The Platinum Paladin #1

Where the Devils Hide

Rated E10+ Ten and Up

Thunderous applause erupts from the inward facing, semi-circle seating of the House Chamber. The spotted blue rug crawls up the stage steps. Marble frames the American flag draped behind a Brobdingnagian chair. A middle-aged woman, snug in a snazzy blue dress, smiles as she holds up the hardwood gavel. A man in an ashen suit, crowned by his greys with crows at his eyes, grins as he accepts the ceremonial mallet. He mouths thanks to the woman as she steps down from the mic'd pulpit. The applause persists, and the man raises the gavel above his head to bring it down on the block with a bang.

As the acclamation fades and the members of Congress are seated, the new sworn Speaker of the House opens his folder of notes.

“Madame Speaker, thank you. And welcome everyone,” he drawls. “I--”

Suddenly, a blinding flash of light engulfs the chamber accompanied by gasps, and screams, and something else. A screech. A growl. A bit of both. Then darkness; a shadow voiding all light from any possible entry. Anxious murmurs turn to panicked chatter. Capitol Police bark orders. A thud sounds in the murk. Then light returns.

Only a moment passes before another scream rattles the room. The police are in a scramble. The Speaker of less than a minute lies dead behind the podium. No blood, no wound. Neck intact. His eyes wide open like he saw the devil. And the panic becomes a frenzy.

#

Her armored boots clank on the metal flooring of yet another secret entrance. What was seemingly a wall in the now closed Empire State Building lobby slides shut behind her. The marble slab, flush once again, reflects the midnight lights of Fifth Avenue.

She stands in the center of the chrome cube clad in black and silver spandex with golden accents. The gilded cross on her chest is shadowed by a red X, the insignia slightly obscured by the brown trench coat she wears over her costume. She holds her futuristic knight helmet by the visor as the taps of her feet grow more impatient. Her scarlet hair nearly compliments the blue glow of her azure irises.

The coated crusader looks around at the hyper reflective walls with a raised brow. Finally, the door in front of her opens and she scoffs before walking into the screen lit room.

“You’re late, Burke,” says the baritone silhouette of a built and uniformed fellow. He stands two heads above everyone else sporting spikes of obsidian splaying out from the back of his head. He faces an assortment of monitors hooked up to consoles manned by a myriad of men and women dressed in identical dark and belted uniforms.

“Yes, but I’m fifteen minutes late thanks to your little house of mirrors,” the redhead heroine retorts. “More witches under Central Park?”

“Not this time,” the spiked man says as he turns to face Burke revealing his flaming red eyes. The logo on his uniform, now illuminated, reads ION. “I need you in D.C.”

“Oh brother. Don’t tell me I’m on that Congress hit.”

“The President called in ION specialists after the trail went cold, and we picked up some supernatural energy signatures. Nothing we’ve ever seen before. Not like this anyway.”

“Which is why you need me.”

“We need your talents and expertise.”

“Don’t you have people in D.C.?”

“The capitol branch is thin. Most likely Altered. Can’t be trusted.”

“So NYC is heading up the whole country now?” Burke laughs. “How’re ya managing that, Mr. Maelstrom?”

“Just fine,” Maelstrom bellows. “Your ride’s just above the eighty sixth floor. Hit 78, tap the ‘Close Door’ button twice, then say your name.”

“You got a pen, Simon?”

“I guess you’d prefer the ‘house of mirrors’ then.”

Burke chuckles, flicking Maelstrom off as she reenters the chrome passage room.

“Good luck, Burke,” Maelstrom says, turning back to the monitors.

“Thanks, Donny,” Burke replies facetiously. And the door closes in front of her. After a few minutes, she is returned to the Empire State Building lobby where she makes her way to an elevator.

“78,” she mumbles, pressing the button. “Close door twice.” After inputting the combination, a gentle, robotic voice comes over the comms.

“Authentication required,” it says.

“Jetta Burke,” she responds. A heroic jingle plays.

“Welcome, Platinum Paladin.”

Burke dons her helmet, and the bowl configures itself around her hair so that it forms a scarlet crest. She smirks as the six slits of the visor light up the same blue as her eyes.

