Captain England in…

EUROPEAN DEFENSE INITIATIVE

Part V: Ending

By Ed Ainsworth

As Captain France fell towards the ocean below him, he found himself coated in the red mist that was his former ally, Captain Spain. If the most agile of them could not avoid the spines and death of the Tunisian beast that hurtled towards Italy, then how could he? He chastised himself as the pain made him remember exactly what situation he was in.

Perhaps, if he had no already attacked Captain England and ostracized himself from the hero, he might have something more than his tired and hurt body to rely on. Still, he forced himself upwards, halting his descent towards the torrid and wet waters which were stained with crimson below.

The huge beast above him beat its wings violently, sending plumes of ocean spray off the crests of waves, despite its great height above them. Hugo found they displaced him, and forced him to try and focus on the creature itself

Above him he could see the tiny figures of Captain Britain and Captain UK engaging the creature. They didn’t fare all that much better than Italy and Spain, although, they appeared to be much more adept at avoiding the blows of the creature.

-[France? Can you hear me? What is your status?]-

“Merde! Umberto un Carlos es mort!”

-[Uhm. Again in English, please? Did you say they’re dead?]-

“Oui! Ils sont morts. Ils sont tous morts sanglantes.”

-[UK and I aren’t faring all that much better. How in God’s name are we going to stop this?]-

Hugo paused for a moment again, watching the two Captains above avoid the majority of the battle, until UK received a blow to her body, which sent her hurtling towards the ocean like a rag-doll.

France could hear Britain yell in panic, and watched as he began his dive towards her.

This was his chance. The creature thought that they were all defeated, and was heading towards Spain once more.

If there was one thing that France had in spades, as was evident with his battle with Captain England, was strength. Umberto was agility, he moved like a swift, and Carlos was near invulnerable, at least that is what he thought.

Hugo was just strong, immensely so. He was stronger than any other trainee before him. He was typically unfrench in his embrace, no finesse, no time spent on making things just right. In life, before this, he was a builder. He spent his prior life as a construction worker who was comfortable to spend his life in the lower rungs of the ladder, hammering and building away from the politics of the higher ups.

His flight path had always been limited to straight lines, which was exactly the course he plotted, as he climbed higher and higher into the sky. His arms stretched out before him, clenched into tight fists, and his eyes closed tightly, he aimed himself.

The Tunisian monsters head exploded into a spray of bone and brain matter. France felt himself heave and his shoulders give way. His collar bones were shattered, as were most of his fingers, and his left arm. He always favored his left.

He changed his direction awkwardly, using his other arm to aid the monsters descent towards the ocean below. It pained him greatly, his fingers practically rebelling against any pressure he put on them. Though fortunately, the body was doing most of the work itself, he was just allowing it to gather more speed.

“Catch?”

France said weakly, his vision staring to blur, as they hit the surface of the water.

“Caught!” Captain Britain said, slamming into France’s already broken ribs, to rescue him from a watery grave.

“Although we have lost, and that our friends and loved ones have given their lives for our freedom, we are here to honor both their memory, and their brother in arms,” the French President said. Captain France, in full costume and complete with bandages and splits, stood beside him, at attention for the presentation. It was televised to the entire nation, and across the Euro-Zone.

Hugo looked either side of him, to the vacant costumes which hung on manikins to represent Captain’s Italy and Spain.

“Your heroism is second to none, Hugo. You represent the colours you wear with pride and with passion, and we thank you for your service. As far as I can see, you are the hero which France both deserves and has aspired for – I ask you now, to please, take the role of Protectorate of France, and premier hero of our nation within the S.H.E.”

Hugo stared at the President and looked him dead in the eye. He stepped forwards, and pointed either side of him at the costumes of his fallen friends.

“Non. I cannot.”

“You cannot? Ahhh! Such humility in the face praise!” the President grinned and attempted to take control of the situation, his hand lying on France’s shoulder.

“Non, sir. I cannot and will not. As of now, I quit.”

France pulled himself away from the President and marched down through the press that had accumulated before him. They parted for the hero, who gripped the costume around his chest, and pulled the cybernetic suit from his body.

