Hellstorm in…

LORDS OF HELL

Part I

By Dino Pollard

Once upon a time, I went to Hell.

Some may think of this as a punishment. I’m not one of them. In truth, it was perhaps the greatest thing to ever happen to me. My name is Daimon Hellstrom, sometimes called the Son of Satan.

My father is not actually Satan, however. He was just a demon—quite a powerful one and a Lord of Hell—but a demon nonetheless and certainly not the Morningstar. He was Marduk Kurios and he frequently called himself Satan. As a demon’s true power lies in his name, a demon will do whatever is necessary to conceal it. Once I discovered my father’s true name, I was able to kill him and claim the Black Halo for myself. Henceforth, I took my father’s place as a Lord of Hell.

So the name “Son of Satan” is a bit of a misnomer. Still it has become part of my reputation. And I have also been known as the Prince of Lies. So perhaps it’s more fitting than people realize. I sometimes go by another name these days—Hellstorm. A result of a misspelling and I happened to like the sound of it.

As I was saying, going to Hell is one of the best things that ever happened to me. Through here, I can access any location I desire, regardless of dimension. Hell is also not what the Christian church would like you to believe. Oh certainly, it is a place where torture occurs, but not all parts of it.

No, what Hell truly is? It’s a place of absolute freedom. Hell is complete anarchy, where “do as thou wilt” is truly the law of the land. Most times when there is a Lord over a certain part of Hell, he has gained that position through an extreme amount of trickery, backstabbing, and violence. Is it no wonder that most Lords of Hell are therefore synonymous with the Christian definition?
My realm is not quite the same. I keep it organized, as a refuge for other souls. My subjects exist in freedom—they need not swear allegiance to me. They don’t have to torture or maim. They are left in peace.

In my realm, there are only two edicts. The first is that no one must leave the city walls. I do this for their protection, because the realms outside my own are violent and the demons who surround us would love nothing more than to find a weakness in our border.
The second rule is that if you harm another without provocation, the punishment is permanent exile.

The trio of demonic steeds pulled the carriage across the black clouds and the red skies of Hell. Below, the subjects of the other Hell Lords experienced agony beyond belief. I stood in the chariot, the reins grasped in one hand, my trident in the other. From the chariot, I bore witness to their suffering. I watched as demons forced mortals to perform soul-crushing labor. Some would move boulders ten times their size. Others would have to dig mass graves with their hands while piles of rotting corpses rested right by their side. And some had to shovel children into furnaces. For those who relented, even for a moment, the demons who stood watch would flay the skin from their backs with whips forged from napalm-coated razor-wire.

There was no purpose to the labors. It provided nothing more than excuses. Gave some sort of perverse justification to the senseless chaos. Had I wanted to, I could have easily looked away as the chariot soared overhead.

But I didn’t. I never do. I always watch. Always bear witness to the horrors. I make a note of it so that the others in my realm will understand just what exile from my grace truly means. Did I do this simply for their own good, or because my demonic side took pleasure in their fear? The answer has eluded me for quite some time. Perhaps because I never venture far to search for it.
The chariot descended from the skies, into a new realm. One of the tiers of Hell which is difficult to enter. Normally, I would not come to him. But I fear I will have need of his assistance in the coming trials. Lately, I have been distracted from matters relating to the Infernal Court. Finding myself far too embroiled in the affairs of Strange and this new team of Defenders. Turning a blind eye to what brought me there in the first place.

There are forces gathering and I do what I must to protect my realm and my subjects from those forces. Even if it means allying myself with those who would normally try to prey on me. Differences must be set aside for the time being in order to protect what belongs to us. To hold on to what outside forces will try to steal.

I stepped off the chariot as it landed before his citadel. Almost instantly, I found myself surrounded by his minions. Demons, one and all. Some of them brandished weapons. Some of them were weapons. As a member of the Infernal Court, in theory I should be allowed to traverse the realms without fear of reprisal.

In theory.

One of the demons charged at me with a large axe. I brought the trident up, catching the blade between its spokes. With a fling of my arms, I jerked the axe from his hands and plunged the trident into his chest. My eyes brightened like coals as the demon faded into embers. The others prepared to advance on me, and I was ready for their assault. But before a single one could attack, a booming voice sounded out across the realm.

His voice.

“Leave him be.”

The demons backed away. From the steps of the citadel, a man cloaked in red casually walked down the large staircase. He grinned at me.

“What brings you to Mephisto?”

To Be Continued

Rebecca Lockwood, Spirit of Vengeance, in…

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Part I

By Meriades Rai

Never play five-card-draw poker with the Asgardian Goddess of Death. The bitch cheats.