#

Burke feels a familiar chill down her spine as the one man aircraft dips into the overcast cloud bed above Washington D.C. The plane is white with black and blue accents and flashing red lights. It’s long and cylindrical, with rear fairings that flatten its appearance. Thick, wedge-fin stabilizers emerge from the dorsum and venter creating the visage of a futuristic North American X-15. Miniaturized thrusters line the bottom of the wings and fuselage, fully articulated to allow for vertical takeoff and landing. This machine is known as the Hyperplane.

The experimental craft lands on the front lawn of the Capitol next to a group of police and two ION agents. Burke exits the cockpit and approaches them.

“I assume you’re the Platinum Paladin?” asks one of the agents wearing shades and her hair in a ponytail.

“Yeah,” Burke answers dryly.

“We have the full analysis on our readings,” says the other agent, handing his tablet to Burke.

“No thanks,” she interrupts as she starts toward the building. “I felt everything on the way.”

The two agents look at each other, and one of them shrugs. Then the group moves to follow behind the dame in shining armor.

Police tape places a perimeter around the Capitol from the Ulysses S. Grant memorial all the way to Northeast First Street. Some crowds started to form after the landing of the Hyperplane, but only some press and onlookers a ways back remain.

The closer Burke gets to the three hundred sixty-five steps the more she blinks uncontrollably. She winces on her way up and enters the rotunda with a grunt.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she says to herself. Finally making it to the House Chamber, the glow of Burke’s visor begins to short out. She groans as she puts a hand to her armored temple.

“Is everything alright?” says the agent with the shades.

“This isn’t magick,” Burke grumbles. “I don’t feel any traces of chaos or hellish energy--”

Suddenly, a warping ache pierces Burke’s mind. She yells as she falls to her knees.

“Paladin!” the ponytail agent hollers, rushing to Burke’s aid.

“I’m calling Maelstrom,” the other agent says.

“No, no!” Burke urges. “No, I...I think I--AAAGGHH!”

She falls prone, curling up as she grips the sides of her helmet. In her mind, thorns of shadow take hold of her limbs. A dark ichor pours in from her periphery. A voice crackles in the distance. Multiple voices. A screech. A growl. A bit of both. Then, in front of her approaches a hooded figure. Eyes like ivory gems glow beyond its umbral face. It speaks to her.

“What?” she thinks. “What are you--?”

A flash of light. A veil of darkness. Then she screams as the ichor eclipses her vision.

Burke awakens in a pristine, windowless lab populated by a smorgasbord of lenses, lights, and machinations beyond her scientific familiarity. She sits up on the padded medical exam table to see her helmet on a black counter beside her. Don Maelstrom sits on a chair near the foot of the exam table.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” he says with a crooked smile. “Must have really been something.”

“You bet your ruby reds,” Burke says. “I can only think of one person with that kind of power. The kind I’ve been trying to avoid getting my hands on.”

“What do you need, Burke?”

“I need to pay someone a visit.”

#

The Hyperplane rockets toward the thermosphere with Burke in the cockpit. Orbiting Earth opposite the ISS is an ultra supermax prison called Lockzone Station: a snowflake shaped space base measuring four hundred feet end-to-end. Burke breathes deeply, eyes closed with her helmet in her lap.

“When I look at your heavens,” she whispers nervously. “The work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him.”

The Hyperplane docks on one of the platforms jutting out from the central node. A transparent shield domes over the aircraft, and the platform is pulled in towards a steel bridge leading to the main hub of the station. The hub and the platform are separated by a pressurized titanium screen. An officer in a spacesuit floats over to a panel next to the screen and types in a code. The screen rises and the officer gives Burke a thumbs up. Paladin hops out of the cockpit with a sigh of relief and puts on her helmet.

A pearl armored officer meets Burke at the mouth of the bridge.

“Right this way, ma’am,” the officer says.

The two make their way through a steel tunnel and into the mind bending space station as guards on different arms of the base walk on simulated gravity different then her own and each other’s. They reach a sliding door that leads to a spherical room.

“Boy, you super secret government folks sure love your little, metal rooms,” Burke snarks. The officer remains silent.

“Prepare for gravitational reorientation,” says a voice over the comm. “Slowly walk forward in 3, 2, 1.”

