ABDUCTION

By James McKenna

Six great points of light appeared in the sky as the cosmic figure spread his wings. Though upon closer inspection, his angelic appendages are in reality juts of colorful, fantastic energy of regal hues alternating between crimson, gold and purple; by his side, Gabriel’s friend Pyreus Kril, the entity known as Firelord, king of his eponymous element.

To any who might remember them, the two men were now quite changed. Firelord’s appearance was now as a sleek glowering body, his hair a mane of fire and his eyes slits of white flame. In his hand remained his faithful weapon and tool, the staff through which he channels his vast powers. Gabriel’s vestments were changed as well, he was bare above the waist yet with his former emblem now branded into his chest, a tattoo of mythic gold. His energized wing-like protrusions were now separated into six appendages. On his forearms he bore golden gauntlets, matched in color and design by his shin guards and from a golden chain about his waist hung his mighty clarion horn. His legs are vested in white fabrics and hanging robes, across his waist he wore sashes of red and purple. His eyes were yellow and long hanging locks of golden hair framed his face. In the midst of New York, the two men touched down, creating a pandemonium on the streets. Many screamed. More ran.

Homing in on a specific energy signature, the two heralds came to a special building.

“We have come for the Blue Diamond.”

The booming autonomous call served to alert the Liberty Legion as they now raced to the top of their domicile, Time’s Tower.

“What do you want?”

“Menos Cynn was alerted to your presence here. The King wishes to see you.

“I don’t quite know what you’re talking about, but I don’t think I’ll agree. How do you answer that?” Blue Diamond asked.

The Firelord brandished his staff, pointing one end—forever alight in flame—at Blue Diamond: “immolation.” Elton’s eyes widened at the being’s cold abruptness.

“So there isn’t a choice?” Blue Diamond asked as his skin hardened and became a light azure shade, his height and stature became greater as his flesh and blood trappings turned to preternatural diamond. Elton launched himself at Firelord with a mighty leap, laying into the alien with his superhard fists. The mighty blow served to weaken even the might herald. Abashed Gabriel floated somewhat confused by the surprising action. Iron Cross, Red Raven and Thin Man begin to attack Air Walker in concert.

The Challenger leapt over the edge of Time’s Tower and caught himself on a window ledge a story below. He smashed through the window and raced into the innards of the building, where Thin Man’s ingenius defense systems could be manned and operated. On the top of the building several turrets seemed to appear from thin air, phased in from subspace. Deftly working the controls, the Challenger pointed several energy cannons at the two alien combatants. As the aliens dispatched his teammates, he finally received a clear shot and took it. As the flash subsided, the two beings remained, seemingly, unharmed.

“They seem so keen on pugilism, Pyreus. I wonder why they simply don’t come with us. In the arena such violent tendencies would be welcome”

“A mystery, surely, Gabriel; No doubt they are a strange breed. Irksome too.”

The two captured the four Legionnaires in a bubble of energy and ferried them into space, out past Mars and its asteroid belt to the ship from whence they came. Later they will wake chained and held in cages by an otherworldly King.

Smoke-World

Aarkus, the immortal destroyer of evil sits unfettered, unbothered in his home dimension. In his ephemereal home realm, where crime has long been abolished, what use could there be, mused Aarkus, for a lawman.

Though not one to endorse deviant activities, this great being almost pines for his days on earth, a realm where his calling had purpose, as he tracked down many criminals, both super and mundane.

He sighed, whisps of smoke escaped his mouth as he exhaled. Exotic eyes closed and he dreamt of wild adventures: villains like Brains Borelli, Khor the magician, Kai-Mak, and many others. He dreamt of wondrous machinery, that of Dr. Enoch Mason, who breached the dimensional barriers between the Earth and Smoke-World. Finally, he recalled his greatest adventure, one of his last, where he teamed up with an odd assortment of some of earth’s other heroes of the era: Dynamic Man, Namora, Angel, Hermes, the Fin and the Fiery Mask.

