Chapter 1: Issue 1: Enter the Dragons!
Summary:
Enter the Dragons! Heroes come together after dragon artifacts at the Cambridge Museum of Archeology and Anthropology begin to come alive. But is there more going on under the surface?
Main: Monica Rambeau, Dane Whitman, Brian Braddock, Jackie Chopra, M-11, Kyle Gibney, Simon Williams, Thelius
Cameo: Adam Brashear, Jimmy Woo
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) outside of Cambridge, England is home to many of the largest radio telescopes in the world. Above them all in fame stands the One-Mile Telescope. It is three dishes and it's construction won a Nobel Prize in Physics. The dishes are massive, black and reminiscent of creatures standing tall above the puny humans. The dish is almost like the collar of a frilled lizard. The sheer scale is like looking up on a living dinosaur. The shadow it casts is vast and latticed even with the clouds growing thick and gray above it.
Under this particular dish of the One-Mile Telescope stand a couple holding fish and chips wrapped in newsprint, craning necks to stare up. The woman is wearing her hair in a braided bun and an overcoat over her thick sweater and jeans. From under her sweater a high white and black collar peak out. She is Monica Rambeau and she is trying very hard not to seem bored. Monica wants this date to work out- she likes Adam Brashear and she is ready to try again, but English food in English weather at a radio telescope is hardly what she would have chosen.
The man beside her looks in age like he could be her father, graying at the temples and lines on his face despite his de-accelerated aging. Adam stands in flip-flops despite the dewy grass and makes another sweeping gesture to the telescope. He doesn't seem to notice that Monica’s sounds of interest are just for the sake of politeness. “Isn’t it just fantastic?” Adam was saying. “I just think it's so interesting how little radio noise is needed to be able to observe objects in the electromagnetic spectrum. You know, I remember when this was built-”
Monica nods and Adam keeps talking. And he keeps explaining out all the science behind radio telescopes and the history of why the One-Mile had been a big deal. Monica tries to be patient but her impatient shows on her face. Monica looks to Adam and then back up to the telescope. Adam keeps talking. Monica let's out a puff of breath and closes her eyes. Adam is still talking.
“Adam!” Monica finally interrupts mid-sentence. She can't help herself anymore. “I already know all of the science. I can turn into radio waves, remember?” Turning into radio-waves in one of her less flashy powers, but she knows all about them because of it.
Adam’s face falls slightly as he realizes his faux paw. This date had been his idea, something he had wanted to share with Monica, but he had practically forgotten her in his scientific rambling. Any romantic mood this date may have started with is dead. Adam and Monica both look for something to say as neither meets the other’s face in their gaze. Even the fish in their hands seem limp all of a sudden. They are saved by the metaphorical bell when the sky opens up, those gray clouds suddenly bursting with rain- and Adam and Monica are caught without an umbrella.
The radio telescope looks giant above them as they start walking to one of the observation houses- a tiny thing in comparison. It is a silent walk and Monica stares straight ahead as she trudges through the dampening grass. The pair reach the observation house where one of Adam’s pet-project homemade portal tech devices waits. The scientist who had been looking it over pulls away when the pair enters and Adam tells the young scientist that they didn't have to jump away like that. For a moment Monica thinks of Adam as grandfatherly.
Monica cringes at her own thought- maybe the age difference, the generational gap is why they keep not being able to work out.
“I think I better head back to Kadesh,” Adam says, and finally his and Monica’s eyes meet. “Would you like me to give you a lift home?”
Monica shakes her head. “I think I’ll stay in England a little longer, maybe stay at a bed and breakfast tonight. I need time to think.”
They shake hands instead of kiss or hug goodbye and both regret the formality as Adam walks through his blue portal, device tucked under his arm.
Monica ducks out of the observation house, head down and picks a direction. She starts walking. While the rain matches her sour, mopey mood she wants to deny herself the pleasure of walking in it. She knows she shouldn't indulge in a bad mood, but everyone does sometimes. “That was about as fun as going to a college lecture. I don’t think he realizes that I’m not one of his students. He’d rather talk about radiowaves than how I look, and I look damn good. I should have known we weren’t ever going to work out after he seemed more interested in my powers than personality. Jericho was a creep, but at least he knew how to show a girl a good time. Adam just…” She sighs. “We could have gone to Paris or Rome. Or somewhere romantic,” she says to no one as she walks.
“And if I had wanted seafood I would have gotten real seafood- shrimp or crawdads in New Orleans!” Monica finishes to herself as she comes up by a pub.
The pub is one of the few authentic locally owned pubs left in the area, the green and brown sign hanging outside of it declaring it as STERN’S. The group just sitting down in the window seat doesn't notice Monica from their side of the glass, nor does she notice them from hers. She walks past the pub all together.
Inside
the pub, a reunion and an introduction is happening.
“Brian!” A slightly scruffy looking brown-haired man reaches out to shake a very large blonde man’s hand across the table. “This is my daughter, Jacks.” The man gestures to a twenty-something-year-old woman with a dark complexion and short black hair who is the aforementioned Jacks- Jackie Chopra.
“It’s good to meet you.” The blonde man, Brian Braddock, shakes Jacks’ hand as well before sitting. The three are perfectly framed by the window. Brian looks tired, his hair and beard and slightly longer than style would dictate. He takes his whiskey straight despite it being lunch time. “I didn't know you had a daughter, Dane.”
“Neither did I!” Dane Whitman shrugs off his leather jacket and a suspiciously sword-shaped bag, hanging them off the back of his chair.
“We found out about each other maybe half a year ago,” Jacks says, taking the outside seat and it doesn't take an expert to see she does so so she can see both the window and the entrance door. She has a hard tilt to her cockney accent, but the bitterness seems almost playful.
“She saved my life,” Dane says, brightly but choosing not to elaborate. Brian waits a beat for something, but Dane never explains. He gestures for the bartender to get Brian and himself another drink. “We’re going to be Black Knighting here in England again,” Dane says, effectively changing the subject.
“The U.S. is alright enough,” Jacks says with a shrug and swirls her own drink as she talks. “But certain things make you want to go home again.” She shares a glance with Dane and they are both thinking about dying. Coming back doesn’t make it easier. “Besides, Cambridge is the tops for Arthuriana and finishing my masters here will be more credible than some middle of nowhere college full of gobby professors who know less than jack. And since I have to completely restart the thesis, best do it somewhere new.”
Having to restart is prudent as it turns out that the axis of her thesis, that Camelot did not exist at all, is entirely untrue. Not only is Camelot real, she is King Arthur’s some 70 times over great-grandniece. So now she is ready to prove that Camelot was not as idyllic as legend wishes to paint it as. Jacks knows personally this to be true, but to convince the academic world she needs more proof than the glimpses of ruins that she saw in the Wasteland, Merlyn’s dump in a manner of speaking. [See Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #5! - Continuity Conner]
“Jackie really goes about academia differently than anyone else I ever met,” Dane says. He grins and looks at her. “She’s always looking for a different perspective. I think that’s what truly makes her so much more brilliant than any of the other Arthurian academics nowadays. She’s going to be a rising star. I can just tell.” Jacks flushes and punches his arm.
Fatherly pride was a good look on him, Brian thinks to himself. He’s glad to see Dane happy.
“Can you believe we’re both dads now?” Dane continues as if Jacks hadn’t punched him at all. “One minute you’re dead in my arms and the next we both have daughters.”
Brian’s face falls a little at the thought of his own daughter. He looks even more exhausted and takes another gulp of whiskey too large and too quick to be considered gentlemanly. “Your daughter is a grown adult,” Brian gestures with his nearly empty glass- his last, he promises himself. He had only been planning on one. “My Maggie is a toddler who says things about who she knows it’s childish drivel but she appreciates the lack of moralizing and finds the simplicity of the designs fun when we watch Peppa Pig together.”
“Is Captain Britain intimidated by his daughter? Now I have to meet her.” Dane laughs.
“I’m not Captain Britain anymore.” Brian’s face betrays both relief and sorrow.
“That’s a shame, an interview with Captain Britain would give my research some major credibility,” Jacks says. “I hope that you’re still more reliable than Dane. Even if he wasn’t my father I don’t think I could use anything he tells me because it’s all so contradictory.”
Dane makes a noise of protest, but he has nothing he can say to defend himself. Most of his knowledge of Camelot that wasn’t gotten firsthand through time travel is from Sir Percy, and he is the least reliable man alive- or rather dead. Percy, with his vested interest in keeping the reputation of Camelot clean, is notorious for lying to do so.
Brian’s face lightens slightly at the thought of Camelot and Otherworld and he laughs. “I sure hope I still am.”
If anyone knows about the dirty secrets of Camelot it is Captain Britain, Merlyn’s tortured soldier. But he is no longer Captain Britain and he no longer wants to think of those times. But he will indulge for another who is following a similar path.
“So what is your and Merlyn’s relationship?” Jackie asks.
Dane winces. “Jacks, maybe start with something else,” he says, but Jackie just glances at him with something of a confused and unconcerned look. She is not the one to waste time with questions that don’t get to the point and she only has so much time for an interview with Brian Braddock.
Brian keeps a stiff upper lip, but it’s a close thing. It was the question he had been dreading, even if he had expected it. “Merlyn is… complicated,” Brian says and thinks about how he is both the scourge of the Otherworld and his own maker. “He is called Merlyn half a devil for a reason.”
Jacks takes a notebook out of her bag and has an academic’s grin as she prepares to dive in. Dane gives Brian an apologetic look. Brian squares his shoulders and his jaw at all the uncomfortable questions to come and considers if his promise to himself of his sobriety is worth it.
The Human Robot, M-11, has been attempting to enjoy his dual mission to England. The first part of his mission was to take a break and see the sights.
“I’ve never seen you take a break, M-11,” Jimmy Woo had said. M-11 stared at his friend and boss. Jimmy hardly took breaks either. “Take some extra time while you’re in England. Do something for yourself- feed the ducks! Go dancing! Life isn’t all work and no play.”
M-11 looked pointedly to the screens in front of Jimmy. All work.
So M-11 had gone to a club, not even bothering with a human disguise when a bucket hat made people seem to glance past him. He had stood in the middle of the flashing lights and the bodies around him. Dancing eluded him- at least without a partner. The music was good though. It was something called industrial.
A young man with a long blonde braid is stalking through the campus of Cambridge. His face marks him as a mutant- eyes too wide set for any human, fox like features, pointed ears, and teeth too big and too sharp. His duster is open to reveal a band T-shirt reading HOLY LOCUST.
I’ve been sent all around campus trying to get to talk about accommodations, Kyle Gibney thinks to himself. And every time they send me somewhere else. It's like they wanted the optics of a visible mutant- why else would they admit me- but not the reality. Figures. I don't know what I expected even with the Hudsons’ guilt money paying and being on Dr. Reyes’ medication.
Kyle had applied to Cambridge on a whim when he decided to try to get a new version of his life- to be something other than someone else’s pawn. Krakoa is gone now and he has no desire to go back to Canada where he will always be a prize mouser at best and a beaten dog more likely. England seems like as good a place as any to try to be someone new. Kyle doesn't want to be an animal anymore, not after being used once again, but he wants to learn for himself what being a man is.
Apparently it is being sent to ten different buildings just to be given the runaround. Above him, a great stone dragon gargoyle seemed to be laughing at him. And it is raining.
“This bites!” he says aloud and pulls the collar of his jacket up against the rain.
The Human Robot, M-11, had sat on a bench in front of a duck pond with a bag of frozen peas in his lap. Bread may be the stereotype, but M-11 had heard that wasn’t actually good for the beasts. The green of the peas matched the mallards’ heads. He threw the peas for the birds and watched them bob to go get them.
This was much more enjoyable than the club. And tomorrow would come the second part of his dual mission. Finally.
BANG!
“Missed! That damned varmit got away. Just too fast for my ol’ colt revolver.”
In one of Cambridge’s many churches a man stands in late Victorian western-wear, looking to a large camera and a directorial team behind it, a prop gun raised in his hand. He is framed by the stained glass and the lighting is wonderfully dim. He grimaces slightly and the director makes a motion for the film to stop rolling. The co-stars exchange annoyed glances. The man walks off the set and begins to take out a pair of brown contacts to reveal his solid red eyes. Simon Williams replaces his contacts with a pair of red sunglasses as he stands next to his director. The contacts are uncomfortable but so is anyone seeing his eyes.
“I just don’t think the dialogue makes sense,” Simon says to his director. “Quincey Morris is a gentleman and I just don’t think anyone would refer to Dracula as a varmit. And I need to practice the Texan accent more.” This is not exactly what he had been expecting when he had been cast in a British television series adapting Dracula. This was supposed to be a comeback, or a reinvention. Something he was doing for himself, even.
“I think it makes him sound quite authentic,” the director says, clearly annoyed with the larger man. “‘E’s a cowboy, isn’t he? And no one can notice the accent. You just do because you’re an American. But the blasted rain against the window is messing up the audio, so you take five before we run the scene again.” He shoos Simon away.
“I don’t think he’s actually a cowboy…” Simon trails off to no one as he opens his script again.
Near the pulpit a beautiful young man in bright red and blue kneels before the altar. His head, adorned with a gold headband akin to a crown, is bowed as if he is praying. Tears roll down his cheeks, and he looks up at the stained glass above him.
“My lady, I, Thelius, humble myself. I know that you have given me this power so that I can accomplish my task. Bob Grayson must die for his failure to save the Uranian Eternals from their demise, and his teammates must suffer also. Grant me the strength to kill them.”
A young man holding a boom mic notices the kneeling man. He shouts a query on what he is doing here and how he needs to leave. Thelius rises slowly, then turns to face the man.
“I cannot leave, for I have work to do.”
The stained glass depiction of St. George and the Dragon shakes and shatters, but the dragon rises from the window, letting out shards of fire before breaking through the window and heading into the sky with tinkling beats of glass wings.
Close by is Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The Human Robot, M-11, is on the second part of his dual mission. He has spent close to an hour reading each plaque under the exhibits. Now he stares at a Chinese Dragon figure that should not be here. He looks left and right before reaching for it with extending arms. He has it halfway into his chest hatch when it begins to squirm in his arms.
M-11 drops the beast and watches it slither away as more dragons around the museum spring to life. Terrified screams ring out around him, and he chases after his mission oblivious to them. M-11 is not much of a hero, but what Jimmy Woo would want him to do finally comes to mind. He lets the Chinese dragon figure go to save a woman from a large stone dragon billowing hot molten flames at her. The dragon is easily defeated, crumbling to a pile of dust under M-11’s death ray. The woman does not thank him, but rather runs in fear from him as well. He cannot sigh, but nonetheless, he sighs if only in his thoughts. M-11 does not know what he expected.
Next door at the church, Simon chases after the stained glass dragon.
“I thought you were a pacifist!” The director calls after him.
“Pacifism is about nonviolence, not not protecting people! I have to get the civilians out at least.”
Outside, Kyle is still despondent after visiting another office and getting another runaround. He stands under an awning near a fountain for just a moment of peace. The fountain stands on thick hind legs and from its mouth water bubbles in place of fire. The sound of water is soothing until screams overwhelm it. He smells smoke and meat burning. The fountain drops onto its front legs. It stretches like a cat before looking at Kyle with empty stone eyes. It leaps forward, charging at him. He grins and drops onto his hands and feet, charging the dragon the same way it charges him.
Back in the pub, Jackie drops her notepad and looks out the window. She jumps up, and Dane and Brian turn to see the dragons erupting from the nearby campus. Brian and Dane go into hero mode, bodies drawing up into ready stances. Dane draws the Ebony Blade and rushes out the door. Jackie tugs on his jacket when they’re outside.
“Give me the sword,” Jackie says.
“No, you protect civilians and stay out of the way,” Dane says.
“Come on now! I want to be in the fight!”
“Listen to your father,” Brian says as he takes off in flight, “It’s dangerous.”
“Oh come on!” Jackie shouts to deaf ears. Of course, she runs towards the danger, unlike every other reasonable person in the area. She weaves through crowds of people, bumping shoulders with other students. She vibrates with excitement; she is a knight on her first quest to slay a dragon. Today she plans to do it with her bare hands if she has to.
A stone dragon comes in front of her and on its tail is a man, all claws, who rips the stone open with his teeth. The dragon bleeds smoke.
“It's less fun without the blood,” Kyle says to himself and makes a face at the taste of smoke.
This, Jackie thinks, is her kind of person. She sticks by him and punches a carved wooden dragon to pieces while he takes on one that had peeled itself off a tapestry. Both are laughing.
Dane slices a wyrm in two down the middle, smoke billowing from the creature as the Ebony Blade sups on the death of the magic. It is not enough. Dane keeps hacking before moving onto a new target, one that might leave something on the blade.
Thelius directs dragons from the sky, more a test of his own new power than anything else. He sends three after Brian, looking to destroy or absorb the power within the man. Brian pulls them off of himself, thick hand around one dragon’s neck as he throws it into Thelius.
The two other dragons get incinerated by a death ray from M-11. M-11 is mildly relieved to see that Brian was not. He hadn't been sure.
Brian shouts a word of thanks to the robot before going to wrestle the large dragon that was cracking it's head through the ceiling.
