"Silence is golden, so I'm told at least. I'd say it was more like crimson, to be brutally honest." He smiled a toothy smile, the cigarette blistering between his fingers. "They say the world will end in one of three ways; Fire, water or neglect. I'm here to ensure that the world gets all the neglect it requires."

"Who are you?" The young man in the Union Jack shirt whispered, tears of crimson running from his eyes as his hands let slip the dark cube he had been holding and clattered to the ground.

"I am the last man at the end of the world." The stranger hissed. "I'm here to ensure that everything goes according to our plan."

From deep within the folds of his dark uniform, the smiling man withdrew a long silver implement, its edges gleaming in the pale moonlight.

The young man moved a step backward into the violated area of the murder scene, the chair behind him still burning from where the last victim had been sacrificed.

The stranger stepped closer, the blade losing its shine as he crossed the threshold of the room. The man in the Union Jack could see him clearly now.

He was short, his hair cut in an unflattering mop of greasy, black hair and his features slightly Oriental. The uniform he wore was made of a shining black plastic, the kind the other had not seen before.

"You won't get away with this." The Union Jack clad man protested, backing up as far as he could go.

"Oh, I think I will." The stranger smiled. "In fact, I know I will. You see, we have been amongst your pathetic societies for a long time now and we have seen all that we need see to bring about your downfall. You were never as important as you would have liked to believe. You are nothing but fodder for the gods."

"Who are you?" The younger man screamed once more.

"We are your brothers, my young friend." The stranger whispered. "We are the emissaries of Planet X!"

And with that, the blade descended...

"Strange things are afoot in England, my friend." The Snob lifted his head and matched Miracleman's gaze.

He was a thin man, his skin reflecting an almost anaemic quality. His suit was also immaculate. Fifty years old, worn everyday and never washed, and it was still the most pristine suit in all of London.

Miracleman suppressed his urge to hit the Snob and instead nodded silently and looked into the glowing tongues of fire that ran like liquid up the chimney.

The sudden sound of gunfire awakened his senses and he rushed to the window hauling it open even as the Snob said:

"I shouldn't worry."

Miracleman paused and frowned.

The Snob rose from his chair and pointed in the direction of Black Step Lane. It took Miracleman a moment or two to pull his eyes away from Hawksmoor's Church of Little Saint Hugh. Something was wrong with the church - it was if he were looking at it through a telescope and attempting to adjust the lens.

He shook his head and then followed the Snob's finger down towards the vast gardens of the Cambridge Club.

A young man stood with a pistol of sorts in his hand, a target smoking before him as he dusted himself down.

"That's James." The Snob beamed proudly. "That one will go far."

Miracleman straightened up and turned to face the Snob.

"Why am I here?" He asked bluntly.

The Snob frowned a little at the Science Hero's bluntness and then sat himself back down in his armchair.

"You are here, my dear fellow, because someone is killing the King's heroes. I was anticipating that he might have got to you first but alas, no such luck. I want you to find out who the murderer is and put an end to this farce."

Miracleman shook his head.

"It's not my jurisdiction." He replied, his tone as cold as ice.

A scowl descended upon the Snob's face and his eyes gleamed with danger.

"I'm afraid it is." He snapped in hushed tones. "As your direct superior in matters of the Mystery Society, I want you to find this murderer and stop him."

Miracleman stood silent for a moment.

"And if I refuse?" He questioned.

"You wouldn't dare refuse me." The Snob said with authority.

The Science Hero remained calm, although the Snob observed the tightening of his fists.

"I think that I do dare, Gabriel." He finally announced. "In fact, I know that I dare."

The Snob sat in his chair, a look of astonishment discolouring his angelic features.

"But..." He protested.

"I quit." Miracleman announced loudly so that all the other 'gentlemen' in the establishment could hear him. "Damn you to Hell and your Mystery Society. I won't be a party to this charade, any longer."

"You can't!" The Snob shouted, pushing the chair back with such force that it toppled almost into the fire. "You can't quit just like that."

"I believe I already have done." Miracleman exclaimed. "Two weeks ago I stood on the boarders of France and Germany and saw what the future held for this golden age of yours, Gabriel. I think that if you look deep enough then even you - even your Father - would see how tarnished this gold you hoard has truly become. I want no part in this war." For the first time since he arrived, the Science Hero allowed himself a smile. "And I hope you don't find yourself losing at a game of your own making."

And with that, he turned his back on the Snob and leapt from the window...

***

Bernie Ohls removed his hat as he viewed the mutilated corpse of the Science Hero. The skin was a dull grey, tinged by the occasional trench of burning crimson.

"The same place where we found that punk, Eddie Campbell." Ohls mused, turning his hat around in his hands. "Anyone know who this joker was?" He shouted to the uniformed officers who hung around the scene like flies hang around shit.