He wished for such times to start anew.

The Gladius Holding Cells

“Bruce…is that Roko?” Blue Diamond asked his ductile friend. The two were in chains, bound by alien captors.

“It doesn’t look like him. Similar get up and powers, but…not Roko’s face,” Thin Man answered the question as he studied the man flying before them in the arena.

“Who’s Roko?”

“Roko was a hero during the 40s and 50s. Most of us didn’t stay active much past World War II, the world just didn’t seem to need us after awhile…not in a public capacity leastwise. The All-Winners Squad stuck around for a bit, but the real Captain America and Bucky were gone and their replacements were mentally unstable. Namor and Torch disappeared. Whizzer and Miss America settled down and retired more or less. Blue Diamond retired, I went back in search of Kalahia and later trekked over Europe hunting down escaped war criminals. Red Raven went back to rule Sky Isle and Jack Frost went north. Jack showed up a few years later at Brian Falsworth’s funeral, after a couple drinks he took his leave and no one’s seen him since to my knowledge. But those groups, the Invaders, the original Legion and later—the amalgamation—the All-Winners Squad, we were just the key players. There were many more heroes,” Bruce began.

“Roko was one of the guys that got forgotten later on,” Elton now took over “he kept on fighting, he became fairly public for awhile. After all he was one of the few superheroes active. Even without a vast array of villains, there was no shortage of crises for him to tackle. Then tensions flared pretty bad during the Cold War. America wanted to know if Roko would be there weapon, the one armament the Soviets could never hope to duplicate. He said no. McCarthy had a field day with that. Tailgunner Joe went off on all cylinders, pretty soon half of America was up in arms about ‘Roko the Red.’ The novelty of superhumans had worn off. We’d been something new and interesting during the war, but afterwards when reality sunk in, when people realized that a select few individuals had power none of them could hope for, they got scared. Fear was easy to manipulate back then. Seeing what the public sentiment had become, Roko got the hell out of Dodge. There were reports of a similar character showing up now and then in parts of Europe but after awhile the reports stopped. It was just a bad time to be a good guy,” Blue Diamond finished with a morose, yet matter of fact air to his words.

“So what was he like?”

“He was a Swiss Army Knife.”

“What?”

“It’s a term Bruce and I used,” Blue Diamond had a small smile on his face, “Roko could fly, he had super strength, invulnerability, magic weapons, on and on. He could do just about anything…like a Swiss Army Knife. It has a tool to handle just about anything. He had the powers to handle just about anything.”

“Have you gotten to Curt yet?” Bruce asked his friend, turning his attention back to the history lesson. He’d been paying attention to the spectacle in the arena before them.

“No.”

“Why, who’s Curt?” Valentina, the Iron Cross asked.

“Curt Cowan was a notable FBI agent during that time. He would also moonlight as the hero Dynamic Man.”

“What a corny name,” the Red Raven, Dania, chimed in. She seemed bored.

“Yeah, I know, but it wouldn’t stop him from kicking your ass easily, he and Roko duked it out after the McCarthy business. Their fight was the last straw. Curt and Roko had been friends, but Curt had a job to do, he did it. I can identify with both of them; I’m not sure who I’m in favor with over the matter, even all these years later.” Blue Diamond admitted.

Bruce looked up at his group, “Dynamic Man was about to put a group together too, he and some others had just faced down some sort of alien threat. The group couldn’t decide what to make of Curt’s actions and their assemblage was put on hiatus. They told the community their team was still going to happen, just internal politics had to be ironed out first. Hasn’t happened yet as you can guess.”

Throne Room/Bridge of the space vessel Gladius

Menos Cynn was possessed of awesome mental gifts. For centuries, his now forgotten world had battled over land and objects decried as holy. Warriors and pedagogues battled alike with diatribes and iron clashing. Several sects of warrior priests were involved and soon war enveloped Menos’ entire planet.

