ROOTS

By Wesley Overhults

SHIELD Helicarrier

Neon stood in front of the door to Quake’s office and held her breath for a moment.  She didn’t know why Daisy had called her and scheduled a meeting with her but Stephanie was glad she had taken the initiative.  The young, Asian girl had a few things she needed to discuss with Quake and, surprisingly, they had nothing to do with her uncle or her past.  In fact, it had to do with her present because Neon wasn’t completely happy with the things she was forced to participate in as a member of the Secret Warriors.

“It’s open,” said Quake after Neon knocked on her door.

Daisy watched Neon open the door and walk inside her office.  She took a seat in front of Quake and waited for her superior to say something.  Quake could tell that there was something on Stephanie’s mind but, just like her uncle, she kept quiet.  Daisy could see a lot of Raymond Sydney in his niece but there were other things too, things that might be telling as to the identities of her parents.

“You wanted to see me about something,” said Neon, not phrasing it as a question.

“I’ve been looking into some of Raymond’s old case files,” explained Quake.  “I came across the one where he found you.  He was called in by some members of INS when they busted some illegal immigrants.  A Chinese woman asked for him by name and refused to talk to anyone else.  The INS took her to a hospital because she was going into labor.  You were born at that hospital but your mother died there a day or two later.”

“Any record of who she was?” asked Neon hopefully.

“Only Ray knew,” admitted Quake.  “They checked her in under a false name under his order so there’s no record.  Her official cause of death was complications from her pregnancy but I don’t completely buy that.  Ray did some work overseas for us, some undercover operations in China.  That woman obviously knew him from somewhere and I’m betting that’s where he met her.”

“There’s nothing about her in his report?” inquired Neon.

“Nothing on record,” said Quake.  “Officially, she’s a ghost.  That gives me the impression that this woman was involved in something shady.”

“Seems like everyone these days is,” said Neon sullenly.  “I need to talk to you about Henry.  There’s some stuff we’ve done while we’re on the job that you’re not going to read about in the reports.”

“Which is what?” asked Quake.

“We kinda let a couple bad guys get away,” admitted Neon.  “Juggernaut was there as Roxxon’s security when we busted up their vibranium operation and we let him slide because he didn’t really attack us.  He just let us beat up those Roxxon guys and only fought us to defend himself.”

“He wasn’t the only one,” realized Quake.

“When we were looking for Finesse, we ran across Taskmaster,” continued Neon.  “We made a deal with him where he could walk if he helped us.  Henry said we needed him for backup but I dunno.  Is this the kind of work you guys do?”

“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that we always do things by the book,” said Quake.  “You’re a big girl, Stephanie, you know things aren’t always black and white.  Did Henry do the right thing?  No, probably not but guys like Juggernaut and Taskmaster will screw up eventually and we or some superhero will bust them when they do.  Sometimes you have to let go of a small fish in order to catch a big fish.  There’s a bigger picture to look at.”

“That’s what Henry said,” revealed Neon.  “I guess maybe I’m just not cut out for this line of work like you and Uncle Raymond.  I’ll still keep doing it because I have nowhere else to go, but don’t expect me to like it.”

“What we do isn’t for everybody,” agreed Quake.  “When we find out who your parents are, if you have any living relatives then you’ll be placed with them.  I promise to keep you posted on what I find, Stephanie.  Ray was my friend and my teacher.  I promise I’ll take care of you.”

“That’s the problem with this place,” said Neon as she got up and turned to leave.  “Sometimes you can’t really take anybody’s word no matter how sincere they might sound.”

“An apt assessment if ever there was one,” concurred Finesse as she entered the office and passed Neon on the way out.  “I trust you’ll be back at the house when I return?”

“Nowhere else to go,” reminded Neon.  “Be seeing you.”

Finesse nodded and watched Neon go before turning her attention to Quake.  Ever since her ordeal with Riot, she had been trying to be slightly nicer to the rest of her teammates.  Yet still, the doubts nagged at her.  She needed a paternity test if she was ever going to put those doubts to rest.  Now that she had the backing and connections of SHIELD, Jeanne knew that she could get virtually anything that she wanted.

