London, England
60 Cleveland Street
Fitrovia

M’Nai stared up the towering length of the needle-like spire, lights flickering gaily high above in the misting night. He had been here before, years ago; a place he recalled though dimly from when he was alive. At bequest of his Father he had reconnoitered and stealthily slipped inside to the uppermost floors where he had been instructed to place a bomb. He had not known why at the time and he did not ask of course, nor care the reason. His Father had wished it done, thus it was so.

It had been called the GPO Tower then, and the bomb that he had placed and exploded in the Men’s restroom in the Top of the Tower Restaurant had reportedly caused extensive damage but no injury. That of course was a lie. M’Nai had later learned that a top functionary within the ranks of MI-6 had perished in the blast, though of course that knowledge was denied to the media. An apparently very old man named Mycroft; ‘M’ within the ranks of British Intelligence. Trivial information to M’Nai. His Father had been pleased.

It was called the BT Tower now he had learned from Misty Knight. British Telephone had bought it, closed it to the public and now broadcasted from the tip of the aerial 177 metres overhead. The restaurant had reopened just a few years ago, endlessly revolving to offer spectacular views of the United Kingdom’s largest city.

M’Nai did not care as he stuffed the dark memories of another life back into the dim recesses of the closet that was his mind. He could feel the others coming as the Shadow Cloak swirled about him, black clouds billowing forth as he opened the portal. Even he, dead as he was twice over could feel the cold of that other place where darkness ruled. Somewhere within however he also felt the warmth that the Hedgemage generated with a whispered prayer and a word of Power. Coming closer with every step…

“S-s-sweet… C-Christmas…” Misty Knight said as she staggered from the inky, swirling fog. The charms and beads in her plaited hair clacked and chimed as she shivered, a thin layer of hoarfrost sheening the supple leather of her black longcoat as she stepped to a street light for support. Her breath added to the mist as she heaved. “I w-will never get u-used t-t-to that.”

M’Nai smirked even as the second traveler stepped from the dark void. As tall and beautiful as Misty Knight was, Eric Arcane was ruggedly handsome and imposing. Dressed in his ever-present, soiled trenchcoat, the Hedgemage did not seem as affected by the long trip through the Dark Dimension. M’Nai watched as the heat radiating from his form diminished, the man shaking his head, dreadlocks swirling to flick away the frosty droplets of water that had collected in his graying hair. His eyes were dark and haunted, his face slightly lined and aged beyond his thirty-something years, illuminated as he lit a cigarette.

“You’ll get used to it,” the Hedgemage said glancing briefly up the length of the Tower, then turning his attention to M’Nai. “That was the longest crossing yet. Why the cold set in. You’ll warm up.”

“Y-You’re all heart an’ c-comfort, Arcane,” the woman said, though M’Nai noticed that her chilled shuddering was diminishing. M’Nai saw the man shrug.

“Not much heart left, Knight. Few shattered pieces here and there barely worth mentioning.”

M’Nai knew that the Hedgemage had lost his lover in the battle against the Lord of the Undead, Dracula. M’Nai had never known any beyond his Father that he had ever cared enough about to know his pain. Perhaps his Brother, but whatever feelings had been there were long suppressed and forgotten.

“Soon as you’re ready, Knight,” Arcane said as blue smoke roiled about his face. The fog was thickening typically, which was beneficial to their mission. “Let’s get this shit over with.” The Hedgemage turned to M’Nai. “Where we goin’, son?”

M’Nai paused, feeling the essence of the night. He turned his head and squinted into the thickening mists, sensing the presence he sought. Grimm had been correct, his information apparently infallible as usual. M’Nai pointed down the street, towards Number 22 Cleveland, an old and decrepit building marked for either demolition or conservation depending on Her Majesty’s courts.

“Aw, hell,” Arcane said as he flicked the smoldering butt of his fag to the gutter. “Can’t one a’ these things ever be easy?”

