Partners in Crime: The Sandman

Partners in Crime: The Sandman

Having been out of town doing some goon work for an outfit down in South America to pay the bills, Flint Marko, the elemental villain known as the Sandman had missed the initial wave of changes that swept over the underworld of New York City.  But one phone call later, and he was sitting in a quiet bar, meeting with Electro, an old associate from the Frightful Four and the Sinister Six. The whole idea seemed a little far-fetched, but he couldn’t argue with the results.  The heroes were on the ropes, not able to cope with villains who suddenly had reliable help.

“You should see the webhead trying to keep up with all of us now, Flint. He’s running himself ragged.”

The smugness in Max Dillon’s voice was thick, and why shouldn’t it be? After all, his partner, Jani, was a good-looking woman with a brain to match. Seems she’d been a scientist before hooking up with him, and now the two of them were making a pitch to Marko.  He was listening mostly because he and Dillon went back years, having been a part of multiple villainous teams. The two of them had worked well together, even when their intellectual superiors didn’t.  Probably because both of them were blue-collar folks and not the master planners with big schemes.

“Like I was saying, we’ve got the means to help get you in on this action, Flint. All we need a little DNA and you’ll have someone on your side in no time at all.”

Of course, that quickly became the rub of the situation. Since that day on the beach way down south, Flint didn’t really have flesh and blood like other folks.  So providing a sample for this Imprinting Chamber thing they were talking about was going to be a lot easier said than done.

“Unless a bucket of sand is gonna work, I don’t think yer machine is gonna be of any use to me…”

Then came the slight wag of a finger from Jani, who had a grin like the proverbial cat that ate the early bird on her face.  She explained quickly that the chamber could be modified, altered to fit this particular set of circumstances. Of course, such alterations would require some more esoteric materials.

“But I happen to know where we can get our hands on most of them, including the ironsand.  Plus we’re going to need a lot more power, but I think Max and I can take care of that part.”

Flint raised an eyebrow, not sure where she was going with all of this. However, the former Horizon Lab scientist assured him that all he needed to worry about now was who was going to be get to be the new partner of the Sandman.

“Oh, that part’s easy. I’ve had someone in mind since we started talkin’.  She’s somebody I owe a lot to, and I think this might be my best chance to square away that debt once and for all…”

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It was after midnight in Manhattan, but the woman on the corner didn’t seemed bothered by that fact or even the slight chill in the night air. Silver Sablinova, the mercenary that most of the world knew better as Silver Sable, was dressed in a dark grey trench coat, which did a lot to conceal the tight silver bodysuit she was wearing underneath. Her platinum blond was tucked under a matching scarf, as she scanned the dimly lit street for a sign of her old friend and ally, William Baker, the Sandman. The call from him had been out of the blue, but she’d long ago made a choice to leave the door open for him to come back to the side of the angels.  She had never and would never turn her back on a teammate, especially not one who’d been through what the Sandman had.

His return to a life of villainy had been quite sudden, and had burned a lot of the bridges he’d built with those folks in the superhero community who had stood up for him, like the Avengers and Spider-man. But not with her. Silver’s mercenary instincts told her that something else was going on with him. The subsequent “chat” she’d had with the Wizard in a quiet room in the middle of a secure building had confirmed it.   But by then, the Sandman had gone on quite the rampage, and few folks were willing to give him another chance, even knowing about the extenuating circumstances.

She’d reached out to him, but he rejected the offer, telling her that William Baker was dead and buried for good.  She’d kept some tabs on him, hoping that he might reconsider, and now it seemed that he had.  Silver had readily accepted his request that they meet alone, as she suspected he was probably afraid that most of those he’d betrayed would be more inclined to try to capture him instead of talk. Besides which, Silver knew she was more than capable of handling herself in a tight situation, not that she thought it would come to that.  He’d seemed quite sincere in his desire to just talk about the old days when he worked for her as part of the Wild Pack.

From the shadows behind the Symkarian mercenary, something began to form into a humanoid shape.  The form moved quite quietly for its size, as it raised a single fist up over the unsuspecting Sable’s head. The sudden blow that followed left her dazed, even as she tumbled forward. Coming back up with a blaster in her right hand and her headscarf shed, she looked around for her attacker. But nothing could be seen.

“Baker? Is that you? I thought you wanted to talk. Not fight…”

Suddenly, her field of vision was blocked by a whirlwind of dust and dirt.  Silver coughed and tried to roll out of it, but it clung to her doggedly.  Her blaster went flying off as something solid connected with her hand, which was followed by another blow to the side of her head.  This time, she was knocked out cold, but she never fell to the ground.  For out of the swirl of sand, the Sandman formed his human shape, carrying her in his arms towards a nearby warehouse.