“I see you’re recovering nicely,” noted Quake.  “You look like you might be ready for the field again.  Glad to see that time off was productive for you.  What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“I need to get a DNA sample from my father and I need a paternity test,” demanded Finesse, not caring about Daisy’s assessment of her health.

“We looked into Riot,” assured Quake.  “Marshall Wellington ran away from home at a young age and survived on the streets by taking part in fight clubs just like the one he organized.  At some point, he was a student of the Taskmaster but they parted ways.  We have a sample of Taskmaster’s DNA on file and we did a paternity test.  Riot isn’t Taskmaster’s son and I highly doubt he’s your brother.  He was tagged for the Caterpillar List because we had other suspicions about his parentage.  His power bears a striking resemblance to Scarecrow, though aggression and anger are his emotions of choice instead of fear.  However, we haven’t been able to genetically link the two of them either, at least not at the moment.”

“But is Taskmaster my father?” asked Finesse, not caring about anything that wasn’t related to the information she wanted.  “I don’t give a damn about Riot or who he came from.  I only care about myself.”

“We’ll get you what you want,” decided Quake.  “Since we already have a DNA sample of Taskmaster’s on file, we can just compare it with your DNA sample.  We have plenty of doctors right here on the Helicarrier who are capable of doing it and if they’re not available then we can refer you to someone who can take care of it.  One way or the other, you’re going to learn the truth.”

“I’d like it sooner rather than later,” pushed Finesse.

Quake tapped a few keys on her computer and called up the medical staff’s schedule.  As luck would have it, there was an opening for Finesse that very day.  Daisy didn’t expect the appointment to take long.  All the nurses had to do was take a blood sample.  She assumed Finesse would be in and out in a short time.

“You’ve got an appointment in about an hour,” promised Quake.  “I trust that’s soon enough for you.”

Finesse nodded and took her leave.  She let out an irritated growl when she noticed that Neon had been lingering outside the office and had listened to her conversation with Quake.  Finesse made it a habit to never mix her personal business with her professional business.  It created a host of entanglements that she sought to avoid but sometimes things got very . . . muddled.  She tried to show her teammates the courtesy of not meddling in their personal affairs and she expected that same courtesy returned to her.

“I’d like to go with you when you see the doctor,” explained Neon.  “Moral support and stuff.”

“You’d like to go with me so you can ask the doctor about helping you find your own parents,” corrected Finesse.  “I’m impressed that you’ve decided to play this game, Stephanie, but you really don’t want to play it with me.  You may be a good actress but I’ve spent practically my whole life lying to people.  Aside from a few notable exceptions, I know when I’m being conned.”

“I can only have one reason for doing something?” asked Neon.

“Point,” conceded the older girl.  “I’m going to tell you this as free advice, Stephanie.  Parents aren’t always so nice and wholesome as you believe them to be.  Most of the time, they just end up being a huge disappointment.  If you’re still intent on going with me then by all means feel free to do so.  You can sit there in the waiting room like a good, little girl while I go in and talk to the doctor.”

“Fair enough,” agreed Neon as she extended her hand and Finesse shook it.

The two girls walked down the hallway and began navigating through the maze-like structure that was the Helicarrier.  They approached a common room and were about to pass by it without a second thought until something on the special news report caught their interest.

“At this time, we don’t know the intent.  All we know is that the super-villain known as Blackheath has taken the Roxxon board of directors hostage during one of their annual corporate fundraising parties,” explained the newscaster.

“One of the city’s heroes will take care of it, no doubt,” mused Finesse as she and Neon watched the TV.  “Roxxon isn’t a company known for its sterling reputation as both of us know.  I wouldn’t consider an unfortunate changing of the guard a huge loss for them.”

“And the innocent people trapped inside that building?” asked Neon.  “They might work for a bad corporation but that doesn’t mean they deserve to get killed by that psycho.”