At that moment two young boys, one blonde and dark-haired are pinned against the side of the church by a long serpentine dragon. They are separated from their parents and in terrible danger. As the dragon reels back to destroy them, Simon dives in front of them, protecting them with his indestructible body. His costume incinerates revealing his Wonder Man suit. He checks on the boys before releasing his hold on them.
Kyle and Jackie have fought their way into the crowd, Jackie directing Kyle to tear and shred the dragon that she, with no weapon, is unable to take care of herself.
Thelius lands from where he was floating. “I am simply testing my power! This is just the beginning. First I know the upper limits of my strength then I go to enact my revenge against the ingrate Bob Grayson for betraying the Uranian Eternals and joining their destroyers’ brood.”
Now that he is on the ground, Jackie goes to punch him as well in a fit of rage. Thelius swats her away like a fly and she lands heavily against another dragon- this one from an illustrated manuscript. The dragon bursts out in a surprised flame, catching Simon in the blast.
Dane whips around at Jackie’s cry of pain and beheads the dragon, ink bleeding from the neck wound. He kneels to check on her and she pushes him away.
The fire stops and Simon looks up to see Monica in her energy form above him. She is almost too bright to look upon, like an angel. She dims. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“A weird blonde guy was praying, and then the dragons attacked,” Simon informs her.
Monica looks around. Her eyes snap to Brian in the distance attacking the largest of the dragons.
“The one with the headband!” Simon adds, as if she is actually thinking about attacking Brian.
“I’ll find him,” Monica says.
“We don’t have time for that! There’s too many civilians,” Simon says.
Monica looks around at the chaos that has erupted. “They’re energy like me,” Monica says.
“What does that mean?” Simon asks.
“That this is going to be really easy,” Monica says. “Everyone! Out of the way!”
Monica is living energy. She has control over all energy. It is hers to command and shape. When she reaches out with her powers- first feeling, then in one sharp burst: destroying, she knows that something has gone wrong. Monica’s human body is flooded with the energy the dragons are constructed from. Every nerve in her body fires off at once, and she turns into energy to stop the pain.
One by one the dragons explode. The illuminated manuscript. The stained glass. The stone dragon. The woven ones. The energy of the dragons snaps and the objects they came from fall to the ground, mostly unharmed. M-11 surreptitiously puts the Chinese dragon he came for in his chest cavity.
The energy released from the dragons goes back into Monica and she is unable to stop it from releasing and reabsorbing again and again, the magic causing a feedback loop of her powers.
She is tied to the energy Thelius is still producing, trying to bring back his toys. He feeds into her even more and the thrums of energy increase, glowing with magic.
Monica’s energy disperses in every direction. The flash is so bright that for a moment no one can see anything but white. She scatters for hundreds of miles and in an instant she is gone.
Thelius drops to one knee and screams. He holds his chest as if he is swearing loyalty. “My lady, the pain,” he says, “I will need more power. The Illusionist can provide it.” Thelius flees, in too much pain to try to stick around.
Elsewhere, all is empty. Monica Rambeau feels nothing.
Simon looks up at the sky waiting for Monica to return. Dane jogs up and Brian joins him.
“Where’s Captain Marvel, Si? I thought I saw her,” Dane said.
“She hasn’t rematerialized,” Simon said. He shifts nervously.
“Photon!” Brian shouts.
“Spectrum!” Simon shouts.
“She’ll be back,” Dane says to them, but his voice is hesitant. “She’s tough.”
Jackie and Kyle trudge up towards the rest. She’s grinning because she fought a dragon with her bare hands, but she quickly loses the smile when she sees the grim looks of the others. M-11, out of a sense of duty to the woman who allowed him to finish his mission, comes to wait as well.
“Did something-”
Before Jacks can finish her sentence there is a flash of light.
The light screams and twists into a woman. It’s Monica. The colors of her suit are inverted and her hair is loose. She holds her face, falls to her knees, and sobs. She rocks for a moment as the pain subsides.
The others gather around her. Dane hooks under her arm and helps her to her feet. She leans into him, pressing her face to his chest. She’s shaking. Dane has only seen her like this once. He hopes that this is not the same situation. He raises her chin with his finger to see her face.
“What happened?” he asked.
Monica looks at him and then at the other faces around her. She is gray-faced and grim.
“I think… I think I died.”
Notes:
Hey there True Believers! This is Conner Thrakaboom and Gene Adelesbian, excited to give you a new miniseries and we want to hear from YOU! Tell us what you thought of this first issue by [commenting below] and make sure to mark your letters as “Okay to print”!
Next Issue: LIGHTHOUSE SIEGE!
Chapter 2: Issue Two: Lighthouse Siege
Summary:
Lighthouse Siege! Monica is brought to the Braddock Lighthouse for examination, but trouble follows in the form of an attack from Thelius. But where is he leading them?
Main Characters: Monica Rambeau, M-11, Jackie Chopra, Kyle Gibney, Simon Williams, Brian Braddock, Faiza Hussain, Dane Whitman, Thelius, Faerie Queen,
Cameo: Maggie Braddock, Jimmy Woo
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Monica sits on a platform as some device takes sophisticated images of her energy map. She has been poked and prodded for nearly ten hours now in the lab at the Braddock Lighthouse. She is so bored by this point that she is doing her hair, putting twists in. Not only is she bored to the point of doing her hair- she’s nearly done with it. M-11 stands behind her, staring at the readings on the screen with his normal unreadable expression. It does nothing to reassure Monica at all. Jackie and Kyle are lazing across the room on a couch. They’ve been inseparable since… the dragons. She had, after all, used him as a hunting dog. He has a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur, using one claw to follow the small print and Jacks reads over his shoulder. Neither of them had been much help with even having ideas about what had happened to Monica.
Simon rubs at the back of his neck, looking at Monica with slight pity. “Well, I’ve exhausted the full extent of my electrical engineering degree.” Monica’s energy wasn’t even all electrical, after all. “Good thing Dane is bringing in a specialist.”
He turns to look at Brian, but Brian is in the process of scooping up a little figure who was trying to sneak into the lab.
Maggie Braddock squirms a little in her father's arms as he carries her up the stairs, out of the lighthouse and towards the house. She looks like any other three year old, except perhaps having inherited her mother’s long hair. She does not speak like any other three year old.
“Dad!” She whines. “I am certain I could help if you would just let me. I have recently finished my readings on the electromagnetic scale and this may be a magical matter. You know I’m well equipped in arcane knowledge from our time living in Avalon with Uncle Jamie.”
It is not clear if Brian’s sour face is because of his daughter’s words or the mention of his brother. He takes long strides across the slightly marshy grass of the island. “You’re still too little to help with medical matters,” he says firmly.
“My little hands could be a boon,” Maggie says pointing her chubby little chin out.
“I meant that you’re too young and you know it. Don’t be in such a hurry to be all grown up, Maggie-Daggery-Doo.” Brian hikes up the toddler in his arms. “Besides, I don't think Monica would appreciate your help.”
Maggie looks for a moment like she may argue more but she sees Faiza Hussain walking past them and waves excitedly to her favorite superhero. “Hello, Ser Excalibur!”
Faiza Hussain waves back to the girl with a smile as she comes up to the Braddock Lighthouse. She has both her medical bag with her and the sword Excalibur in its disguise as a backpack.
Dane happily welcomes Faiza at the entrance to the Braddock Lighthouse.
“Hi. You look…” Dane struggles for a word to describe how captivating she is. It is hard to look away from her as old feelings come rushing back like his heart had been stone again until this moment. He settles for a word that barely scratches the surface of how lovely she is. “Wow. Is that a new hijab?”
Faiza realizes that they haven’t seen each other in person since Dane ghosted her. They’ve started talking again since then, but only as friends. Dane wasn't on the MI13 anymore, meaning they didn’t even see each other as coworkers. She had missed him.
“I wore it when we played cricket,” she says and resists the urge to tell him he looks healthier than the last time she saw him. Instead, she asks after her newest patient.
She is somewhat flustered, picking at the sleeve of her floral top. It isn’t every day that she is asked to help Captain Marvel. Faiza may have always preferred the British superheroes, but Captain Marvel was always her favorite of the yanks. She had the action figures and everything
“She’s not Captain Marvel anymore,” Dane tells her as if she isn’t still Captain Marvel to him, forever and always. “You can just call her Monica. You’re going to love her. And she’s going to love you, of course.”
Faiza nods her head, still flustered. “So what happened?” she asks.
“Energy feedback from these dragon projections created by a man that was identified as the clone of Marvel Boy,” Dane says. “Well, a clone of a clone.”
“They cloned Vance Astrovik?” Faiza asks as they descend the stairs to the basement of the lighthouse. They enter the laboratory together.
“No, the original one. I think he’s the Uranian now,” Dane replies, “The clone goes by Blue Marvel, but obviously, that’s confusing since there’s another Blue Marvel.”
“Speaking of Blue Marvel-” Simon starts, but Monica interrupts before he can finish suggesting that they call in Adam Brashear.
“Adam isn’t hearing about this, okay?!” Monica glares between all of them until everyone silently agrees. Monica’s choice is Monica’s choice to make.
Faiza looks up at Monica with stars in her eyes. She opens and closes her mouth before turning to Dane and telling him with her eyes to introduce them.
“Monica, this is Faiza Hussain, Faiza this is Monica,” Dane says, crossing the room to close the space between the two women.
“I’m a huge fan,” Faiza manages to stutter out.
Monica smiles at her. “Dane tells me you are the rightful bearer of the sword Excalibur,” she says.
Faiza swallows thickly. “Yes.”
The forest is dark and gnarled even in the middle of the day and it makes no sound- no shuffling or birdsong. He’s been walking through it for some time. The forest opens into a small clearing, just large enough for an intimate living room.
Thelius approaches a woman in long flowing green robes that wrap around her like vines with flowers budding off of her. She’s beautiful in a harsh way, her blonde hair piled on the top of her head in a green crown with more flowers entwined in her hair. She is seated in a throne of wood, beautiful and twisted. Beside her is a man, also green, but more of a statue than a man with tattoos along his shaved head. He holds an axe, as green as he is. His body is thick and hardened with years of battle.
“Thelius, what brings you to my domain?” The Faerie Queen asks, green eyes flashing in mirth.
“Woman, you with all your powers and visions know why I am here. I need power. Power to kill Bob Grayson,” Thelius says.
The Fairie Queen laughs. “Now, Thelius, our dear friend would not like your tone,” she says. She looks to her companion, her Green Knight. She reaches up at him and touches his wide chest. She glanced at the giant with genuine affection. “I will forgive you only because she loves you so dearly as first of her champions, and she gave my love and champion back.”
“I don’t need your forgiveness. I need a boon,” Thelius says. Annoyance seeps into his voice.
“Fine, and you will have it.” The Faerie Queen reaches out and touches his headband. Green magic flows from her painted fingertips and into him, cocooning around him.
“I will grant you control of Ionic energy in combination with your Electromagnetic powers, but only until you kill one of Bob Grayson’s Agents of Atlas.”
Purple sparks of ionic energy erupt from Thelius’s headband, and he brings his hands up to his temple to contain the power now flowing through him. Thelius turns as if he is about to leave. She makes a small ahem to draw his attention back to her. “And in exchange, you will bring Brian Braddock to me. I wish to test my new warrior against Merlyn’s favorite toy.”
“As you wish,” he says. Irritation is clear on his face, but he has been told this is how magic works, as an exchange.
The queen holds out her hand and looks at Thelius expectedly until he reluctantly takes it and kisses it. She was a dear friend to his lady, and he didn't want to be reported as ungracious.
“Might I make a suggestion?” She says, smirking at him slightly. “When you kill an Agent of Atlas, avoid the Gorilla. It would be a shame to ruin your pretty face with such a curse.”
Thelius glares at her once more before taking flight.
M-11 stands alone in a dark corner of Brian Braddock’s lighthouse. He stares at a small holographic image of Jimmy Woo being projected in front of him from his wrist. Jimmy has his arms crossed as he absorbs what M-11 has just finished telling him.
“Hm, I think you better stay there and monitor the situation with Thelius,” Jimmy says.
If M-11 were a different man he might think to say no to Jimmy, but he is himself and instead angrily hangs up on him. He knows that his friend will know that he is displeased with him, but say no to Jimmy? That never crosses his mind. He stares off for a long moment trying to calm himself, shaking slightly, his eye shining red. Soon his eye dims.
In the other room, Monica shouts, “Enough! No more tests!” She rips the electrodes off of her and stands up. It’s been another hour of tests since Faiza arrived. Faiza jumps back from her patient slightly
“We can go up to the kitchen,” Brian suggests to calm her, having returned some time ago.
“Not the house?” Dane asks.
Brian glares at Dane. “I don’t want you in my house,” he says.
Jackie whips to look at Brian, eyes flashing in amusement. “I can’t believe that Captain Britain doesn’t want us in his house.”
“I’m not Captain Britain,” Brian objects to deaf ears.
Monica gives him a sympathetic look as they head to the kitchen. Kyle climbs onto the counter and sits cross-legged as Monica collapses onto a chair and leans against the table with her hands cradling her head. Jackie starts a pot of coffee and sits next to Monica as she waits for the pot to finish brewing. Simon pours Faiza a cup of tea from the pot that’s been on all day. She thanks him and sits next to Jackie, blowing on her tea to cool it some.
M-11 stands near the door, watching the others. He wishes he were back home. Dane makes his and Jackie’s coffee the same way and hands it to her. He sits across from her, finally melting into his spot. Brian drinks out of his favorite mug, one with the characters of Meggan’s favorite soap that she gifted him.
Dane blows on his coffee and then sets it aside when he realizes it’s still too hot to drink. “Seems like Thelius was just testing his powers,” he says.
“Didn’t he say something about an illusionist?” Brian asks, expression stiff and serious.
“Well there’s Mysterio, he’s an illusionist, but he doesn’t typically work in the UK, and Mesmero," Simon counts on his fingers, “and Sersi, but she’s…”
Dane braces himself on the table at the thought of Sersi’s death, and Jackie’s brow furrows. She looks as though she may pat him on the back for a moment but ultimately doesn’t.
“The Beyonder’s been messing with me, but I wouldn’t call them an illusionist,” Monica says. “More of a reality warper.”
“I didn’t sense anything from Otherworld or Merlyn,” Brian takes a sip of tea as he considers.
“No one’s heard from Diablo,” Kyle pipes up, and everyone looks at him, but ultimately ignores him. No one cares about Alpha Flight villains. He shrugs at the response, not expecting anything but wanting to contribute.
“What about the Scarlet Witch?” Jackie suggests, shrugging.
Simon’s brow furrows in annoyance. “Don’t bring Wanda into this.”
“You mentioned Sersi so I just thought-”
Monica glares at Jackie, turning bodily in her chair to look at her. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Oh, this is Jacks, she’s my uh, well, she’s my-” Before Dane can stutter through an introduction, there is a loud BOOM as the wall explodes. The entire structure of the lighthouse shakes, stone and mortar strewn across the entire kitchen. The hood above the stove falls and knocks the teapot across the ground, throwing tiny shards of glass across the floor like little diamonds. On instinct, Monica spreads herself out into a hard light shield to protect everyone from harm and then she reforms as herself, yelling in pain.
Thelius descends from the hole he made in the lighthouse. He holds his arms out as if he is going to embrace them, but his jaw is tight in a deep scowl. Monica tries to change forms again but can't. It’s like she’s cut off from her powers and she feels her heart sink in her chest. She tries again and Thelius catches her from the corner of his eye. He has a sneer on his face, a mean chuckle as she keeps trying to change forms.
No,
Monica thinks, panicking. She has felt this way before- only once. She has only been without her powers once, and the circumstances are far too similar to what she went through with their last fight with the dragons.
No, this can’t be like after I dispersed through the ocean. I can still feel my powers, something just won’t let me access them!
[See way back in Avengers 294! - Journalistic Gene]
With every attempt to change forms, Monica feels herself getting weaker and sicker, just as she was back then. And the worst part- the worst part is that Thelius is laughing at her.
Brian charges Thelius, flying him through the wall, all anger in his form, his hands fisted in the cloth of his enemy’s costume. The hole in the wall gets larger and larger. Brian doesn’t even notice in his rage. “You attack us! In my own home!”
The two tussle back into the kitchen, and Brian slams into the opposite wall. The lighthouse groans, crumbling as its supports are taken out. The wall starts to collapse in on themselves, threatening to crush or trap everyone in the rubble. Simon hefts the wall onto his shoulders like Atlas, ensuring that at least while the fight lasts no one is harmed by the careless destruction.
“
Of course in your own home, you tin soldier of a man! Merlyn’s pet! You do not realize the boon I received for the promise of killing you. So many want you dead, the souls of magic want you dead! The Faerie Queen promised me powers that not even My Lady had the ability to give me! Powerful women want you dead, Brian Braddock, powerful enemies and I am the blade that will do the deed!”
Thelius rants, blasting Brian’s mind with a telepathic attack of pain.
Brian grits his teeth, sweat across his brow. “Many, many people want me dead.” Brian clocks Thelius on his handsome jaw, breaking his concentration. A bruise starts to swell.
