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#03

'Toys. All Out Of the Pram.'

By Ed Ainsworth

 

"What the Bloody?" Beryl pushes her face up against the Pane of the Jet, the Gorilla shaman and Knight sat behind her, engaged in a rousing game of "Who can shout the loudest about the most utterly idiotic ideal". Apparently, Gorilla's represent the ideal utopian society to co-exist with the Ecology of the world. However, Cyril, the Knight, disagreed with this idea, suggesting that Englishmen produce the best society has to offer, and the way has and will always be paved by the Union Jack.

"What is it now, Beryl?" Knight inquired, getting up from his seat.

"Superbia is down. Huntsman is kicking the living crap out of Olympian, and all the refugees are being apparently controlled by the Universal Man."

"The Universal man, *&^%, we need to make a *&^%ing change of course. We can't take him now. We need a plan. Try and patch us through to the remaining Corps." Cyril smashed his fist into the control panel of the jet, and sits down heavily.

"Excuse me, but.Who is the Universal Man?" Anatu asked, pressing his large black Knuckles onto the metallic floor of the Jet.

"I'm on it, Cyril. Patching us through now: Ultra Marines, this is the Squire to all points: Watcha, We've got Universal Man and a Zombie army outside. There is still no word from the Core Four, so we're moving into Defcon 7, regroup, and Regather. Knight and I are flying about seven and a half Clicks away; And Huntsman appears to be going Apeshit on Olympian. Anyone have any answers for me?" Beryl sat back and waited for some response, as Anatu gave her a lopsided look.

"Apeshit?"

"Turn of Phrase."

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"Why Ze hell is Huntsman attacking Olympian?" Fleur asked through her communicator, to anyone who was listening.

"I don't know, Fleur, but I saw Olympian before Huntsman got to him, he went crazy. Completely crazy." Vixen replied; she was still trying to rouse Impala.

The two communicators blurted out Beryl's commands, and Fleur continued her slow sneak towards the internal aspects of the Superbian chimney, towards Vixen.

The sounds of violence could be heard through the communicator, plus the dialogue between Huntsman and Olympian.

"You think this is funny?"

"No, I think this is DEAD funny."

"Fleur, to Huntsman. Not wanting to rain on your Parade, but are you not suppozed to be assisting your team mate, rather zan trying to hurt him?" Fleur stopped wrapping three times on Vixens door, before inserting her sword to try and pry it open. The mechanisms were down, leaving them almost in complete darkness.

"Fleur, thank God. I don't think Impala is in any state to do anything right now." Vixen stated, getting to her feet, and walked over, awkwardly to her friend and team-mate.

"Worry not, Vixen, we will sort this problem out quickly."

"Huntsman to Fleur, and anyone else who is listening. Olympian is officially insane." Huntsman grunted as he dropped several stories through the air, and into the side of a building.

"He is insane, and attacking anything and anyone. I believe the Universal man is using this to his advantage." Huntsman stated, smashing his massive fists through the side of the building to take refugee.

"We need a plan, team-mates. Any suggestions?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Universal man, Monkey boy."

"Great Ape" Anatu Interjected.

"Great ape, boy." Cyril corrected, pausing to sarcastically wobble his head at Anatu. "He's what you'd call a complete &^*face. He's got powers on a similar level to Beryl, she can "see" different wavelengths of light to a certain extent, makes her the best damn communications expert out there. Universal man uses these cues and manipulates them, which means he manipulates people."

"He can manipulate people, so he is like Grodd?" Anatu asked cautiously.

"No, he's nothing like Grodd. Grodd we can handle, this guy is something else. He took out the "Core Four", a year ago, and for some reason took off."

"So, basically Anatu, we don't got a hope in hell to beat this guy alone."

"That's where you're wrong, Beryl." Cyril got to his feet, grabbing his helmet and connecting it to the Ethernet, a type of internet connection that linked all the Ultra Marines when Chrysalis gave them a Pheromone dusting.

"Cyril?"

"Wish me luck."

Knight opened the door from the Cruiser and leapt out, the wind billowed his cloak underneath him as he dropped several stories downwards towards the Universal Man, His Mace pulled free from his Belt, as he spotted the Black Blur breaking through Buildings towards the wrestling Olympian and Huntsman.

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"What are you even about, anyway?" Tasmanian Devil exploded across the ground to intercept the battling titans of Olympian and Huntsman.

"What?"

"What are you about? You're just hitting each other indiscriminately. What's the point aside from Gratuitous violence?"

Both Olympian and Huntsman stopped for a moment, looking at each other, as Tasmanian devil stopped beside them.

"It appears to me, that in the absence of Pulse 8, which is sorely felt if I'm honest, we lack someone with reasoning capabilities. Everyone's acting in typical reactionary super heroic style."

Huntsman stared at the ground like a shamed child, whilst Olympian stamped his feet, mimicking the other end of the childlike spectrum.

"We should be planning against instances of this nature; some kind of existential planning against typical Heroic stuff like this would be very, very handy. Look around the world today, everything ranging from Superman to the entire outlook of the Mystical and Inter-stellar world has changed its makeup; we can't afford to do the Misconception, violence, make-up, communication ritual anymore."

"What are you saying, Tas?" Huntsman queried, looking around the Devastated Superbia.

"That it's time for us to do something a bit different. We're the Ultra Marines. We're supposed to represent the next development in super heroes; we've got to be everything Superman and Green Lantern and Batman isn't. We need to pull up the slack on those existential nightmares of Existence."

"THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HERE AND NOW !" Olympians fist collided into Huntsman's stomach, as he grabbed the scruff of Tasmanian Devils neck and throws him face first into the ground.