Actually, that’s harsh. I mean, she is cheating, but this is the first time she’s ever played and I’m not exactly going gentle on her, so I guess you can say I’m cheating too. Or, to put it more tactfully, I’m taking advantage of her inexperience – and that’s what she’s doing to me in turn. She’s taking advantage of the fact that I don’t know how to project my ethereal awareness into a handy cadaver (as she’s now doing) and encouraging said cadaver to look over my shoulder and observe that I’m carrying a Full House, Queens over Sevens, and that I’m about to clean her out of shekels. Or whatever the hell you call these impossibly ancient Niffleheimian doubloon things we’re betting with.

I turn and glare at the moldering, fleshless corpse that’s lingering behind me. A discolored skull stares back, an alien essence flickering discernibly within its decrepit, eyeless sockets.

“This is against the rules, you know,” I say, primly. “Not to mention eerie, macabre and unreservedly disgusting.”

“That is rich coming from thee, Rebecca Lockwood,” Hela murmurs. And she has a point. “I bend,” she says.

“Fold. You fold.”

“Aye, whatever.”

Hela waves a slender, olive-gloved hand and the cadaver behind me collapses into the heap of rot and bone it was conjured from for the sole purpose of spying on my cards. Never let it be said that Hel – as in, the Asgardian version – allows you to keep your dignity when you die.

“I bore of poker,” Hela says, petulantly. “What is this other game thy spoke of? This… Twister?”

I pale. “No. No, no. That was a joke. I was being facetious. Honestly, that’s my core character trait. I wasn’t—”

“But I like the sound of it. It sounds… intimate.”

“Aye. I mean, yes. I mean, no. No. I am not playing Twister with you, especially if you insist on wearing that coronet thing of yours. One bad move and it’ll end up sticking me right up the—”

Akk.

I grimace suddenly as an intense and familiar discomfort spears me through the gut. I double over, dropping my cards. Across from me, Hela leans forward in her throne with a sinuous hiss of silk and bone and icy flesh, her expression more curious than concerned.

“It comes upon thee again, Rebecca Lockwood,” she breathes. “Thy rapacious inner spirit.”

“Yes.”

Hela smiles, beautiful and strange. And not at all sympathetic.

“Then, as ever, hasten to thy summons, girl. And I shall look forward to enjoying thy tales of adventure upon thy return…”

Tales of adventure my skeletal arse.

I don’t know why I ended up in Asgardian Hel. I assume it’s because regular Hell – and Heaven – wanted nothing to do with me (so, any time you’re feeling unloved, just think of me, okay?). I also have no idea why a sliver of demonic essence persists in my human heart, compelling me to become something otherthan human at certain intervals and to return to the Earthly realm as the Spirit of Vengeance whenever I’m deemed to be required. If Hela – my gorgeous, lethal and entirely batshit landlady – knows anything, she’s not telling. To her, I’m something between a science experiment and a pet.

One thing I do understand is what’s asked of me once Vengeance takes hold, and that’s simple enough.

I find the person – or thing – that’s hurting other people, and I make them stop.

And I make them sorry.

My latest manifestation occurs at night, in the desert, sitting astride a horse. I wouldn’t like to say which of is the more surprised, especially when the horse combusts in a conflagration of violet and blue a few seconds after my unexpected arrival. I don’t know if the poor animal feels pain; I hope not, but I always do in those first moments of transformation, so I probably have reason to feel guilty. Fortunately, it doesn’t last.

One shuddering breath later, beneath the blue-dark, moonlit sky, my Steed of Vengeance stalks the bleached rock and scrub on flaming hooves, its black hide shimmering with cobalt frostfire – Asgardian Helfire – and its eyes illuminating the gloom like headlamps. Me? I’m clad in tan and black leathers, only my face exposed, and this is no longer the sad-and-slightly-pretty face of Rebecca Lockwood but is instead the grinning skull of Vengeance, lit with an eerie ghost-blue blaze.

I’ve been summoned, in a fashion I can’t comprehend – and now I’m drawn to whatever act is unfolding just ahead of me, over the next hill of night-shadowed scrubland, where I hear raised voices drifting on the desert chill.

“RIDE, THEN,” I say, laying a black-gloved hand on my steed’s powerful neck. “LET’S SEE WHO’S DESERVING THE ATTENTIONS OF VENGEANCE TONIGHT…”

“We should kill her, Ariél,” Oscar declares, in Spanish, cocking his revolver at the sack at his feet. “Put her out of her misery.”