“Captain France is no more. I wish to simply be . . . me.”

On the benthic depths of the ocean, where the angler fish and urchins played, something jittered and moved. Its biomass slowly absorbing and sucking up debris to pad out it’s form.

Debris like the shattered body of Captain Italy.

Speedball in…

FIELD TRIP FROM HELL

Part IV

By Dale Glaser

Speedball stood up from the wrecked remains of the aluminum shelving unit and, reminding himself to protect his secret identity, managed not to look directly at his mother.  Instead, from the corner of his eye, he watched as Mrs. Naylor-Baldwin comforted her class of huddled, crying third graders, or at least made the attempt; most of the 8-year-olds were inconsolably terrified.  Speedball passed his gaze over the attractive features of Sridevi Patel, who visibly struggled with her own fears.  Ultimately, however, Speedball was forced to look at his fearsome adversary, Scarecrow, who had lifted the three-ton Synchronous Square Wave Pulse Optimizer over his head one-handed, while brandishing his pitchfork at the children.

Hoping to knock Scarecrow down and draw him out of the lab, Speedball jumped backwards at the wall, picking up momentum as the kinetic impact rebounded and allowed him to launch fullspeed at Scarecrow’s legs.  Scarecrow saw the blue and orange figure in the pastel-rainbow cloud of bubbles approaching, and kicked out savagely, hobnailed boot connecting with the side of Speedball’s head.  Once again, Speedball sailed backwards, this time coming to a rest after crashing into a computer terminal and becoming entangled in its ribbon-cable innards.

Speedball pulled himself out of the smashed terminal, brushing off bits of circuit boards and mountings and untangling himself from wires.  He ran forward, planning a zigzag feint to catch Scarecrow by surprise, but after two steps was tripped by a heavy cable wrapped around his ankle.  Speedball hit the lab floor, absorbed the impact and bounced upward, pulled the cable taut and was yanked back down again, hit the floor again and bounced upward again, like a multi-colored ball tethered by elastic to a paddle-toy.

When he came to a rest a few moments later, he looked up and saw one of his mother’s students staring at him.  She was red-eyed, damp streaks running from her eyes and nose, but for a split-second she smiled at Speedball.  “Oh, thought that was funny, did you?” Speedball growled, mostly to himself.

“Stay down, hero!” Scarecrow roared.  “Come at me again and I’ll line up three little kiddies and tear their tongues out!”  He waggled the pitchfork suggestively.

The threatened violence brought fresh cries from several of the children.  Speedball watched as Scarecrow lifted the Thinking Cap even higher and took a tentative step toward the platform’s edge.  What is he waiting for? Speedball wondered.  It’s like he cares more about giving kids nightmares than actually getting away.  Like he gets off on it …  Speedball looked back at the girl who had smiled at him, then at Scarecrow.

Or he gets something else from it.

“Hey,” Speedball said quietly.  “What’s your name?”

“Nuh . . . Nicole,” the girl answered.

“Nicole,” Speedball said, “I promise you . . . everything’s gonna be OK.”  He grinned at her with all the confidence he could express and got to his feet.

“I told you to keep away from me!” Scarecrow bellowed.

Speedball raised his hands, non-threateningly.  “I know, I know,” he reassured the villain.  “I’m not anywhere near you, all right?  I’m just . . .”  He looked around, and saw the technician’s lunch still sitting on a nearby terminal.  “I’m just hungry, y’know?”

“You . . . what?” Scarecrow demanded.

Speedball took a sideways step, leaned over to grab the container, and retreated sideways.  As he crossed his legs he deliberately hooked one ankle around the other, and fell to the floor, dumping macaroni salad on the side of his head as he sprawled out in front of the third graders.  He half-caught himself as he fell, dissipating enough energy to avoid bouncing chaotically through the lab, then pushed himself to his hands and knees.  Looking at one of the boys in his mother’s class, with noodles and mayonnaise dripping from his hairline to his chin, he asked, “Do I have something on my face?”