All had similar creedos, but none could appreciate common ground, so wrapped up in zealotism were they, that when a dark pall fell across the planet, none took notice.

Menos had been part of a sect whose name and rights have long since been lost to antiquity, but in the course of duties, he’d become exposed to what many had termed a “holy” object. One night from the west a great meteorous object streaked across the sky, landing in the lands under the protection of Menos’ sect. A young Menos Cynn rode out to find the object, many in his sect believed it portentous, a holy signal of some sort or other.

Yet in reality it was but a simple chunk of rock from space. Though, perhaps, not so simple, as the mass of it was composed of some alien element that irradiated Menos’ body, it atrophied muscles, burnt his skin, poisoned him thoroughly; but for all the pain, it gave him a great gift, an all encompassing mental aptitude, he could control, influence, inhabit and even wholly take over the minds of others.

With this power—power deemed holy by his demented followers, he gained a large grouping of acolytes, and those that would not join him faced defeat via his psychic powers. The crazed and backwards world was his, yet it was not enough. He ruled for centuries, transferring his mind and powers into suitable host bodies. Thinking himself so great, he became disgusted with the religions his people once practiced. Science became law and at long last he found the means to increase his power: space travel.

For years Menos traveled the galaxy, holding tournaments for super powered beings, the winners of such tournaments received no prize, but were enslaved, their bodies becoming host to Menos Cynn’s twisted mind. His scientists had crafted an instrument to measure various power levels, the ship’s systems would guide it automatically. Once, in the early 50s it had brought him to the Sol system, after encounters near Uranus and Saturn, the ship came to the primary planet, Earth. Menos was forced back by a group of seven super beings. Now his ship’s guidance systems had brought him back again, and many surprises lay in store.

Gladius Holding Cells

“I knew someone once, he was a lot like you, son,” Thin Man began to the Roko impersonator.

“Lon Crag, Roko the Amazing. Menelaus told me about him.”

“I see you knew him too. So where is Lon? How’d you get his powers?”

“Lon’s dead…I’m sorry. Menelaus—let me explain him first, I guess. The spirit of Menelaus came to Lon years ago, during World War II and gave Lon his greatest wish, to be a hero. He wanted to be like Captain America, and then what happens? America betrays him. Yeah, I bet there’s more to it, but you know the story better than me. The Olympian gods could sense the potential valor hidden within the meek art student Lon Crag. So Menelaus became a messenger for Zeus and the others, speaking through a picture Lon had drawn.”

“I know Roko’s secret origin. You may spare me that.”

“Fine…sorry, I should have figured. As a scholar of the classics, after basically being exiled from America Lon went to Italy, Greece, all the places with any art and culture he found interesting. Word got to him at some point, an old friend was sick, deathly ill. He booked it to the States and was there to see his friend die. Menelaus told me that after this Lon sort of invoked his spirit and they spoke. For all his strength and abilities, Lon was angry with the gods for not giving him the one power he now recognized as being truly useful, a power to heal. Menelaus told Lon how the gods were pleased that he’d made this revelation, that his wisdom was now greater and he knew humility. Lon was pissed his friend had died and the gods were making light of it. He told them to stuff it, basically. This shield with the triskelion pattern, all the power went into this, like some battery waiting to be tapped.”

“And you tapped it. How’d you find it?”

“Sometime after his death, the shield fell into the hands of one of Lon’s extended family members, one of his cousins or something. In the hustle and bustle of life, at some point that cousin pawned it. It was stuck in some consignment shop for 40 years. After watching Treasure Hunt and Cash in the Attic on BBC America, my girlfriend got big into antiques. That’s how I found it.

