BLACK AIR RISING

Part III: Grasping at Shadows

By David Wheatley

Brian gave a shiver as they looked around. They’d been here a day now and they were in real trouble. Black Air had been doing something to reality, trying to tame it to their advantage and Excalibur had been too late to stop it. Reality had shattered around them and now they were in a world that shouldn’t exist but did. There were only a handful of them and Brian had felt someone pulling him to this place and so they had all split up to get here. How he had known he wasn’t sure, but he was certain it was because he was Captain Britain, and now the people here were looking to him for leadership.

He made his way around the assembled people checking on them, making sure they were okay, that getting here hadn’t been too strenuous. They had all spent the last 24 hours getting to this place; a place Brian considered more of a home then Braddock Manor. A lighthouse on the fringe of the Celtic sea, off the west coast of England, a place familiar to Excalibur as a home, as a base, as a place to return to. In this world it still existed, in it’s traditional format, before the Technet blew the top off it with that chicken bomb. He idly wondered what had happened to Gatecrasher before he returned to matters at hand.

There was a big question on everyone’s lips – was this an alternate reality or their own reshaped to the whims of Black Air? During the team’s association with the X-Men, Brian had gotten a chance to talk with Bishop, who had experienced something similar when Legion had ‘killed’ Charles Xavier and created an Age of Apocalypse, erasing this world and replacing it with a nightmare version.

If it were not for Bishop and a few survivors such as X-Man, Holocaust and the Black Beast it would never have been known about. However it was, and the changes could be traced to one point in time, which had been altered, and it had been fixed, for want of a better term. The trick here was to find out what had changed and why.

“About bloody time you lot showed up,” shouted Pete from where he was. They looked around to see three strangers fighting with Black Air troops, and they all knew instantly who were friends and who were foes.

The most normal looking of them was wrestling with Threadgold as Scicluna was chanting, and Meggan clutched her sides in agony as the ritual began to take effect.

“Brian,” she cried. “Stop her!”

Brian flew up and across as the others ran to help the strangers.

“Stuff them!” shouted Pete. “Bloody well get me down!” Brian arrived just as Scicluna stopped chanting, and he grabbed her by the throat.

“You are too late, Captain!” she said. “It has begun!” A green light began to emanate from the pit and reach up through Pete who cried out. His arms stretched out, as if his fingers were trying to touch the very walls and mystical hot knives flew from his fingers in to the four people on the walls.

Adam cried out as he felt the pain in the mind of his wife and Threadgold seized on the distraction to throw him down the pit.

“ADAM!” cried Walter, running through the troops. There had been just too many and since the battle in the Danger Room of the X-Men he was not as ferocious as he had been.

“Kylun!” called Brian and his friend threw one of the mystic blades he wielded up towards the chain holding Peter. It passed through Pete, disrupting the mystical connection and he fell down in to the pit after Adam. Brian released Scicluna and flew towards the pit, but both men had vanished.

Then there was a roaring from the pit as the mystical forces that had been at work reacted to the disturbance and then reality shattered around them…

Meggan screamed as the threads of order surrounding her started to disintegrate at a vast rate and she called out with her mind to Psylocke. Betsy knew they only had seconds and she psi-linked the assembled heroes before manifesting her psionic knife and pushed it in to Meggan, a telepathic apology sweeping the ether as the threads of reality collapsed altogether.

For a moment there was nothingness then suddenly, from nothing, something arose. It began to form and coalesce and then reality was restored. Excalibur and ClanDestine were back. A cool breeze washed over them as they were on the edge of the Thames, the Millennium Dome no longer a part of the world. And whatever Meggan and Psylocke had done, they were same as they had been moments before even if the world around them was not. However not all of them had returned in full health.

“Meggan!” called Brian as he rushed over to his wife.

“The threads,” she whispered. “They’re wrong. The threads are wrong.” Then she turned her head and closed her eyes.

“Betsy?” he asked and she shook her head.

“She’s alive,” she said, “but the shock of everything that happened is too much. Her senses can’t take it.”

“If we don’t restore things, I fear for her life,” said Gracie Gamble, freed of the bonds that had bound her to the wall and her voice weak after the energies that had been channelled through her.

“Gracie,” said Cuckoo as she reached out with her psionics. “The family… They’re gone.”

“No,” she whispered as Sam and Walter gathered around, knowing they were the last of the Destine family now and if they wanted to see the siblings again, they had to fix things.

“Brian,” said Elisabeth, as Kylun and Martinique gathered around them. “I can’t reach the X-Men either.”

“There’s no sign of Pete’s family either. And what do we do about Peter and the other fellow?” asked Kylun and Brian shook his head.

“Wherever they are they’re on their own,” he said, thinking how much he didn’t envy them. Excalibur had been lost in reality in their early days and he had been lost in the time stream. Finding your way home was never easy.

“People,” said Martinique, “have you seen this place?” They looked around, for the first time seeing the new London. The skies were blood red and there was an eerie silence across the world. The familiar landmarks had gone and the cityscape was much lower now. The air was cleaner somehow and there were no signs of life in the city.

