Dusk

The city is a twisted nightmare of art deco and gilded age architecture slapped together in a cacophonous kaleidoscopic mess of towering buildings and unregulated urban sprawl. The cemetery is a place which holds the dignity of a tranquility that is so absent from the mania of the fallen symbol of patrician splendor. The sun sinks low in the copper-hued sky, a masked crimefighter clad in his black and blue costume stands alone amidst the headstones. To the world, he is Jim Lake, another castoff from the foster system, but to the criminal scum of Blackwell City, he is Dusk. He flexes his fingers, his body quakes with fury and struggles to hold back tears as he stands over the grave of his father. However, his father is not the only death he mourns tonight. The graveyard is littered with those who fought against this disgusting city, the fiends who stalk its streets and failed. Suddenly, his wrist mounted communicator crackles to life and a deep and gravelly voice cuts through the silence. “Dusk, come in. Come in! DUSK!” The communicator applies a metallic rhythm to the voice, robbing it of any warmth or compassion. Fitting for Dusk’s cold and often distant mentor of 7 years. “Dusk! This is Nocturn! Do you read me?” Dusk looks around the graveyard for a moment longer, drinking in the consequences of Nocturn’s unyielding dedication to his rigid morals above all else. Burying all the rage and hate for this vile city deep inside, Dusk reluctantly responds.  “Yeah, I read you.” He heads over to his motorcycle, a custom black and blue racing bike with a large golden “D” emblazoned across both sides. He mounts the vehicle and races off into the night as Nocturn continues, “It’s Jester, he’s kidn*pped a school bus full of children and the police have tracked him to the Spade Chemical plant.” When Dusk arrives at the facility, there are no police, no barricades, and no backup, but he is undaunted as he pushes through a boarded-up window. As he enters, he finds himself temporarily blinded by searing spotlights which briefly disorient him. “Sorry about that! Where are my manners?” The spotlights dim and Dusk finds himself standing before a lanky, pale-skinned man with gaunt features and a mouth that seems too large for his face twisted into a vile rictus. He is dressed in a jester’s outfit and is beaming with delight at Dusk who pulls out his collapsible staff. Jester just smirks, as he does an exaggerated pugilist pose, “And here comes the punch up! How many of you twerps have I killed? Five? Eight? But you’re my favorite, honest.” As Dusk lunges forward, Jester deftly avoids every blow and lands a few of his own while giggling like a madman. “I wonder, how many layers of delusion does it take to convince you ol’ Nocturn gives one iota of a s**t about you?!?” Jester pulls out a remote control and presses a cartoonish red button and a loading bay door opens, revealing the school bus. Dusk takes one look at it and his heart slams into his throat as his eyes widen in horror. “No…” Dusk abandons the fight and stumbles towards the partially melted vehicle. The charred limbs of some of the children are hanging out the windows while others are fused together. No doubt the older children embracing the younger to try and shield them from the flames that consumed them. Jester continues hopping about like a demented cartoon character, “How does it feel?” Dusk can barely muster the resolve to answer back, “Wha…?” Jester continues, undeterred by the horror, “I mean, you know Nocturn will just send me back to the asylum. Again. So, how’s it feel to know you’ve been conscripted into the most demented roleplaying game in history? He’s turned the entire city into a hideously prolonged group therapy session so he can work out his Oedipal psychopathy on an entire city! Consequences be damned! Isn’t that hilarious? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” As the stench of burnt flesh fills his nose and the mad laughter fills his ears, sensations fall away into white noise. All Dusk can do is watch as his body rises, he lurches forward and he seizes Jester by the throat.                Sometime later, Nocturne arrives in his atomic powered jet car, a sophisticated piece of machinery that costs more than the GDP of the city's inhabitants by several orders of magnitude, and comes to a stop near a homeless encampment. He is a caped and cowled detective who enters the darkest corners of the underworld to do battle with the city’s most devious criminals and vile denizens. By day, he is billionaire Gregory Skylark, a man of impeccable bloodlines who can trace his heritage to early transatlantic bankers and mercantile clans hailing from Britain and France. The wealth and influence his family wielded once extended to the corridors of power in Washington D.C. But now, he is the ruler of a crumbling financial empire and yet he remains utterly focused on inflicting his self-righteous fury on the teeming masses that huddle in the crumbling edifice of his family’s centuries of philanthropy and the bloodshed and exploitation that financed it. Nocturn, stumbles upon the bus and gags over the smell, his eyes narrow and his features twist into a grimace as he glances about. “Dusk!” He hisses, “DUSK! Where are you?” Finally, he hears a wet sound as his boot impacts the floor and sees a pool of blood at his feet. He sees it trailing off to a flight of stairs and follows. “Please, please be alright.” On a metal platform high atop some chemical tanks, Nocturn finds Dusk, with Jester handcuffed and on his knees before him. Dusk is standing with his back to Nocturn and doesn’t turn to face him. “JESTER! What have you done?” Jester just shrugs and motions to Dusk with his eyes, “Sorry buddy ol’ pal of mine. I think I broke ‘im.” Nocturn’s features soften, he tries to reach his young ward, “Listen to me, you got him. It’s over. We can arrest him. Send him to the asylum so he can get the treatment he needs.” Dusk still doesn’t turn when he responds with a single word. “Treatment?” Dusk whirls around and, with one swift movement, throws one of his bladed Nocturangs into Nocturn’s kneecap. Nocturn collapses and clutches his knee as blood begins to pool around his foot. He reaches to pull out the blade, Dusk reveals he has a detonator. Nocturn stares at him in shock, “You rigged the place to blow?!? WHY?!?” Dusk uses his free hand to pull out his staff, spins it across his fingertips and presses the tip against Jester’s throat. Dusk shakes his head, “Arrest him?” With one swift motion, Dusk plunges the end of the staff into Jester’s eye and activates its taser function, sending thousands of volts directly into Jester’s brain until smoke billows from the clown’s eye socket. Nocturn stares wordlessly as Dusk doubles over with spasm of poisonous laughter while sobbing uncontrollably. Dusk screams, “Men, get arrested. Monsters. f*****g. DIE!!!” Weeping and laughing uncontrollably, Dusk presses the detonator and leaps from the platform. Explosions rip through the refinery as Dusk glides away using the rigid structure of his cape, while the flames consume Nocturn and Jester. Dusk hears Jester’s laughter over the sounds of the exploding structure, only to realize that it’s his own laughter ringing in his ears.                Landing in an abandoned alleyway some ways away, Dusk slumps to his knees and sobs uncontrollably as he looks up to see the pillar of smoke and embers climbing into the skies.                Then, his communicator once again activates, and a woman’s voice emanates from the device. “Hello? Is anyone there?” It’s Supernova, alien princess and member of the Super Striplings. “If anyone can hear me, we need all available heroes to respond to a Class 4 crisis in Heraldville! Doctor Herman Hertz has built a device which threatens all life on earth! Come in!”                Dusk glances up at the sky and sees ruptures in spacetime forming. In one of them, he sees another earth drifting by and all he can do is stare at it in awe.