It just hadn't worked. There were mistakes, maybe. Missteps. But now what to do?
The pale necromancer walked alone through his private quarters, reflecting on his past decisions. He thought back on the steps that had brought him to this point in time. He remembered his youth as a soldier, fighting along side the Super Hero. He felt the weight of rings upon his hand, reminding him of his once deadly sharp-shooting. He remembered being assimilated by the Machine when he was a little bit older, and he had foggy, dream-like memories of his cyborg life within that construct. When the Machine eventually purged him, he knew that there was not enough humanity left within him to fight as a soldier, but perhaps he could fight another way. Winning wars had lined his pockets well, and he could use that wealth to affect the war from beyond the battlefield. The once young sharp-shooter invested his money in an army, and began to study the ways of war as a scholar, not as a soldier.
Over the course of the next few years, the man watched as his investment paid off. The army had developed into a surprisingly potent force, and as their skills and abilities made them well-known, their fortunes increased. They were the People of the Sun, and their brilliance in action was matched only by the break-neck speed at which they executed those actions.
But there was one problem. The Machine.
Slow and plodding and mechanical, the Machine was the opposite of the People's army. The People of the Sun were free-flowing and creative and quick. They had an offensive efficiency that rained long-range bombs on their enemies with overwhelming frequency. There seemed no logic in the fact that they could not defeat the cyborgs, but in the final stretches of the war, some twist of luck would go against them, and the Machine would gleam triumphantly.
This was very troubling to the investor. It seemed to him as if the Machine continued to take from him, even after it had taken the last of his physical ability. The Machine had used him to help win a war then cast him aside, but would not allow him to enjoy post-purge success. The pale man was determined to change this, and went to the People of the Sun to leverage his investment.
In the course of his studies, the man had ventured into knowledge of the dark arts. He made it known to the other investors of the army that he knew unspeakable things and that he could use that knowledge to overcome the Machine. They were uncertain, but accepted, because they feared there was no other solution.
They were wrong. Tragically so.
The first act the necromancer performed once he was given the keys to the keep was a magical mass murder. He poisoned the soldiers to put them into a coma, using their sleeping bodies as a staging ritual. While they slept and dreamed, he sacrificed one of them to conjure a demon from Hell. The demon was monstrous and powerful, and his arrival sent such a psychic shockwave through the assembled men that they died instantly without ever again opening their living eyes. The demon then revived the army into undeath, and christened himself the Big Resurrection.
The People of the Sun were at once changed forever, and renamed themselves the Followers of the Sun, for the light of day was something they were never going to see again. The arms dealer, D'Antoni, who had previously been the facilitator of their quick and deadly attack style, was uncomfortable with the dark conversion of these soldiers who had been his friends, and soon packed his bags and headed east. His departure came just days after the undead Followers had been put out of another war by the cyborgs of the Machine.
The necromancer had continued making changes to the army that dismantled the old, fast, rapid-attack force that had been so promising. They were slower. They were attacking less. They were not winning as much. He had been so certain that the changes he had made were going to be the right ones, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that he had been wrong.
A decision must be made. The necromancer was standing in the chamber that the Followers revelled in after the sun set. At the moment, they were corpses, scattered about the room in repose during the daylight hours. The Big Resurrection was a hulking mass of decay in the center of the room. Amare was gently decomposing at his piano, waiting for the moonlight to restore his un-life. Nash was flat on his back on the floor, arms behind his head, looking like he would come to life and start doing sit-ups.
In the necromancer's left hand was the nozzle of a spray gun, the hose of which ran to a tank on his back. The tank was filled with gasoline. Highly flammable gasoline. In the necromancer's right hand was a revolver, loaded with a single bullet. He slumped down onto a plush chair and looked around at his dead men. He looked at his left hand, then at his right. His left again, then his right.
Something had to be done. But he could not decide which trigger to pull.