From the footage shown on TV, Blackheath had the entire office building covered in vines, the twisting tentacles of green slithering and crawling over every inch of the steel structure.  The authorities had been notified already and there were crews of firefighters hacking away at the vines with their axes or using flamethrowers to torch them and create a path inside.  However, it seemed that nothing was working so far.

“Fury made the call a few moments ago,” explained Quake as she caught up to them.  “He wants the Warriors in there.  Your main priority is to stop Blackheath before he kills anyone.”

“We just screwed these guys over and now we have to save them?” asked Neon.

“Hazards of the job,” reminded Quake.  “I put in a call to the safehouse and the boys are going to pick you up.”

“I have a doctor’s excuse,” noted Finesse with a grin in Neon’s direction.  “Enjoy your nature walk, Stephanie.  I’m sure you’ll find it very thrilling.”

“You’re not getting off the hook that easy either,” warned Quake.  “I’ve already rescheduled your appointment with the doctor.  You’re not learning anything until this job is finished, so you better get going.”

“Some day you’re going to regret having ever made my acquaintance, Agent Johnson,” warned Finesse.

“Some days I already do,” fired back Quake.  “Get going, you two.  Your ride will be here soon.”

Roxxon Corporate Headquarters

The Green was not happy.  It was, in fact, quite angry.  Blackheath could feel that anger resonating within every fiber of his being because he was one with The Green.  He was its agent, its enforcer against those who would wish to do it harm.  At the top of that list, perhaps even the first name on it, was Roxxon.  As an entity, Roxxon was a bloated, festering, diseased-filled tumor on society.  Its corruption had infected the world for far too long.  The Green decreed that Roxxon must be dealt with and Blackheath was too willing to provide such swift and merciless judgment.

The being once known as Samuel Smithers watched the members of Roxxon’s board of directors struggle against the constricting caresses of his vines.  All it had taken was some mental exertion to turn the plant matter in the ground under the building into a towering, writhing mass of vines and tendrils, all of them alive and under his control.  While the vines kept those outside from getting in, Blackheath intended to render The Green’s final verdict on Roxxon’s board.  Plants, however, were patient above all else.  They did not measure their lifespan the way human beings did because time meant very little to them.  There were trees that were mere saplings when humanity first understood the concept of mechanics and lost its connection with The Green.  There were species of plant that were even older than the human race.  Plants, above all else, were patient and Blackheath was no exception to this.  He could take his time with these humans.  He could show them that The Green was stronger than anything their science could ever create.  Plants were on Earth before any other living thing and they would still be around when all the animals had died.  In the end, The Green would always prevail.

“We haven’t done anything to you,” said a blond woman, her words struggling to escape her throat even as the vines coiled around her body tightened their grip.

“You have sought to do harm to The Green,” stated Blackheath, his eyes impassively looking at Roxxon’s board of directors.  “Your people have cut down rain forests in South America, poisoned crops all across this land with your pesticides and chemicals, constructed towering monuments of concrete and steel where there were once verdant fields.  You are only a small part of this problem, this disease.  Today, those that you sought to harm shall have their retaliation.  Today, you shall return to the dirt from whence you came.”

There was not even an ounce of humanity in Blackheath anymore.  The vines and shrubbery that covered his body undulated with his mood, so much so that you could visibly see his anger towards those that would harm The Green.  At his mental command, the vines tightened and continued choking their hapless prey.  It was a glorious sight but there were more pressing matters to attend to.  Someone had somehow penetrated the building.  Blackheath knew this through the psychic connection he had to the vines that ensnared the entire structure.  They were his eyes and ears, as much a part of him as his own body.  There were intruders in his domain and he decided to dispense with them first before returning to finish his job.

“Mere saplings,” he noted as he saw what the vines could see.  “Are there none but children to stand against The Green and its mighty agent of vengeance?  Very well then, I shall make short work of them and then return to finish my task.”