“Thought, it might be better to say—I know this sounds dumb—but it found me. I walked past and admired it. The metal shined brightly, it looked like it was pretty new, just needed someone to dust it off. In a store full of old clocks, vases, tables…all this boring stuff, the neat looking shield thing stood out to me. More than that, I was drawn to it. I wasn’t sure why, it was magnetic. I made some sort of justification to myself of course…saying I recognized the triskelion pattern, said my dad would like it—he and my mom came over from Greece a few years before I was born and they still adore the ‘old country.’ So I bought it and brought it home with me. I was cleaning it up and I cut myself somehow and bled onto the shield. Then the damn spirit of Menelaus materialized before me and scared the shit out of me.

“He said my blood possessed ‘the ant’s taint with the consistency of ichor.’ I’m not really sure what that meant, but he said he could trace my lineage to Achilles and some affair he’d had that never made it into the history books, I guess. The men in her tribe later went to Troy and fought under Achilles…the Myrmidons. So that’s where I took my ‘superhero’ name. Myrmidon. Roko just wasn’t going to do it, I figured; it sounds too dumb.”

“Before you picked up that spear, picking up a book would have done you well. The ‘ant’ taint Menelaus mentions is the blood of the Myrmidons. Myrmidons of myth were ants transformed into men, the term itself coming from Greek. Ichor is the fluid that runs in the veins of the Olympian gods. So if you’re descended from Achilles, that would make sense, he was a demi-god of Olympian heritage. The unnamed Myrmidon woman would, obviously, have been the ant source. Quite the pedigree, eh?”

“Yeah, I could never pay attention to that stuff. It all seemed…unimportant, too impossible.”

“My friend’s a walking diamond. I can fold my body between dimensions. There’s a man in New York with spider powers. Four astronauts went up into space years ago and came down with fantastic powers. A young scientist got caught in a bomb blast and turned into a modern day Jekyll and Hyde. People are born everyday with a quirk in their genes that turns them into living weapons. Beyond that, the mythological Hercules, Thor and others walk our planet from time to time. Now you tell me what’s impossible.”

“I suppose I was a fool.”

“Perhaps, but that time is over, now would you like to help us out?”

New York

“Bill, we need your services,” the voice crackled through a brief sound of static, activating the Challenger’s V-Battalion communications link.

“And I’d love to lend them, Roger, but my new team just went missing after an attack from two former heralds of Galactus who’d both been through serious makeovers. Something is up and I can’t just leave.”

“Bill, please. We’re thinking you might be able to help yourself as well. You showed up in Ireland awhile ago, bumped in from the past, the assignment is near where you came in. There’s a new guy aping Dr. Druid’s M.O. with some curious twists.”

“Now you’ve got me curious…but, dammit, I need to keep a watch on the Tower. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“It’s okay, we’ll have agents there around the clock. Hell, if it makes you feel better, I’ll send Citizen V down there to housesit.”

“…fine.”

“Good, be on the roof for extraction in fifteen minutes. You’ll be meeting up with another old ally who’ll be helping out. Don’t bother with gear, we’ll outfit you.”

“See you in fifteen, then.”

Suddenly, Bill Waring, the man known as the Challenger was startled by a rapid clanging, what sounded like muted gunfire. He dove, tucking and rolling, pulling a small back-up firearm from a holster in his boot. No one should have been able to make it past the defense systems, but he was ready for anything. Looking up, there appeared to be a figure in the doorway, knocking on the frame to get attention; but the image was a blur and a whirlwind of noise came from it.

His brain pulsed searching for an answer and he found one: “whoa, slow down there, concentrate. Relax. Slow down,” it was an excited speedster. Bill and the Whizzer had teamed up a few times, and he recognized the symptoms, before he got a good handle on his powers, the Whizzer from time to time, would just get too excited and the speed would get to him, he’d be doing everything at a hundred miles an hour literally.

The figure in the door became one coherent image instead of a great blur. Bill was pleased to see an attractive female form. She spoke, it was unintelligible.

“Relax, relax. It’s okay. Who are you and how did you get here? Relax.”

“My name is Grace…I wanted to join the Liberty Legion…is this a bad time?”