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| Silvercrow |
Security at the front
gates became alarmed at the sight of the suit of armor across the street. No one saw how it got there. It stood
at the edge of Lafayette Park, directly across from one of the two secured
entrances in front of the White House. The silver of the antique armor shone
brightly in the streetlights as did the metal of the old Claymore sword it held
with the tip resting against the sidewalk. Security teams scrambled and police
cars pulled in. They cordoned off the entire street from corner to corner in
order to let the swat team investigate.They assumed there may be some crazed individual within. They weren't paid to take chances.
“DROP YOUR WEAPON AND
REMOVE YOUR HELMET!” the loudspeaker blared.
No response, not even a flinch of movement. The order repeated several
times with machine rifles trained on target. News crews watched with interest
from roof tops and street corners near barricades. After some conversation, the
officers agreed that it had to be approached. Five SWAT
officers moved in with rifles ready. They covered one officer who slowly drew near the armor.
With each step they watched for the slightest movement. The armor stood like a
shop antique with the long Claymore sword’s handle and hilt held at the chest.
The closest officer
slowly brought the muzzle of his rifle up to the visor of the suit’s helmet and
still there was no movement. With the muzzle he lifted the visor and it moved
easily. Upon lifting the visor, it revealed an empty helmet. The officer let
out a sigh of relief and lowered his rifle, leaving the visor upright for
others to see. He turned to the crowd of fellow officers around him with a
smile and short laugh.
“It’s empty!”
Everyone felt the
tension release and they lowered their rifles. Some shook their heads and
wondered who thought to leave that thing standing there. The officer closest shrugged his
shoulders and then, to everyone’s shock, fell in half on the ground. The armor
moved. It had spun the Claymore in its gauntlets and swung across the officer’s
midsection so fast, no one had time to notice. An eerie and echoing laugh came
from the helmet as it reached up and slapped its visor down. The officers opened
fire with shouts of terror and panic. Bullets bounced away from the haunted
armor as it moved into their midst. The next closest officer, who emptied his
rifle at the thing, lost his head. Kevlar body armor stood no chance against
the sword and each swing dismembered and killed. One officer tried to use the
door of his squad car as a shield. The laughing armor brought down the Claymore
and cut them both in half from top to bottom. The sword even cleaved into the
asphalt on that swing, but was pulled away easily. Other officers fell back
while two officers covered with grenade launchers. The both fired and hit the
armor directly. It stepped through the smoke unscathed and still laughing.
Just outside those same
gates, right by the opening, crouched a dwarf of a man who appeared to be
frozen in terror. A man in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the secret
service men decided he couldn’t watch a defenseless man die. He opened the gate
and pulled the little man to safety.
“Just stay behind us
and we’ll protect you,” he said as he turned away from the trembling
dwarf. Because of the mayhem before
them, they missed the transformation behind them. The dwarf’s body stretched to
seven feet tall and muscles expanded and grew. White skin darkened to a deep
tan and took on the texture of smooth stone. Ears and teeth pointed and his
eyes glowed a spectral green. Clothing transformed into tight white pants with
a red sash around the waist.
“Yes, sir,” he said
with his new gravelly voice, “right behind you.”
 |
| Monolith |
As the secret
serviceman turned to see the new horror, a stone hand slapped his body into a
speeding cartwheel, killing him instantly.
The stone-demon laughed as shocked men turned their guns on him and
fired in blind panic. Like his haunted partner, bullets meant nothing to him.
If anything, they made him stronger. He laughed with morbid joy as he flung a
human body hundreds of feet straight up in the air and went to battering
others.
“You know what I really
like?” he said as he grabbed a man by the top of his head. The man only
screamed in reply. The stone demon squeezed and reveled in the sound and feel
of the man’s skull caving in. “Yeah, that’s what I call fun!”
Security men flooded
into the oval office where the President’s chair faced the window.
“Mr. President, we have
to get you out of here,” said one of the men.
The chair turned to
reveal a man in a sharp blue suit. He had cropped brown hair and youthful
appearance. He was not the President of the United States. Over a dozen
handguns rose to aim at him and stopped as he held up one finger with a knowing
expression.
