Darwin in…

CONVERGENCE/DIVERGENCE

By Ed Ainsworth

The climb was hard. It was more than hard in fact, it was the most difficult thing Darwin had ever done. He’d literally been on the run for the last few months, having slipped out of Essex’s labs when his powers allowed him to adapt to the surroundings.

That’s not to say that Essex wasn’t prudent, even paranoid. However, it was Essex’s own paranoid excess that had allowed him to slip out, under the cover of darkness. Lasers, amoeboid creatures, and force nets had allowed Darwin to slip through, all at the same time.

He’d hitched a lift across America on the underside of trucks, and eventually made it to Europe. He’d heard rumours from Essex’s quietened mumbles that there may be someone even more powerful in terms of evolution. Someone who might actually possess not only the ability to alter its paths and its ideas, but also someone who could teach Darwin about his power, and his destiny.

He shook his head, and reflected on his life, as he climbed the sheer rock face of the mountain.

Since an early age, Darwin had been different. He’d always looked different to the other children, maintaining his current form, but with a larger head when he was a child. It led to a very isolated and desolate youth. No friends, Darwin had never been kissed. He was home schooled, and very good at it. Straight A’s in everything. He’d hoped to attend a normal university, but his mother wouldn’t let him.

During his eighteenth year of life, his house burned to the ground. Nobody was quite sure what had happened, whether it was an accident, or whether it was a hate crime against him—Darwin wasn’t well liked in his home town. The freak child, who had apparently given Macy across the road cancer, and caused Mr. Richardson’s gall stones.

He was regularly “beaten.” Darwin, during those times, felt no pain. His nervous system retracted and he was simply pummelled. The screaming and shouting to stop was simply to play up the pretence that he was normal. He wasn’t that far removed from humanity as everyone claimed.

Once his mother had died, after six days in hospital from smoke inhalation and third degree burns, Darwin left the two and wandered America. He tried to gain entry to various universities, but his lack of funding as well as his appearance meant they had little time for him.

He tried to teach himself, spending the majority of his time living in the wilderness, eating when he could and checking books from a local library. The more he researched into science, the more he was captivated by the world of philosophy. To question one’s identity, he often asked himself, is to understand oneself.

He was pushed on from every park by every park ranger, every police officer. Darwin had to constant re-invent himself, and what’s more terrifying than a man who can change himself on a whim?

How could Darwin ever gain a solid personality of his own when he could change at a moment’s notice?

This was a question that haunted him. It caused him to lay awake at night staring at the stars, more so than the other questions in life. The ones that washed over him with cold sweat and a thumping heart. Where do we go when we die? Does anything else?

If he were to believe his name-sake and adopt an outlook of Atheism, then this was as good as it gets, and he needed to make it better.

He knew the third world suffered, and he knew that he could do something about it, possibly. What if he were able to evolve to hold new strains of bacteria, ones that could be used to immunise humanity? What if AIDS and cancer and everything else could become a thing of the past, based on his abilities. He could cure the world.

He could make the world a better place.

And this thinking, before he was taken to Sinister’s lab, had got him into a lot of trouble. He’d approached various scientists, not all reputable ones, with his ideas.

He wanted them to infect him with the various diseases so they could study his methods of negating them, and hopefully reverse-engineer it. It was met with limited success. In the two places that accepted him, one turned out to be an AIM laboratory run by a particularly mentally disturbed chief scientist, who’s primary method of research was rectal examinations, and the other fired him when they became unable to cut through his flesh in order to obtain biopsies.

All this brought Darwin to the attention of Mr. Sinister, who kidnapped him as a part of his particularly grand plan to use him. Darwin wasn’t quite sure what purpose he fulfilled, but it was there he got the first snippet of information that led him towards this Mountain.

Wundagore Mountain.

As he reached the top, snow beating down on his body, he felt the shivers melt away and his ambient body temperature rise to combat the snow. Before him stood an enormous castle, big enough to hold a whole city, he guessed.

He walked towards it, catching sight of something moving in the snow. More than one thing, several times. He steeled himself. He didn’t expect the castle to be unguarded, and he stopped where he was, raising his hands in the air in surrender.

