MEET THE NEW GUYS

By Ed Ainsworth

Brian walked down the street with his new friend, Captain Cornwall. As they walked, pint glasses in their hands, Brian noticed he didn’t feel particularly drunk, despite the fact that he’d fallen off the wagon and drunk his fair share of alcohol this afternoon. After their initial hesitation, or at least hesitation from Captain Cornwall, they had both gotten quickly into the realms of discussion and drinking, moving from business to football, women and the state of the country – prime conversational titbits as any pub goer would be aware.

He didn’t know where they were going and he didn’t know where Bloodstone or the Druid were and, frankly, he didn’t care.

“Captain Cornwall, eh?” Brian started, as the guy led him down an alleyway in the back streets of London.

“Aye.”

“How’d you get a title like that?”

“I was a fisherman, living in Cornwall.”

“Obviously,” Brian added sarcastically.

“I got lost in a storm, my engine broke and I floated across the ocean for a long time. I thought I was going to die, only I didn’t.”

They turned a corner and the man set his pint glasses down on the street, opening his fly and urinating against the wall. “I drifted through something and ended up in a place you’d find familiar.”

“America?” Brian offered after a few minutes of silence.

“No, you idiot. I ended up in Otherworld. I was so delirious with malnutrition and drunk on rum, the only thing I had on me boat, that I didn’t notice all the faerie women trying to have sex with me.”

“Lost out there, I’d imagine.”

The Captain did his trousers up and picked up his pint glass, pushing his finger into the wall and carving a large rectangle, large enough to be a door or a full length window opening, in the mortar and brick of the building.

“I was labelled as the resistor, because I didn’t know it was happening and I ended up in the care of Roma.” He placed his hand, palm flat against the surface of the opening, pushing it open.

“That isn’t going to lead us into the building, is it?” Brian asked, taking another long gulp from his pint glass. The amber liquid tasted better than anything he’d remembered.

“No, we’re going to meet the Shadow Captains.” Captain Cornwall stepped through the door first, quickly followed by Brian, who pushed it closed behind them.

“So, what happened next?”

“Roma told me about the Captains of Britain and their Corps and I decided I didn’t want to represent Britain itself, just Cornwall. Like a regional protector, you could say. We had a long chat about it.” He set his empty pint glass down on a wall and pulled open his green shirt, revealing the black Saint George cross that was his costume.

“Wow. That’s a departure from the normal Corps costume.” He looked the Captain up and down. No more Union Jack, no more spandex, he wore a tight fitting re-enforced armored suit, with biker boots and fingerless gloves to boot.

“I know, that’s because I made it myself.” He turned and smiled to Brian, who downed the remaining contents of his glass.

“There are others in this Shadow Captain thing then?”

Cornwall nodded and headed down a corridor. The way they’d entered was leading them down a long corridor with a light at the end. As Brian looked back he could see nothing behind them but the remainder of the corridor, almost as though it looped back on itself.

“There are. Captains Cornwall, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, amongst others.”

“Oh, Brian, one more thing.” Cornwall stopped just before the light cut through the darkness of the corridor. “We’re a Multi-Cultural operation in here. We’re in this for Britain and our respective parts of it, we’re not here to be BNP members and kill the immigrants because we’re worried they’d take our poorly paid jobs for themselves and force us off the dole.”

“Right.” Brian nodded, trying to compose himself. He felt a bit drunk now, everything feeling slightly fuzzy around the edges and his senses dulled.

Cornwall pushed through the light, with Brian following him out into an open plan area. There was a large round table with a number of seats at it, each seat holding the crest or symbol of that country. Standing at the head of the table was a woman with straightened, jet black hair. She had both her hands palm down on the table, looking at the new entries.

“I see you found him,” she began, before moving around the table. The other captains looked up from their chairs as Brian moved out of the blinding light to seem them all.

Three people sat at the table but there were seats for many more, probably in the region of about twenty, Brian guessed roughly. That was a big organisation. The room otherwise was devoid of anything other than the table and the central lighting system above them; everything else was cold, hard and blank concreting.

“What’s going on here?” Brian asked, trying his best to not sound drunken.

“Brian Braddock, my name is Morganna Blessing. You might have heard of me, I come from old money.”

“Good for you.”

“I was also Stephen Strange’s lover for a short time, as well as his brother’s lover for a time, but that’s a story for another time,” she began, wringing her hands together.

“Oh. Right,” Brian said, looking around the room. “This guy,” he thumbed over his shoulder to Captain Cornwall, “he said you needed me to be part of something, right? Something that needs me and my physics as opposed to me and my fists.” He moved towards the table, stopping in front of a chair with a Saint George’s cross on it and sitting down, looking at the other people at the table.