The boy smiled nervously; a girl just behind him giggled.  Speedball stood up and quickly raised his hands high again before spinning around to face Scarecrow. He continued rotating, however, to face the third graders, then Scarecrow again, then the third graders, this time cross-eyed and tongue protruding from the corner of an exaggerated grimace.  A few more giggles burst from several of the children.

“Stand still, you idiot!” Scarecrow commanded, an audible strain in his voice.  “And get away from those brats!”

“Well which is it?” Speedball asked.  “Stand still?  Or get away?  It’s not easy for an idiot to keep so many orders straight.  Let me write this down.”  He darted over to a freestanding dot matrix printer with tractor-feed paper supplied from a box at its base.  Speedball tore a perforation in the paper hanging from the printer and pulled several connected sheets from the box at once.  Hand over hand he pulled and pulled, festooning himself with yards of paper.

Most of the children were laughing now.  “Enough!” Scarecrow barked desperately.  “I will puncture the lungs of the next person who makes a sound, and I’ll twirl your guts on my pitchfork like spaghetti, you fool!”

“Fool?” Speedball responded.  “You’re the one wearing a bag on your head that looks like the eyes and mouth were cut by a kindergartner.  You want my guts, you gotta catch me!”

Speedball threw himself across the room, varicolored bubbles bursting all around him, macaroni-stained paper streaming, yelling “Over here!”  He smacked into the wall and hurtled in the opposite direction, wailing, “Nope, over here now!”  Increasing his velocity, Speedball traversed the room again, this time cartwheeling end over end.  “I don’t even know where I aaaammmmm!”

The 8-year-olds were laughing louder than ever, two of them outright cheering.  A computer technician added a throaty hoot of encouragement as well.  The boisterous tumult was pierced by two noises in quick succession: the echoing clang of the Thinking Cap striking the platform, and a howl of pain from the Scarecrow as the base of the metallic arch crushed his right foot.

TO BE CONCLUDED!

Random in…

DOPPELGANGER

Part II

By Dino Pollard

Maximoff International Airport
Avalon, Genosha

Random handed his passport to the pretty young woman who sat behind the booth. She looked over the multitude of stamps from his various travels and double-checked the identification page. She focused her gaze on him for a few moments, her face twisting in concentration.

Signs warned any persons entering Genosha that all immigration officers possessed psychic abilities. They had full authorization to mind-scan all visitors. The country had been targeted recently by attacks from outside, and under Presidential decree from Magneto, the acting President, precautions had to be taken.

This was no problem for Random, however. Several years ago, he’d hired a telepath named Birdy to teach him a few tricks about fending off psychic intruders. Against someone well-trained, this wouldn’t mean much. But for most garden variety psychics, his defenses were enough to misdirect them.

The agent handed him back his passport. “Welcome to Genosha, Mr. Stone.”

According to the X-Men’s files, Random’s doppelganger had aided Havok and his allies in stopping the Dark Beast from releasing a new strain of the Legacy Virus on the human population. Once Genosha had been established as a mutant colony, the doppelganger was seen on one of the first transport ships.

Finding one mutant—a shapeshifter, no less—in a nation with the largest mutant population on Earth would be no easy feat. But Random was a skilled bounty hunter. And he knew one man in Genosha who could locate anyone.

Hammer Bay

On the outskirts of the city, a man with long hair and a thin mustache sat in a bar, drinking away what little was left of his money. His head lay on the table, an empty glass in front of his face. What woke him was having his chair knocked from under him.

“Get up, Hawkshaw.”

Random set the chair back and Hawkshaw struggled trying to pull himself back into it. He blinked a few times, trying to focus on the man who now sat across from him. “Whozzat?”

“Why don’t you use those fancy powers of yours an’ find out?” asked Random, lighting up a cigar.

Hawkshaw struggled for a few moments, dizzily pointing. “You…we worked t’gezha…right?”

Random nodded. “Back when you had your whole mutant apartheid thing goin’, yeah. Few times, you an’ the Press Gang contracted me to bring in escapees.”

“D’ash right . . . you’re . . . Ransom!”

He rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Random.”

“Right, d’ash what I shaid . . .” He laid his head back on the table again.

Random stomped on his foot.

“OW! Sonnuva—!”

“I ain’t got time for games, Hawkshaw. I’m lookin’ for a mutant.”

“Lotta mutants ‘round here.”

“A shapeshifter. Tradin’ on my name,” said Random.

Hawkshaw looked up again. This seemed to sober him up slightly. “Wait . . . what?”

“I just got into town. But I hear there’s someone else around here wearin’ my face,” said Random. “An’ I wanna know who he is and where he’s hidin’.”

“Y’mean . . . y’ haven’t been here ever since Magneto came t’town?”

“That’s what I said.” Random stood and grabbed Hawkshaw by his hair, raising him off his seat. “Now c’mon. Time for you t’ sober up an’ tell me where I find who I’m lookin’ for.”

On the outskirts of Hammer Bay, a young man pulled down the brim of his hat, counting on it to hide his face in its shadow. The ghettos of Genosha were home to those humans who remained from the previous regime. Trying to mount a resistance against the new order of Jean Grey-Summers and Erik Lehnsherr.

“Genejoke!”

The boy turned in shock to see a group of humans charging after him. They must have been following him for some time. He turned and dashed as fast as he could, attempting to outrun his pursuers.

One of them carried a gun and stopped long enough to fire off a few rounds. Several missed, but a few found their mark, perforating the young man’s back. His body arched forward as he dropped to his knees.

“Gonna send a message to Magneto an’ any other genejokes who think they can corrupt our way of life!” shouted one of them.

But the boy didn’t stay down. His body began to shift, bulging up. His arm swung out, extending as it did and wrapping around the head of one of the humans. It formed into a massive hand, squashing the man’s head in the large palm. The arm returned to normal, or what served as the new normal.

The albino mutant looked at least ten years older and had grown to a massive, bulging size. His hair had receded into his skull, leaving him bald. And his arms were now reshaping themselves into two, giant cannons.

“You messed with the wrong mutant, flatscans!” he shouted. “You messed with Random!”

A loud whistle came and the boy turned his gaze up. A bulky man dressed in jeans and a leather vest dropped from the rooftops. He landed between the boy and the remaining humans. He glanced over his shoulder at the now-terrified humans.

“If I were you, I’d be runnin’ right now. Just sayin’.”

The humans nodded and sprinted with all their energy to get as far away as possible. The boy was surprised to see this new arrival, who just calmly stood there, studying him as he puffed on a cigar.

“Random, huh? That what you callin’ yourself?”

The boy’s body mass began to shrink. The real Random just gazed at him. “Y’know, you took my name. Took my identity. Killed someone real important t’ me.”

Random’s arms dropped to his sides. His fingers started to bulge, forming into large, hollow barrels. His arms shifted size to accommodate them. And in just a matter of seconds, Random held two, quad-barrel organic cannons pointed directly at his doppelganger.

“Kid, you’d better be ready to enter a world of hurt,” said Random. “Because trust me when I tell you that you’ve fucked with the wrong bounty hunter.”

To be continued

Elf in…

CHILDREN OF THE FOREST

Part I

By Gavin McMahon

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course.”

Natalie Wood placed more than simply her trust in the hands of her boyfriend, she placed her entire life as if it was little more than a bargaining chip to cling further to a love that filled the emptiness inside of her. Her silvery blonde hair shuffled in subtle waves against her pale, freckled complexion. Heart-shaped lips quivered as she delicately lifted her hands from the wet grass into the air. Natalie and Andros had escaped the almost militaristic compound, set against the unlikely backdrop of the Louisiana bayous, which had been the only home they had ever known. Currently, the pair were knelt in the mud on the embankment, facing one another in a pledge of solidarity. From her fingertips, baubles of dancing photons sprung to life. At first, they were slow to form but over time the light shifted into an entirely different shape – a fairy performing ballet on the seventeen year olds fingertips.