Kyle growls and takes the opportunity to leap onto Thelius, tackling him to the ground. Thelius is a man; if he can bruise he can bleed and Kyle would so, so like to make this man bleed to prove himself to what he hopes will be his new team. But Thelius throws up a shield of magic, tossing Kyle into the wall opposite—drywall rains around him.
“Enough of this!” Thelius yells like a sullen child. “My constructs will distract the spares.”
With his newly granted powers, he pulls energy from around him. Purple ionic energy is drained from Wonder Man, causing him to strain under the weight of the building, the red light of his eyes dimming slightly. The ceiling slopes as he is forced to stand and not float. Constructs of ionic energy form, glowing and sinister, fuzzy around the edges. They take Wonder Man’s body shape, the only feature able to be made out are cruel grins. But Thelius isn’t done. He rounds on Monica and pulls from her buzzing constructs of electromagnetic energy, all shaped like her. Monica cries out as she feels her powers not just blocked from her but stolen. She shakes in rage. More and more constructs form, and she can feel herself weakening with every one. Simon doesn’t look so hot either, but Thelius is clearly focusing on drawing power from her in revenge for his spoiled plot. The constructs descend on everyone save Brian.
Thelius turns to Brian, floating above him, a shimmering coating of air around him as a shield. “Once I kill you, Captain Britain…” Thelius begins as Brian slowly hammers away at the shield. It cracks around him.
Behind him, Faiza unsheathes Excalibur from its disguise as a backpack before one of the constructs can descend on a weaponless Dane. She swings the sword, standing over him, and the ionic construct dissipates into the air as the power of Excalibur dispels it.
Thelius’s shield breaks, but he just smirks at Brian, confident in his ability to kill him as he starts to attack him mentally again. “I’ll kill one of Bob Grayson’s precious little Agents of Atlas! I wonder who to start with… Maybe the lovely mermaid, or one of the new, young members.”
M-11 had been forgotten in the fight, the constructs not even noticing the being that did not register as living. That was Thelius’s first mistake. His second was to threaten any of Atlas where M-11 could hear him. M-11’s shoulders are set back as his eye glows, beginning to heat up with pure fury.
The death ray streaks across the room, white-hot and wide. M-11 does not care if Brian Braddock is in the way of his target. But perhaps, he should have estimated for just how wide the man was, as all of the ray hits Braddock, and none of it hits Thelius. Unfortunate. Irritating.
“What the bloody hell!” Brian shouts at M-11, singed and his back smelling slightly cooked. “You hit
me
!”
M-11 ignores him and advances on Thelius slowly, death ray still emanating from his eye. He is determined to keep at it until he is depleted and needs to let his systems recharge the energy. Brian, smartly, rolls out of the way. Thelius manages to throw up a shield, but it is clearly taking a lot out of him to deflect the ray. He is sweaty and pale. The shield is entirely focused in front of him where M-11 still advances.
The building is buckling, and Simon looks dull as he tries to keep the ceiling from falling in. The mortar is crumbling around him.
Brian might survive however many tons of ancient stone collapsing on him, and probably Monica, but I don’t think the rest of them will,
Simon thinks slowly as he groans from the strain.
In this state, I might not either…
“Hold fast, Wonder Man!” Faiza calls from where she is back-to-back with Jackie. “We’ll keep expelling these and the energy should return to you.” Jacks holds the ebony blade and has a sort of unhinged glee as the Ebony Blade hacks the constructs into pieces. Thankfully, they spill no blood on her blade. It rings like a lightning rod when she slices one of the electromagnetic constructs down the middle.
Jackie parries an ionic construct and then stabs an electromagnetic one before swinging back on the first ionic construct. The energy dissipates, and even without blood Jackie works herself in a frenzy. Faiza reminds her to keep her head clear. It falls on deaf ears as she begins hacking on a fallen construct.
Kyle tries to scratch the mocking grin off of one of the ionic constructs, but it sharpens its extremities and slashes him across the chest, deep enough that Kyle’s sternum is exposed. The shock of white bone may have stopped another opponent, a living opponent, in their tracks. The floor is splashed with blood. The wound continues to ooze from the slowly closing flesh, muscles knitting back together in thin ropes over the bone. Kyle growls and slices into it in kind.
Monica is ashen and shaky, pulling herself up against what’s left of the counter. Her hand reaches for the knife block and her hand wraps around a handle. “Just because I don’t have my powers doesn’t mean I can’t still fight…” She says to herself before hurling the knife at Thelius. From her angle he is unprotected, but the knife narrowly misses him because of Monica’s shaking hand.
M-11 is still advancing on Thelius, slowly and steadily like the killer robot he was designed to be. Thelius braces himself, holding his shields in front of him, sure he can outlast him. “I’m going to kill all the Agents of Atlas until only Bob Grayson is left!” He goads. M-11’s death beam is lagging, running out of charge. It begins to fizzle out.
Taking cue from Monica, as she will always be his leader of the Avengers, Dane grabs at anything that can be used as a projectile. Thelius’s concentration broke when Brian hit him in the head, who's to say that wouldn’t happen again? Dane ducks out of the way of another construct as his hand closes around a can of soup. He crouches as he lobs it at the side of Thelius’s head.
BONK.
The can connects with Thelius’s skull. Thelius looks stunned for a moment, before turning to rage, slowly turning to stare at Dane. “You hit me. With soup,” He says in a quieter rage than he has displayed in either of their encounters. “Now for a power of my own… You! Beast!” He points at Kyle who is closest to Dane. Kyle is still dripping blood onto the floor, hands smeared with it. “Disembowel that man!” Thelius says, touching his fingers to the side of his psychic headband.
Kyle smiles at Thelius and stands over Dane, claws digging into the throat of a construct that had turned its attention to the older man. “Sorry, friend,” Kyle laughs. His skin is already beginning to stitch itself back together, muscles barely exposed. “It doesn’t work that way. I’ve never had enough of a mind to control.”
Faiza dispatches one of the last Electromagnetic constructs with Excalibur. It bursts into a tv-fuzz show of light. “I believe this belongs to Captain Marvel,” she says, very proud of herself as the energy returns to Monica.
Brian grapples with Thelius again, taking a half second to think about things with anything other than his anger. He hadn’t pulled a trick like this in he didn't know how long, but he was able to manipulate his own force field. If he could just manage to manipulate Thelius’s… He manages for just a moment before Jackie, in a wild frenzy, swings at Thelius. Thelius uses a blast of energy to deflect the blade and it barely misses Brian who yells in surprise.
“Watch where you swing that thing!” Brian shouts, “You need more sword lessons!”
Dane struggles as an ionic construct pushes him to the floor and tries to shove an elbow in his throat. “She’s just learning!” he exclaims despite his danger.
Monica stabs the construct that Dane is being choked by with another of the kitchen knives before helping him to his feet. Though she still can’t access her powers, she looks less sickly with each electromagnetic construct Faiza and Jackie dispel. The ones the Ebony Blade touched seem to make a radio static scream as they return to Monica.
Thelius eyes the Ebony Blade for a moment with suspicion in his eyes before shunting Jackie away with a part of his force field. Jackie hits a lower cabinet, and it breaks around her in splinters. The upper cabinet, heavy hardwood, falls on top of her. Porcelain shatters around her. The panel of her helmet is smashed in, leaving a gash across her forehead.
“Jackie!” Dane yells, and he runs to her side to pick her out of the wreckage, grateful that she was the one wearing the armor of the Black Knight. It probably helped prevent her from cracking any ribs.
Thelius charges Brian once more, but M-11 steps bodily in front of Thelius. His death ray powers up once more. His eye thrums as heat pools in the center, but before he can even fire, Thelius barrels through him as if he were mist, growling at anything getting in the way of his goal.
M-11’s body is torn apart around Thelius’s force field, head rolling across the floor and chest sparking in pieces. One arm comes loose and extends.
The energy constructs begin to melt away until they are gone as if they were never there to begin with. They pop like bubblegum, out of existence even faster than they were formed. The heroes look between one another as they realize that they no longer have anything to fight.
Thelius realizes in horror that his powers are gone. He looks at his hands as if they have betrayed him. “NO! My powers! Her gifts! Her gifts are gone!”
Monica reaches out with her power and becomes light. She smiles because all is well. Thelius looks at her with fear in his wide eyes. In a flash of light she flies through Thelius. He screams as her heat rips at his costume. He fires what little powers he has left out and Monica zips away from them unharmed. He uses his meager psychic powers to stun them all before flying off.
“My lady will know what happened here, and of the betrayal of the Faerie Queen! She cannot be trusted, that duplicitous bitch! But first I will go to San Francisco to accomplish my mission and destroy Bob Grayson! * ” Thelius shouts. [See what Thelius is up to in Agents of Atlas #1 on sale next month!]
Simon raises the lighthouse up just a bit more as his strength returns to him. Everyone else files out of the lighthouse, Jackie leans slightly on Dane. Kyle carries M-11’s wrecked body outside, careful to have gotten all of the largest parts. Dane sets her down and Jackie sprawls out on the lawn. Dane and Faiza kneel next to her, examining the bloody scrape on her head. She looks displeased at how they fussed around her, smacking Dane’s hand away from her.
Brian looks at the lighthouse, the way it sags and groans under its own weight. “Let it go,” Brian shouts to Simon. Simon steps away from the lighthouse and lets it crumble to the ground, leaning and making the ground shake with the weight
“Stop fussing over me!” Jackie grumbles as Faiza picks her hair out of her bloody wound.
“You’ll let me look. I’m a doctor,” Faiza says firmly. She peels the skin around the gash upwards and examines the muscle underneath. She sees no sign of muscular injury and repairs the damaged capillaries. The skin knits itself back over the muscle of Jackie’s face, and Jackie immediately reaches to feel the smooth skin above her brow. Her jaw is slack as she realizes her forehead is as good as new.
Monica zips into the air to scout the perimeter and make sure there are no more adversaries lurking in the shadows. Her powers thrum through her, and she shines brighter than actually necessary. She flies higher than she needs to, to have the reassurance that her powers are back and she is whole again. She glitters in the sky.
Kyle crouches near M-11’s battered body. His head hangs as he mourns the robot that gave his life for them. Simon kneels next to him.
“Horrible that he gave his life like that,” Simon says, “He died for us, and we don’t even know his name. Between everyone here, we can probably figure out how to put him back together...”
Dane picks up his head and examines all the parts of it. He mumbles under his breath about how old he seems and then puts it back on the grass. Brian opens his chest and sees an Agents of Atlas badge inside.
“Looks like he was the property of the Agents of Atlas,” Brian says.
Monica lands next to him. “Seems like it,” she says, somewhat familiar with the organization. She recognizes the golden claw logo.
Faiza tries to use her power to put him back together. She strains. Nothing happens, no matter how many times she tries. “There’s a magic block on him,” she says, “I can’t reform him.
“Poor thing,” Brian says, “He died protecting me from Thelius.” He hangs his head for a moment.
“Do we return his parts and say he died a good death?” Kyle asks.
“No death is a good one,” Jackie and Dane say at the same time. Their brows furrow as they look at each other, both thinking of seeing the other’s body.
“I know that I could heal him if only my powers…” Faiza shakes her head, feeling every bit like her patient died on her table.
Monica shivers. This could have been you if you were just a little unluckier. Gone and no one around to put your particles back together. You better take better care of yourself or you’ll die for real one day, she thinks.
M-11’s arms and legs begin to shake. Both arms snake onto his shoulders. His leg drag against the grass like it is being pulled by an invisible string and refixes itself to his hip joint. His chest piece sparks as it welds itself shut, the wires reforming and coming back together. The others still kneel and watch in bewildered amazement, air silent around them.
M-11 stands, still without his head. He reaches down and picks up the head in one hand, holding it away from his body. His sole eye lights up again as he holds his head in his hands.
M-11 fixes his head to his neck with a tiny click as the red sun, low in the sky, throws a red beam across his back.
Notes:
Wow this first issue went crazy!!! I can’t wait for more. Please tell me we’re gonna see more Simon
-MK
Well you’ll certainly be seeing more of Simon!What an absolutely STUNNING first issue! I will admit I was hesitant at first, not knowing much about the Avengers in general or these characters in particular, but the idea intrigued me and of course the creative team is one I trust absolutely.
And speaking of intriguing ideas, WHAT an intriguing idea! A team of superheroes that can’t die… with a death in the first issue, no less! You’d think the stakes would be lowered with a cast like this, but I’m very glad to be wrong on that count.
Personally I’m very interested in seeing how the Kyle and Jacks friendship develops. Perhaps she can help him navigate the hellish world of academia? And I am very glad that the Hudsons are paying for Kyle’s college—it’s the least they can do. (Speaking of Kyle, what a relief it is to see a comic that gives him interiority! I just hate the ‘human animal’ trope in all its forms, so seeing him have an internal monologue is like a breath of fresh air.)
I will absolutely be adding this comic to my pull list, despite my hesitation—you’ve won me completely with this first issue.
Jamie Piff
2063 Fathervalley Lane
Teeklville USA
Thank you! We certainly plan on having the Jacks and Kyle friendship bloom and hope you find the stakes just as high in issue two!Dear Conner & Adelaide,
WOW!!!!! Boy was I excited when I saw this issue on the newsstands. So many of my favorite characters! And it ended up being such a promising first issue!
Captain Britain is of particular interest to me- I feel like he hasn't truly been done justice since the days of Alans Moore and Davis in the early 80's. I've been chomping at the proverbial bit for a good, modern Brian Braddock story for ages and I think I may have found it. He has his heroic outside and his emotionally damaged inside. and he's large. What more could a boy want?
Other than my elation at seeing Brian I must say I was also happy at Kyle and Faiza's inclusions- Kyle being the single most interesting character to come out of the 15-car-pileup wreck of a book known as Alpha Flight (other than Wanda and Mac, but this ain't about them), and Faiza, who is one of the best characters with the most potential introduced in comics in the past 20 years.
I love the overarching theme of, of course, immortality- I can't wait to see how the whole cast diverges in their understandings of their immortalities and how they cope with it. I know for a fact that for Brian it historically hasn't gone well!
Til Merlyn stops hiring depressed boyfailures to be his champions, MAKE MINE MARVEL!
Steph O. Nostalgia
[Address Withheld]
Well Brian's like a pastry: easily damaged. We hope to show that.
If you want your letter published make sure to mark it as OKAY TO PRINTNEXT ISSUE: BREADCRUMB TRAIL
Chapter 3: Issue Three: Breadcrumb Trail
Summary:
After the destruction of the Lighthouse, the team finds a way to track Thelius's energy signature to the Faerie Queen. But they're in for a surprise...
Main Characters: Monica Rambeau, M-11, Jackie Chopra, Kyle Gibney, Simon Williams, Brian Braddock, Faiza Hussain, Dane Whitman, Faerie Queen
Cameo: Sir Percy of Scandia, Kenneth Hale, Venus, Namora, Jimmy Woo, Delroy Garrett Jr., T'Challa, Green Guardian
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Lighthouse barely stands. It is hardly more than rubble except for the stairs that stand proudly amidst the destruction. Brian has his back turned to the others. His hair is loose and blowing in an angry breeze that whips around them. He can’t even begin to process the amount of damage the Lighthouse has been through or even where to begin with the rebuilding. It’s hardly the first time the Lighthouse has been destroyed, but he had hoped that maybe it wouldn’t have happened again.
Brian sighs as feelings of sadness and anger overtake him. If they had only taken the fight outside or if he had never allowed them here in the first place... Dane has a lab. They should have gone there. He was retired. This type of thing wasn’t supposed to happen to him anymore.
Dane steps up next to him, also looking at all the damage. He reaches out and pats Brian’s shoulder trying to be comforting. Brian grits his teeth.
“I’ll have to rebuild everything above the foundation,” Brian says. “It’ll be months .”
“I can pay for it,” Dane offers, which is kind. Kind, but unnecessary.
Brian shakes his head. “Don’t bother. We just need to find the Faerie Queen,” Brian says before storming away, the wind whipping around them all. Simon, Jacks, Kyle, and Monica all watch him from where they sit in the grass. M-11 stands above them like a sentinel.
Faiza catches him by the arm before he can get far. She holds his arm for a moment, worry creasing her brow. “Is it Otherworld?” she asks.
Brian puts his hand over hers. “I can't be certain, but I don't feel anything. Thelius's powers were rife with magic, but I couldn't tell you the origin. Which I suppose is a good sign,” he says.
Dane’s brow furrows, not paying attention to what they are saying, but rather where Brian’s hand is. He doesn't say anything because he has no claim on Faiza any longer, but he doesn't have to like the way Brian looks at her and comforts her with a tenderness Dane has never seen him use with Faiza and has only ever seen Brian give to his wife. He wants to say something, but he doesn't because it could be innocent. Something in his gut tells him it isn't.
Dane isn't the only one not paying attention to what is being said. M-11 is pointedly not facing the rest of them, and is instead staring out into the horizon. Simon tries to get his attention by giving small, discreet introjections at him, but M-11 refuses to acknowledge them. However his memory bank records it all. No matter how much he tries not to care he still has records of everything uttered. M-11 thinks he misses his team more than anything in the world right now. He worries for them and the wrath that Thelius will rain down on them. He wants to go home.