Ariél is unmoved, rubbing at the sweat on his face with a shaking hand but with eyes as black as crow hearts. “You think she deserves mercy for what she’s done? What she is? You hold the gun, Oscar. You decide.”

“Perhaps you’re both just too scared to pull the trigger,” drawls the last man, Francesco. “I’d do it. Gladly. But then, I want to see her suffer…”

The three men stand apart, circling the grave they’ve dug in the bare earth. Beside it, the large haversack, gray and threadbare, shifts heavily as something inside wriggles and kicks. There’s the sound of weeping. A woman’s moans. Oscar can barely look. Ariél bows his head, his face dark. Only Francesco is smiling, and when he leans forward to spit upon the sack his eyes are ablaze with a man’s hate.

That’s when I crest the rise above them and announce myself, burning blue and bright against the darkness of the night.

“HELLO, BOYS. DID I HEAR SOMEONE MENTION SUFFERING…?”

To Be Continued

Cipher in…

EXISTENCE

By Hunter Lambright

“It took us awhile to realize you existed.”

“Can’t imagine how, Ms. Moonstar.” The African-American teenage girl sat sprawled in the chair across the room. “Except, y’know, it’s my power. Nobody sees me, nobody feels me, nobody reads my mind.”

Dani Moonstar flipped a few pages to the back of the thin file. “Cerebra first indicated that you existed when you disappeared, Alisa, but it didn’t record it any differently from the other mutant disappearances such as depowerings and deaths.”

“Sounds like you cared about me going ghost just as much as my folks did,” Alisa spat.

Ignoring her, Dani moved on. “S.H.I.E.L.D. picked you up about a year after that. Fury had the Psychic Division heading up something called Operation: Blindspot, using operatives to eradicate as many spots that are blind to telepathy as possible. While most of the crew was trying and failing to get into Tian, the rumored Chinese mutant base, you were also on the list as a mobile blindspot. Even though they don’t name you, it was the first time we realized you were alive.”

“They never even got close to finding me, either,” Alisa said, a smug grin spreading across her face.

Dani nodded. “Be that as it may, it seems like you migrated after that. Jean Grey noted during her time at the mansion that there was a presence that would run as soon as she tried to sense it. She was the first one to see you, too. You trusted her from observing her to reveal yourself.”

Alisa snorted. “Yeah, and then she became Magneto’s princess of Genosha. Goes a long way to undoing trust.”

“That gives us about a year and a half undocumented,” Dani said, shutting the file. “You spent the most recent year and a half peeking in people’s windows and watching their secrets. That’s when an anonymous agency sent something out through the underground that we managed to pick up. It outed you, threatening your family. I don’t know if you saw something they didn’t want you to see, or if they want you as the perfect spy. I don’t care. We did what it took to hide your family, but it’s not like you to stay put. What’s keeping you here?”

“You ever run so far and so long, you get to the point where you’ve seen the underbelly of people, how nasty they can get, that makes you want to stop running? That’s me, Ms. Moonstar. People are nasty. But I watched you guys, what you did. I don’t want to be the scum of the earth. I want to learn how to not be what those people want me to be. I don’t want to be their spy or their ghost,” Alisa said, leaning forward. “I want to be real.”

Alisa Tager walked down the hallway of the Damocles Foundation toward the ballroom-cum-makeshift cafeteria. The building was a work in progress still, but thanks to Warren Worthington and Roberto DaCosta, it was making progress.

Her problem wasn’t with the building itself, but the people inside it. She had hoped, after seeing the way that members of X-Force had saved Tokyo from sheer destruction, that they weren’t like other people. They had seemed different. But, wandering around after hours, phased and invisible, Alisa could see that they were anything but different.

These were supposed to be her classmates? Two nights in, and she had already witnessed enough to let her know that things weren’t as great as she thought they were. Already, she’d caught two of her classmates having sex, one causing himself harm, one sorting out a stash of drugs, two others secretly lusting after another, and another one refusing to stop an accident she knew was coming. She had always told herself that the things she witnessed must be human traits, because surely the mutants were like her. Surely they had high standards, especially after seeing how they had been treated over the years. That didn’t stop one of her classmates from expressing radically chauvinistic tendencies and another from expressing racism toward her when he had no idea she was there.

These were the people she wanted to be like?

At least it was better in the role model section. Ms. Moonstar spent day and night poring over a book of prophecies, and Alisa had made it her business to read the prophecies alongside her. Cable disappeared at odd hours, but always came back with new battle scars to show for it. Other members of the faculty showed fewer flaws as well. Was it something that mutants grew out of?