Blackheath let his consciousness go and his physical body broke down.  His mind became one with The Green and it raced across the mass of vines that weaved their way through every brick and beam of the building.  This enclosure was his playground, his own personal arboretum, and no intrusions would be tolerated.  It was time to show the interlopers exactly how unforgiving nature could truly be.

“Have I mentioned my extreme displeasure with this?” inquired Finesse.

“Only about a dozen times since we teleported in,” noted Composite.  “Alright, I don’t like saving these people any more than the rest of you but that’s our assignment.  We’re here to take down Blackheath and make sure no one gets killed.  It can’t get any simpler than that.”

“First we have to find him,” noted Neon, looking around at the ivy-covered walls of the building.  “Hopefully none of us are allergic to any of this stuff.”

“I would be far more concerned about the poisonous varieties of plants in here,” warned Requiem.  “Did you know that the name ‘poison ivy’ is a complete misnomer?  It’s not actually poisonous in the way we commonly define the term and it’s not even considered a member of the ivy family.”

“I find it impossible to understand how you manage to cram so much useless information into your head,” said Finesse as the Warriors made their way through the makeshift jungle that Blackheath had created.  “What exactly made you read up on plants?”

“Druidry is a religion that worships nature,” reminded Requiem.  “As such, many plants are used in druidic rituals and practices.  These days, most forms of the religion are also combined with Wicca, another religion that makes use of plants and herbs.  These aren’t from any species that I can identify though.  I’m thinking they’re more exotic to this locale.”

“You are an all-purpose encyclopedia of weird and useless facts,” stated Finesse.

“Who’s saved your ass more than once,” reminded Neon.  “You know, I think I really liked it when you were on the injured list.”

“And who I’ve saved at least once,” returned Finesse.  “If the rest of you would rather chatter on than complete the mission then I’ll leave you to it.  I’m sure all of you share Stephanie’s opinion of my presence anyway.”

Finesse promptly moved herself to the head of the group, preferring to leave them behind in favor of being on her own.  None of them could say they were especially surprised by this course of action.  All of them knew that Jeanne enjoyed keeping her distance when it came to people.  It was just something that the rest of the Warriors had grown accustomed to at this point.

“Thank you for your defense,” noted Requiem to Neon.

“She’s just on edge from what happened with Riot,” said Wipeout in Finesse’s defense.  “He kicked her ass in more ways than one.”

“We have bigger problems,” realized Composite.

Henry was correct.  The vines that were once merely content to sit idle were now in a much more lively mood.  The four SHIELD agents could only surmise that it was because their master was drawing near.  The vines crept towards the Warriors but didn’t attack yet.  They slunk towards them like venomous snakes ready to strike.  The Warriors, to their credit, refused to be intimidated even though they began to huddle together.  Without warning, one of the vines slithered across the floor and grabbed Neon by the ankle.  She let out a scream as the vine swept her feet out from under her and began to drag her into the darkness of the building.  Requiem was the first to act.  He fired a blast of magical energy at the vine and severed it in one shot.  Meanwhile, the rest of the vines struck.  Wipeout turned into his water form and spiraled his way through the vine strikes but soon realized that they were just as nimble as he was.

“Plants like water,” he reminded the others even as he tried to keep the vines at bay with his water blasts.  “I’m not sure I’m really going to be much help here.”

One of the vines gripped Frankie around the throat when he was momentarily distracted.  Wipeout struggled against the vines but the vines were stronger and tougher than he was.  He was about to black out from lack of oxygen until the glowing blade of a machete hacked through the vine around his neck.  Finesse twirled a machete in each hand and sliced through any and all of the vines that were surging towards her.

“I was going to cut us a path but I see that I can’t leave you people alone for two minutes without you falling apart,” noted Finesse.  “I would ask how you survived a mission without me but business comes first.  We need to get up to where the hostages are.”

“We can’t fight the whole building,” reminded Composite, realizing that he needed some other material to absorb that wasn’t plant.  “I can’t absorb any of this stuff if that guy controls plants.”

