Lionheart Chronicles, Issue #001

Issue #001 – – – – – controlled by Fraser Machin – – – – – Credits 4

The Man Made Entirely Of Rough Pieces Of Granite smashed Lionheart to the ground again.  He hit hard, the breath blasting out of him.  His head was ringing.  His left eye was swollen nearly closed.  His right ankle was throbbing and had ceased to carry his weight some time ago.

“Kill him, kill him,” the blood-crazed crowd screamed, their excitement, rage and fear mingling like some chemical mood enhancer in the air.  They were high but not on anything as mundane as weed or coke – they were high on hatred and violence.  It made for a toxic atmosphere.

Lionheart got to his feet, surprised that Rocky didn’t just club him down.  Rocky!  Lionheart managed to amuse himself even when he was having the living crap kicked out of him.  He raised his eyes to the giant before him.  It huffed heavy breathes from somewhere within that colossal stony body.  Lionheart mused that this indicated the thing had lungs.  Well, of course it had lungs!  It wasn’t a freakin’ alien, was it?  It just looked like one.

“Okay, big fella'” Lionheart grunted between cracked and bleeding lips.  “I might have to stop holding back now.”  As quips go, it wasn’t great.  But then Lionheart wasn’t feeling so great just at that moment.  Half an hour of this behemoth punching him twelve ways to Sunday will do that to a guy.

“Kill him!” The crowd screamed some more.  Their rhetoric, while colourful, wasn’t exactly creative.  “Tear off his head!”  Ah, Lionheart thought.  That’s better.  Must be some academic haters among the mob.  Or maybe a media consultant, or something?

The Man Made Entirely Of Rough Pieces Of Granite came forwards to fulfill his fans’ wish.  Lionheart didn’t know if that was actually what he was called.  It seemed a bit overlong, but frankly he’d been too busy getting seven bells smashed out of him to come up with a pithy name for his opponent and nobody had politely introduced them beforehand.  So it would have to do for now.

“Look, buddy,” he said as the monster loomed over him, “If you’re after a kiss, I ain’t judging ya’ – each to his own.  But I don’t swing that way.”

Roaring, The Man Made Entirely Of Rough Pieces Of Granite swung both massive hands down at the hero’s head.  Tough or not, this was likely to be the last thing Lionheart ever saw.  Which was a shame, since he had no idea whatsoever how he got here or where he had been previously.  He wasn’t even entirely sure who the hell he was.  These things, Lionheart thought glumly, were probably important.  Ah well, no time for that now.  There was an unstoppable force coming directly at him and his skull was definitely not an immovable object.