Andros’ features contorted – not into fear or hatred as she had expected – with an urgent and curious amusement as he reached forward and allowed one of the globules of light to shift into a new form in the palm of his swarthy hands. His hair curled over his forehead, an attractive boy, he had a habit of making more than one of the compound girls go weak in the knees. In their youth, Natalie had looked to him as a friend but as the years had progressed, her devotion to him had become single-mind. Inherently and shamefully needy, Natalie was excused her ‘weakness of character’ because her father was an ambassador of the deity. Andros was the epitome of what the compound wanted from all of its citizens: strong, daring and – above all else – blindly submissive.

“That’s amazing.”

Natalie smiled, still insecure of the secret she’d so easily set loose into the world. However, her pleasure in sharing it was short lived, as she had suspected.

“Have you told Eiris?”

The lights suddenly died as the darkness of the overarching canopy swallowed the duo. Her words echoed with an unfamiliar coldness. “No.”

“You–“

“I said no, Andy.”

As the Children of the Forest’s deity, Eiris was a revered figurehead but Natalie had always treated her with an air of caution. The shy and somewhat naïve young woman – a mutant since the age of thirteen but sheltered from even understanding that term – was under no allusions that she had been raised in the cloistered society of a cult. Her parents had joined four years before her birth, and it was the only life that Natalie had ever expected for herself. The neo-pagan ideals and oneness with nature easily appealed to her, an environmentalist at heart, but there was a seriousness to the methods of Eiris. Those under the age of twenty one couldn’t “serve” their figurehead but rumours had always reached the youth – growing ever disillusioned – and Natalie was unhappy.

“You have to promise.”

He shrugged. “Promise.”

“Wake!”

Natalie, tired and comfortable in the warmth of her duvet, rolled over and drew the pillow from the other side of the bed over her head. Seconds had passed before the teenager had returned to the dreams that so readily welcomed her but, as with most mornings, the enjoyment was short-lived.

“Wake! The Temple summons you!”

Her father nudged her with such fervour that he pushed the ethereal beauty from the bed with a crash. The cold wooden floors quickly snapped her senses to full attention, she rubbed her forehead after the impact, barely aware of the words her father had just uttered. Slowly, Natalie pushed herself onto her feet and looked in the mirror. There was no redness or sign that she would bruise. Her fingers traced the blue star at the centre of her forehead – a mark of the caste system within the compound. Natalie’s eyes widened and then furrowed as she turned to face her father.

“Wait, what?”

“The Lady Eiris has sent a messenger,” her father growled frantically as he exited the room. “You’re too go to her this morning. Hurry!” The portly man exited the room as quickly as he had arrived and left his confused daughter without any idea what she was to do.

Summons from the Temple were uncommon and an uneasiness rumbled in the chest of the young woman.

“Nat?”

Andros was knelt before the throne at the head of the room, his arms bound and his chest bare. Wounds, long and narrow like those of a whip, spread across his body. Casting a frightened but enquiring smile towards the young Latino, Natalie made a startled move forward only to find her path blocked by two swords that crashed together. Biting her lip, she exhaled heavily, noticing the darkened features of the men at either side of the doorway – the Guard.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been holding out on me.”

The voice quickly sent shivers along Natalie’s spine.

The seventeen year old cultist turned to see their revered leader, the lady known as Eiris. Nothing else was known about the statuesque woman, she was nearing thirty but barely looked a day over twenty, her raven hair was drawn back to reveal a stern and unkind face. Natalie understood why she was such a recluse, no one would worship a woman with such horrifying malice dancing in those deep oaken eyes. Amongst the disillusioned of the Compound, rumours had spread about what happened to the “runners” – those who abandoned the cult – but as she noticed the grim, bony décor of the room, Natalie believed she had found her answer.

“Now, Elf, we talk.”

Eiris drew the thin dagger across the Hispanic teenager’s neck, blood spewed heavily as a crimson waterfall formed across his chest and pooled at his knees. Natalie, frightened and broken but no longer feeling like a fragile pawn under the deity’s control, simply watched with the familiar feeling of complete helplessness. Her ties had been released, anger raged.

To be continued…