“What is going on here?” asked Kylun. Then they heard the chimes of Big Ben, signifying that some things still stayed the same. It rang once, signifying that it was one o’clock.

“There’s no sun,” said Martinique as they tried to decide when it was.

“Or moon,” said Brian. “Or stars.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Sam, as she looked about.

“Where to?” said Walter. “The family are dead, this isn’t the London we knew, we have nowhere to go.”

“The lighthouse,” murmured Brian as if in a daze. “I know where we can go.” He gave them instructions of where to go and despite the sceptical looks they agreed. There was nowhere else for them. “We’ll split up in to groups,” he decided. “Elisabeth, you and Meggan come with me. Kylun, you’re with Marti. The Destine’s together. It keeps us in familiar groups and I figure that’s what’ll keep us sane.” There were nods abound and they split up and made their way to the lighthouse.

Twenty-four hours later, they were all together again, and each little group had learnt something that might help them piece together the puzzle.

“This can’t be good,” said Pete as he regained consciousness. As far as he could tell he was tied to a post, with logs underneath him and there was a smell that reminded him of petroleum in the air. In front of him were what seemed to be thousands of little blue creatures, humanoid in shape, with wide white eyes with just a pupil and no iris. They were chanting and bowing in front of the post in a circle, or as much of a circle as Pete could see with his line of sight restricted. They all wore small white trousers and white hats, except one who wore a red one and he was standing before him, conducting the assembled creatures.

“I’m so sorry,” said a voice and Pete turned his head slightly to see a tall blonde man looking at him. He’d been buried up to his head in some kind of black goo.

“Do I know you?” asked Pete as the man looked familiar. “Wait, I remember. You were with those others in the amphitheatre.”

“My name is Adam Destine,” he said. “I came with my children to rescue the other members of our family taken by Black Air but I fell in to the pit and through reality itself. You followed me not long after, but my powers of invulnerability kept me conscious of what was happening while your own mind couldn’t take it.”

“How long was I out?”

“A day, maybe longer. We landed in a small village, where we were looked on as gods and I convinced them that we were not actually the gods they thought we were. They didn’t take it too well. They found they couldn’t harm me and threw me in here and they’re going to burn you alive. I’m sorry.” He looked at Pete apologetically.

“If someone asks you if you’re a god, you’re supposed to say yes,” muttered Pete.

“I saw the film too,” said Adam. “However, this is not our world and we cannot jeopardise it.”

“Oh terrific. I’m going to be killed by these… oh, no!” Pete was suddenly hit with a realisation. “Please don’t tell me they’re what I think they are?”

“Silence!” spoke the creature as it turned to face Pete. “You have smurfed the smurfs of the Smurfs. Now you will smurf for this!”

“I’m about to be sacrificed by the evil Smurfs,” said Pete, an air of disbelief entering his voice, to his own surprise. “I need to get a proper job.”

“Smurf! Smurf! Smurf!” cried the Smurfs as their leader raised his hand and cast a spell creating a flame at his hand.

“No, this isn’t going to happen,” said Pete and he hoped that his bonds were not soaked in petroleum. He’d been unconscious so these little gits didn’t know what he could do and he was about to show them what a real flame looked like. His hot knives triggered and the ropes that bound his hands were cut free, creating scorch marks around his wrists, but that was better than the alternative.

“Do you like your Smurfs boiled, roasted or fried?” he asked Adam, as the Smurfs recoiled in shock as their own personal Anti-Christ stood before them, fire billowing from his hands and a desire for vengeance in his heart.

“The Anti-Smurf! The Anti-Smurf!” they screamed but one ignored the cries and flung himself at Pete who swatted him to the floor then stepped on the leader Smurf, a sickening squelch coming from underfoot. The Smurfs stopped shouting in horror and fear. Pete scraped his shoe on the grass, leaving a blue smear and a little red hat embedded in the grass.

“Damn bloody right I’m anti-Smurf,” said Pete as he fired off a few hot knives turning a couple of them closest to him in to something similar to a flaming briquette with legs. Then another Smurf claimed the fallen red hat. The Smurf looked at Pete and his eyes began to glow as the other Smurfs began to amass in a huddle around him. Pete couldn’t see what the midgets would do and stopped flash frying them so that he could give Adam a hand to freedom.

“That was a little cold blooded,” said Adam, as Pete reached over to him,

“Got the message across,” said Pete.

“Actually,” said Adam as he looked back at the huddle, “I think you made them mad.”

“Huh?” asked Pete as he followed Adam’s gaze and saw not many Smurfs, but one giant one, twice the size of himself. The Giant Smurf’s eyes glowed and his hands crackled with eldritch energy as the life forces of all the Smurfs combined to give the One its power. “And this can’t be good either,” he said.

Brian and the others gathered around the living room area of the lighthouse. It was obvious that nobody had lived here in years, yet the place was as if Excalibur had been here one moment and gone the next. That gave them a time reference to work with as to when the changes had begun and Brian had found out a fair bit, but then again every one here had their stories to tell. The Destine family went first.