M’Nai shrugged but said nothing in response…

THE CELESTIAL BALLET

By Curtis Fernlund

Ulan Bator:
Mongolia
Internment Camp Takla
Another time…

“Reed…”

Benjamin J. Grimm stared at his best friend, the pencil-thin raggedy man that was wasting away before his eyes. He had eaten little since Sue’s death over a month past and he looked as though a strong breeze might snap him in half. His camp uniform hung loosely and limp from his shoulders, doing zilch to shield him from the bitter winds blowing down from what had once been Siberia, but his friend did not seem to notice as he looked longingly at the treeline some sixty yards beyond the outer fence.

“Reed,” Grimm said again, shivering as he stepped up behind his friend. He glanced at the guard towers left and right, wincing in the glare of the spotlights. “Ya gotta get inside. You’ll catch pneumonia in this weather, an’ Lock Up’s in like five minutes.”

“You think I care, Ben?” Richards said without turning. “What do I have to live for? Franklin and Val… Sue… Johnny… What do I have left to care about?”

“There’s always hope, Reed,” Grimm said, placing his hand on his oldest friend’s shoulder. “We’ll get outta this, turn things around again.” He knew that his voice lacked conviction even as Richards chuckled.

“Good old, Ben. Poor, naïve fool.” Grimm heard Richards’ sigh of defeat, felt his body sag under his touch. “This is the end. We’ll all be dead soon. The plague that bastard unleashed left us impotent… useless to defend ourselves no matter how hard we tried as his China took hold, little by little. There’s nothing left. Nothing…”

“What are you doing by the wire?”

Grimm turned to see Shang-Chi standing there, his scarlet and azure robes flowing and swirling in the stiff breeze blowing from the north. There were two Si-Fan at his back, armed and armored, grinning conceitedly.

“Nothin’, Chink,” Grimm said with a sneer. The Chinaman had been a friend once upon a time; an ally and hero. Now he was his Father’s son. “Just gettin’ some air before Lock-up.”

“To cross the wire is death, Richards,” Shang-Chi said ignoring Grimm. “You know this.”

“Death seems preferable to this existence,” Richards said as he stepped forward, over the foot-high warning wire that ran the inner perimeter of the compound.

“Reed!” Grimm said as he stepped forward to stop his friend. He felt the electrical burst of the chattel prod as it dug into his kidney. Grimm dropped to the hard-packed earth writhing in pain as Reed Richards moved to the high wire fence beyond and started to climb.

“Stop,” Grimm heard Shang-Chi say without conviction. He heard the laughter of the Si-Fan drowned out under the chatter of automatic gunfire. Grimm looked up to see his friend writhing on the concertina wire lining the top of the outer fence, his scarecrow thin frame sporting holes that blossomed blood. Bullets riddled the body long after the life had fled Reed Richards.

“Fuckin’ bastard,” Grimm snarled from his knees in the cold, hard-packed dirt. “He was your friend.”

“Regrettable,” Shang-Chi said with a sniff. “Reed Richards would have offered much to the Empire had he simply complied. I find no glory in the loss of so great a mind.”

Grimm struggled to rise, fury swelling within. He surged towards the Master of Kung-Fu, barely seeing the flurry of blows that drove him broken and bloody to the ground once again. Grimm spat, a chunk of white in the red pooling under his mouth.

“Remember your place, Grimm,” Shang-Chi said staring at the body of Reed Richards as it shifted, finally falling to a bloody heap on the ground. “I do not wish that to be you, but it will be if my Father demands.”

“Fuck you, Chink,” Grimm spat as he struggled to rise. “An’ fuck yer daddy too.” He glanced at the crumpled body of his best friend, open wounds steaming, eyes wide and staring. “Yer goin’ down.”

“I think not.” Shang-Chi stepped forward, grabbed Ben Grimm’s head and swiftly twisted. There were tears in his eyes as he let the limp body fall to the ground…

Do you see Grimm? Do you see why you are needed? So many Realities; worlds that might be come to pass that need cleansing… culling…

“Yeah, I see.” The Thing watched as the image of Shang-Chi turned and faded into the scarlet mists. He stared at the dead bodies left in his wake, Reed Richards and himself. Powerless, yet a threat apparently, and Grimm had watched as the Fu Dynasty had slaughtered the rest of his extended family. His friends…

The Lord of Strange Deaths had released a plague that had sterilized the Marvels worldwide. His many armies and cults had swept the globe, conquering and taking hold a bit at a time. Grimm had watched his friends die one-by-one as their powers faded and their defenses had been breached.