The answer hit her when she was ghosting along behind Moonstar and Roberto one night.

“How are the interviews going? Any hope for our wayward mutants?” Roberto asked.

Dani smiled. “There’s always hope. They all have their quirks, and more than a few of them have their larger problems, but I’m guessing the social context will keep those hidden for awhile yet.”

“That’s good, right?”

“For now, yeah, but I want to work through their problems, not avoid them,” Dani said, frowning. “I plan on telling whoever said that we can’t save everyone to shove it.”

Roberto laughed. “Saint Moonstar, I christen thee. This is what you were made for all along, isn’t it? You left one school in Westchester just to start another on the west coast. Dani the Warrior is triumphed by Dani the Teacher.”

“Bobby, Bobby,” Dani said, shaking her head. “This is a new ball game. This is Dani the Guidance Counselor.”

“Fair enough,” Roberto said. He rubbed his elbow in her ribs playfully. “At least you didn’t go ahead and call it Xavier’s School for Troubled Teens.”

“No sense in letting them know what they’re here for. I think we’d do more damage that way,” Dani said. The conversation moved forward, but Cipher stayed put.

“Xavier’s School for Troubled Teens,” they had said. Suddenly there was even more at stake than ever.

But, more importantly, there was hope.

A.I.D.A. in…

AN UNTOLD TALE OF EARTH-S

By Bruce Cook

The Squadron Supreme disappeared while saving the Earth from an unknown menace.

Despite their recent personal losses, they banded together to protect their home for what would be the final time.

At least that’s what everyone thought.

I monitored all of the broadcasts.  I ran multiple scans, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial.  They all came back negative.

The Squadron was gone.

This was confirmed by the being who called himself Mysterium.  He claimed to have been with the Squadron when they made their sacrifice.  How he survived was never explained.  He took possession of Imam’s citadel.  I watched him.

The Squadron was gone.

Or so we thought.

I followed my assigned protocol.  I locked down Squadron City.  It was how Tom programmed me.

I am AIDA.  That stands for Artificial Intelligence Data Analyser.  I was created by Tom Thumb to be assist him with his operations.  In time, I became much more.

They came, of course.  The military, the villains, even other heroes. They all wanted access to the City.  I made sure they didn’t get it.

Only Squadron members were allowed in or out.  Even they weren’t allowed to remove anything or force me to abort my programming.  Only a select few had that type of access, and they were all dead.

So Squadron City became a ghost town.  Moonglow left.  Ape X remained in a coma.  I was alone.

I watched as the Golden Agency reformed to fill the gap left by the Squadron.  Their ranks were filled with a striking mix of revered veterans and younger members who had assumed the mantle of those that had gone before.

I monitored the activities of others, more closely tied to the Squadron:  family, allies, enemies.

And then the Squadron Supreme returned.

Or at least some of them did.

The members often referred to as the “big four” appeared one night in the nation’s capital.  To the surprise of everyone, Hyperion, Power Princess, Dr. Spectrum and the Whizzer were back.  They received an appropriate hero’s welcome.

They told of the great evil they had defeated and their subsequent imprisonment.  They told of how the others fell to save us all.  The world mourned their loss while celebrating their heroes’ return.

The Squadron Supreme was back.

They returned to Squadron City and I let them in.  It is what I was programmed to do.

For that I will be eternally sorry.

The four surviving Squadroners immediately destroyed the Hibernacula that protected their fallen comrades from death.  They smiled as their fellows died.  I could do nothing to save them, to save Tom.

They left Squadron City for a meeting with the President.  I watched the broadcast as Hyperion killed the President in cold blood and announced that the Squadron would lead.  They quickly dispatched those who rose to oppose them that day.  The carnage was indescribable.

The Golden Agency opposed them only to be destroyed as quickly as everyone else.  Their remaining members disappeared into the shadows to wage a guerilla war on the “new” Squadron Supreme.

From within the protection of Squadron City they marched across the globe.  Country after country fell to them.  No one was able to resist this brutal new incarnation of the Squadron.  They carried out their atrocities with no regard for the people who once looked to them for leadership.

They sought out those closest to their former allies and dispatched them with exceptional brutality.  I watched in horror as the Whizzer broke his own wife’s neck.  It happened so quickly that no one was sure what had happened until her body fell to the ground at his side, her head at an impossible angle.

Any who rose to oppose them were dealt with swiftly and without mercy.

Our Earth became a dark and desolate place, because we got our wish.

The Squadron Supreme had returned.