A slightly overweight Irish officer named Murphy made his way over to where Ohls was standing and crossed himself, like any devout Catholic would.

"You know who this clown is?" Ohls reiterated his question.

"That I do, sir." Murphy replied solemnly. "This here was Kid Albion, an Englishman but a fine gent none the less, God rest his soul."

Ohls scowled into the thin morning air. He was not accustomed to being woken so early and having to get a train halfway across the country just to view a simple homicide.

"Any good reason for having me brought out of LA for this?" He snapped.

Murphy looked up at the Los Angeles District Attorney and frowned slightly.

"If I were you, sir," He whispered, his voice rough, like he had eaten a mouthful of gravel for breakfast. "I'd be asking myself what in God's name an English Science Hero is doing with his head all but torn off in the back room of a shitty New York bar."

He nodded once and then walked away, taking with him Ohls' furious glare.

***

Faustus looked out over the red sands, the scowl that he had worn when Mephostophilis first brought him here now, for all purposes and intents, permanently attached to his face.

"And you, little more but a voice in the wilderness, would have one such as I believe that this surface we now stand upon is the heavenly body of Mars?" He questioned, turning back to the vast wall of incomprehensible machinery.

"Yes." The computer almost sighed by way of reply.

"Me thinks not." Faustus scoffed. "For surely this is little more than a stage upon which two-penny actors are likely to flaunt the plays of damnable scholars for the delight of those with more wealth than sense. Jest not with me, oh voiceless one, and tell me where we are really."

"As I have told you almost a hundred times before, Mister Faustus - "

"Doctor Faustus." The other interrupted.

"Very well, Doctor Faustus - As I have told you almost a hundred times before, this is Mars."

"Then surely you can permit me to leave this place." Faustus all but shouted.

"I didn't bring you here. You are an incorporeal being in this time, I can not move you and I certainly did not bring you here."

Faustus scowled in the wall's direction.

"And what of that brigand? That man that your costumed jester greeted with so many smiles and niceties?"

"Marlowe was brought here to be inaugurated into the Society, you were -"

A sudden shadow was cast over the surface and with a thundering crack the cave exploded.

The vast super computer exploded in a blossom of flames and shattered machinery as the cave folded in upon itself. Chunks of rock passed through Faustus' incorporeal body.

For a moment he remained where he stood as his mind tried to grasp exactly what had taken place and then despite his lack of a physical form, he felt a chill run down his spine. Instinctively, he looked up and his eyes widened with terror.

Hanging in the sky above him was a vast, silver disc about the size of a small city.

Faustus gasped in awe as the disc lowered itself to the planet's surface, metallic rods extending from its underbelly and pushing deep into the dust and soil.

In the distance, Faustus could just make out a vast dome stretching across a great ridge. His attention was soon snapped back to the great silver disc as a final opening in its underbelly appeared, revealing an archaic set of stainless metal steps.

The hole filled with light before the shadows took their place.

Faustus' spectral eyes grew wide with fear as the shadows began their descent.

The elderly scholar turned upon his heels and ran.

***

The flesh flowered, opening up and revealing a crimson and lavender architecture of internal organs and bones.

Bernie Ohls coughed quietly in the corner as he waited for the coroner to conclude his work, and lit a cheap cigarette.

He was tired and aching, the kind of pains that fill the body when you've been standing on your feet, examining a crime scene for ten hours straight.

The coroner turned and looked at him, his face never changing. Ohls must have met dozens of people in the same profession and each of them seemed to share the same face.

"Time of death?" He asked, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

"Three minutes past midnight." The mortician responded, dragging the transparent gloves from his hands and pulling the surgical mask away from his face. "Now Mister Ohls, would you mind answering one of my questions?"

Ohls shrugged, unused to taking the lead role in such a situation as this.

"Sure. If I know the answer, that is."

The coroner smiled mirthlessly.

"Over the past few weeks, there have been several ritualistic killings in the same room of the same building. Each victim died at three minutes past midnight. Why is that?"

Ohls forced a smile to his tired face.

"I haven't the faintest." He replied and turned the handle of the door.

***

The Snob coughed politely as the stench of cigarette smoke assaulted his nose.

Sitting in the chair opposite him was the tall, vampyric man he had sent half way across the world in order to tell a convincing lie.

"And that brings us to the end of our agreement, William." The Snob smiled as he leant forwards and deposited a thick manila envelope in the vampyre's lap.

William nodded and smiled sarcastically, the cigarette hanging from between his lips.

"Much obliged, squire." He said in that deepest, darkest London accent of his. "A pleasure doing business with you."