Across from him, next to Morganna’s chair was a woman with bright green hair. She shot Brian a cheeky smile, before averting her gaze.

“I see you’ve caught Captain Ireland’s attention,” Morganna said sitting down in her chair, gesturing for Cornwall to do the same. “I’ll do the introductions now before we get embroiled in the details of all of this.”

She gestured towards the shy looking man, who held his head low and removed his glasses to clean their lenses. He exhaled heavily on them, looking up from under his eyebrows. “Captain Wales, also known as Robert.”

The other man leaned back in his chair, resting his sandal-clad feet on the table and with his unkempt look shot Brian a wink and a nod, even as he swirled the beer around in the bottle before him. “Captain Scotland,” Morganna said, before turning her attention back to Brian.

“I thought that guy,” Brian thumbed over to Cornwall, “said that you were a multicultural operation?”

“We are,” Ireland began, leaning back in her chair with a wry smile. “We’ve got normal people working with us, such as a Folklorist, a mechanic, a smithy, a carpenter, a construction worker, various minor mystics, people working on the Underground, as well as some more…colorful characters.”

“So why aren’t they all here? And what the hell kind of flag is this?” He pointed to the chair next to him. It wasn’t a picture of a flag the way the others were; it was more a burning sigil painted on the chair, a picture of a beam of light cutting a rock in half.

“That’s not a flag, Brian,” Ireland began, as Scotland interjected

“Damn right it ain’t.” He took a swig of his beer and went back to silence.

“This is our core grouping,” Ireland finished, scowling at the bearded man.

“Small group,” Brian said, looking at the empty chairs against the table.

“We’ve found ourselves on hard times recently, Brian, but we want to invite you into our group,” Morganna said, linking her hands together and leaning forwards.

“Right, I gathered that much. So why are you in charge?” Brian asked, leaning forwards and keeping her gaze on him.

“Because Roma PUT me in charge, Braddock. Do you not think there’s a reason I was Dr Strange’s lover, or are you too far gone into drunken stupor that you think he just liked my figure?” She scoffed at him, turning her attention to the other Captains as if seeking approval.

“Oh. Well.” Brian looked around the table and then back to Morganna.

“Our purpose, Brian, is the same as the Captain Britain Corps, but obviously we’re a lot smaller and a lot more vulnerable. We’re here to protect England and, with the destruction of Otherworld…”

“We’ll get the bastards what did that,” Cornwall added, balling his fists on the table surface.

“Thank you, Cornwall. However, with its destruction and the obvious effect that’s had on the twisting of Folklore by the great Unconscious, we’ve had to change our game and work a bit harder.” She got to her feet again and leaned across the table to meet eyes with Brian.

“That’s why we need you, Brian. We can fight all these things ourselves, but we need you to really make an impact. We’ve also got reason to believe that it’s more than just Viral Folklore that’s plaguing England and we think it might have something to do with the people you’re associating with.”

“Druid and Bloodstone?” he asked, his attention suddenly piqued.

“Yes. And we’re going to tell you more.”

“And where the hell have you been?” Druid asked as Brian stumbled through the door, beer bottle in hand.

“Out,” Brian responded, pushing passed Druid and towards the hotel room they had all rented. He found, as he opened the door, that a naked man covered in black bird feathers already occupied his room.

“Hello,” the man responded as Brian turned to Druid and Bloodstone, who walked out of the shower completely naked.

“Godamnit. What the hell is going on?” Brian asked, whirling around after seeing his girlfriend naked and not in front of him.

“That’s Knightraven and, if you’d have given us the time we needed, then you wouldn’t be bloody well asking that, would you?” Druid said, walking up to Brian and pushing his face up towards his.

Brian pulled his fist backwards and slammed it straight upwards into the Druid’s stomach, sending the man flying off the floor and into the far wall of the main part of the room.

“Don’t test me, you little fuck,” Brian stared down at Druid, who’s hands glowed with arcane energy. At the Druid’s threat Brian narrowed his eyes, bit his lip and stamped downwards with his boot heel. There was a soft crack from the Druid’s wrist as it gave way to his foot.

“You don’t,” Brain said, with a little slur. Elsa tried to grab his arms to pull him off but Brian was quite a lot stronger than her, so he simply pulled himself away.

“I know what you too are up to and I don’t care any more. I don’t care about you especially, Elsa, so just leave me alone. We’ll do what we can for England and then you can go your own bloody way.” He turned to Elsa and pushed through, walking towards the large bed in the center of the room and dropping onto it.

It was going to be a sleepless night.

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