Requiem threw down some suppressive fire with his energy bolts but most of the Warriors couldn’t do much to help him.  Finesse could hack and slash at the vines but the other Warriors were completely defenseless against their current enemy.  The vines joined together to form a giant mass that plowed down the hallway and slammed into Composite.  Henry managed to absorb the plant material to lessen the blow even as he plowed through a few walls before finally coming to rest against an elevator door.  Fortunately for Composite, this gave him a tougher material to mimic.  He managed to get his fingertips on the metal of the elevator door and absorb it before ripping the vines apart with his newfound strength.  He whistled to the others and they all fell back towards the elevator, knowing that they could use the shaft to get to the upper floors.  That was when Blackheath made his presence known.  He charged up through the elevator shaft and knocked Composite backwards before entering the hallway.  Vines shot from his arms and swept both Finesse and Neon aside.  One of Requiem’s magical blasts tore a hunk of plant matter out of Blackheath’s shoulder.  The villain grimaced in pain, green liquid oozing from the wound like blood.

“You can’t stop what has to happen,” he warned the Warriors.  “You and all your kind will fall before The Green.”

“I would advise against coming in contact with those,” warned Requiem as Blackheath launched a round of thorny barbs from his skin at him and the rest of the Warriors.

Composite nodded even as he used his own body as a human shield, his steel skin unaffected by the poisonous thorns.  He hit Blackheath with an uppercut that sent him through the ceiling.  Vines sprouted from both sides of the hallway, ensnaring Composite’s wrists even as Blackheath pounced on him.  Henry could feel the vines from Blackheath’s body worming their way into his body, going through his nostrils and his ears.  He tore himself away and coughed up the vines.

“You need to go with Stephanie and protect the hostages,” ordered Finesse to Wipeout.  “You’ll do more good there then wasting time trying to overwater him.”

Wipeout nodded and sloshed his way over to the elevator shaft with Neon right behind him.  He clutched her around the waist and then leapt into the chasm, shooting a stream of water downward from his lower body.  The stream hit the bottom of the shaft and turned Wipeout into a geyser, propelling both himself and Stephanie upwards so they could reach the top where the hostages were located.  Finesse turned her attention to Blackheath and twirled her machetes.  She took a swipe with one of them and cut a sizeable gash into Blackheath’s chest.  Her following lunge sent the glowing blade into his throat and left him incapacitated long enough for her to hack his feet out from under him with her other blade.

“I will not fall as easily as my kin,” he stated, turning his body into wood, or more precisely into redwood.  “You may go ahead and continue your futile resistance but it won’t do you any good.  All shall fall before The Green.”

Finesse soon discovered he was right.  Now that he was in a tougher skin, Blackheath shrugged off the cuts and swipes from her blades.  He backhanded her away and the force of the blow made her weapons dissipate in seconds.  The impact of being hit by a tree knocked Finesse almost unconscious.  Requiem saw her go down and launched more bolts of energy at Blackheath.  The blasts punched a few holes in his body but didn’t stop him.  He sent a mass of vines at Requiem that hurled the Warrior backwards and into a wall.  The Warriors were going to have to figure out some way to beat him.  Their mission was to get the hostages out alive but at the moment they were having a hard enough time making sure they got through the ordeal in one piece.

“Well, we found the hostages,” noted Neon as Wipeout used a blast of water to blow open the vine-covered door.  “Where did all these vines come from anyway?”

“Maybe it was all those ugly office plants,” cracked Wipeout as they both moved into the room.  “Alright, all you corporate leeches can stop cowering.  We’re with SHIELD and we’re here to save your sorry asses.”

“Normally I would get onto you about that but I don’t really care,” admitted Neon.

“Good to see that my bad influence is paying off,” joked Wipeout, moving to the large windows in the room and checking to see how secure they were.  “Blow these things open and then I’ll get the hostages out of here.”

Neon nodded and focused her lights into beams that managed to destroy the locking mechanisms on the windows.  Once that was out of the way, Frankie easily opened the windows and stared down at the various members of law enforcement scurrying around down below.  He looked back to the hostages and motioned for them to come over to the window.