The Spider-Man had fallen to his death, unable to cling to a wall over Times Square…

Captain America had been shot down like a dog in Battery Park, his reflexes diminished to those of a normal, eighty-plus year old man…

Banner died of exposure in the deserts of Arizona…

And the Fantastic Four- what was left of it had been rounded up and placed in an Interment Camp in Mongolia…

“What needs ta be done?” Grimm asked as he stared at the fading images.

So glad you asked, the Scarlet Centurion said as he swept his hand and the crimson mists swirled yet again…

London, England
22 Cleveland Street
Fitrovia

Eric Arcane looked up at the dismal high walls of St Paul’s Covent Garden Parish Workhouse and shuddered. He could feel the pain trapped within the old structure. The building positively reeked of pain, misery and death.

How many died here, he wondered. How many children worked to death until their brittle bones cracked or they perished of starvation? Too many…

“You okay, Eric?”

Eric Arcane looked to Misty Knight, watching as she now calmly thumbed .454 Casull rounds into the chambers of her Ruger Super Redhawk. The gun seemed huge to him and he knew that the Frag shells she was loading would blow almost anything they hit into very tiny bloody bits. The recoil alone would have shattered a normal man, but Arcane knew her bionics could handle that.

“Yeah. Just want this over.”

Misty snapped the cylinder into place, sighted the barrel and holstered the massive gun. “Won’t be long now.” Her initial misgivings seemed to have disappeared as she eyed the old building.

“This won’t be pretty,” she said, adjusting her field vest. It was lined with titanium merged with Vibranium. Top of the line S.H.I.E.L.D issue, thank you Benjamin. Arcane hoped that it would be enough. Arcane had no extra protection. Iron was anathema to his ilk and would sully the magic. He lived off luck, and skill.

A flurry of black as Midnight’s fingers flickered in ‘Sign’. Misty stared then nodded, turning to Arcane. “He’s there,” she said coolly, no emotion at all, just another job. Arcane nodded.

“Let’s do this,” Arcane said feeling the Power swell within him.

Schild! Arcane felt the Power swirl through him even as he took an aching step forward. Years receded and his body withered, his hair grayed. Arthritis settled into his joints as osteoporosis seeped into his bones. He hoped that old age would not catch up to him as he followed Misty Knight into the Workhouse…

“Alarm’s down.”

Misty Knight nodded as she heard James Woo’s cold voice in her earpiece. Woo was back in Manhattan, working the computer and hacking the building’s security. Probably chain-smoking and drinking coffee and wearing those damn shades that he never took off. Whatever works, she thought as she gripped the door’s handle.

Woo had sent them the schematics of the building while they were in transit and a quick scan quickly showed that though there were plenty of points of egress, the front door oddly seemed the best bet; plenty of cover and a good bit of hallway that would benefit the three invaders more so than whoever was waiting on the other side of the heavy oak door. Plus she had not been looking forward to another trip through the Dark Dimension via Midnight’s Shadow Cloak.

Misty tried the knob, gently easing the latch but the door did not give. “Locked,” she said, looking to Arcane.

“Of course,” he grumbled gnawing on the butt of his cigarette. “Nothing’s ever easy. “ He stepped up to the door and touched his fingers to the weathered, old wood.

Klopfen

Misty heard a rattle and clank of metal as the locks holding the door fast opened and fell away. There was a large metallic clatter as something dropped to the floor on the far side of the wood.

“Damn!” Arcane spat. “Must have had a security bar.” Misty noted that the mage had a few more streaks of gray in his dreads now, a couple more laugh lines around his lips. She remembered that final fight with Dracula months before, and how he had withered away to a husk of a man after expending so much power. She shivered at the cost that his magicks demanded.