“I don’t want any trouble.” he said quietly, the snow and wild winds taking most of his words, his mannerisms and actions gave away more than his speech however, and the creatures appeared from the snow.

A huge white bear woman stood before him, along with two white-furred cat-people,each holding spears and a yak in blue body armour.

“Who are you, youngling? I am Maritimus, leader of the outpost guard of Wundagore. State your purpose.” She levelled a sword at his throat, at which point Darwin’s body reacted, turning his skin into steel.

“A threat?” she bellowed, swiping downwards with the sword. Darwin’s arms flew upwards, a cross hatch of the same steel that covered his throat exploding from his fore-arms and defending him against the blade.

“No! You’ve got it wrong! I adapt to situations…I can’t even control it!”

The two leopards shot forwards, spears snapping around Darwin. His body instinctively lost it’s cohesion, his bones melting away into a much more durable and bendable substance, similar to ligaments. His limbs turned to putty as he avoided their strikes.

“Please stop! I just want to see the Evolutionary! I want him to help me!” The Yak’s massive hammer hit him square in the face, sending him flying against a nearby boulder formation. Darwin hit it with some force, and closed his eyes. He would do as he did against the bullies of his old life, retract and react as a human would.

“He is unconscious?” Maritimus asked the two leopards, who sniffed around and poked him with their spears.

“He is,” the first spoke.

“Fine. Grunniens, take him to the castle. I wish to speak to Sir Ram and find why this human knows of our lord.”

The yak threw Darwin over his shoulder and began the long walk towards the castle itself.

Darwin’s eyelids became opaque, allowing him to at least get an impression of the route before them. From his position over the yak-man’s shoulder, he could see the path towards the castle, the others standing behind returning to their positions under the snow, a blanket of white to cover their forms from invaders.

Darwin thought it must be particularly boring to sit there for hours on end, days and months, waiting for someone to appear, or perhaps the castle really did get that many visitors.

As the yak carried him through the keep doors, he was slung down onto the stone ground before a large spire. Darwin noticed the city itself, was not only massive, but also much more advanced than he’d imagined. Towers were a mixture of stone and technology, with the New Men wandering about doing their daily tasks.

A market was in the centre of the castle grounds, while dotted around were small gardens, and tunnels that led elsewhere in the huge complex. A training school, with seven or eight New Men holding swords and practising their parries performed just off the market square. He lifted his head slightly, pulling himself to his feet, as the heavy hammer of Grunniens fell next to his body, along with three swords levelled at his head.

Darwin looked up at the faces of a tiger, a bear and a ram, along with the yak-faced man from before.

“Name and Purpose, Boy,” the ram spoke, the blade pressing itself against Darwin’s throat. He paid special attention to the fact that he hadn’t adapted to his blade. He gulped audibly.

“Lets not be hasty…”

The tiger growled, and pressed his sword against Darwin’s throat. He whispered silent prayers to a god he didn’t believe in, as two red hands parted the sea of fur and muscle before him. Standing next to the Knights stood the High Evolutionary himself.

“On your feet, Hector,” he said, commanding as the knights around him knelled and whispered his name in silence revere.

Darwin said nothing, and simply followed the Evolutionary up the stairs of the central tower.

Three hours later and Darwin was in the central chamber of the High Evolutionary’s laboratory, wires and leads hanging from his arms and chest. He had volunteered for the Evolutionary’s experiments.

“Sometimes, even I, wonder about the state of affairs with my New Men,” Wyndham began, firing up the large diagnostic machine before him.

“Sir?” Darwin asked, as he felt the tingle of the targeting laser against his skin. The Evolutionary was taking cross-sections of his gene-code.

“They do not understand the world of man, any more than I do. I am afraid spending the time I have here in Wundagore, I have separated myself unduly from the world outside. So this task falls to you, Hector.” The Evolutionary didn’t look up from his screen. It seemed as though he wasn’t giving Hector any choice either.

“Evolutionary, what do you mean?”