“Do you think Pete would know anything more?” Faiza asks. “His ex-wife is queen of Otherworld, I believe.”
“Do you really think Pete Wisdom talks to his ex-wife?” Dane says, trying to conceal a glare at Brian. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he leans to the side with a sour look on his face.
Faiza considers what Dane says, not seeming to notice his annoyance, and acquiesces that Wisdom is likely a dead end.
“I hate this,” Monica and Brian both say with matching scowls. They glance at each other sharing a shocked expression before it changes to a knowing look.
I hate how magic is so uncontrollable for me, Monica thinks. Her mind wanders back to Dr. Druid manipulating her into giving him charge of the Avengers with his magic, changing her own words as they came from her mouth*. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be over that. The feeling of losing her powers and then being taken advantage of by someone she should have been able to trust. She shudders thinking about it again. [*See Avengers 294 - Journalistic Gene]
“Morgan Le Fay has been called a fairy queen,” Kyle says, trying to be helpful. “Maybe it’s her?”
“That’s the type of name you drop, if Thelius did know her,” Jackie says, “Plus she’s not actually a fairy.”
“But she does have access to the Otherworld,” Faiza points out.
“If whoever this Fairy Queen is had access to Otherworld, why would she use Thelius? Why not some magic beast?” Jackie asks, shrugging. “We don’t have anything to combat magic, really. Even the Ebony Blade is kinda shit at it.”
From behind her, the ghost of Sir Percy appears just to glower at Jackie’s affront to the Blade. Faiza blinks at the sight of the specter. (Dane and Jackie, the only others who can see him, routinely ignore him).
“I’m sorry. Who are you again?” Monica asks, her voice dripping with annoyance at this nobody shutting down their only lead. She turns to point at Dane with a frown on her beautiful features. “The last time you gave some random kid your sword he got possessed, grew a hundred feet tall, and started eating souls.”
The ghost of Sir Percy shakes in anger at Monica’s flippant remark before he dissipates.
Dane’s face falls as he remembers Sean Dolan. Jackie can’t end up like Sean, he thinks. Of course, Jackie had the blood ties that Sean had lacked, but… He can’t allow it.
“Jacks is my daughter,” Dane says, sheepish at the fact he hadn’t been able to bring it up before.
Only Brian and Faiza, who already knew, don’t have an expression of shock. Even M-11 turns to face Dane and Jacks in interest. Simon and Monica, his former Avengers teammates, immediately set on Dane with questioning.
“You never said you had a daughter!” Monica says.
“What? When? When did you know?” Simon speaks over her.
“I can't believe you never told me,” Monica says indignantly.
“She’s an entire adult…” Simon trails off, doing the math in his head and finding that Dane must be older than he thought or Jacks must be younger, the concept of Dane being a teen father never entering his head.
While the old guard harasses Dane, Kyle turns to Jackie with a disgusted and confused expression. “He’s really your dad?”
Jacks groans slightly but confirms.
“Enough!” Brian shouts in anger and frustration. Everyone is being too loud and overlapping too much in their speech, he can barely keep track of what's being said. And his lighthouse has been destroyed . He throws out his arm, unaware of Simon right next to him, and nearly hits the other man.
“Brian! Watch it!” Simon warns.
“We don’t have time for this!” Brian ignores Simon. He tugs on the hair at the back of his neck. “We can talk about Dane later! We need to find this Faerie Queen now before she becomes a bigger inconvenience!”
“Perhaps we could track the energy signature Thelius left?” Faiza ignores the awkward air as she makes her suggestion, redirecting. Simon stops tugging at his hair. “Is that something you would be able to do, Photon?”
Dane stares at Faiza with a smitten expression. “That’s a really great idea,” he praises.
“Simp,” Jacks coughs behind him to Kyle, who snickers.
Monica’s face is flat. “I can’t track the energy he left behind, it's probably already gone.” She nods to M-11. “Can you do it, Nuts and Bolts?”
M-11 shakes his head.
Monica lets out a tired breath. She always imagined that after dying she would get a rest, but here she was. Then again, she didn’t actually want Thelius or whoever he worked for to get away with anything. “If he left a trail, I might be able to follow his path forward, depending on how strong it is.”
Dane’s eyes light up in inspiration, and he pounds his fist in his open palm. “It’s like following breadcrumbs!” He exclaims with no further explanation before going into the wreckage of the lighthouse and down the barely standing stairwell to the basement of the lab, which is mostly untouched.
“Should we stop him?” Simon asks, worrying for Dane’s safety. He knows full well that Dane doesn’t actually have superpowers.
“Don’t bother,” Brian says, flippantly.
The stairs spiral a little. Other than some rubble at the base of the stairwell, the basement is mostly untouched. Surprisingly, the little radio that was on in the basement lab is still working and broadcasting.
“Slorenia’s occupation of Ksavia continues for a seventh month with annexation looking imminent,” the radio crackles as Dane shuffles through well-organized desks until he finds a device that looks like a cross between a raygun and a Geiger counter, with a coaster-sized satellite dish on it.
Dane runs up the stairs and emerges from the rubble of the ruins, dusty but triumphant. He holds the device above his head. “Got it!”
The other Avengers stare at Dane with looks of confusion and in Brian’s case mild contempt. They don’t ask what he has because they know he will explain in a moment, and he sees their looks and hurries to explain himself. They also don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“It’s a micropulsion counter,” Dane says, holding the small device out. “it’s like a Geiger counter for the electromagnetic spectrum. I saw it earlier and was planning on borrowing it at some point to try and make one of-”
“You mean take it like you took all my nice pens in the MI-13 days?” Brian said, giving Dane a hard look.
“Dane is a ‘borrower’,” Faiza says, holding back a small laugh.
Simon and Monica think back to their days with Dane as a coworker and his habit of taking small items and forgetting to return them.
“He’s always been like that,” Monica confirms to Faiza, smiling at her.
“ANYWAY,” Dane speaks over them, slightly embarrassed. “We can follow the trail of radiation Thelius left with this.”
Monica feels for a moment like things are looking up. “And he did just leave a whole big trail for us.”
Dane grins back at her. “We just have to follow his breadcrumbs.”
“It’s not a bad idea at all,” Monica admits, falling into her familiar role as the leader of a team easily. “Everyone suit up.”
“I’ll get the horses ready,” Jacks says in excitement for another quest, another day as the Black Knight.
The entire team flies in a small formation over the gray skies of Britain. Monica, in her inverted costume she came back to life in, leads the pack with the micropulsion counter in her hands. Brian brings up the rear in the black, red, and gold of Captain Avalon. There are two flying horses, courtesy of the Black Knights. The more even tempered of the beasts is Morgoth, black with white socks and a white star between his eyes. His raven-like wings beat heavily. Jackie has become a talented horsewoman and is confident in the full armor of Black Knight, a spare and repaired helm covering her entire face. Kyle, looking slightly green at being so high up, sits behind her, having scrounged up his old red and orange leathers from his X-Factor days. The larger pegasus, Celeborn, is a strawberry roan with speckled eagle wings. On his wide back sit Dane and Faiza. Dane, as Jackie is currently the Black Knight, wears civilian clothing with his old Avengers leather jacket and his black and gold helmet that has served him well over the years. His photon sword hangs from his belt. Faiza sits side-saddle behind him. She is spectacular in her armor. She wears white underneath it all, white sleeves, white hijab, and she has a short-sleeved shirt of chain mail over top. Layered above the maille is a blue tunic with a red shield crest and three white arrows overlaid. To protect her legs she has her greaves on. She hasn’t worn her full armor in a few years, but it seems right as she holds Dane around the waist. Between the horses flies Simon, in uniform, parallel to the ground. He holds M-11 by the hands as the robot dangles from his grip, this having been M-11’s choice.
“You know, speaking of the EM Spectrum…” Monica starts as if she’s testing the waters of a new idea. “Maybe it's time I go by Spectrum again. I don't want to keep going by a name I died in.” Call her superstitious, but it just seemed like a bad idea. Like knocking on Death’s doorstep.
“Spectrum sounds way better than Photon too,” Jackie says over the beating of Morgoth’s wings.
“Thanks,” Monica says, turning her head for a moment to look at her. “Maybe this time it’ll feel more mine, more like it fits.”
“Maybe I should change my code name,” Kyle says, mostly into Jackie’s back with a sort of introspective tone.
“You should,” Monica says, sagely. “God knows I’ve changed my code name enough times. It's good for you.”
“I only went back to Wild Child because I felt like I was losing control of myself,” Kyle admits.
At the mention of Kyle’s code name, Dane turns to scrutinize him, having recognized the name.
Monica looks suspicious. She had enough teammates who weren’t fully in control of themselves with two Black Knights. “If you’re gonna be in my team, you gotta be in control,” She gives him something just shy of a warning glare.
“I’ll do whatever you tell me,” Kyle says with too much sincerity. His statement lingers in the air a moment too long.
“Anyone else wanna change codenames?” Monica asks, skirting past Kyle’s declaration of devotion.
“What do you say, robot buddy?” Simon looks down at M-11 who still dangles from his hands, his question a clear attempt to get any sort of name from him. “Want a new call sign?”
M-11 shifts his grip to give Simon the middle finger but it almost seems, if not affectionate, then at least out of a sense of camaraderie.
“I’m not changing my code name,” Jacks declares. “Dane can change his.”
“Two people can have the same code name. There's two Spider-Man, at least,” Dane starts listing. “Two or three Captain Americas, two Captain Britains.”
“I'm not Captain Britain,” Brian grumbles.
“Oh sure ,” Faiza says with a slight laugh.
“I guess I could be again…” Brian says, more to himself than to anyone else.
“We can all figure out new code names and a team name later,” Monica speaks over the rapidly increasing beeping of the device in her hands. “This thing is going crazy.”
They begin to land in a small dark clearing. Kyle jumps off the pegasus about ten feet from the ground. Fog is rolling in, and the air is tense with something foreboding and unnatural. Somewhere there is a distant howling. Dane dismounts and turns to reach for Faiza when Celeborn rears up before taking to the sky.
“I’ll get her!” Brian shouts and takes off. “Damn your horses!”
“Sorry! We were trying to breed in a bit of self-preservation because Dane kept getting them killed!” Jackie says right before Morgoth spooks too.
She lunges for his reigns and just barely misses them. Kyle leaps after them, grabbing them enough that Morgoth cannot completely get off the ground, but Morgoth starts to gallop and drags him further into the woods while gaining speed. Jackie races after them, and the others yell at them to stay with the group. But it’s lost on deaf ears. It feels like mere seconds in the excitement, but really minutes stretch by, separating them from the group more than they intend. Morgoth rears up in an attempt to get the hold off his reins and Kyle lets go to avoid his dangerous hooves. Morgoth bucks and rears a few more times before taking flight.
“Shit!” Jackie shouts, looking up where Morgoth would have been had dark branches not covered the sky.
Jackie turns to look for the others, but they’re gone. She and Kyle are alone. She instinctively draws closer to Kyle, looking around at the inky woods. Jackie closes her eyes and thinks hard about Dane hoping that, despite him not being on the Ebony Throne, he can hear her. Her thoughts are alone inside her, and her chest tightens as she realizes that she and Kyle are truly isolated in the dark, mysterious woods. The paths are winding and full of dead ends and the trees above them make both figures seem small.
Jackie’s first instinct is to shout for the others, but Kyle hushes her. He steps before her with his arm out to protect her bodily and peers into the darkness.
“Don’t yell,” he says quietly, lips barely moving. “Somethings not right.”
Jackie nods her head because her tongue feels heavy. She draws her sword, and that makes her feel a great deal less scared. They slowly inch forward deeper into the woods.
“Aren’t you an X-Person or something? What are you doing in England anyway?” Jackie asks, trying to break the overwhelming silence.
“I’m going to school in Cambridge,” Kyle says, and he adds, “My first year.”
Jackie perks up. “Really? I go there too. I’m finishing my Master’s and doing a little assistant teaching in the Arthurian department.”
“Be weird if you were my TA,” Kyle says awkwardly.
“Are you taking Medieval Lit 101?” Jackie asks, mostly joking.
Kyle laughs, and it was something akin to a bark. His eyes scrunch up, and he turns to her. “That’s why I’m reading Le Morte d’Arthur,” he says.
“What are the odds,” Jackie says, smiling slightly despite the fog growing thicker.
♠♥♦♣
Faiza hangs on Celeborn’s neck as he bucks and flaps his wings wildly. Her legs slip and she hangs off of the beast, staring down at the trees below. Brian approaches just as Faiza’s grip begins to slip from Celeborn as the pegasus bucks wildly. He catches her, holding her in a bridal carry. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his chest, shaking.
“I’ve got you, Excalibur,” Brian says, reassuringly.
Faiza looks up at him and their eyes meet. She swallows the lump in her throat and nods her head because he has her. She can rely on him to catch her when she falls. After all, he’s Captain Britain. He has always been the superhero to her. Brian doesn’t tear his eyes off her as he brings her to the ground. He holds her for a moment too long before placing her down gently and with more care than he would give to almost anyone else.
“Where is everyone?” Faiza asks, pulling away and looking around into the fog.
“I think we’re alone,” Brian says. He finally tears his eyes off her to look around. “This stinks of magic.”
Faiza nods her head as she draws the sword Excalibur and holds it in front of her. Excalibur glows slightly. “I should say so.”
Brian looks at the soft light for a moment then back up at Faiza. She glows radiantly from the fine light. Brian swallows.
“The sword wants me to go this way,” Faiza says, pointing deeper into the woods. The sword glows a brighter white.
“Lead, and I’ll follow,” Brian says.
“That’s not like you,” Faiza says.
Brian smiles. “I can listen, on occasion.”
♠♥♦♣
“Dane and Monica were just here. Where did they go?” Simon asks, “Brian went off after Faiza, and Dane’s daughter and that lanky boy ran off after their horse. But Monica and Dane just disappeared. I just saw them. This is really strange.”
M-11 is silent. He’s illuminated by Simon’s soft ionic purple glow. (It’s like he’s a flashlight). Simon sighs and crosses his arms.
“You know I never wanted to get involved in any of this. I’m just here to shoot a picture. This was supposed to relaunch my career, but now I’m out here playing Scooby Squad with a bunch of rejected Avengers.”
M-11 stops for a moment to stare at him. He’s one to talk about being a rejected Avenger.
“That reminds me, what am I supposed to call you? I can’t keep calling you Robot. That seems pretty demeaning. Surely you have a designation or name,” Simon says.
M-11 appreciates the question. He doesn't look back at Simon, however, as he walks directly through a gnarled old tree. It shimmers slightly like a fuzzy television screen before the image reforms.
“Well alright. So this is all fake,” Simon says, confidently. He strides in front of M-11 and walks through the branches M-11 already moved through unflinchingly.
M-11 records everything he sees, and he turns to face Simon so he can get a better recording of him. M-11 watches him curiously, making the conscious choice to record in a higher resolution. Of all of his new teammates, and M-11 cringes at calling them teammates even temporarily, he finds Simon the most tolerable. He wants to be here about as much as I do , M-11 thinks. But he’s like Jimmy, in a way. He sees me and the dog boy as people.
Simon walks into a solid tree without breaking stride. He takes a step back, stunned, and realizes that not everything is an illusion.
M-11 pauses his recording to create a clip of the moment to send to his true friends. Slapstick is always funny.
“I’ll let you take the lead, pal. I’m no good at magic stuff,” Simon says, stepping back from the tree.
M-11 reaches out and takes Simon by the hand to lead him through the illusions and trees. “You’re really not that bad, are you?” Simon grins before adding, under his breath, “kinda reminds me of Viz…”
Ken, the Gorilla Man, opens his phone in the hot springs of the Atlas complex. Venus and Namora lounge in the water beside him. Ken howls with laughter at the video of Wonder Man walking into a tree M-11 sent the Agents of Atlas group chat. “Bob, check your phone, M-11 seems like he’s having fun with his new team,” he shouts as he turns his phone for Jimmy to see.
♠♥♦♣
And in the private quarters of the Black Panther, Delroy Garrett Jr., the 3-D Man, sits next to a sleepy T’Challa in a shirt that is not made for his slender frame. He opens his phone and grins.
“T’Challa, look at this video of Wonder Man,” he says, showing the video M-11 sent to his majesty.
Monica flies as high as she can, but she moves slowly like she's swimming through molasses. No matter how high she goes the trees seem to grow above her. She flashes back to the ground and groans. “I hate magic,” she says to herself. “I can't fly out of the trees.”
Dane cups his hands around his mouth. “Jackie! Faiza!” He neglects to call for the others and Monica notices.
“I think we're on our own,” Monca says. She tries blasting some trees down, and Dane tries to do the same with his Photon sword. Any progress they make is futile. The fog grows thicker the more they try to destroy the trees, filling in the space the trees took up.
“I can't find north,” Monica says. Her brow creases and she says quieter. “This has never happened to me…” Even as a small child, she always had a perfect sense of direction.