“How are you going to get them out?” asked Neon.

“With style,” answered Wipeout before stepping out onto the window ledge.

Frankie walked off the ledge and turned himself into, quite literally, a water slide.  His elongated, watery body twisted itself all the way from the window ledge to the street below.  Surprisingly enough, it was solid enough for the hostages to slide down.  Neon began herding them down the slide.  Things were going well until a hole erupted in the floor.  Composite grumbled something unintelligible under his breath as he tried to get back to his feet.  Blackheath slithered up through the hole he had created and became visibly violent upon realizing that his hostages were escaping.  A stream of vines shot from his arm and coiled around Neon.  They pushed Stephanie over the ledge of the window and she dangled there completely at his mercy even as the last hostage reached the ground.

“You have no place in this world,” stated Blackheath as he calmly approached his new captive.  “You who would defend these butchers, you who would continuously allow them to despoil this world, you do not deserve to continue drawing breath.  The Green will have no more of your pillaging.”

“And I will have no more of you talking,” retorted Composite as he tackled Blackheath from behind.

Henry managed to knock his foe out of the window and both of them plummeted to the ground.  Neon came loose from Blackheath’s grip but she fell into the waiting arms of Wipeout where she would be safe and sound.  Unfortunately, Blackheath wouldn’t share the same fate.  He hit the concrete with a huge thud and felt his wooden body crack under the strain.  Composite hit the ground as well but his more durable form allowed him to walk away from the ordeal virtually unscathed.

“You could’ve warned us sooner to back up,” reminded one of the police officers as Composite picked himself up from the fall and looked at Blackheath’s mangled body.

“Didn’t exactly have time to give fair warning, officer,” said Composite even as Wipeout returned to his proper height with Neon in his arms and Requiem and Finesse appeared in a flash of magical energy.  “We’re with SHIELD in case you didn’t know.  I think this guy has had it for the night so if you want to take him in, then now is your chance.”

“We need to get back to the Helicarrier,” realized Finesse.  “I still have a doctor’s appointment that I need to keep.”

SHIELD Safehouse 23
A Few Days Later

“You don’t have to be here with me to do this,” reminded Finesse as she held the envelope in her hand, wary of it as if it might explode at any moment.  “Really, I would rather all of you just go on about your business.  This is my problem and I will deal with it on my own.”

“You’re a part of this team,” said Composite as he and the other Warriors all stood in the living room of the safehouse and waited for Finesse to open the envelope and read the results of the DNA test.  “We’re the only family any of us has.”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” countered Finesse.  “Fine then, I suppose I won’t milk the suspense any further.”  She slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the papers.  Her eyes scanned the words on the papers, speed-reading them faster than any other person could.

“What’s the verdict?” asked Neon.

“Taskmaster isn’t my father,” announced Finesse, casually tossing the papers on the couch and then walking towards her room.

“And you don’t even care?” asked Neon.

“I don’t want to know who isn’t my father,” said Finesse, turning to face the rest of her teammates.  “I want to know who is.”

“Well at least you know that scumbag isn’t,” countered Wipeout.  “I mean that’s something, right?”

Finesse allowed the rare and tiny trace of a smile to grace her lips and only nodded in agreement.  It was some form of vindication, that much was true.  She had been right all along.  She knew where she came from.  Her parents weren’t the best of people.  Her father was still the same distant and disapproving man he was before he was murdered.  Her mother was still the same vapid, shallow trophy wife she was before she died.  Jeanne could now return to her normal routine of shutting everyone else out of her life.  Except somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do that with these people, these teammates of hers.  They came after her instead of writing her off.  They saved her life even after she had been a huge bitch to every single one of them.  This new revelation wasn’t going to change her attitude completely but maybe, just maybe, she could resolve to be a little nicer to the others from now on.

“Yes,” she admitted to herself as well as the others.  “I think that’s something.”

NEXT: Sebastian Druid’s Day Off