“What have you done
with the President?” demanded the veteran officer.
“You could say he’s in
the bag,” the young man responded, lifting a silk sack from his lap that
appeared to be empty.
“Son, you obviously
don’t know how screwed you are,”
“NO! You obviously
don’t know how screwed you are!” He stood up and trigger itching men opened
fire. As the bullets seared through the air towards him, a vortex of darkness
appeared in front of the young man, coming from the silken sack. Bullets were
pulled away to a place unseen within its confines. In moments, all the men ran
out of bullets and stood in silent terror, wondering what would happen next.
The young man held up the sack that still appeared to have nothing in it. He
drew a hand across it as if he were a magician performing for them.
“And it still appears
empty, but what’s this?” He jerked the mouth of the bag open and swept across
the room as every bullet came back and shredded the men in front of him. He walked over to and knelt by the senior
officer who choked,
“Who are you?”
“I’m the Bagman, and by
the time you take your last breath, everyone on this property will be dead or
at our disposal. Of course, the President and his family live for now,” He
pointed to the silk sack, “and they are definitely in the bag.”
 |
| The Serpent |
Far out back of the
house another dwarf approached a group of soldiers. Just previously he jumped
the security fence with a short sword in each hand and began cutting down
security before they could fire a shot. He wore a tailored trench coat and a
floppy brimmed hat that never left his head. He used the swords to walk on and
do slicing cartwheels through his targets. He used agility beyond grace and
every movement proved deadly. He paused only a moment in front of the soldiers
aiming at him. Just under that floppy brim one soldier froze at the sight of
his serpentine eyes and pointed teeth of his smile. Around his collar and at
the ends of his sleeves, shadows seemed to move. Soldiers fired and he leapt
straight up into the air. He landed in the midst of them and threw his swords
outward. They didn’t strike the soldiers close up, but they didn’t have to. The
shadows in the dwarf’s clothing darted out in the form of snakelike creatures.
Their bites left no marks, but the bodies of the soldiers turned dusky gray as
life force dissolved and they all crumpled to the ground. The swords flew like
errant boomerangs and cut down every other security or soldier within thirty
yards, before returning to their owner’s hands.
In another area, a distinguished looking
gentleman approached the house with his own surrounding of soldiers as guards.
He wore a black silk suit and had white gloves on. It looked like the soldiers
were guiding him into the house, so other security stepped out of the way. Once
in the midst of most of the security for that side of the building, the man
stopped walking, and so did his escorts. As if on practiced cue, the soldiers
all turned away from him and opened fire on their co-workers, killing them all
without time for response. Once the deed was done, the man stepped out from the
circle of them and surveyed the scene. He turned to them.
“Good, you may kill
yourselves now.” As he entered the White House, they obeyed with a few final
shots.
The Bagman welcomed his comrades by name; Silvercrow the
haunted armor, Monolith the stone-demon, Serpent the blade wielding acrobat,
and Hypnotist the mind controller. All across the grounds bodies lay in silent
gore. The visual aftermath brought all other forces to a standstill at the
gates. These five people took the White House with the effort of child’s play.
No one knew what to do next. How did five men become so powerful that an army
could not stand against them?
Years ago, they were
very different men, but bent on evil schemes all the same. They drove out along
the highways of Oregon, near Salem until they found a lone hitch hiker. They
invited their new friend to a party at a campsite with promises of good times
and beautiful women. Once they reached this supposed site, the hitch hiker
found a huge pentagram etched into the earth with strange symbols all around.
At each point of the star he saw a seating place for one of the five men. He
tried to escape, but they overpowered him. They tied him up and tossed him into
the center of the pentagram. They poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire.
They took their five positions and shouted incantations over the hitch hiker’s
screams to the sky. Something appeared to them, that fateful night, but it
wasn’t what they expected. Still, the evil that appeared to them gave them
great power, for eternal service. One of them became cursed when he questioned
the being that appeared. The ancient god, Set, forever trapped him as a spirit
in haunted, but enchanted armor. The act of this curse, kept the other four
from questioning and they became the beasts that took the White House after
darkness shrouded the world.
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