You're in a mess, Monica. What if this isn't the magic? What if something happened to you when you died? Monica wonders, chest tight, I can't lose my powers again. That was the most powerless I've ever felt.
Dane looks to Monica. There's an undoubting confidence in her written on his face when he asks, “What should we do?” He is so sure she knows the answer. She always leads him the right way even when he doesn't want to listen. Anything she tells him to do, he'll do. It's a hard-learned lesson that he was taught at the cost of the Avengers. Monica knows best. Monica will never steer him wrong. Of all the leaders he’s had over the years, over time and space, Monica is the one he can trust most.
“What else do Avengers do, Dane?” Monica says, trying to feel as confident in herself as Dane is in her. “We have to keep going.”
♠♥♦♣
“Are we lost?” Faiza asks Brian.
Brian shakes his head. “We're going the right way,” he says.
“How can you tell? Besides Excalibur?”
“This way the details are blurry,” Brian says, gesturing the way where they're headed.
“What?” Faiza says, scrutinizing ahead of them. Both directions look the same to her.
“Illusions fail with me. There's always something missing. I can see through them because the details are never there. Everything else is clear, but this way…” Brian says, gesturing to one way that looks the same to Faiza. “It's like one of those paintings with just dots but up close. You’re minds supposed to fill in, but mine just doesn't.” Brian says. He laughs slightly, almost bitterly. “I think it's because I don't have an imagination. I can't picture things in my head.”
“Sounds like Aphantasia,” Faiza says.
“That's what it's called,” Brian says, “but Excalibur confirms it's that way despite everything. It’s glowing more brightly the way I see to go.”
Faiza jabs him in the side with her elbow. “I never thought your lack of imagination could have such useful applications.”
Brian frowns, placing his hands on his hips as he tries to discern the way. Just as he has been explaining to Faiza, both ways had become sharper and more realistic- almost more realistic than real life. “Now that I've said it, though, whoever controls this is filling in the details. Of course.”
♠♥♦♣
The Faerie Queen watches Brian and Faiza in a small cloud near her head but waves the cloud away with painted fingers. Even in her frustration she is beautiful, hair a waterfall of gold around her head as some falls from the self-styled crown. Despite scowling she has no wrinkles. She truly is a thing of beauty. She huffs and turns to look at a second cloud with the image of Monica and Dane shimmering inside of it. The second cloud makes her shake with rage.
“Of course, that incompetent boy would bring them all together instead of tearing them apart. She has nothing to do with our lady friend’s plan, but his meddling has drawn her in! Captain Britain and that plain little girl with Excalibur I can handle. I doubt she even knows fully how to utilize it, but this! This being of light! Thelius should have destroyed her when he had the chance!” The Faerie Queen grumbles, “and not only is she powerful. She’s beautiful too. She rivals even my own beauty! I don’t want her in my sight.” She flounces in the way she turn away from her looking-cloud.
Her green guardian lays his hand on her shoulder. “She is no match for you in beauty,” he says, gently with love in his warrior’s eyes, “As for power… She is just a child playing as a goddess. She does not compare to you in any way. You are the most beautiful and powerful goddess, and she… she is just a pretender.”
The Faerie Queen looks up at him and smiles. She takes his hand in her own and kisses it. “Of course, I’m the most beautiful, but these pests are giving me frown lines.” This of course is a lie. Still, she raises her hands to cast a spell, “I will just send them a little distraction.”
♠♥♦♣
Jackie has her sword lowered some, slowly becoming more comfortable in an uneasy situation. She glances to Kyle on occasion to make sure that he is not worried. Suddenly, he tenses in alertness and throws his arm in front of her. He hunches slightly as he sniffs the air
“What is it?” Jackie asks.
A chorus of unearthly howls ring through the night. Jackie presses against him. She looks around trying to find out where the sounds are coming from, but she can’t. They surround them on every side. And they’re getting louder.
“This isn’t right…” Kyle whispers.
“What? You didn’t expect to get surrounded by wolves with your TA?” Jackie asks, faking nonchalance.
“They don’t smell like animals,” Kyle says, “They smell like honeysuckle and lilies and prairie grass.” And as far as he knew, England didn't even have prairie grass.
Red and yellow eyes peer through the bushes at them, just flashes. Jackie steps out of Kyle’s shadow to hold the Ebony Blade higher. The howling is on top of them.
“If they smell that good then they’re probably magic,” she says.
The air is still, and the hair on the back of Jackie’s neck stands up. She turns to Kyle to tell him they better run when one of the wolves leaps at him. It must be 200 pounds and already its muzzle is covered in blood. Jackie stabs it between the shoulder blades and slices it down the middle. She can feel the Ebony Blade savoring the blood. Her eyes light up and she grins. She feels her heart begin to race with the want, the hunger for more. Kyle pushes the wolf off and grabs her hand to start running in the only direction that he can smell none of the not-wolves.
♠♥♦♣
Wolves surround them in a bear-trap formation. Monica and Dane hold them off, but they can’t move forward or back.
“They’re not organic,” Dane says, slicing one down the middle with the photon sword as Monica blasts one and it dissipates instead of burning. Not organic means no reason to hold back- not that not holding back is doing much good when they just keep coming.
♠♥♦♣
Brian holds a huge wolf by the throat to protect Faiza, shielding her with his body. “Stay back, Excalibur,” he says.
But the wolves seem more scared of the sword in Faiza’s hands than of him.
♠♥♦♣
M-11 marches on, passing the wolves, paying them no mind. Simon turns to look at the first few that pass before giving up with the sheer amount.
“You’re not going to worry about the wolves passing us?” Simon asks, and M-11 ignores him as always. Simon says, uncertain, “Okay…?”
♠♥♦♣
Monica incinerates all the wolves around them, but still more come to take their places. She yells. Dane joins her side, holding his photon blade up high. The light from it reflects on his face. He looks tired—his chest heaves. He looks like someone who could have a child in their mid twenties. Like someone who had been fighting for a long time.
“Not looking great for us, Cap- Spectrum,” he says. He looks to her for a plan. He always looks to her.
Monica groans. She’s way out of her element. She should know what to do, and worst of all she feels like she does but the knowledge is just out of her reach... “I know , I know a way to deal with this… I just have to remember…”
Dane kills a wolf that lunges at her. “I know you can do it, but if you could hurry up…” Monica shoots him a dirty look.
♠♥♦♣
The illusions and trees give way to a clearing. M-11 marches into the clearing and immediately looks at the blonde woman lounging on a throne. Her guard stands beside her, green and stoic like a jade statue. Jackie and Kyle stumble into the clearing from an opening on the other side. Jacks falls at full speed and goes careening into the mossy ground. Kyle hauls her up before she can pull him down with him. She drops his hand and wipes dirt and moss off of herself before looking up at the woman before her.
The Faerie Queen smiles down at them. “My dear friend’s interest has arrived, and without-” she pauses to remember the name she wants but can’t, “What is she going by now? Specter? Spectra? Something like that.” She looks over her shoulder at her green defender and smiles lovingly. She licks her lips before touching his chest. He places a hand that dwarfs hers over it. “I do owe my ally for returning my most stalwart warrior to me, and she wants you dead for whatever reason.” She gazes at Jackie with half-lidded eyes. “Black Knight, have you something to say?”
Jackie swallows, and her tongue is heavy in her mouth. “She’s so beautiful,” she says quietly.
She thinks she says it quietly enough that none of the others hear, but they all stare at her in a mixture of disgust and frustration.
“What?!” Jackie exclaims, “I- Look! I’m just not blind!”
The Faerie Queen smiles and giggles, clearly pleased with the compliment. “My dear Black Knight, I knew there was a reason I always liked you, but my lady lays her claim. Maybe another time…” She huffs and looks over the others. “I need the spares out of the way.” She snaps and wolves creep from behind her throne. Her eyes flash green, and the wolves lunge forward.
Jackie stands with her blade raised, but the wolves avoid her, focusing on Kyle and M-11. Simon holds a single wolf off, but the others seem to have no interest in him. Kyle smiles as he rips and tears at these wolves. He had been worried about getting Jackie to safety before, but no longer. Now it was time to have fun.
Jackie tries to get to his side but wolves surround her and growl. She tries to step past them, but they nip at her, herding her back away from the fight. She looks at M-11. He stonily fires his eye beam at wolf after wolf. Simon throws the wolf attacking him away, and another takes its place.
“Why aren’t they attacking me?” Jackie asks.
Kyle digs his long claws into the chest of one of the wolves and grins as it rips apart and then disappears in a few drops of blood. “They could at least bleed more,” He pouts to himself.
A wolf bites him on the shoulder and tears out a chunk of flesh, revealing the hot red muscle underneath. He twists like a cat to bite it back. Another lunges for his stomach and a third grabs his leg and pulls at it like he’s a stuffed doll. The leg doesn’t come off, but he can hear the pop of his leg dislocating from his hip socket. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Jackie can’t even see Kyle through the mess of wolves. She cuts through one of the wolves in her way but another appears.
Kyle rips through one of them. His hands are bloody. He’s bloody. His nails drip and not even all of it is blood. He’d had his claws in one of the beasts’ heads. He has its brain matter on his hands, driving it into another of the beasts. He’s smiling. “They’re finally bleeding,” he says, yipping in laughter again. His eyes are wild, almost bacchanal. One of his earlobes is torn off.
The Queen and her beau stay at her throne, watching with pleasant smiles like lovers watching a B-roll film. Enjoying it but finding it somewhat dull.
Jackie covers her mouth when she realizes that Kyle’s stomach is torn open. His intestines are starting to hang out, sickeningly pink. One of the wolves dives at his stomach again, about to take a chunk out of the exposed liver, but before it’s able M-11’s death ray beams through all the wolves. They yelp as they disappear.
Kyle picks up handfuls of his own guts for a moment before falling to the ground, seemingly only just now realizing he’s been disemboweled. The pain comes all at once, or at least the pleasure that comes with pain leaves all at once. Jackie runs to his side and kneels next to him. She grabs some of his intestines and tries to shove them back inside him. Kyle whimpers and rubs his cheek against her knee. Jackie drags him up into her lap and holds him, petting his hair. Tears run down her face and she’s glad for the helmet. Her tears drop on Kyle’s cheek. She’d seen her own deaths, and one or two of Dane’s, but never one with this much sheer gore. And most of the time theirs had been quicker. Kyle paler than usual. There’s no red in his cheeks.
M-11 moves to kneel on his other side and pats him on the head. He had liked the dogboy well enough to not want to see him like this.
“I’ll be fine,” Kyle says, and he coughs. Blood fills his mouth. “As long as my guts are inside me when I start to heal.” His lungs rattle with blood and with every agonizing breath more blood bubbles out of his mouth. “I’ve had worse.” Despite that being the truth, he squeezes his eyes shut and tears roll down his cheeks. Already the scratches on his internal organs are starting to close but anyone can see it will be a slow process.
Jackie holds him tighter, smearing blood all over the front of her armor.
Simon whips to look at the Faerie Queen, anger turning his features harsh. His ions struggle to hold a human form and spill out of his eyes, leaving them crackling with an energy trail. You could hear it. “Drop the illusions! If you’re going to be this cruel, use your real face!”
The Faerie Queen smiles, mercilessly. Her Guardian steps in front of her as she rises. “I suppose it would make sense you would recognize your maker*,” she says as green magic washes over her. [*Wayback in Avengers #9! - Continuity Conner]
The Faerie Queen’s hair falls loose from where it piles on her crown, and her crown becomes less natural and more sharp- green metal. Her loose fitting, light green gown, shortens and deepens in color, and the bodice tightens to hug her thin waist. Underneath the dress she has tight legging-boots that cover all her long legs. A pattern of circles accentuates them. Her face changes, becoming sharper and her nose more buttoned. Her lips form a vulpine smile.
There is no mistaking her for anyone except who she really is. This is Amora the Enchantress.
She holds her guardian, now in his true form, by one thick arm. He too has changed, though less than she has. He wears a chest plate emblazoned with an axehead. His boots and gloves are a deep brown-green. The tattooed lines across his scalp are a dark black and his mustache and goatee serve to frame his intimidating jaw. His skin remains green, but he is undeniably Skurge the Executioner. She leans into him, pressing her breasts against his wide chest.
“It was a fun little game while it lasted.” Amora says, smiling malevolently. “My lady friend does always suggest the best ones.”
Notes:
Dear UNDYING AVENGERS team,
Mama mia, what a horrible issue! Destroying the lighthouse--you're crazy! I hope Maggie died in the calamity, that little troll never should have been born. Is the reason that Meggan hasn't been mentioned yet because she's divorced Brian? I hope she has, he doesn't deserve her or a family.
And why oh why has Jacks given Kyle Mallory?! The English Arthurian tradition is the objective worse, and the French isn't much better. OBVIOUSLY the best piece of Arthurian literature is La Tavola Ritonda--anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong.
As for Steph O. Nostalgia's letter--stop kidding around. Brian should have been left in the 80s, he's a joke. The only prayer of success this series has is if he dies permanently.
What a waste of $4.
Stefano N. Stalgia
New York City, New York
Well, you can’t please everyone.Dear Adelaide and Conner,
Since I read new comics in order of lowest expectations to highest, I of course had to save UNDYING AVENGERS #2 for last, and BOY was I not disappointed! (X-MEN #35 was first, and that WAS disappointing.)
As always I love your attention to continuity, a trait which is so sorely lacking in modern writers like Jonathan Hickman. As I admitted in my last letter, I'm not terribly familiar with all of these characters, but I can still tell that you've done your homework on them and really care. I particularly loved the references to all of their villains in #2.
I really laughed at Thelius losing his powers. He should have done more research on who was part of the Agents of Atlas before engaging! The terms of the deal were QUITE clear, and he did kill (or 'kill,' I hope) a member of the Agents. (Though of course M-11 was okay, but surely near-complete bodily destruction counts as a sort of death? It must to the Faerie Queen.) I have of course already pulled AGENTS OF ATLAS, and am eagerly waiting to see how Thelius fails on his quest. (Because he will fail... right?)
On that note I wonder if you'll continue the trend of killing someone every issue? That would be incredibly, and certainly keep the stakes lofty! Death is death, even if you come back. Though to argue with Steph O. Nostalgia, I would say that that makes the theme of this series death itself, NOT immortality.
If you do decide to kill anyone off PERMANENTLY, though, my suggestion would be Brian Braddock. He's not even Captain Britain anymore, he's useless! Just get rid of him. Characters that peaked in Marvel UK shouldn't be kept around anyway.
Jamie Piff
236 Pollack Patrol Road
Teeklville USA
Excalibur will be joining the team! And as for Thelius… You’ll have to read Agents of Atlas #1, on sale now, to find out!Holy smokes that ending!
This was a fabulous first issue to read! Even though I'm not super familiar with most of these characters, and have only read about wonder man from the first 40ish issues of wca, I'm glad I picked this up and am very excited by this mini series' concept.
Speaking of characters, your character writing was spectacular! You made every character feel interesting, and I really liked how even in brief introductions you were able to convey so much personality with everyone. That combined with the immortality concept for a team has thoroughly hooked me. I can't wait to see what happens with them next.
I also really enjoyed the M-11 scenes a lot (I too would prefer feeding ducks to going to the club).
Very excited for the next issue!
Ry
Fan-City, USA
We’re so glad that you enjoyed despite not being very familiar with the characters!NEXT ISSUE: THE LADY'S FAVOR
Chapter 4: Issue Four: The Lady's Favor
Summary:
The majority of the team faces Amora and Skurge. Meanwhile, Amora uses her magic to keep Monica and Dane away from her and the games she conducts.
Main Characters: Monica Rambeau, Dane Whitman, Faiza Hussain, Brian Braddock, Kyle Gibney, Jackie Chopra, Simon Williams, M-11, Amora the Enchantress, Skurge the Executioner
Cameos: Merlyn
Flashback: Jennifer Walters, Anthony Druid, Mysterio
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Snarls and howling fill the air as Monica and Dane are overwhelmed by wolves. It is a wild hunt, unbearably loud and unbearably violent. Monica rises above the violence and fires shots at them, but for every one she and Dane fell, another ten take their place.
Monica desperately tries to wrack her mind for memories she just can’t reach. They are on the tip of her tongue, phantom thoughts that she hasn’t used in years. “I know I know a way to deal with this magic. I just need to think,” she says as she lasers another wolf down, who yelps.
“Can you think faster? I’m getting overwhelmed here!” Dane yells up as he is getting- literally- dogpiled.
A wolf claws his belly and hot blood blossoms on his tunic. It’s nothing to him, he knows pain, but he cries out anyway from the shock of it and stabs through the wolf. “It’s like they’re targeting us specifically!”
Monica looks at the wound on his stomach, and she knows she has to do something– quickly . She flares up to a higher brightness to temporarily blind the wolves and unintentionally blinds Dane as well. “C’mon girl, you know this. You’ve dealt with magic before with that fool Druid…”
Monica closes her eyes to remember. She rakes through memories of when she led the Avengers and when she unfortunately had to work with Dr. Druid. She remembers fighting Mysterio with Jennifer and the doctor…
♠♥♦♣
“We’ve got you cornered!” Jen said all those years ago.