A sudden feeling of light vertigo strikes Burke. She follows the officer’s lead, taking two, three steps forward. The walls seem to move like a travelator beneath their feet. Four, five steps. Burke feels normal again as if just stepping onto level ground.

“Huh,” she utters.

The door in front of them opens with a woosh, and the officer leads Burke into a colossal, stacked corridor of prison cells barred by energy fields. Other identically armored guards walk up and down the catwalks. Burke follows the officer to a second floor cell coincidentally labeled 666. She feels her eye twitch and a shivering in her chest. Beyond the translucent field kneels a tan, bald man with symbols tattooed all over his scarred face and down his wrinkled neck disappearing beneath the off-white jumpsuit. His hands are kept open by mechanisms magnetically pulled in both directions so that his arms are stretched out wide. The man looks up and, at the sight of Burke, grins with sharpened teeth.

“Have you come to forgive me of my sins?” mocks the prisoner.

“Looks like I heard right about you, Hellmonk,” Burke says. “Turns out you might have something I need.”

“Come to learn the ways of qi?”

“Whatever you call it, it’s sure as hell closer to what I’m looking for than any other form of magick.”

“Wait...I remember you.”

“I don’t think so, old timer.”

“Yes,” Hellmonk hisses, drawing out the word for an extra second. “Acquaintances of mine have found you particularly meddlesome.”

“Glad to see word’s gettin’ around,” Burke says sarcastically before nodding at the officer. He inputs a code on the console just next to Hellmonk’s cell. It makes a zapping sound, and the energy field changes color. Burke moves through it without any resistance and kneels in front of the villain.

“I should warn you, Paladin,” his words slither. “I’ve had a lot of time to meditate during my time here. Out here, above the world. One’s understanding of the Tao is illuminated like stars to a cold universe.”

“Yeah, well I’m sure your way isn’t the same as, you know...other folks’.” Burke puts two fingers to Hellmonk’s head.

“You’ll see soon,” Hellmonk murmurs. “The power I have.”

They both close their eyes. The glow of Burke’s visor intensifies. Multicolored electricity arcs around Hellmonk’s arms and head. The energy moves through Burke’s fingers and onto her own arm.

In her mind, she sees Hellmonk still bound but now shirtless. His tattoos a tapestry of dark symbology, forming a mysterious insignia on his chest; a Wuxing pentacle pointing to symbols for the five elements. He kneels in a shallow sea of shadows. Ripples of darkness pulsate outwards from where his legs meet the water. The sky shows eternal dusk. Gunpowder clouds move at the speed of sound. Then he looks up. His eyes glow blood red.

“Is there another?” he inquires without moving his mouth.

“Another what?” Burke’s voice echoes from beyond.

“Someone else like me? Someone with my power?”

“What are you doing?”

“Let me see what it is you seek.” Suddenly, Hellmonk is in the House Chamber. “Ahh.”

“Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I told you. I’ve had a lot of time to meditate. Unlock new abilities. And it seems who you seek has already surpassed me. Such mastery of qi is the thing of dreams. But in your case, it will be a nightmare.”

“Stop it! I’m in control here!”

“Oh no, my lady. You were never in control.” Hellmonk now floats high above Manhattan. Unbound. He looks at his hands and flexes his fingers. A sinister smile grows on his face. “So long.”

Burke falls on her hands, sweat dripping from her chin. She pulls off her helmet. Back in the cell. Hellmonk’s gone. Burke’s eyes go wide. Her breath is shaky.

“Is everything alright--?” the officer starts before seeing that Hellmonk is missing. “Wh--what? Where’s the prisoner?”

“You have to get to New York,” Burke commands, putting on her helmet. “Hellmonk escaped through my mind s-somehow.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer says, pressing onto the console. The field changes color again. “I’m going to have to keep you here until we figure out what’s going on here.”

“I just told you what’s going on!” Burke walks up to the translucent field and tries walking through. She’s stopped, field as hard as steel. “Hey! Hey, I’ve got a job to do!”

“So do I,” the officer states before walking away from the cell.

“Ohohoo,” Burke fumes. “Alrighty then.”

