As absurd as it ended, it begins the same way.
STAR-KNIGHT: Everyone gets to come back. This story has such a happy ending.
PAGE 17
Four panels, equal size.
PANEL 1: Ultimate from behind, the rip in The Blue surrounding him, he reaches his hands out and holds its edges. Pulls them in.
STAR-KNIGHT: Using all the powers we had, Ultimate tried to end The Blue, to close the hole The Blue was leaking through.
PANEL 2: Same as above, gate is closed a little more as Ultimate pulls it, his body ashing in The Blue.
STAR-KNIGHT: He did well, ended the threat, he died ending the threat.
PANEL 3: Same, gate continues to close, but more and more of Ultimate is burning away, dying.
STAR-KNIGHT: But he didn’t close the hole, not all the way.
PANEL 4: Ultimate slumps forward dead, the last parts of him disintegrating. The Blue is still open, a small slash remains, leaking out the stories.
STAR-KNIGHT: A small part of it remained open.
STAR-KNIGHT: As predicted, he needed just a little more power.
PAGE 18
Whole page is nine panels. All close on Star-Knight’s face. Star-Knight is crying and the tears are blue, and like The Blue, they contain stories inside them.
PANEL 1: Star-Knight’s face, blue in his tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: It’s the belt.
PANEL 2: Star-Knight’s face, blue in his tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: He wore my stupid belt when he died.
PANEL 3: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: And my belt is strong. With all those powers in it, it’s strong. It didn’t burn like him. It’s still there. All our powers still in it.
PANEL 4: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: It’s there, buried in the last of The Blue. But we can’t get it. No one can touch it.
The hole is still open. The Blue burns around it. If we reach for it, we burn away. If only we could close the hole, if only there was someone still powerful enough to close it.
PANEL 5: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: It’s a parable. It’s about the boy who didn’t show. About the power he still has.
PANEL 6: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: The power needed to close the hole. In you, it’s in you, Pen.
PANEL 7: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: You want to get the powers back so we can all pick up our arms again and go to battle—you want that? That’s easy. Go to The Blue. Put yourself in its stream, pull it closed. Let it consume you, like it did him. Reveal the belt. Release the powers.
PANEL 8: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: But you should know, it’ll be too much. You’ll die in the effort. You’ll burn away in The Blue so we can all come back. Just like he did.
PANEL 9: Star-Knight’s face, blue in tears. We now see Pen in the tears. Pen’s hands are gripped around the gash that is The Blue, and he’s yanking it closed, as Ultimate did.
STAR-KNIGHT: That’s what it says in the book. That’s our story. First Ultimate, then his boy, dying to save us.
PAGE 19
PANEL 1: Back in the office with Pen and Star-Knight on either side.
PEN: Bull$#%&.
PANEL 2: Close-up on Pen’s face.
PEN: You would’ve told me. All this time, all this suffering—you would’ve told me.
PANEL 3: Wide shot. Pen and Star-Knight on either side.
STAR-KNIGHT: I loved Ultimate. I loved him. He was the best of us. There was no one better.
STAR-KNIGHT: He saved the world again and again. He saved me again and again. And he asked for one thing. One thing!
STAR-KNIGHT: I protected his boy. I gave everything to protect his boy.
PANEL 4: Close up on Star-Knight’s face.
STAR-KNIGHT: I buried what was left of The Blue. Hid it. Threatened Prophetier with his life not to reveal what had happened, not to ever look for it again. I even built the damn graveyard over it. Where we put the villains. Because I knew you, Pen. You didn’t want a reminder. You’d never go there. Not you.
PANEL 5: Flash to a picture of Star-Knight and Ultimate facing the audience, arms around each other, together in better times, as if they’re posing for a picture. Star-Knight is smiling; Ultimate is stoic.
STAR-KNIGHT: I hid it. Because I loved him. He was the goddamn best of us.
PANEL 6: Closer in on Ultimate’s face. We still see Star-Knight beside him, still posed and smiling.
STAR-KNIGHT: I loved him, and I told him how to die.
PANEL 7: Close in on Ultimate. Star-Knight’s arm hangs over his shoulder. Ultimate looks out at the audience.
STAR-KNIGHT: And all he wanted was for you to live.
PANEL 8: Medium shot, back to the office. Star-Knight on the floor.
STAR-KNIGHT: I don’t know what this threat is. I don’t know what’s causing it. But I know I can fight it, I can defeat it without you dying. Without books. Without powers. His boy doesn’t die because I’m too weak! Not Ultimate’s boy. I owe him that.
PANEL 9: Close in now on Star-Knight.
STAR-KNIGHT: You don’t want this, Pen. You don’t want this sacrifice. It’s not what he wanted. It’s not what anyone wants.
STAR-KNIGHT: Stay with your wife, Pen. Stay with your lovely wife.
PAGE 20
Four identical horizontal panels.
PANEL 1: Pen, Star-Knight, facing each other against a black background.
PEN: They all come back.
PEN: They all have to come back.
PANEL 2: Stat.
STAR-KNIGHT: No, Pen, no.
PANEL 3: Stat.
PEN: I can’t fight this on my own. I’m not good enough. I need help. For Anna. The heroes have to get their powers back, and they have to fight.
STAR-KNIGHT: No, Pen, no.
PEN: I die, and they all come back.
PANEL 4: Stat.
PEN: They all come back.
PAGE 21
One image. Pen is at the center. He is standing, and he looks stoic, peaceful, resolved. And around him are dozens of images of Pen drawn from the entire story line.
—Pen rescuing Strength
—Pen drunk in The Metal Room
—Pen digging a dead body out of a car
—Pen holding his wife in his arms
—Pen and his wife making the bed
—Pen flying behind Ultimate
—Pen eyeing the metal cat
—Pen rushing toward a man, the crack following him
—Pen (in costume) his arm looped over Starry
—Pen sleeping next to his wife
—Pen and Soldier fighting in the diner
—Pen (in costume) swooping behind Ultimate
—Pen again holding his wife
PEN: I don’t care what anyone does—about any of this. I’m going to do it. For her. For Anna. I’m going to get the powers back. Nothing will stop that. If I have to die, I don’t care. Whatever happens, whatever it takes, I’m going to come back.
PEN: We’re all going to come back.
PAGE 22
Just two images, each half a page.
PANEL 1: Star-Knight and Pen on the floor, a grin on Star-Knight’s face, but also tears in his eyes, again blue tears.
STAR-KNIGHT: You sound almost like him.
PANEL 2: Ultimate standing above Pen back at the mansion, the first time, when he asked Pen to join him. He towers above the boy, but the boy looks back, defiant.
PEN: I don’t know. I don’t know about that.