He rose from his chair and nodded in Gabriel's direction before making his way across the room. He stopped just before the door and heaved a large bottle of champagne from its cooler then, without, looking back, he vanished into the streets below.

The Snob brought his fingers up in a pyramid and smiled quietly to himself.

***

The world quietly slipped away. No dust, no horizon only the infinite expanse of stars and planets.

Faustus spun whirly about the vast red globe, his stomach lurching as the planet's gravity pushed him in a ring around the world at an almost incomprehensible speed.

He had run off the edge of the world and now was forever doomed to orbit a planet infested with vast silver discs.

He cursed his misfortune and sighed inwardly, closing his spectral eyes for a moment.

The vacuum was quiet, a lonely grave where no man walked and one sixteenth century scholar orbited a ball of earth and sod.

Space was a bastard, he concluded privately.

***

Miracleman stood at a distance from the church and watched the sun set over London.

It was a cold day, a prelude to Christmas and after that, the new year.

Behind him lay the Mystery Society and all its complexities, ahead of him lay the uncertainty of the future.

He looked up at the sky. The first stars were coming out and beyond that more uncertainty.

With a heavy heart, Miracleman lifted his feet from the ground and tore into the lining of the sky, leaving a world behind him that was overflowing with heroes in their gaudy costumes, each one nursing a private childhood trauma or drinking deep from a well of super soldier serum.

It was dead to him now.

***

"Broken chair, floor, outline, blood, broken chair, floor, outline, blood, broken chair, floor, outline, blood, broken chair, floor, outline, blood."

Bernie Ohls rubbed his tired his eyes with his forefinger and thumb and whispered his silent mantra.

There was something wrong here; something that linked the vanishing murderer and the corpse. It had happened before and they had not been able to solve the puzzle and here it was again. Different victim, same modus operandi.

He lit another cigarette and pulled the chair up with his free hand, placing all his weight on the wooden seat so as to stop him from falling over with exhaustion.

There was a wild card in this game, something he didn't quite understand.

The single bulb swung slowly in a pendulum above him, casting its light from one corner to another until a sudden glimpse caught his eye.

He leapt from the chair, his body suddenly reinvigorated and dived into the right hand corner of the room. His hands clasped something hard and cold and he retrieved a small black and gold metal cube from the corner of the room.

He frowned slightly, puzzling over what the box was and if it had any real significance and then a piece moved in his hands.

It was a puzzle!

He shook the tiredness that threatened to encroach upon him once more away with the toss of his head and hardly registered that the atmosphere in the room grew colder with every passing second.

His attention was now entirely focused on the puzzle.

***

"What art thou playing at, bafoon?" A voice cried out in Faustus' head.

His eyes snapped open and he turned to see the leering face of Mephostophilis looking down at him.

"Oh, woe is me." Faustus lamented. "For I am destined to forever orbit this world, one and the same with the heavenly bodies."

"Idiot!" The daemon cried out. "Thou art no more real here than a ghost. Come away from that world, I say!"

Faustus frowned and then shrugged and moved slightly. His incorporeal body detached itself from the planet's orbit and he discovered himself not as destined to woe as he might have once thought.

"Oh." He said, a little crestfallen that he no longer had any good reason for his lamentations.

Mephostophilis rolled its large, yellow eyes and then snatched Faustus by the arm, digging its claws into his ghost-aspect.

"Come, there are many more worlds and many more times to visit 'fore thy hour is over. Let us away!" It bellowed.

"Yes," Faustus murmured. "Many more times. Take me to the Pope, thou wretched daemon. I wish to make jest at the fool's size and impotence. That should be more entertaining than this dull, red world of talking walls and great silver circles."

"Aye." The daemon smiled. "A little jest at his eminence's table would not go awry. Come, we are gone!"

Time and space shimmered about the two and they vanished into the mists beyond, leaving no trace of their existence but the ever-revolving red planet of an unclaimed world...

***

Hiro sat down at his terminal and watched the flickering image of the Caucasian man, his mouth open in mid-speech as he rambled aimlessly in that awkward Earthen that both were forced to use in order to communicate.

"What is the mission status?" The Englishman questioned.

Hiro smiled darkly.

"Everything is running smoothly, Gabriel." He reassured the image. "The super-computer has been destroyed and the scholar and his pet daemon have fled. We only await permission to awaken God from his slumber once more."

Gabriel frowned a little. It was strange hearing these aliens talk of God.

"Consider the permission given, Hiro." The Snob responded.

Hiro bowed slightly.

"Thank you, my friend." He said and, still smiling, he flicked the communicator off.

Slowly he turned in his chair to face his slender first officer.

"We have work to do," He announced, rising from his chair. "Ready the craft for the God's awakening."

***

The puzzle box clicked into place before him, unfolding within his hands.