The Platinum Paladin takes off her coat, revealing the full force of her costume. She tightens her vambraces and straightens her split cape hanging from the shield-like shell on her back. The shell comes up into an armored collar, and a double-sided energy weapon with rounded edges dangles from her belt. This is her Spirit Buster. She equips the weapon in her right hand and reaches out with her left.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh,” Burke recites. “But have divine power to destroy strongholds.” The cell begins to rattle. A bright energy begins to swirl around the paladin’s arm. It flows into her open hand. She clutches it. With a flash of light, a blade of unstable radiance manifests in her grasp. Witness the power of the Spirit Blade!

Burke lets out a battle cry as she thrusts the sword into the cell’s energy field. The weapon hardens with a whir, and the cell bursts open! The explosion covers the second level in a thick, sparkling mist. Every guard snaps toward the blast. Weapons aimed at the settling cloud. Then, the Platinum Paladin emerges. Her visor glows bright with power.

A guard orders to fire. With the Spirit Blade gone, Burke manifests a radiant shield. Bullets ping and whiz as she descends the steps to the ground floor. Two guards approach and aim. She lifts her Spirit Buster. The space between the split cylindrical barrels begins to power up. Bolts of electricity start rapidly firing. They form a ball of lighting. Burke shoots the electric orb at the feet of the guards, blowing them away.

Blocking more bullets, she makes it to the spherical, gravity shift room.

“Screw it,” she mutters. Aiming the Buster forward, she stops. Looks up. Then she fires a charged blast from the main barrels straight upwards. She blows a hole leading to the main hub. Burke leaps through it, but the quick shift of gravity confuses her. She falls into a roll. Surrounded. These guards look tougher. Full body armor. Beefier weapons.

“Freeze!” demands a guard. “Put the weapon down!”

Burke slowly stands to her feet.

“I said freeze!” the guard’s voice cracks.

Her eyes dart to the Hyperplane platform.

“Sorry fellas,” says the paladin with a smirk. “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”

“This is your last warning!”

“They shall mount up with wings like eagles!”

And a pair of glorious, golden brown wings burst out from Burke’s back. The guards are thrown to ground, some of them dropping their weapons. The paladin stumbles, putting a hand to her temple.

“Oo, boy,” she groans. “It’s been a while.”

She collects herself then looks toward the Hyperplane. With a flap of her giant eagle wings, she launches toward the platform. Zooms past all the guards on the way. But one of them is escorting some other prisoner, one with shards of steel in his forehead. The force sends them both falling. The shard head is loose! Burke looks back. Guards approach with rocket launchers. The shard head puts his former escort in a headlock. Transforms his arm into a metal blade, cackling.

“No please!” cries the guard.

The rocket guards get into position to fire on the Hyperplane. Burke manifests her magic shield. She changes course. Blasts toward the hostage guard.

The shard head looks up with surprise. Then he cocks back to stab the paladin. She blocks, but it slides and stabs her right shoulder.

“Agh!” she yells, push kicking the shard head away.

Another group of guards show up. They take aim at Burke. She slams the shield into the ground. A barrier forms around her, the hostage guard, and the shard head prisoner. He grabs her by the neck. She strikes his arm with the Buster. Uppercuts with her now free hand. Spit flies up out of the shard head’s mouth. He falls on his back. Jumps up to swipe for her gut. She fires her Spirit Blaster. The prisoner goes flying out of the barrier. Dead.

Then a huge explosion goes off. They destroyed the Hyperplane. Burke growls. Looks at the guard she saved.

“You ok?” she asks reluctantly. The terrified guard simply nods. She nods in return, flashing a fake smile.

Picking up the shield, the barrier dissipates into decagonal particles. She leaps into a soar once more, blocking incoming fire. She turns to see the panel for the pressurized screen. Burke fires the Spirit Buster at it. The screen comes down, locking her in the docking dome.

She continues to fly towards the transparent shielding.

“Have mercy on me,” the paladin prays. “For in you I take refuge.”

The dome shatters! Burke flies out into space. Hurdling toward Earth, she slams the shield onto her chest. The barrier forms around her. Then, her visor goes dark.

In her mind, she floats in the depths of a rainbow sea. Her helmet is off. She opens her eyes. Bubbles begin to break free of her hostage breath. After a moment, she lets go. And the Platinum Paladin drifts into the shadows of the prismatic abyss.

TO BE CONTINUED