There is a certain Devil who has been making contracts with humans for a few centuries now and has acquired enough souls that he’s pretty well off by devil standards. He’s rich, in fact. But now he’s kinda bored. Tricking humans into selling their souls has lost its lustre for him. In his quest to find something different in life, he hit upon an idea: He would take some of those suffering in his hell and give them a chance for freedom. The Devil provided them with new physical bodies, with magic powers and helicopters, and with codenames. The selected souls would have to fight one another, the winner getting to go free for all eternity!

Voiceless

Voiceless sold his soul for musical talent. He had a good career as a blue musician while he lived, but in the end his soul went to the Devil’s realm. There, he was rendered unable to make music at all as a punishment. But now that he’s part of the Hell of Copters contest, Voiceless can make music again. He still can’t sing (hence the name), but his special helicopter attacks include sonic shockwave strums and scrambling sonars with harmonica riffs. He fights for his freedom so that someday he might be able to make music again, without it being a weapon.

Darkgirl

Darkgirl was just a silly teenager when she decided that selling her soul to the Devil would be rebellious and cool. She’d always liked horror films and dark imagery, so she wasn’t scared by the Devil in the least. But of course, he was just using her affection for darkness for his own ends, and Darkgirl fell for it. It was a damn shame, but now, in her reconstructed body, she has the ability to control darkness. From her shadowcopter, she can cast solid darkness attacks at her foes, blend into shadows, and stuff like that. With her freedom, she’ll be able to make up for the mistake she made falling for the Devil’s lies.

Gibberer

The Gibberer was a promising physicist when he was young, but he was hungry for knowledge. Greedy for it, even. He sold his soul to the Devil to learn things that humanity was not yet ready to know, and as a result went mad. He spent his remaining years in an asylum, his potential wasted, and his experience in the afterlife has been much the same. But now, in the Hell of Copters contest, he pilots a high-tech chopper with lasers and teleportation devices and tractor beams, finally using his scientific knowledge instead of simply muttering ideas to himself over and over.

Princess Greenelf

Another one that the Devil got young. This young lady got involved with the world of Role Playing Games, which as we all know, meant that she would wind up losing her soul (Jack Chick tried to warn us). But for the contest, she has been given the bodily form of her game character, the Druid Princess Greenelf, and she has all the magical nature powers that the character possesses. Greenelf pilots a fancy wooden helicopter and has control over the weather and plantlife, as well as fancy magic arrows.

Hot Mama

The Devil gave Hot Mama the codename “Hot Mama” as a cruel reminder of her circumstances. In life, she was in a bad car accident with her two children in the back seat. The car became quickly engulfed in flames and it was then that the Devil pounced, making a deal with her. Her soul for the safety of her children. The kids lived, but she did not. And now the Devil taunts her, reminding her that this Hell of Copters contest is the only way she’ll ever see them again. Her powers are all based on fire. Heat rays and fireballs and such. Will it be enough to reunite her with her family?

These characters are essentially the “Good Guys” of the Hell of Copters contest. While everyone is fighting for their own freedom only, these are the sympathetic ones. Next week, let’s have a look at the ones who we would call the bad guys.

The Beam of Earth Silver

In at least four universes, “the Beam” is the name of a respected superhero. In another universe, there is a Beam, but she is no hero.

Valerie Duncan was once an ordinary human criminal, but during a heist she stumbled across the most important thing she’d ever steal: The Cloak of the Space God of Speed. As she felt the shining silver garment, she felt its energy coarse into her. She instinctively draped it around herself and the world seemed to stop around her. Instead, though, it was she who was moving immeasurably fast. With her newfound powers she became the Beam, a crook capable of crimes so quick that she was gone before anyone knew she was there.

The idea came up in the original Beam post that there could be some villainous Beams out there, but I neglected to do anything with it during my year of Supervillains. Since it is now Supernatural Sunday year, I had to make a supernatural origin for this one. Luckily, it was about time I fleshed out the Space Gods a bit more.

Bust-Up

You can’t take it with you, so when rich prick Randall Penderman-South III died, he had to stick around if he wanted to be with his vast fortune. Randall’s spirit, by inhabiting a bust of himself, can interact with the material plane to protect his wealth. When someone tries to steal his money, this statue-headed ghost is likely to turn up and beat them down. Most of the time this means that Randall’s targets are criminals, but not always, so it’s a good thing the Noblewoman is around to put an end to his spectral rampages. Still, what can the law do about him? You can’t exactly lock a ghost in prison, and there’s not really any assault laws that apply to the deceased anyhow. These questions don’t have easy answers, so for the time being, Bust-Up is a problem Noblewoman will have to deal with on regular occasions.

This fancy coloring was done by @sanityormadness, who took my original version and made it all special effecty.

“‘Your average beekeepers usually wear gloves,’ he explained. ‘A lot of the brave ones use gloves with no fingers and thumbs so they can work with the bees more easily.’

Mr. Andretti thumped himself on the chest and went on. ‘But your truly outstanding beekeeper – such as myself – likes to work with his bare hands. My bees trust me.'”

Mr. Andretti is a beekeeper who appears in a Goosebumps novel called “Why I’m Afraid of Bees” and, as the above quote proves, he’s kind of a boastful sort. I fully admit that when I set about reading this book, I was under the impression that the beekeeper was going to be the bad guy, responsible somehow for the main kid getting his brain switched into a bee’s body. Disappointingly, that ain’t the case. The kid gets himself into that mess on his own. Andretti is just an ancillary character, the kid’s neighbor. He’s seems to be a decently successful beekeeper, though he’s kind of a jerk. He seems to know that the main kid is afraid of bees and likes to make him think the bees are out of control just to laugh when he gets scared. He also tends to yell sarcastic remarks at the kid if he catches the kid staring at him. And he’s got a strong tendency to laugh at his own bad jokes. I can only assume that all this jerkish behavior is Andretti’s way of dealing with a relatively mild case of Beekeeper Rage.

I’m taking Andretti at his word that his bees trust him. He also claims to “have complete control of those bees at all times.” He apparently doesn’t mean this in the sense of literally having mental control of the bees (he uses a net to catch straggler bees), but this is as close as Andretti gets to any kinds of powers or badassery. With that in mind, I can only give him:

Two Honeycombs out of Five.