Without warning, the metal object began to radiate heat, causing Ohls to drop it to the dank, damp floorboards and stand staring at the mystery.

A million questions raced through his mind as he tried to comprehend the unfolding of the box until he noticed something dark sliver inside its unknown symmetries.

He reached closer with his right hand and suddenly a spiked chain burst forth from the box and sliced through the palm of his hand with a satisfying crunch of bones and blood spilling onto the floor.

"Jesus!" He screamed out in agony as a second chain uncoiled and pierced his left hand, knocking him to the floor.

Desperately, he began to crawl across the filth-encrusted floors and away from the box to where the upturned chair resided.

"There is no escape." A voice called out from behind him but he did not hear it, all he could focus on was a relief for the pain that coursed through his body.

With bloodied hands he reached out for the chair...

Trickling streams of crimson touched the floorboards where the chair had once stood and Bernie Ohls felt fire consume his body.

He screamed out once more but there was no air left for him to pull into his lungs.

There was nothing, nothing but red...

***

The Snob made his way through the labyrinthine streets of London; his thick Cambridge scarf wrapped around his neck and the lapels of his long coat turned up over that.

He stopped outside of Christ Church, seeing the shadowy figure standing atop the steps, his silver hair gleaming in the light.

The man smiled a little, his black coat billowing about him in the cold winter air.

"Good evening, Gabriel." He smiled accommodatingly.

The Snob felt shivers run down his spine but that was only to be expected, especially as this man had gone to Oxford and not Cambridge.

"Good evening, Mister Majistra." The Snob replied mutely.

"Is all going according to plan?" Majistra questioned, his voice polite yet dangerous.

"It is." Gabriel replied proudly. "The Mystery Society have closed down. Our latest reports indicate that Miracleman has left the planet, Faustus and Mephostophilis have departed this time zone and the Noir computer itself has been destroyed."

"And what of Doctor Vulcan?" Majistra probed further.

"He will not have the strength to move against us. That necromantic cult of his is weak, their command of magic only minimal."

"Excellent." Majistra hissed. "How have our 'brothers' from Planet X taken this news?"

"They are preparing to raise the beast as we speak, sir." Gabriel responded.

Mister Majistra clapped his hands together with delight, despite the cold.

"This is good news, my friend." He smiled. "Inform your reserve Mystery Society that they are active as of now. I trust they are loyal?"

"Very loyal, sir."

Majistra nodded.

"Then I leave it in your capable hands, Mister Gabriel." He said and turned his back.

He took a few steps towards the church and then stopped, turning to face the Snob once more.

"Oh, and one other thing." He purred. "An old 'friend' of mine should be making his appearance soon. Stay away from him, at all costs. When he arrives, I'll deal with him myself."

"As you say, sir." The Snob replied.

Mister Majistra nodded one more time and then vanished into the darkness beyond the church's threshold.

***

"We've intercepted a traveller," The first officer announced, the heels of her boots clicking in a rhythm against the metallic floor. "We believe he may have been an agent of Vulcan's."

"Is he contained?" Hiro asked, once more resting within his uncomfortable chair.

"He is." The first officer nodded.

"Good, I shall question him later. For now, we have more important matters to attend to."

He turned the gleaming black frequencies of his eyes towards the main viewscreen.

"Transmit our prayers, Alita," He whispered. "It is time for the whole world to know the face of our Lord."

She nodded, clicked her heels once more and flicked a switch on the operations console and Hiro leant forwards in his chair.

The image of calm, soothing water that filled the viewscreen bubbled violently and then exploded as a monstrous reptilian form pushed its way to the surface, its great bulk blotting out the sun.

"Master..." Hiro whispered, standing up and moving closer to the viewscreen. "Master, we have summoned you from your fitful sleep. We know you have awakened recently, we heard your calls when you attacked the Earth-men but a handful of X days ago. Now, Master, show this pitiful race your rage, show them that you, the almighty, are displeased with their ways. Show them the true face of GODZILLA!"

The great creature bellowed in response and vomited forth a spray of fire that decimated the oceans, then, placing one giant foot in front of the other; it made its way closer to the coast of Japan.

"It has begun!" Hiro laughed. "The end of the world has begun!"

He threw his head back and laughed maniacally, his mirth echoing through the guts of the silver spacecraft.

"They say the world will end in one of three ways; Fire, water or neglect." Alita whispered quietly to herself. "This time, there can be no salvation from the fire."

She turned and left the bridge, Hiro's laughter still echoing in her ears.

Of all the endings of all the worlds, this was not one she would have prayed for.

Silently she turned a corner and headed in the direction of the transport cells. Deep in her heart, she prayed there was still a chance for salvation...

Not just for her, but for the entire world...