But there was no time to dwell on that as she heard movement, voices on the far side of the door. “Time to do this,” she said and saw Arcane smirk.

“About time.”

Misty knight shoved the door open…

The Roof…

“This does not feel right,” Shang-Chi said as he watched Black Jack Tarr crouching and working his picks into the lock of the small roof hatch. The big man’s fingers flicked and fluttered as he manipulated the delicate metal pins for a few tense moments, then suddenly stood.

“No alarm,” he said sounding unsure, which was never a good sign where Tarr was concerned.

“It wasn’t set?” Clive Reston asked as he stepped up to the hatch, smoking a cigarette. He ran a hand through his long, gray hair as he eyed his larger countryman.

“Dunno,” Tarr replied, putting his lock-picking tools back into their case and that back into the pouch at his belt. “I can see the leads, the magnetic tape plain as day. Can’t imagine they wouldn’t arm the system, but there was nothing.”

“Do not look a gift horse in the mouth, Tarr,” Leiko Wu said as she stepped up beside Reston. “We do deserve a break once in a while.”

Shang-Chi looked at the woman he had once loved. Like the others she was dressed in dark leather clothing, her belt laden with pouches and pockets containing infra red goggles, ammo clips and whatever else she deemed might be needed in the assault. She held her Glock 23 casually though Shang-Chi could tell that she was tense, her muscles tightly coiled and ready to spring.

Tarr shrugged. “This’ll drop us into some big gathering hall, least according to the files that’s what it used to be. Probably full of your Daddy’s flunkies now.”

A slamming of metal from down below and Shang-Chi crouched. “Did you hear that?” His three partners looked at him blankly, but all had their guns raised.

“What?” Reston asked eyeing the wall surrounding the rooftop warily.

“Something fell within, loud and metallic.”

“Your getting’ jumpy, Chinaman,” Tarr suggested as he crouched down at the hatch once again. He slid the locking bolts aside then glanced at the others, his hand resting on the fold up door. “Ready?”

Leiko Wu held up her weapon and chambered a round with a cold, metallic clack. “Let’s do this.”

Tarr nodded and flipped the hatch up and open. A wisp of smoke escaped the open portal along with the thick stench of opiates. Shang-Chi frowned as Leiko Wu shoved past and dropped into the inky dim below.

Gunfire erupted even as the others followed…

First Floor…

“Jesus…” Misty Knight whispered as she dropped the spent shells from her Magnum and deftly slammed another speed-loader into place. She slapped the cylinder home and was firing again even as she tossed the empty casing aside. For all the good it did.

They had not gotten ten feet beyond the foyer when the first of the Si-Fan had appeared. He had been a slight thing dressed in the traditional black pajamas with red sash and headband and veil and tabi booties. His eyes had appeared glazed as he had raised his Gim blade sensing us, the wide-bladed short sword glinting in the queer lighting of the misty hallway. Misty had pumped four rounds into his skinny body before he went down and he still wasn’t dead.

“Tough little bitch,” Arcane had said even as more of the Celestial’s fodder came poring out of every shadow, nook and cranny to confront them and defend their home and Lord. Then things had turned nasty…

She watched as Midnight flowed through the ever-growing army of the Devil Doctor’s followers. Grimm had mainly been using the man for his teleporting abilities, but the way he moved now, Misty could see that he was every bit as formidable as Danny was in the Martial Arts. He was moving like a shadow, his body twisting in ways that she could only imagine. Plus he seemed to have an unending supply of weapons, which he withdrew from the billowing folds of his cloak; sai, a stave, nunchaku, and he was more than proficient with all.

But even his assault seemed little more than a delaying tactic as the Si-Fan followers of Fu-Manchu just seemed to keep coming, and those that they had put down just kept getting up, seemingly unstoppable. It was only when Midnight chucked his fedora, the hat whistling through the air and severing one of the warrior’s heads that all became clear.

“Fucking vampires,” Arcane said as he backed towards Misty, both watching as the body fell in spasms and started to smolder and dissolve. Eric Arcane turned to her then, a huge smile on his face.