“So you think!” Mysterio replied before bursting into fog. Hundreds of clones of him and the rest of the Sinister Six appeared where he had been standing.
Dr. Druid in his insufferable confidence exclaimed, “So you use magic against us!”
Monica thought that Mysterio didn’t use magic and said as much. It didn’t feel the same as magic. Dr. Druid scoffed at her as if she were some inexperienced child. “Who is the master of the occult here?” he asked.
“Well you, but-”
“Then you should listen to me!” Dr. Druid said, haughtily. Monica is sick even thinking about the way he undermined her in those days. Why had she allowed that?
“Clear your minds, ladies, which should be rather simple,” Dr. Druid said.
“Oh and why’s that Doc?” Jen asked.
“Because women are much simpler than men,” Dr. Druid said as if it were common knowledge and a view shared by everyone.
Jen made a disgusted noise. “You’re such a misogynist!” she exclaimed.
“You should take it as a compliment. You have less thoughts to worry your pretty little brains with. It’s why women are not suited as leaders,” Dr. Druid said.
“Are you going to take that C.M.?” Jen asked.
“Mysterio’s making us turn on each other. Just ignore Druid, and clear your mind, Jen,” Monica said.
“Fine, but I’m going to beat him to a pulp when this is over,” Jen said.
Monica closed her eyes and cleared her mind, but instead of her mind clearing she noticed a clock ticking. Why was there a clock ticking here and now? She couldn’t concentrate on clearing her mind with the sound so she let out a photon burst and destroyed whatever was making the ticking noise. With the clock went the illusions, and everything was just elaborate smoke and mirrors. The real Mysterio was left kneeling by his broken device.
Jen caught Mysterio and held him up by the cape. “See, Doc, Cap was right about it not being magic,” she said.
“Perhaps, but my advice may still prove useful,” Dr. Druid said.
Jen patted Monica on the back. “Good on sticking it to Dr. Dreadful,” she said, before turning on Mysterio with a grin. She punched her fist into her hand.
“I should have stuck with fighting Spider-man!” Mysterio wailed at the sight of She-Hulk rounding on him.
♠♥♦♣
Monica opens her eyes as everything comes back to her. “Dammit, this better work. Clear my mind…” Clearing her mind should at least help her be able to think through whatever was happening more easily.
Monica remembers the nothingness she felt when she was dead. Her particles scattered through the whole universe, the never-ending darkness of whatever came after… She shuddered and bursts into pure light and light alone. The light burns away the illusions around her, leaving ashes and glitter in their wake. Dane stares up at her in awe. He’s always being awed by her.
Monica returns to herself. “I’m almost annoyed that worked,” she comments.
Somewhere in the edges of the forest a cat, unaware of the magic happening around it, catches a red squirrel in its mouth and the bell on its collar jingles as it begins to trot away. It had caught a pest, after all. It looks to where it is sure its owner will be pleased to receive its pesty kill. It is unaware not only of the magic around it, but of the fox. The fox bites the cat’s neck, ridding the forest of this invasive species. And where does the fox look, reader? At you.
♠♥♦♣
Excalibur and Captain Britain stand back-to-back. Something like this- fighting animals, even if they are magical- should be easy for Britain’s foremost champions. It isn’t. Maybe it’s the magical nature, maybe it’s the sheer numbers but Excalibur and Captain Britain, just slightly, falter. For Faiza Hussain it is because she is having to continuously remind herself that these things are trying to kill her; her own desire not to kill them does not affect how viciously they attack her. Her lagging just gives them openings.
“You seem like you’re struggling,” Faiza says when she realizes that Brian is lagging too. There’s
sweat
on his brow.
“I don’t know why, but my powers aren’t working like they used to,” Brian replies, angry with himself.
“I’ve almost been relying on the suit itself recently, like back when I was some young milksop. I’m being a disappointment,”
he thinks.
In his moment of distraction, the largest of the wolves jumps above the others and sinks its strong claws into Brian’s chest, ripping both costume and skin open. Brian’s eighty-two inches of chest heaves out of the tear, and he is surprised to see the blood. He touches his hand to his chest. The wolves keep tearing at him, into his arms, his hands, anything they can get at. He pulls his hand away from the wound and his hand is red and wet with blood. Faiza turns from where she’s at his back in concern.
“It’s deep,” he says and there is a tinge of fear and doubt in his voice that Faiza has never heard Captain Britain express for himself.
♠♥♦♣
There is a hunting dog, elsewhere in the forest, a designer foxhound and it delights in its find. A fox, standing over a cat.
♠♥♦♣
In the Otherworld, Merlyn stands over the stone scrying pond balancing on a pillar and watches Excalibur and Captain Britain. A young page stands beside Merlyn and stands on his toes to peek as he fills Merlyn’s goblet.
“Brian Braddock is mortally injured, sire,” the page boy says with wide eyes at the sight in the water. “Won’t you be giving him his true power?” He asks with the naivety of the young.
Merlyn takes the goblet from the boy. “He has turned his back on Avalon, remember that, boy. If I need him again, I can always raise him from the grave as I do Arthur. If he dies, let this death be his punishment for betrayal. I will help him no more. Besides…” Merlyn smiles to himself and turns his attention back to the scrying pond where Faiza is healing Brian. “Even if he was still Captain Britain, he has a new regent now.”
♠♥♦♣
A shadow falls over the hunting dog, massive and imposing. A brown bear, not seen in Britain in years, lumbers down to menace the hunting dog. The dog shakes before turning tail and running from both bear and fox. The bear and fox sniff the air around one another before they pass each other. Only because of genetic memory did the fox even know what the bear was.
♠♥♦♣
Faiza leaves her hands on Brian’s chest for a lingering moment and she makes sure his chest has been fully healed. She’s even fixed his costume. The wolves are keeping away, spooked by the grotesque use of her powers in combination with the light of the sword Excalibur but it won’t last. They both know it.
“Okay, that’s you taken care of,” Faiza says with a nod. She moves to hold Excalibur in both her hands. She’d had an idea while having to heal Brian. “Maybe we’re going about all of this the wrong way… Maybe this isn’t something to fight, but something we need to heal.” Faiza drives the blade of Excalibur into the ground and it glows brightly as a conduit of her powers. The glow spreads wider and wider, over the entire area. Brian has to shield his eyes, but he doesn’t dare look away. This is exactly what Faiza said she would do. A healing of the land itself.
Brian moves to stand beside her as the glow starts to recede. The majority of the wolves they had been fighting are gone, glitter and ash in the grass where they once stood. The four-legged beasts that remain are a collection of mangy dogs in various sizes. The only one with any fight left is a yappy Jack Russell that is still jumping for Brian’s chest. He catches it mid air and holds it away from him, incredulously. It wiggles. “They were all dogs?”
“Cursed by magic, I guess,” Faiza says.
He scowls as he places the dog down, where it runs around his feet. “We were almost bested by a pack of dogs.”
“There’s been odder adventures, and whoever set them on us is very powerful,” Faiza reasons. “Neither of us were at our best- we’ve both been out of the field for a while.”
Brian’s hand tightens into a fist and then his fingers spread and his newly healed chest rises and falls.
“Chin up, Captain Britain,” Faiza says, sheathing Excalibur by her side. She pats him on his broad back and there is a small glow, just like the one produced by Excalibur moments ago. She smiles up at him. “I know we’ll get the best of it all. Now, let’s go find the others.”
Kyle whimpers in Jackie’s arms. His stomach is healing, but not quickly. Jackie physically holds his intestines inside of him and his gouged shoulder presses against her chest. His leg twists unnaturally beside her, but she hasn’t been able to even process that wound when his guts are held in with her hands. She is covered in his blood which she also hasn’t been able to process. She hasn’t realized there’s blood creeping towards where the Ebony Blade lay. Simon and M-11 are nearby. Simon stares in horror, and M-11, though blank in his face, stares in equal horror. No matter if you’ve seen it before, there is always horror in seeing a man disemboweled. If Jackie had been able to step back from her adrenaline-fueled attempt to put him back together she would be staring at him with the same horror, but there was no time for that. Not when Amora gazed down on them with amused apathy. She has one hand on her hips and her breast thrust forward. She gazes down at them like they’re particularly annoying, but amusing, ants.
Skurge reaches for Amora and she holds out her hand for him. He kisses her hand while laughter bubbles out of her lips. She strokes his cheek as he pulls away from her, and she looks over his shoulder at the heroes below.
“Now, let’s see what we have here,” Amora says as she looks at them in turn. She gazes at M-11 and his cold stare. “A little automaton without its master.”
She turns her eyes to Simon, and a sinister smile graces her lips. “One of my best pieces, the little collection of ions that thinks they’re a man. It was almost cute. One promise from me and you agreed readily to the experiment, do you remember?”
Amora turns her gaze next to Jackie, still clinging to Kyle’s battered body. “Black Knight. I heard you say I’m beautiful. You’re right, but maybe you’re still under my love spell after all these years. Even after I turned you to stone! I appreciate faithfulness like that.” [See Defenders vol. 1 #4! -Academic Adelaide]
Kyle growls pitifully and tries sitting up. Jackie holds him closer to her and scowls at Amora. She can just see the hate in Jackie’s eyes from behind the faceplate of her helmet. Amora laughs. “The little Sigmundir-son I don't recognize, but I doubt he'll trouble me much more…” Kyle growls again, but it’s hardly intimidating with his guts spilling out of him and his legs twisted beneath him. His healing is sluggish with his organs outside of his body. “...will he?”
M-11 extends his legs and starts to whir as his beam powers up. He raises his hand to his eye, but before he can fire his death ray, he slumps over with a wave of Amora’s hand like a puppet with his strings cut.
“Ah, ah, ah, little Tinman. You’re of interest to Thelius, not to me. Even with all of that magic running through you. I prefer things made of flesh and blood-”
Skurge leads down and whispers in her ear. “I’m sorry to interrupt, ást min, but Spectrum and the man with her have broken through your illusions.”
Amora grimaces and for a moment her beautiful looks falter. She looks slightly less than perfect as she tries to gather her thoughts. She groans. “Thankfully I have a spell I kept handy from when Loki tried to court me that I can bring up quickly. It’s fortunate it matched my outfit.”
Amora takes off her pinky ring, and the piece of glacier set in an oak band sparkles in the light. She throws it up into the air and it bursts into a flash of light with a taringgg as it pops out of existence.
“Where was I…?”
The wind howls and the temperature drops sharply. Monica shivers and hugs her shoulders. Dane glances at her but doesn’t say anything as the first snowflakes start to fall. The wind rips at Monica’s arms as more snow begins to fall. It’s thick, wet clumps. The wind whips at her hair and the corner of Dane’s jacket. The snow melts on Monica’s skin, and she feels the cold to her bones. Everything is white with blankets of snow, except the pinkness of her and Dane’s noses and fingers.
“Where the hell is this snow from?” Dane asks.
Monica’s teeth chatter. “Is snow always this cold?” she asks. She had never experienced it before she got her powers and hadn’t felt temperature unless she actively chose to with them.
Dane tucks her against him to give her some of his warmth. She buries her face into his shoulder. “Aren’t you cold?” she asks into his chest.
Dane laughs a little. “This isn’t my first Nor’easter. I’m from Massachusetts, remember?” Plus, Dane had a layer of wool-padded armor under his jacket and Monica’s suit was is made to be thin and flexible
“I can’t see a foot ahead of me,” Monica says. I’ve got to do something , she thinks, maybe I can try turning into my light form.
Monica tries turning into her light form, but it’s so bright she can’t move, reflecting a thousand-fold off of the snow crystals around them. Even then, she’s still cold. This isn’t a natural storm. She cycles through her powers, but nothing helps.
Tears prick at the corners of Monica’s eyes. “It’s not doing anything,” she says.
Dane grabs her shoulders. “Whoa, it’s okay. We’re going to get out of this,” he says. He lets go of her for a moment to take his jacket off and drapes it over her shoulders. The jack-chains on his arms clink slightly at the action. She wraps it around herself and buries her face in Dane’s chest when tears start falling.
“I just died, and I might die again because of the stupid cold,” she sobs, “I haven’t felt cold in years. And never this cold. I forgot what it felt like and I-” She wipes her eyes and looks up at Dane. He reaches out and wipes a tear that she misses.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dane says, “Um… Back during the Crusades, one time me and my friend Bennet got stuck in a sandstorm, and all we had were our shields and our camels. Well, my camel, and it died. Well, it didn’t die. We had to kill it for food and the water in its hump. Well, Ex- Bennet killed it. Anyway, that’s not that important. The main thing was me and Bennet were stuck in a sandstorm huddling behind our shields for a few hours. Then when it was over we couldn’t find our way back to camp, and that’s when we killed the camel. But you know, I would have died without him, and he would have died without me… And we would have both died without that camel.”
Monica stares at him for a moment, slightly perplexed by the story. “That was pointless.” However, she is too distracted by her bewilderment and the meandering way Dane told the story to still be panicking. At some point during the story she started to grip Dane’s hands, letting them warm hers.
Dane smiles sheepishly, realizing that he maybe lost his message while trying to tell the story. He takes her hand in his own and says earnestly, “You don’t have to do it all alone all of the time, boss. Just tell me what to do. Let me help you .”
“But I’m the leader. I need to know what to do. I need to fix this.” Monica starts to pull her hands away. Leaders don't fail like she has, they don’t fail themselves like she did by dying. And if a leader couldn't trust herself, how could she ask her team to trust her?
“Leaders delegate, and you’re a very good leader.” Dane looks Monica deeply in the eyes. “I trust you. Delegate to me. Tell me what to do.”
Monica takes a deep breath. “You have to clear your mind.”
Dane nods at the instruction. “ I can do that.”
He closes his eyes and unbidden memories come to the forefront of his mind. And at the forefront of Dane Whitman’s mind there are two things
–
The Ebony Blade and Failure.
He remembers his uncle, Nathan Garrett, dying his arms and giving him the Mantle of the Black Knight, he remembers promising to fix his legacy, he remembers finding the Ebony Blade in the walls of Garrett castle and how easily he was swayed by its seductive nature. What is this, Dane Whitman, but FAILURE? A failure of your word?
He remembers Sean Dolan, the boy that was like a son to him, sparring with him and teaching him everything he knew. He remembers watching Sean leave with the Ebony Blade after being distorted from the young boy he was before turning into a monster, a Bloodwraith. He remembers Sersi, Crystal, and mostly Victoria- all Dane’s lovers- watching as he was unable to save the boy. He remembers being unable to prevent Sean from taking up the blade and how it led to Victoria’s ultimate death. What is this, Dane Whitman, but FAILURE? A failure of your duties?
And he remembers most recently, Jackie. He remembers how he tried to find her, to make up for not being in her life, for trying to be the father she deserved. Trying to protect her from the myriad of familial curses. He hadn’t even been able to die correctly, and Jackie had paid the price twice over- first by dying and second by having her own life tied to the blade as she was brought back. More than that, he allowed her to keep it. What is this, Dane Whitman, but FAILURE? A failure to your own daughter?
Failure. FAILURE. FAILURE.
Dane scrunches his eyes closed tighter, frustrated with himself and his own inability to fight the thoughts in his head. He grits his teeth. “Clear my mind…” He says. He could do this, for Monica.
Dane thinks of when he had a heart of stone. He hadn’t felt anything then. Everything had been distant, both good and bad.
Dane Whitman allows himself to sink into the memory of feeling nothing. There is no mind clearer than nothingness.
The snow swirls away with a final death howl of wind and it begins to melt. There is a ring of clear ground at Dane and Monica’s feet. He opens his eyes and smiles at her. “I knew I wouldn’t let you down.”
“You’re a reliable teammate,” Monica smiles back at him before turning to light to fly ahead. She does not return his jacket to him, but he doesn’t need it. She is not just light, but warmth as well. She is leading and this is where Monica feels most confident- in the sky, with a team. But still, she chastises herself. I was acting like a rookie back there, she thinks, ashamed. It doesn’t matter what she’s been through recently- she is sure she needs to get through it all, above it all. She needs to be able to feel like herself again, fully.
The grove opens up before Brian and Faiza in a dim green light. Faiza sees Jackie and Kyle. At first she is unable to tell who is injured as blood covers them both. Faiza races to their side and sees that the blood belongs to Kyle. She lays him out flat on his back. She holds her hands above him and pulls the flesh away from his body to see the damage beneath and has to peel the muscle and bones apart to see what needs to be done.
Faiza’s brow furrows as she starts her procedure. Start with the internal organs. Those need to be placed precisely. These go in the abdominal cavity and I need to slowly lay them without having them twist. Volvulus is the last thing he’ll need after all this, Faiza thinks like the doctor she is. She pulls his intestines out to keep them from twisting before putting them back inside of him carefully and slowly. Small intestines first. He’s done most of the healing himself, but I’ll have to get him on an antibiotic when we get out of here. Who knows what germs are in there. Can he even get an infection? There seems to only be one small tear in his large intestines. I should be able to repair that… Before she can even start stimulating the cells the tear begins to heal itself. Oh, his healing factor is doing it for me. His abdominal cavity seems good.