“We stopped by our family home in Ravenscroft,” started Gracie. “We went to see what had become of our family and it was here we learnt of the deaths of our brothers and sisters. And ourselves.” At that the people listening paid a little more attention. “It happened a few years ago. Half the people of the planet suddenly died, faded away to nothing. Some of out family went, but our father Adam was also one of them. Even his invulnerability could not protect him.”

“Excuse my interruption,” said Kylun, “but how do you know this?”

“Our mother,” answered Cuckoo. “Her surprise at seeing us alive was great until she realised it was not really us at all. Not her children from this plan of existence at any rate.”

“She filled us in on the details of a battle between a man who would be god and the remaining heroes of this planet. The being was Thanos and he wielded the Infinity Gauntlet.”

The people in the room remembered well the powers of the Gauntlet from the Infinity War and Infinity Crusade. They never dreamed that there was an event before then, as it had passed everyone by.

“In our reality Thanos was defeated by his own fallible nature,” continued Cuckoo and everything was undone. “Here things occurred slightly differently and Thanos remained in control of the Gauntlet, and nothing was restored to normal. The heroes were dead, half the planet gone, and the world ravaged by disasters, but one more than others. The world was knocked free of its orbit of the sun and slowly began to drift in space.”

“What exactly happened to change things is unknown,” said Gracie as she sucked on a cigar, but that’s the way of the planet right now.”

“Black Air happened,” said Martinique, softly. “What they did was alter the balance of reality, infecting it with their presence.”

“How do you know?” asked Wallop.

“I called on WHO when we left London to see what they knew. I referenced the arcane rituals section of their library and between the two of us, ” she said looking at Kylun, “we found out what they were up to.”

“Reality’s not such a sturdy thing as you’d imagine. It’s built up of threads that hold everything together,” said Kylun, explaining things from what he had been taught on E’rath.

“True enough,” said Psylocke. “Meggan here can manipulate her own threads and perceive reality as it truly is.” Then she looked at Brian, who nodded. “Our brother Jamie can, could, alter the threads around him to suit his own whims.”

“Black Air corrupted the threads with their ritual, but the corruption had to be contained somehow as not to be noticeable,” said Martinique.

“The Infinity Gauntlet,” said Brian. “One of the Infinity Gems is that of Reality. What if they corrupted that, and not only used to alter things, but to manipulate the Gauntlet and the wielder?”

“A frightening thought,” said Gracie. “Black Air in command of the Infinity Gauntlet.”

“Not in command,” said Martinique. “In control. They have to give the illusion of command. Trust me on that.” As the daughter and heir of Mastermind she knew what she was talking about.

“So we have a reason for why there are no heroes, and the world is quiet. We have a supposition of what happened to make it so. The question is what is going on?”

“Which is where we come in,” said Brian. “I’m a physicist by trade. The sky is red because it’s not real. It’s a construct, designed to harness whatever light is in the universe and use it to light the Earth as well as keep in the heat. It just cuts off the atmosphere, for if it was not there, we would all be dead in weeks.”

“We’re protected by it?” asked Cuckoo. “But who built it?”

“Black Air,” said Brian. “Using alien technologies they’ve appropriated over the years, they’ve managed to seize control of the world, stepping in to maintain order amongst the chaos.”

“How can you know that?” asked Kylun. “We’ve not been here that long.”

“We met someone on the way up, someone who knows the truth of what’s going on, but has been discredited by Black Air, discredited him because of his relationship with Excalibur. They infiltrated WHO, they used their influence to bring down the governments and to create a world where they are in charge.”

“Who is this man?” asked Sam. “Who told you this?”

“I told them,” said a gruff voice with a Welsh accent, stained from years of smoking cigarettes and whiskey drinking.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Inspector Dai Thomas, formerly of the InterRegional Taskforce before it was dissolved by Black Air. Dai, this is the new Excalibur,” said Brian, introducing them to the man now standing before them. “And these are known collectively as the Clan Destine.”

“Really?” said Dai. “All I want to know is can you sort this mess out?”

“We can try,” said Psylocke.

“I remember hearing that from Rachel,” said Dai, “when Excalibur returned from their little sojourn around the universe. Black Air were waiting and wiped the old Excalibur out. Brian, Meggan, Kitty, Kurt, Rachel, Lockheed, Widget. All dead within days. What makes you think you can do different?”

“Because we’re not them,” said Brian. “And we have better numbers this time.”

“How can you fight a planet?” asked Dai. “Black Air are in control because they keep us alive.”

“Brian!” said Psylocke, as a flash of minds came to her. “We have company.”

“Didn’t take them long,” said Brian, putting on his helmet. “Mastermind, hide Meggan from them.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Kylun, drawing out his blades, knowing that it was most likely Black Air’s agents, having followed them when they got in to the files at what they thought had been the WHO offices.

“The only thing we can do,” said Brian. “Fight to save reality itself.”

NEXT ISSUE: Surrounded and alone against the world, the team are in trouble and they’ve not got a clue how to stop things! Black Air Rising continues…