"This has everything to do with here and now, Olympian, we're being controlled by a tether we can't even see!" Tasmanian Devil reversed Olympians throw and twisted his arm, throwing the Greek Superman onto the ground, leaving an impact mark.

"I'm a gay Man who turns into a giant Animal, Olympian. Get your head around that, I'm already hated for loving other men, but now I'm part of a superhuman outfit that irritates the Justice League and has potentially pissed off the world. Right now, the universal man is pulling our strings the way a puppet master does, and we're all playing into his hands by being reactionary."

Olympian's fist collides into Tasmanian Devil's face, blood spraying from his nose, as the Huntsman lands feet first into the Greek man's face, smashing him through the plated flooring of Superbia.

"Devil is right, Olympian. You've disgraced yourself, by acting to type. You've reverted to the age old super heroic default. We're not here to represent that, we're not superheroes with problems, we're problems with superpowers. We thought we could govern the meta-human world with our floating city and big ideas, but we're not better than the JLA or the Titans. We're worse."

Huntsman leaps off Olympian, only for Tasmanian devil to come hurtling downwards, fists first and smashing the trio through another few levels of Superbia.

"LIES! I AM DOING WHAT I WANT TO DO!"

"No, Olympian. You're not." An interdimensional portal had opened, air and matter hissing as Pulse 8 steps through the human shaped portal.

"4-D transported me here; she has been split into component parts. That is not important now, what is important is this - There is a man. With a Keyboard, and he is dictating to us what we say, and do and how we act."

"MORE LIES!"

"No, Olympian. There isn't. Here. Read the highlighted text." Pulse 8 handed a stack of paper to him.

Olympians fingers traced over the paper, his eyes widening.

"Olympians fingers traced over the paper, his eyes widening. More tricks! Olympian stated, thrusting his fingertips at Pulse 8."

"MORE TRICKS!" Olympian stated, thrusting his fingertips at Pulse 8.

"Dear God, 8, we're not doing anything of our own accord are we? Is this the doing of your Cosmic Keyboard?"

"No, Tas. This is something else." Pulse 8s fingertips danced over the Cosmic Keyboard.

"File. Edit. Cut. Fabric layer Five."

The Universal mans form changes, his starscape face reverts to normal, and he is a man. Just a man. A thing man, with a scruffy unkempt beard, gelled hair and glasses.

"Dear God.How did you do that? How did you.Oh God."

"What are you?" Pulse 8 directed a finger at the man, as Tasmanian Devil and Huntsman bore up behind him.

"I'm.I'm the Universal man, I'm the one who's writing this scenario. Please.It's nothing personal; I actually really like you guys."

"WHY DID YOU MAKE ME INSANE THEN?" Olympian yelled, shaking his fists in the air.

"Because, it said you were unstable in JLA Classified Issue 3. Your entire continuity is taken from the appearances you made in JLE and JLI and JLA Classified, and the short Origin Appearance you made in JLA volume 3 under Grant Morrison."

"Who is this.Grant Morrison, and what do you mean...Volume 3?" Pulse 8 asked calmly, Tasmanian Devil looking slightly confused as Huntsman looked calmly at the former Universal man.

"Grant Morrison Created you, I mean, at least he thought you up. Look, I'll try to explain. Pulse 8, you're cosmic keyboard is the closest thing this team has to Magic right?"

"Correct"

"In the theory of magic, which I've been reading into A LOT. All you need is an idea, see, technically, in the transcendental nature of magic, just having an idea gives it "form" albeit it a rudimentary one. The idea of a God, makes the idea into a God. It's not terribly complicated but it's still a "tree falling in the forest" moment."

"Grant Morrison had an idea and created you, that brought you into being, the rest of you, Tasmanian Devil, Huntsman, Olympian, you were all other peoples idea-forms, and you were tacked onto the concept by me. I'm writing your adventures as a form of entertainment for people in my section of reality."

"How are you here then?"

"I don't know, must be something to do with 4-D's dimensional based powers, and Pulse 8's cosmic keyboard. He found my finished scripts and then altered them, which kind of strands me in a lower universal Stack."

"Lower?"

"Well, see, in my dimension you're comic book characters, making you 2 Dimensional constructs, I'm three dimensional to read and create fan-fiction of you, so by bringing me down here, you're making me 2 dimensional, instead of three."

"Why are you putting us through this, writer?"

"Like is said. It's because I actually kind of like you guys, you never got enough screen time for my liking and I enjoy doing things differently. Look, I was going to kill you off Olympian and the Knight as well, but, well, Sod it. You found me out, you deserve another chance."

"I think that is a wise decision, Writer." Olympian spoke, venom dripping from his words.

"So look guys, I'm going to cut you a deal here. Before I started this Fanfic, you were going to start off a new mission in a world where there was no Justice League or anyone else. You'd be the sole superheroes of a baby universe. I can offer you all something you want; I can give you my notes and my half finished scripts and ideas for the next few issues. My notes go up to issue ten, so you've got another 7 issues worth of notes to work through. It's up to you whether you use them or not, they might be clues to changes that are going to happen or will happen, or people and characters you have to look out for."

"Thank you, Writer." Spoke Pulse 8 quietly, taking the notes.

"I'm going to change the ending, I was going to put this on hiatus to work on other projects, but I won't now. This puts a whole new spin on the idea of the Ultra Marines Doesn't it?"

"Yes, Writer. It does. Do what you will; I doubt we could stop you anyway." Pulse 8 said grimly.

"Like I said, I like you guys. I want to treat you with respect but have some fun with it all. Come issue four, there's going to be some serious cast and structural changes for you."

"I'm going to call it "Two Years Later", doesn't that sound great?"

Next Issue: TWO YEARS LATER! No, I Know it doesn't sound great really, but, I had to sound upbeat!