“Well, this changes everything…”

Somewhere between the last second and the next…

Aron smirked as he watched the Iron-Man’s frustration, speaking to the chattel and trying to explain the failure of the Avengers to subdue their foes, the Squadron Sinister. He found it comical that the monkeys got so worked up over mundane existence. As though anything they did mattered in the end.

One day they would all be dead, and if Aron could speed that day along and amuse himself in the process, all the better. True, he could simply expedite the planet’s natural decay; cause drought worldwide or tamper with the geological stability, but where was the entertainment in that? Far better to let the lemmings commit suicide of their own accord.

A sparkle of scarlet and the Rogue Watcher shifted his gaze. Doctor Spectrum was demanding an audience. The monkey’s arrogance was grating at times, but if he was to see the game to conclusion he would have to abide and play the grand mentor for her. Obviously she could not possibly know how many other things needed his constant attention.

His eyes strayed towards other scenes…

The Thunder God poised at one of many of the Gates leading to the myriad versions of the dimensions, which Terrans labeled Hell…

The brute, red and brooding over some insignificant triviality…

The Mage riding roughshod over his latest flock of followers…

The fools that thought that they controlled all…

And of course the final three of the Four that he loathed most of all.

With a wave of his hand Aron the Rogue Watcher dismissed the images and the crystals’ brilliance faded to a ruddy dull. He settled back, contemplating his next move.

His was a grim lot at times, but the proposed and expected end more than justified the means. He smiled as he stood and faded into a Reality once again…

London, England
22 Cleveland Street
Fitrovia

Something is wrong…

Despite his disavowing my existence, I know my Father. I spent my formative years under his tutelage. I know his ways and his expectations; perfection from all those who serve him. Yet these Si-Fan- and I have no doubt that, that is what they are- seem… lacking. They wear the colors of my Father’s order, yet they are not skilled to the degree that he demands.

But that too is not correct. I can tell as I pass easily through their ranks that indeed they possess the martial knowledge to attack and defend. They are slow however. My blows fall fluidly and without err nor distraction. The Si-Fan move to defend well after the fact and only after the damage has been done, though oddly again there is little of that.

What they lack in speed and agility these Si-Fan seem to make up in strength and sheer resistance. My best blows stagger them, and knock them down, yet I have yet to deliver a killing blow effectively. They seem to shrug off my best assault with little more than a grunt, which is more from annoyance than pain. And I can see that the others are not faring any better.

Tarr, Reston and Leiko Wu are all firing their guns wildly to little effect. I watch in fascination as I fight my own battle as holes appear in the bodies of the Si-Fan, their black, cotton attire fluttering with the passing of countless bullets. Sweat pours from my comrades and I see the confusion in their eyes, worry seeping into otherwise stern and determined faces. The hallway is a cacophony of staccato explosions, the sounds of repetitive gunfire echoing in the confines of the corridor and stairwell beyond the large room that we dropped into. Almost two-dozen of my Father’s soldiers awaited us and yet not one has fallen. There is a smell of sulfur in the air and the flickering flashes of muzzle-burst flame distracting the eye –

“Ahh! Bloody, mother…”

I turn to see Reston pressing the barrel of his prized Beretta to the brow of one of the Si-Fan that has locked with him in combat. Reston empties the clip into the warrior’s skull even as the Si-Fan leans in to the assault. His mouth is wide, his jaws distended as he slathers towards Reston’s throat. I see enlarged canines- fangs even as the Si-Fan’s head explodes spewing bits of gray matter and some viscous fluid across the far wall in a wide spray.

“Bloody ‘ell,” Reston says gasping and popping his spent clip free of his cherished gun, slamming a fresh one home. “They’re fuckin’ vampires!”

And it suddenly all makes sense.

I had heard rumors that my Father had made a pact with the Lord of the Undead months ago. Details were unclear, but for Dracula’s aid in creating an army of vampires for the Devil Doctor’s machinations, the Dark Lord received some favor in return. Just what that might have been I do not know, though I have heard that my recently returned once-brother, M’Nai was involved. Seeing the resilience of these Si-Fan, and witnessing Reston’s revelation, I can only assume the rumors to be true.

