"Who... is back?" Adem asked.
Link sighed, a long and painful sigh that shattered what was left of his relaxed persona. "It started in the 90's. The 1890's, I mean.
"During my missions with the Rogues... I suppose you know of them by now... I travelled the world and explored many places I'm guessing few of you have even heard of. I got plenty of pussy, too, although that's not here nor there." His grin returned for a short moment, only to disappear once he got back to the subject at hand. "After we broke up, for several reason, I continued to travel on my own and had many adventures. My system for finding adventure was following rumours and fantastic stories, that led me to meet strange places and stranger people.
"But without a doubt, the stranger one of the stories I heard was the one about myself. I heard it constantly: a person of my exact same characterisitics, minus my charming personality, terrorizing people like a savage. What was stranger was that I heard the story in places oceans apart one from the other. Finally, I followed one of the leads and found this individual. Indeed, he was a savage inarticulate version of myself, running around in rags and scaring people when he wasn't bumping into walls. What a bizarre situation, I thought.
"Then it hit me: what happens when you split a worm in two? Exactly. For every lost body part I'd lost and left behind in the past, and I'd lost a lot, there was a brainless replica of myself with my same powers. It took me little more than a decade to hunt down and kill these extremely handsome monsters. Luckily, their bodies weren't exactly flesh and blood, but a poor imitation of it instead... they could heal any wound, but a simple fire would destroy them forever.
"After that I was always careful to burn every lost body part after the end of my adventures. By the 1920s I was semi-retired and had almost forgotten of my clones. Then something happened that took me out of my retirement: by chance I stumbled into a worldwide conspiracy to send the world into chaos.
"I assembled a team of people like myself, much like Mr. Kaleidoscope did 30 years before me, and lead it to the heart of this conspiracy. We were truimphant, and after our first mission was over we agreed to stay together and protect the world from the shadows. Because of our similar goals and pecularities, we soon became a group of friends more than a group of teammates. Sound familiar?
"One day I returned to our secret headquarters in New York after a short vacation, and found it devoid of its characteristic activity, empty. I started checking my friends' individual rooms, for the faint possibility that they might all be doing something individually... and that's when the nightmare began.
"I still remember clearly walking into each one of their rooms and finding them murdered in the most horrible ways. I cried each one of their deaths and continued to search the headquarters for any clues that might lead me to the killer. And then I got to my room... and found myself waiting for me.
"He was one of my duplicates, no doubt... But he was different. His eyes were red, a devilish kind of red, and what's more, I could recognize something in him that the others didn't have: a spark of intelligence. We simply stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, my face filled with horror and his with a strange kind of satisfaction I've never been able to understand. What was most disturbing was the knowledge that my friends died thinking I'd betrayed them. If he was able to beat every one of my friends, this duplicate was tougher than the other ones: it would take more than a fire to get rid of him.
"As I was about to make my movement, he shot me in the stomach, and before I fainted, he kneeled next to me and whispered in my ear: 'Don't worry. I'll only kill you when you have nothing to live for'.
"I spent the next years searching for him, to avenge the death of my friends, but I couldn't. That's when I started suspecting that the only purpose in his life was tormenting me: he didn't mind waiting for decades, if it meant getting me when I least expected it.
"I don't know if I've explained you why my powers work or how I've lived this long... The thing is I have absolute control over my freakish metabolism. That means I can accelerate it when needed, to heal any wounds, and I can also stop it at will to prevent aging. As a consequence of this, the only isntances in which I age are when I'm healing myself. During the following decades I didn't age at all. I was completely retired from any kind of adventurous activity, and I hardly had any human interaction at all.
“My life was miserable. I didn't want to form any kind of relationship with anyone for fear that they might be killed by my replica, but also I guess I was hoping that, if I made my life miserable enough, he'd finally come for me and take me like he promised. I was fooling myself by thinking this... If I wanted, I could have killed myself by accelerating my metabolism until I died of old age, but, though I thought of that many times, I never did it, because for some reason my faith in the future was never lost... and I think he knew this, and wanted to wait until even that faith was gone to finish me.
"My loner period ended in the 60's... when I discovered rock and roll music. I heard the Beatles on the radio in 1964, and just had to see them by myself. I returned to the UK, and spent that year seeing bands like The Who and The Stones, always keeping my distance from other people, out of fear of doing them harm.
"But we humans are made for human interaction. I just couldn't help it. I made friends, I took part of the revolution of the flowers, and even made my own band, and then... nothing happened. He didn't strike. I allowed myself to be happy for the first time in decades. I still missed my days as an adventurer more than anything, but I knew that doing that would be pushing my luck.
"One day, in the 70's, a strange young man appeared at my door. He had been tracking me down for a month. He spoke of a great threat, an immediate danger that was threatening the world, and how my experience was needed to prevent the destruction of society. I told him I would think about it. I knew the dangers full well... but how could I turn my back to the world? We agreed to meet again in a week, after I'd had plenty of time to think. Before a day had passed, I decided I would do it.
"The following week he appeared dead on my doorstep. There was a not over his corpse... it said 'Just a friendly reminder.' And you know what I did? I listened to him. I left saving the world to others. I didn't even consider going back to my adventuring times after that. If anyone ever approached me with any kind of proposition of that matter, I'd refuse to listen and walk away. After that I never called myself Gerardo Gorm again, to make sure that nobody searching for any surviving Rogues could track me down.
"That's when I started amassing my forutne and living the good life. As materialistic as the 80's were for the world, they were even more materialistic for me. I decided to stop worrying and enjoy myself... and why not? It was only saving the world what seemed to get on my personal killer's nerves. You have no idea how many times I wished my business rivals would just ask me to join their superhero team during the 80's... All I had to do was say yes, and I'd have one less rival.
"But... people change, I don't care what others say. When I heard about The Revolutionaries running around America while I was sitting comfrotably in my living room, I could barely contain myself to look them up and join them. And then they changed their name to Vanguard and opened a branch in Europe, not too far from myself. In my eyes, that was a sign. But still, I couldn't endanger their lives. So what could I do?
"And then I came up with the perfect plan. Surely adventurers must need people who pay for their expensive gadgets... And, how about that, I happen to have lots of money. So I decided to join Vanguard Euope, but instead of being another gifted adventurer, I was just a crazy powerless millionaire. How could my double even suspect it was me?
"But I didn't count on my secret coming out during our first mission. I quit the team as soon as we got back home. What else could I do? I'd already endangared you by giving you that knowledge, and every day I stayed with you would only endager you further. My only comfort was the certainty that you're better than any other team I've ever been part of, so if the killer decided to strike you he'd get one heck of a fight.
"But now... You're telling me Jack and the descendants of the other Rogues have been killed by someone like me. It's him. There's no doubt. I didn't directly kill those people, but in the end it's my decision of joining your team what caused those deaths."
Drake sat next to Link. "Not all the other descendants are dead, Link. We figured out who the next victim would be and we're protecting her.”
“But if he sees any of you with her...” Link began.
“Don't worry,” Drake said. “We have a plan.”