Jackie is unable to tear her eyes away as Faiza works, watching in a disgusted sort of interest.
Now his leg. I need to put the joint back where it goes, Faiza thinks. She pulls the flesh away. The layers of skin and muscle look almost like lasagna. She fits the femur back into the hip joint. Now repair the tendons and cartilage around the wound. She puts what isn't too damaged back where it belongs and what is too damaged heals itself to fit back around the joint. This is easy with a healing factor. I don't have to stimulate the cells; they do what I want without even thinking.
Amora watches the healing, leaning forward in enrapture. There is something grotesquely beautiful about the way Faiza disassembles and reassembles what was more gore than Kyle before. The way the muscle and tendons weave together like a tapestry and Kyle’s organs wriggle into place like a dance. Then skin wraps around Kyle’s chest. He is whole as if he were never injured.
Faiza sighs and collapses forward for a moment. She takes in a few desperate breaths like she’s just run a marathon before sitting back up and smiling in relief. It still takes a lot out of her to do that much healing in one go. She gently tugs Kyle’s earlobe, which had regrown mostly on its own, and laughs. “All set, except you’ll have to get this repierced. I can’t do that much,” she says.
Amora claps slowly, fingers against her palm. “So you aren’t just a pretty face and a pretty sword. I doubt Eir herself on Lyfjaberg could have done a better job. But of course…” Her lips quirk up in a sinister smile, and she gestures to Kyle as he climbs to his feet. “You ultimately fixed him for nothing.” She shares a smirk and a sidelong glance with Skurge.
Amora straightens up and points to each of them in time, brilliantly green nails pointed and shining. “Eeny.” She points at Faiza then moves on to M-11. “Meeny.” She skips Jackie altogether and points at Kyle. “Miney.” She hesitates for a moment on Brian as if she is going to make her choice. “Maybe…” Then finally she points her long manicured finger at Simon. “You.”
Simon’s brows raise in shock as Amora turns to focus solely on him. Dread stews where his stomach should be as she rises. He hardens his face as she draws nearer. “You are going to help me test out my new Skurge. He’s a gift you see– not my original. I need to see how my new champion compares in ways I can’t personally test. And who better to test him against than our little experiment who just happens to have been my champion- if only for a moment. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”
“I won’t.” Simon says. “I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe in violence for people like me,” He looks to Skurge and thinks of the power the other man wields. “Like us. I’m not going to fight anyone, let alone for someone’s amusement.” Simon’s voice wavers for just a moment. His red-tinted glasses do well to help hide his expression. “I- I won’t let you make me go against my principles again.”
“Your principles? You’re telling me no?” Amora seems more amused than anything. “But you’re so
good
at violence. It’s what you were built for.”
“I won’t do it,” Simon seethes a little at the implication that he was not allowed to change.
Amora’s face reddens at the second rejection and she rises up to her full height. Her voice is haughty as she shouts, “You dare?!”
“I do.” He says this more firmly.
Amora’s voice drops flirtatiously, her own weapon. “You were happy to fight for my amusement…”
Simon remembers the months bewitched by Amora, her willing slave. He remembers having been willing to do anything for her touch, even going against his own friends. Hurting them. He remembers everything other than her feeling so far away and hazy in his mind, not having realized at the time that he hadn’t been in his right mind at all. He remembers the shame and hurt that came after. [See the events in Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #38-45! - Continuity Conner]
“...my handsome once lover,” Amora finishes and reaches out to touch him.
He jerks away violently, face aghast. Panicked. “Don’t touch me!”
Simon feels the rest of the team’s eyes on him, but he isn’t sure if it’s just his imagination. Amora sneers at him and even that is beautiful. “You certainly liked my touch before. I barely had to use my charms on you. I had your mind and your heart in my hands. But perhaps it’s because you have someone else now?” She has the most threat she’s had in her voice this entire encounter when she tilts her chin at him and adds, “I could
make
you forget whatever man you have at home.”
Ions escape Simon’s form as he stares her down. He tries to hold himself together- literally. His hands shake in a desire to form fists, a desire to hurt, but he won’t let her get the better of him. “No. You couldn’t.”
She smiles at him with thinned lips and stands back. “Well. If you insist that I can’t make you, then I’ll
un
make you.” Amora raises her hands above her head and a surge of magic comes from her fingertips.
Simon’s body crumbles like a toy who’s battery died. His eyes are hollow, and no longer glow red. They’re black holes. His ions disperse in a wave of purple energy. What’s left of his body is husk-like, thin and empty. M-11 stretches out his arms and catches Simon before he can hit the dirt. He gently places him on the ground and touches his neck as if to feel for a pulse. Faiza throws herself next to M-11, acting quickly, but her powers don’t work on Simon. There is no flesh to rearrange, no heart to restart…
Everything begins to happen quickly, at a breakneck pace. Brian reaches for a sword that he doesn’t have anymore and takes a step towards Amora as if to attack, but Skurge steps in front of her menacingly. Jackie grabs her sword and charges at Amora, unheeding to Brian’s shouts for her to stand down. (He doesn’t want another dead almost-teammate, not so soon).
“The Black Knight then, Skurge. And don’t kill him darling- this is just a little test,” Amora’s eyes sparkle as she watches Skurge knock Jackie’s sword back with his axe. “A contest.”
Skurge throws his axe down on the Ebony Blade, and the room is filled with an unholy clang. Everything shakes with the sound, and Jackie falls forward with the force. She jumps back when she realizes that Skurge will not finish the fight so early on, but she is new to this and is only fueled on by rage. Skurge towers over her. Each sweep of his axe gets closer and closer to slicing off Jackie’s arm. Skurge hits her bodily, and she falls back hard. Skurge raises his axe as if he is going to cleave her in half, and the others jump in to stop him.
Brian charges Skurge and knocks him away from Jackie. Skurge stumbles back a few steps and raises his axe to attack Brian. M-11 shoots his laser at Skurge, and it ricochets off his axe, felling a tree somewhere behind them with a crack. Kyle lunges at Skurge, perhaps at his fist to rip the axe from his hand, but Skurge lifts him with his other hand and holds him like a misbehaving kitten. Skurge looks at him with a look of disgust like he is nothing more than a pest to be blotted out, but Skurge is a man of his word so he tosses him like the nuisance he deems him as instead. Faiza holds out her hand as if she’s trying to use her powers, but Skurge roars. He heaves his axe down, and Faiza falls from the shock of it hitting the ground. Brian shoulders him away from her and grabs at the handle of the axe to hold Skurge back, grappling him.
Amora had been momentarily forgotten, not having done any of the physical fighting herself. “Now this isn’t very sporting!” She calls across the clearing. “And after I specified for my champion not to kill anyone else.” They should have known that while Amora wasn’t always honorable, that Skurge was.
Amora’s voice draws Jackie’s attention to her. Everyone else has Skurge well in hand. Jackie rushes Amora and screams in rage— rage that Amora almost had one friend killed and then had so callously killed someone who had seemed like a good man, a decent upright man, before she had even gotten the chance to know him. And for nothing! All of this, for what? For a game! Nothing! The Ebony blade thrums in the air, fueling her rage and she fuels it right back. She wants Amora’s blood. She needs it, the sword needs it.
Amora sidesteps the tip of Jackie’s sword and quickly pulls the helmet off of her head. She is surprised, for a moment, to see a woman’s face instead of that of Dane Whitman who she had been expecting. “You aren’t the Black Knight I know, but…” Amora smiles, stepping out of the way of Jackie’s sword once again. “You’ll do.”
Amora grabs Jackie’s face and lays her lips on hers. Jackie struggles in Amora’s hands for just a second, still trying to fight before she gives into the kiss. Her sword arm goes slack, the Ebony Blade hanging by her side. Amora kisses like she invented it. She kisses like it could start or end wars. It has.
Amora pulls her lips from Jackie’s, and Jackie leans in to follow her before Amora turns her face to look at the rest of the Avengers, holding the back of Jackie’s neck. “You are much better at that than the last Black Knight. Now, kill your friends for me?”
Jackie’s eyes are green under Amora’s enchantment. She turns to face the rest of her fledgling team and holds the Ebony Blade threateningly. Amora stands behind her smugly, Jackie’s helm hanging from her grasp. And Jackie. Jackie’s face twists in anger, part Amora’s magic, part the Ebony Blade’s curse. Her hands tighten around the blade like a lifeline, her knuckles white. Angry red magic swirls behind her, and its not Amora’s. The Ebony Blade loves its new master’s anger, spurred on by another. The Ebony Blade does not care where the anger and violence it craves comes from, only that it gets the blood it longs for. Its appetite was wetted by Kyle bleeding in Jackie’s arms, and now Amora promises more. The Ebony Blade does not care whose blood it drinks. Jackie is happy to provide it on her new mistress’s behalf.
Simon’s body lays forgotten in the fray, dim and colorless. Jackie begins to advance on the group. Simon’s eyes ignite suddenly, bright red, his body krackling with purple ionic energy as he wakes up. Despite not needing to breathe, he gasps.
Notes:
NEXT ISSUE: HEART OF THE MARIONETTE
Chapter 5: Issue Five: Heart of the Marionette
Summary:
It's the final show-down between the Undying Avengers and Amora! But with Black Knight under Amora's control, who will survive?
Main Characters: Monica Rambeau, Dane Whitman, Faiza Hussain, Brian Braddock, Kyle Gibney, Jackie Chopra, Simon Williams, M-11, Amora the Enchantress, Skurge the Executioner
Cameo: Sir Percy of Scandia
Chapter Text
Jackie’s eyes glow an inhuman green. Her arms are raised with the Ebony Blade clutched within her grasp. Without will of her own she wants the enemies of Amora dead, and the Blade wants blood, with no qualms to whose blood spills.
Amora stands behind Jackie holding her helm lazily in her hand. Her enchanted berserker is everything she could hope for. Beautiful, malleable, and powerful.
Jackie charges at her former allies with the blade raised and bloodlust in her eyes. M-11 mirrors her attack for a moment, and his eye powers up. Then it powers down. He can't bring himself to hurt one without a will of their own. Not when he was built for the same purpose only to break away from his programming with the aid of someone else. Perhaps he can break her programming. He chooses a less deadly course of action, extending his arms out at her. Jackie slices the Ebony Blade down and M-11 just barely retracts his arm in time. He throws his arm out once more with much more force, just as Dane and Monica enter the clearing.
Dane's eyes lock onto the exchange between the woman and the human robot, not knowing why the fight was occurring.
Jackie crashes into M-11’s arm with a ferocity only the Ebony Blade could provoke. Dane raises his own sword and shouts, “Get away from my daughter!”
Amora laughs wickedly. There was no way for her to anticipate the drama of casting daughter against father, but now she has done just that. How she revels in the depravity of it all.
Monica grabs Dane's wrist before he can attack and steps in front of him to halt his charge. “Look! Amora has Jackie under her spell. Look at her eyes!”
Dane yanks his hand free and pushes Monica forcefully away from him. “I don't care!” he yells desperately.
From its forgotten spot in the clearing, Simon's husk of a body draws in ions. His face twists in pain as he struggles to absorb the energy he needs. He's so weak. If only he could...
The photon sword buzzes as Dane slices M-11’s arm, which holds Jackie off. The circuitry is exposed, and the extending arm left dangling from M-11's shoulder socket. M-11’s eye lights up for a moment as if he's going to fire on Dane, but after powering down he turns his attention back on Jackie. His arm lets go of her and slithers back to his body like a serpent. It reattaches, melding itself to where M-11's circuits spark.
Simon’s body looks almost restored. Color fills him as the dead gray of his husk dissolves. Ionic energy surrounds him. Behind him Jackie attacks Kyle. The Ebony Blade thirsts for more of his blood. He bleeds so well. Skurge fights Faiza and Brian so that Jackie isn't overwhelmed by foes.
Dane raises his photon sword, but before he can attack, Monica shuts it off by manipulating its wavelengths. He whips around to look at her and betrayal mars his features. “Monica!”
“It's Spectrum in the field,” Monica says sternly. “And the last thing we need is more friendly fire!”
“He could kill her! He's a killer robot!” Dane yells.
Brian looks worse for the wear, bruised and with a blackened eye under his torn mask, as if he had blocked a blow with his own face. He's thrown back, closer to Monica and Dane. Brian is able to use his flight to keep himself from landing against the ground. “And she could kill us while she's possessed! We must work together, unfortunately, if we don't want anyone else dead -- including Jackie.”
Skurge marches towards Brian, the ground shaking a bit with each step. Jackie pushes past him, her body thrumming with the blade's energy. It's not Amora's spell that is driving her, but the rage the Ebony Blade invites. Misdirected rage that had already lived within her. She stabs into Brian's leg and twists, tearing a scream from his lips as she pins him midair to the ground like a bug to a backing board.
“Captain Bloody Britain, symbol of an Empire so bloated with other countries’ wealth. Stole everything from everyone. Starved and sickened those you colonized so that they couldn’t fight back, and when they did you only left when there was nothing left to take. And take, take, take is all you ever did. Your museums filled with other people’s riches. Your kings wearing jewels stained with blood. Even your legends and folklore aren’t truly your own. The only thing truly British is the ceaseless cruelty you enact on others, even your own people. Your systems designed to fail your people. Your care systems that offer nothing at all. Your citizens sneering at me for not belonging as if I was the one that invaded them and not the other way around. You act like victims because you’re no longer the empire that you once were, but believe it or not America and Britain go hand in hand!”
Jackie rips the sword from Brian's thick thigh, leaving blood to gush from the wound and raises it over her head like she is going to cleave his off. She hesitates for a moment as if she is thinking of something else to do to him. Her sword hovers above his wide chest. Then she raises it again when she decides that any blood is good from any part of the man. It doesn't matter if it's from his neck or his heart.
Simon rises from the ground. It’s clear from how his ions buzz around his form and the dimness in his eyes that he isn’t back to himself fully. His body krackles like static. Still, he throws himself at Jackie’s sword. It slices through him, but connects with nothing, the ions not fully making up a man yet but instead something more akin to a hollow shell. Jackie yells in unfettered rage as she realizes that her sword doesn’t hurt him. She instead focuses her anger on Brian. If she can’t kill the ionic man then she can at least hurt his spirit. Simon grabs her around the waist and pulls with all his might. He’s weak. He isn’t anywhere near his full strength - just above the strength of a normal man. He's more swarm of energy than anything close to what he should be. It doesn't matter. He can't let Jackie hurt anyone when she doesn't have her wits about her. Jackie fights him to get free.
“Hey! We aren’t going to kill anyone! Especially when we aren’t in our right minds,” Simon says.
Amora laughs cruelly. “She’s now well and truly under my command. There’s nothing more you can do.”
Dane throws the photon sword aside as it is useless to him with Monica having stopped the flow of the electromagnetic spectrum. He rushes at Amora with just his bare fists, eyes wild and mouth drawn back as if he were the one caught in the rage of the Ebony Blade’s curse. He’s fanatical, twisting in fury as he runs at her with single-minded intensity.
“I’ll kill you!” He screams, prepared to do it with empty hands.
“I just said no killing!” Simon calls, his eyes flickering as he struggles to stay reformed. Jackie rips herself out of his hold in a strength that only the combined frenzy of the two curses - desire for blood and devotion to Amora - could produce.
Jackie bounds across the clearing to Amora’s side and slashes at Dane’s chest. “Get away from her!” The sword glances off Dane’s armor. Were he anyone else it would slice through his armor like it were butter, but Dane is the blood of Sir Percy of Scandia, and his blade may never harm him.
Jackie still tries to draw her father’s blood. She doesn’t use the blade like a sword, but rather a blunt instrument to force him away from her lady. He grabs the sword with his hand, knowing he will not be cut by it.
“Jackie! Stop!”
“I love her!” Jackie shouts, ripping the sword from his grasp and jabbing him in the side. Anything she can do to keep him away from Amora, who watches this like a particularly pleased cat.
The air is thick with a spreading purple haze. Where Jackie left Simon is the thickest with it. Simon's silhouette is weak like he is dissolving. Faiza dives away from Skurge in an attempt to get to the bleeding Brian but ends up right into Simon's cloud of ions. Skurge doesn't pursue her when M-11 fires a beam of destruction at him.
“What is ...” Faiza wonders aloud before realizing the haze is Simon. He's bleeding out, Faiza thinks, I've got to seal wherever he's bleeding from but can I even. … I've never healed something that wasn't made of flesh and blood. But I can't just leave him.
If she doesn’t do anything, who knows if Simon will disperse into ions again, leaving just a husk behind - or less? Faiza reaches out with her powers. His ions feel different than flesh, but she can grab them with her powers, and she can push them back to him. It’ll be more difficult than the flesh and bone she’s used to, but she can do it.
His ions want to go back to him, Faiza thinks incredulously, I think all I have to do is seal the hemorrhage and then put the ions back like a transfusion. I know I’ve called myself a human scalpel, but I can be sutures too. It’ll be like with Kyle, I just have to hold everything together while they do the healing themselves.