=====

Inside the warehouse was a setup out of a mad scientist’s fevered dreams. A large chamber of metal  and transparent materials had been constructed. Feeding into it were various tubes, while crudely constructed control panels flashed with red light. Standing at one of the panels, Jani Dillion motioned for the Sandman to place his guest inside the main chamber, whose door opened with a hiss.  The elemental villain complied, and placed his former employer down on the floor before making an exit. Behind him, the chamber door swung close and locked itself with a loud clunk.  

The unconscious Silver Sable lay still on the metal floor of the chamber, as a tesla coil that glowed with a blue energy lowered itself into position above her.  Along the bottom of the chamber,   vents opened and a flow of sand begin to fill the chamber.  But this was not merely the stuff you’d find on a beach. It had been mixed with a large quantity of ironsand and a significant sample of the substance that made up the Sandman’s body.

Jani looked over at her partner, and the electrified villain began charging up a pair of cables that been carefully looped around the topmost portion of the outer shell of the chamber. As the electrical powered flowed through the heavy copper cables,  the ironsand inside the chamber began to react. Lifted by the sudden electromagnetic waves, it swirled around the silver-haired mercenary, who had begun to stir. This swirling in turn kicked up the rest of the sand, leaving her trapped in a miniature sandstorm. It was at this moment that Jani hit a switch on her control panel, and there was a sudden burst of blue light that lit up the whole warehouse.

Inside the chamber, Silver Sable had been tossed around by the swirling mass of sand, trying to stand up.  But then came the blue light and things suddenly changed.  The swirl began to subside, but now her body felt heavier. As she struggled to raise her arms to shield her face from the biting sands, she saw them crumble into sand! She tried to scream, but the rest of her body had begun to follow suit. There was a slight whump as the sandy material that had once been a skilled mercenary hit the floor of the chamber.

=====

Outside, Flint Marko was a bit horrified at the result.  This was not what he’d expected at all, and he turned angrily towards Electro and his partner, looking for answers. But the pair only had wide grins on their faces, as they looked past him towards the now still chamber.  Marko turned his head, and saw a scene that looked very familiar to him, having experienced something similar on a long forgotten beach years ago.

In the mass of sand that covered the floor of the chamber, something was moving.  Its form was fluid, as it writhed back and forth.  But slowly, it began to coalesce into the outline of a humanoid form.  It was this shape that began to rise up from the sand, gaining more definition as it did.  Certain female attributes became more apparent, as it stood up and shook away the excess sand from itself.

As the sand fell away, the changes to the former Silver Sable were remarkable.  Her pale skin had taken on the bronze tone of a life-long beachgoer, while her arms and legs seemed more muscular than before.  Her platinum blonde locks that had been shoulder-length were now a mass of thick brunette curls that hung past her shoulder toward the small of her back.  Her trademark silver bodysuit was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a pair of khaki booty shorts and a green-striped tube top. These new clothes helped to emphasize her increased bust line and the expansion of her thighs and buttocks.

The new woman stumbled forward, a hand on her head even as she unconsciously absorbed more sand from the floor of the chamber.  Her memories were a jumbled mess, a strange mix of her own and Marko’s.  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to sort out what had happened to her, and why she felt so…different now.

As if on cue, a speaker crackled to life inside the chamber, and she turned towards the sudden sound of a woman’s voice speaking to her, opening her eyes and her ears.

“Are you alright, Sylvia?”

That name seemed to resonate with the former mercenary, as her memories began to coalesce around it. She was Sylvia….Marko. That’s right. She remembered now.

“You had Flint worried there for a moment, but you should be fine now. We’ve managed to restore your powers…”

As the word sunk it, the gaps in her memory filled themselves in, taking from her old life, and the traces of Marko’s had been infused into her very DNA. She remembered how she’d been just another merc working for a string of would-be criminal mastermind until she’d fallen in with Flint. How she’d gained powers like his, thanks to some genetic tinkering by the Wizard.  Once that ball started rolling, it didn’t take long for the last traces of Silver Sable to vanish into the mental depths of Sylvia Marko, the stunning Sandwoman.

====

There were few heavy hitters could truly stand up the Sandman, let alone now that he was backed up by his new partner. With Electro and his lady handling the details, the foursome that they formed soon made themselves are a force to be reckoned with in the underworld.  Their success meant that more than a few heads were turned towards the notion of getting their own partners in crime…