He looked up from his screen momentarily, locking eyes with Darwin and lifting a large glowing rock into the air.

“Uranium. I discovered it here with my friend, who is now sadly no longer with us, Jonathan Drew. At first, we thought it would make us rich, but it had adverse effects on our lives. The radiation poisoned Jon’s daughter, Jessica, and I injected her with a special serum to save her life.”

He moved towards Darwin, who felt his body adapt to the radiation, absorbing it into a boron core within the centre of his body.

“I structured and focused my life around the New Men, and I have done for a long time. Now, I do not know of the outside world, I am infrequently visited by outsiders who ask for my help, such as that Cameron woman, who didn’t understand the power of the stars in her veins.”

The Evolutionary gestured for Darwin to follow him as he walked towards the window.

“My research requires that I understand more about human evolution beyond these walls. I’ve created a great many things in my life time, Hector, but not as much as nature has while I’ve separated myself away. This task is something you must do for me.”

He removed his helmet revealing a rather young looking human face. The Uranium instantly stopped glowing.

“Teach me of this world, the way the Cameron woman taught me of the Stars. I have created Monsters and Gods, now tell me how to create a life. While I send you out into the world to collect information for me, I must ask that you take the New Men with you. Teach them of this world.”

Hector didn’t know what to say. He felt slightly sick and confused.

“I don’t…I don’t understand, Evolutionary. Why me?”

“Because you’ve come to me to learn about yourself, Hector. You’ve come to me to learn who you are, instead of learning who I am. You’ve earned your right to become a Knight in my army.” The Evolutionary put his hand on Hector’s shoulder.

“Kneel before me Hector Munoz, Vagrant of America and outcast of his people.”

He took the large staff anointed with a glowing rock, surrounded by four flat spires of metal. He placed it against his head and on both of his shoulders before gesturing to him with an open hand.

“Arise Hector Munoz, Knight of Wundagore, and Captain of the Guard!” The Evolutionary beamed a smile through Hector and passed him a small stack of papers.

“What’s this?”

“Your duties, Hector. I wish to know of the world outside my walls, and I want to know of the Evolution present. More over, these are some things I need to you investigate for me. As I said, I have created many things..”

He paused for a moment, his face seemed aged, gaunt and wrinkled before popping back to it’s normal image.

“Evolutionary, are you all right?” Hector asked.

“It seems I have created more monsters than gods.” With that he turned and walked away from Hector, gesturing for him to leave his chamber.

As Darwin walked out of the chamber, he looked over the balcony to the bustling city below. He wasn’t a mutant any more, he wasn’t even just Hector any more.

He was now part of something bigger, and despite what he might have thought before hand, it did make him feel a bit closer to figuring out who he was.

It was something defining he didn’t have before. A greater purpose, and a greater meaning.

It made him happy for the first time in a long time. He sighed, and smiled opening the stack of papers before him and looking at the first page.

“Ooohhh…shit. Hector…What have you got yourself into..”

Behind closed doors, The Evolutionary looked at himself in the reflective surface of the mirror. His skin turned from thick leather, hairs bristling from the side of his cheeks as the simian face stared back at him.

He ran a hand over his face, trying to push his features back to their original locations, before staring at the two bodies before him. One female, covered in organic gold metal, and the other, a male, covered in roving plates that covered his pectorals and muscular areas. His deep set eyes staring at him.

“One more to complete the Trinity, my knights.” he said in a deep rasp.

“One more.”

AUTHOR’S NOTES

This is all your fault, Munn and Dino. You’re tempting me with things that I want to do but have no bleedin’ time to do. So I offer you all this, an Amazing Fantasy tale featuring one of my favourite X-Men, as well as my favourite concept from Thor.

I dunno if anyone read the Quicksilver series aside from me, but I loved the concepts thrown out in it, and while I’ve blatantly chaved it, I will make it my own. There is an underlying theme and storyline here, and with the Reckoning opening up the floor the “Mutant Solo titles” I couldn’t bloody resist this one.

So, please, tell me it’s good, or tell me it’s crap. Just tell me something!

-Ed Ainsworth