Simon’s ions respond to her every thought. She knits his body back together then infuses him with his latent ions still surrounding her. She’s never dealt with anything this small before, and there is sweat on her brow as she struggles to hold all of the ions into the shape of a man. They begin to take shape not just of a man, but of Simon as Faiza knows him. He throws her a dazzling smile, eyes bright red and glowing behind his glasses.
She’s done it! But Faiza knows she’ll have to keep holding him together while he’s still coming back to himself. Just until the hemorrhaging stops. And she still has another patient to deal with too– and from long distance at that. Brian has already gone back to the fight despite his wound.
Meanwhile, Amora comes closer to Jackie to speak into her ear, even as she continues to hack uselessly at Dane. “My dear Black Knight, it seems your blade can do nothing against the old man. But there’s plenty of others to whet your blade on.” Amora looks at Monica, Kyle, and the still bleeding Brian. At Amora’s command, Jackie leaves a bruised Dane to swap positions with Skurge, going instead to stab at Monica.
Skurge picks up Dane and throws him to where his photon sword lays forgotten on the ground.
“Draw your blade,” Skurge commands. “Then you’ll have a fair fight when I kill you.”
Dane picks up the photon sword, and Monica reaches out with her powers to turn it back on. It blazes up like a torch before turning back into its thin blade form. Skurge laughs as he charges first at Dane. He hacks his axe down at him, but Dane dodges it. Dane has more experience fighting than Skurge gives him credit for. Skurge chuckles, pleased that he has an opponent who will entertain him for at least a few minutes.
M-11 focuses on Amora. It is his science vs her magic. She deflects his Death Ray like it's nothing, but he pushes himself to his limit firing it as if their lives depended on it. After all, they likely did. She tries to power him off again, but the same charm will not work twice. He is a being of magic as well as science. And Mr. Lao's dragon magic that fortified M-11 is at least as strong as Amora's is when she’s casting on the fly.
Kyle attempts to help Dane by attacking Skurge from behind, but his claws and teeth barely penetrate the storm giant’s skin. When he does manage to draw blood, Skurge ignores it. At most, Kyle is a distraction. But it is a distraction that gives Dane precious milliseconds of recovery time to avoid Skurge’s blows.
Monica and Simon focus on Jackie. Monica creates hard light constructs to protect Simon from Jackie's blade, but the Ebony Blade can break through even those. Simon cries out, and Faiza, from afar, uses her powers to hold his ions in the shape they belong. Monica almost turns into lightning to shock Jackie to her senses but stops, remembering who she's fighting.
“Fight it Jackie, fight it,” Monica urges before turning into hard light and wrapping around Jackie's arm.
Amora hears Monica and fires a gale of wind at her through a spell. “She's mine,” she shouts, angrily.
Monica gets blown across the clearing and lands in her human form near Faiza, stunned for a moment. Faiza reaches out to make sure she’s okay.
“Spectrum! Can you subdue Skurge?” Faiza asks Monica.
“I might hurt Black Knight in the process. But she's being driven by the Ebony Blade curse and Amora's spell.” Monica kicks off to fly back to the fight as a streak of light.
Kyle has now engaged Jackie as he and Brian switch targets. Jackie stabs Kyle while he claws at her hands to try to make her drop her blade. He is the one ending up bloody.
Skurge heaves his battle axe like it weighs nothing, and while none of these men are weak, one hit on the side of the axe throws them like they are nothing more than dolls. As he warms up his slices become more deadly. He hacks down on Dane. Dane manages to catch the axe on his sword. Skurge smiles as he uses his much greater strength to push his axe closer and closer to Dane’s throat. The photon sword powers off, and Brian bodily throws himself at Skurge’s axe to deflect it. Dane turns the photon sword back on and hits Skurge with it. All of Skurge’s nerves scream, and he roars like some manner of beast. He holds his chest where the sword touched him and punches Dane away from him.
Skurge charges at Dane with his axe raised. Dane tries to dive out of the way, but Skurge is blinded with rage. He feels the overwhelming desire to kill the little man with the light sword.
“Not that one!” Amora yells at Skurge as he is about to cleave his axe down on Dane. She handily deflects another of M-11’s rays, causing Monica to have to swerve away from its new path. Skurge looks to Amora in mild confusion but instead raises one powerful foot and kicks Dane away from the fight. Whatever his lady says.
“Ugh!” Dane skids backward, stumbling and falling back.
Faiza looks pale from the day’s extended exertion of her powers. She also looks solemn as she catches Dane's eyes. “I have an idea on how to stop Jackie, but you have got to get to her quickly. Do you trust me?”
Does Dane trust her? Does he trust her with his daughter's life? The answer is yes; it's always been yes to trusting Faiza ever since she put the two of them back together at the moment of impact*. Still, his worry graces his face even as he nods. “Okay.” [*Captain Britain and the MI-13 #11 -Journalistic Gene]
Dane begins to book it away from Faiza to be near Jackie. Jackie, unaware of Dane rushing at her, moves to slash Kyle in two. He jumps out of the way, his hair standing on end. Simon grabs Kyle by the back of the collar to keep him from the back swing of Skurge's axe blade. Dane reaches Jackie's side, drawing her attention to him by yelling her name.
From her spot at the back of the battlefield, Faiza takes a deep breath. Her face is drawn and upset, and she closes her eyes a moment to steady herself. “If I can just stop the electrical activity in her heart,” she says to herself and holds out a hand. She remembers the page of her medical textbook explaining what she is doing. Asystole, known as flat line, is the complete lack of electrical activity in the heart. The resulting lack of heart contractions, with no blood pumping from the heart and no blood flow through the body, is one of the conditions required for a medical practitioner to certify death. She’s seen it happen many times, and she knows what to do to revive someone. But to cause it herself, even knowing that it will only be for a minute, is chilling.
Jackie stills, her eyes going wide, and her empty hand goes to her chest. The Ebony Blade is clutched in her other hand.
For a moment, everyone stops. Jackie’s eyes go from the sickening green of being under Amora’s spell to their natural warm brown but quickly the light begins to fade from them. She begins to fall forward. The Ebony Blade stays in her stiff hand.
Monica swoops across the battlefield as the fighting begins anew, catching Jackie before she hits the ground and rushing her away from the fight. Dane runs after Monica’s flying form and kneels by his daughter as Monica lays her down.
Dane cradles Jackie to his chest, pressing her against him with her head lolled against his collarbone. He sobs into her hair. “Oh, Jackie…”
On the opposite side of Jackie's prone body, the ghost of Sir Percy of Scandia hovers over his descendent, spectral hand seeming to stroke her back. Dane has Jackie pressed so tightly against her that the forgotten wound in his side, having mostly stopped bleeding from where the wolves caught him, reopens. The Ebony Blade is still in Jackie's hand, across her lap and equally pressed to Dane's side… and the blood of Sir Percy's line dribbles down from Dane's wound and onto the naked steel of the Ebony Blade.
Jackie's eyes snap open.
She clutches at Dane, grabbing at him and tearing at his shirt as she screams and screams. Dane blinks away his own tears and he rocks her in his arms.
“Does it ever get easier, Dad?” Jackie asks, voice raw from the screaming and the shock of coming back alive.
“It really never does, honey,” Dane says softly. “It really doesn't.”
“Did you know she could come back?” Monica asks Faiza.
“Of course!” Faiza says in shock that Monica thinks she would plan to kill someone permanently. “I just hadn't realized there needed to be blood…” She's certain she would have been able to revive Jackie even if the one gift the Ebony Blade's curse provided hadn't been able to. That doesn't mean she isn't ill at the thought that she could have accidentally killed Jackie through negligence and ignorance. After all, what if she hadn't been able to revive Jackie and restart her heart?
Monica is grim at the uncertain look on Faiza's face but instead turns to Skurge. It's time to finish this fight. It's time to avenge. She turns into her lightning form as she hovers above him.
“I don't have to worry about friendly fire now, Executioner,” she says in a hard voice.
She throws herself down as a thunderbolt, her matter pure electrical energy as she strikes him. She electrocutes him, and the sky flashes in light as she does.
Skurge stands smoking, but mostly unharmed and smiling cockily, his eyes dark. He begins to walk towards the group of heroes. “I am used to fighting the All-Father Thor of my world. Lightning is an old, old companion. It will take more than that to overcome me.”
“What about ionic radiation?” Monica stands steadfast with her hand on her hip. She smiles like she knows something that no one else knows. Her chest thrusts forward with due confidence as someone who has fought more powerful gods than Skurge. Her eyes still spark with electricity. Behind her, Simon krackles with energy.
“I'll bend my rules for this,” Simon says in assent as Monica takes the ambient ionic energy around him, manipulating it to be around her instead, tempering it into a more concentrated force.
Monica looks at M-11 and seems to meet his eye-plate. “You ready, Nuts and Bolts?” Across the clearing, M-11 gives her a resolute nod.
“[DEATH RAY!]” M-11 says in a loud voice, shocking everyone with his vocalization. The Human Robot lets loose the full force of his deadly beam, the yellow light streaking across the clearing and hitting Skurge from behind.
Monica hits the Asgardian with a frontal assault, a combination of concentrated ionic energy in a knife of purple light and striking him. She hits him with more lightning at the same time.
The air is bright and burning with the smell of ozone and cooking meat. It's nearly impossible to see anything other than white, purple, and yellow.
The combination of radiation, lightning, and magical science force Skurge to his knees, his axe dropping from his hand under the barrage. He doesn't look displeased as the assault dies down, though. Instead, he looks at Monica with fondness for a worthy adversary.
“A good fight,” Skurge says as the light clears.
Behind him, Amora is much less pleased. She sneers at Monica and her motley crew, but there is no denying it. Monica beat her champion within the parameters Amora herself had set.
She huffs, beautiful blonde hair, falling over her breasts as they rise and fall. “Fine, you’ve bested my champion. But do not think I will take this lightly.”
She points at all seven of them haughtily. “My dear friend has other plans for you all and the next time we meet won't be as friendly,” she warns. “She has no interest in tests and trials and instead looks for destruction of what you hold dear. I had only claimed the right to Captain Britain from the other members of our little coven for his supposed magic. But that seems to have waned completely.”
She turns to Skurge who is still on his knees and begins to weave a spell with her hands. “Come now, my darling. Let us regroup and inform our friend of today's events.”
Amora and Skurge disappear into a swirl of green magic as she completes her spell.
Dane is still on the ground, Jackie in his arms. She has her face buried in his neck as she comes back to herself. “I didn't even help…” she says in a defeated voice.
“It's okay,” Dane assures her. But between them, the Ebony Blade thrums.
Slowly, the magic that had infected the clearing begins to fade. The fog dissipates and the trees right themselves. The chair Amora had used as a throne turns back into a moss-covered rock. There is a loud sound of beating wings as the winged horses, Morgoth and Celeborn, return now that there is no eldritch quality to the area to frighten them off.
Jackie pulls herself out of Dane's arms and looks at him, face and voice both tired. “Can we go home?”
Dane looks to Faiza and then back at Jackie. “Let's go home.”
Garret Castle is a large brown stone castle, with a few new attached wings made of glass. The turrets stand tall, and it is in good repair for such an ancient building. Garrett Castle is not just a castle, however, but a whole estate. There is a landing pad on the roof and there are many, many horse pastures, paddocks, and barns. Most of them are new.
Just outside the fence of one of the smaller paddocks, Faiza sits in a camp chair with a blanket across her shoulders. She's still exhausted from the amount of energy the extended use of her powers caused. She's not sure she used that much of her power in one day since she got them.
M-11 sits in another camp chair, eye plate dim as he recharges. Simon sits crossed-legged in the air between them, eyes closed in his own tiredness, but delighting in feeling fully alive again.
“Thank you for letting us come back here,” Faiza says.
“Of course,” Dane says, ashing the cigarette he bummed from Simon. He glances around at the others for a moment before starting again. “So, the question is… What do we do now? Are we going to stick together?”
Monica and Brian are both leaning against the fence, Monica standing on the bottom rung. She's the only one still full of vigor- maybe because of how she had been so many forms of pure energy in the past few hours. Brian is leaning heavily on the fence, even with Faiza having healed his various stab wounds.
“Of course. You’re my Avengers now. We’re staying together,” Monica tells them.
“An Avenger? I like the sound of that,” Faiza says, almost wistfully, “I’m in.”
“We can use here as a base,” Dane suggests, momentarily guilty about the destroyed Lighthouse. At the same time, he's excited to have people around, to be on a team again.
“I’m not committing to anything full-time,” Brian says, absolutely sounding like he was committing.
“Monica, I don’t know,” Simon says. He looks troubled, no doubt because of the violence he was forced to be complacent in. Not to mention dying again, and watching others die as well.
“Come on, Wondy.” Monica needles. “You’re a good Avenger and I want you on the team.” She’s hard to argue with. Something about the way that she asks is with an authority few of the other Avengers command.
“Okay,” Simon agrees. “But only because I always wanted to work with you more. And just until I go back to the U.S.”
“What about you, Nuts & Bolts?” Monica asks the robot good-naturedly.
“[My name is M-11.]”
Monica grins. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Inside the horse paddock, Kyle and Jackie are brushing down the two still slightly spooked horses.
“I’m glad you didn't kill anyone,” Kyle says almost casually. Celeborn snorts under his hands and nips at his ear. “You were getting really violent.”
“It's not like you aren't violent,” Jackie deflects. She tosses a handful of grass she picked from Morgoth’s coat at him and grins.
“Yeah, but killing is something you should do in your right mind,” Kyle says in a rare moment of complete seriousness. “There's nothing worse than being covered in someone else’s blood and unsure where it came from.”
Jackie looks away from him, instead tending to Morgoth as she begins to lead the flying horses back to their specialized stalls in the barn. She doesn't want to think about how close to killing she came.
Monica turns on the fence so she's facing the youngest two members of the group, unaware of the conversation that had been happening. “Are you two joining my Avengers?” She calls.
Jackie and Kyle exchange a look. Jackie's face breaks into an excited grin, while Kyle’s is just painted with shock.
They both turn to look at Monica and speak in a chorus.
“Yes!”
The sun sinks low in the sky and the last stream of light filters through tall, tinted skyscraper windows. Pressed against the furthest wall is a large bed with a deep red canopy, almost pulled closed to shade the woman inside from the beams of sun. Amora steps into the room from nowhere, seamlessly melting into the environment like she was always there.
“Your Black Knight has more powerful allies than you realize,” Amora says, taking off her stockings and slipping her feet into green slippers with pompoms on the tips.
“Already complaining. Come here, darling,” the woman says, sitting up. Her foot, in a long red stocking, peeks out from the canopy, but she doesn’t follow it.
Amora slips out of her costume, and into a short green nightgown. Light reflects off the glitter stitched into the fabric like water droplets. She walks to the edge of the bed and pulls back the canopy. She reveals the other woman’s long tan legs and red bodysuit, but the shadow of the curtain obscures her face.
Amora lays in the bed next to her lady. A gloved hand pulls her to her chest.
“I know Captain Marvel or whatever she calls herself these days. I’m sure she won’t stand in my way,” the woman says, stroking Amora’s hair.
“Don’t underestimate the Daystar’s abilities. They’ve grown since you last saw her,” Amora says, looking up for a moment almost indignant that the other woman would suggest that someone who caused her so much trouble was not a problem for her.
The other woman laughs. It’s harsh and seems at odds with the tender way she holds Amora. She runs her fingers up and down Amora’s arm and nuzzles her face into the crook of Amora’s neck.
Amora’s eyes flutter shut for a moment. “And there’s Excalibur. The little naive prude doesn’t even realize her power’s extent and already she ruined the game I had today.”
“Don’t look so pouty, Goddess. We’ll all get what we want in the end. Come here,” The woman gently grabs her under the chin and lifts it to look at her.
“I do enjoy an occasional diversion with like-minded women,” Amora says, smiling.
The other woman laughs again, less harsh this time. She pulls Amora into her lap and takes a kiss from her lips like she is owed it. Amora buries her hands into her dark locks.
Notes:
Can Brian stay away from Faiza and like get a job? Dane should stay away from Monica too. Gross. You have way too many white guys on this team
Jean
Texas
Sorry. We’ll try to do better.
I loved the little scene of monica and dane in the snow and them reassuring each other. It was so sweet and reminded me of the good old days in the older comics.
Amora as a villian is very ***** ngl.
Also wdym Simon isn't dead?? Amora literally drained the life from him?? What is going on??
Also love my girl faiza always coming in with a clutch! She's that girl!!
Glad you enjoyed our ladies! As for how Simon isn't dead, we hope this issue explains.
I really like this book. Spectrum and Excalibur are my favorite characters. I think Excalibur should get her own horse.
Debby
New Hampshire
Good idea Debby! We'll take the suggestion under advisement.
Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for it to be revealed who Amora’s friend is. Who’s masterminding all this?
Abby
Well, you'll have to keep reading to find out!
This is as good a place as any to segue into our exciting news! Because of the continued support of readers like you, UNDYING AVENGERS has been extended into an ongoing series! We are so grateful to all of you. We will be taking September off, but we'll see you on the stands in October!
mattmurderock on Chapter 1 Wed 01 May 2024 06:53PM UTC
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Last Edited Wed 05 Jun 2024 04:03AM UTC
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