I feel the heat first. Blocking a methodically slow sweep of a battle stave I glance to the source and see the flickering flare of light seeping under the weathered, wooden door. I watch as the wood bulges inward, eyes shifting left and right and I dive towards Leiko Wu who stands near firing bullets into one of the undead.

“Down!” I shout even as I impact her unsuspecting body, even as the door bursts inwards. I hit the floor, rolling with the fall and thankful that she has enough sense of mind to go limp as we tumble away from the gout of flame that follows the shattered, burning door into the hall. I spin on my back, scissoring my legs to come up into a defensive crouch even as three burning forms smash into the far wall. Si-Fan, engulfed and writhing stagger and collapse to the old tinder dry floor, finally succumbing to the cleansing flames and lying still.

“Bollocks!” Reston shouts holding his gun at the ready, licking his lips as he stares at the burning bodies slowly crumbling away to char. His face is harried with concern, wide-eyed with a frantic confusion that I rarely see on so seasoned a warrior. Tarr steps up beside him breathing heavily. I feel Leiko Wu stand at my back, smelling her scent even over the stench of death.

“What the bloody fuck-“

“Easy, Clive,” Black Jack Tarr says as he elbows his long-time partner. The two had been in MI-6 for ages, usually paired at the request of Sir Dennis Nayland Smith’s request. M had always seceded to Smith’s requests.

I blinked, my eyes squinting at the strange, inky blackness swirling behind my comrades. I thought it was smoke at first, as the fire was raging and the hallway- a natural chimney was swiftly filling. But I saw the shadow form, stepping forth, the familiar silhouette from my youth oozing from the black. I raised my hand…

“Beware!” But I was too late.

The man I had seen die, the man I had slain with my rebellion appeared behind my friends. I saw black-gloved hands snake out striking with the swiftness of a cobra. Debilitating, but not death strokes, I watch as Reston and Tarr fall limp to the floor much-needed blood and oxygen denied their brains.

“M’Nai…” I whispered. My once-brother stands over my fallen friends with no remorse. He looks to me his eyes blank white slits his scarred, dark face forever hidden behind the concealing black mask.

Around us the vampiric Si-Fan are in a frenzy due to the spreading flames lapping at my heels. I hear gunfire down the stairwell and shouting voices, male and female. I ignore it all as I strike a defensive pose, my brother pulling sai from the folds of his billowing cloak, spinning them hypnotically. I had hoped we

would rejoice in reunion, eventually. Apparently I am mistaken again…

The First Floor…

“Sweet Jesus…” Misty Knight whispered as the Hedge Mage muttered some twisted words that she could not pronounce or even hope to remember. She watched as his hands glowed briefly red and then a column of fire writhed and twisted from his palms engulfing a wide swath of their attackers. Several smashed into the walls burning like dry wood while a few went flying through the closest door that burst with the sudden change in pressure.

Screams filled the hallway as the Si-Fan became inundated with the magical flames, burning wildly and eventually exploding in a nasty pyre of sizzling flesh and boiling liquids. Misty fired at those few that refused to surrender to the flames; head-shots that scattered what brains they had and splayed them on the back wall.

She had thought that she had left all this behind, remembering briefly the short time that she had been allied with Frank Drake and hunting Dracula. Their little band of fearless vampire hunters and beaten back at every turn it had seemed. After weeks of that she and Colleen had finally had enough. Misty had just been sick and tired of the fruitless battle. Colleen of course had been deterred by the reappearance of Drake’s Ex whose body was inhabited by his former lover. Too weird.

“Col, baby, you sure can pick ‘em,” Misty mused as she blew two Magnum rounds into the head of one of the Si-Fan that was wandering too close for comfort.

Misty slammed her bionic right arm into the head of another of the Si-Fan. She heard bone shatter as the body slammed against the wall. The vampire made a sickening whimper as its undead life oozed away its body slumping to the floor.

Cremare!
Flagare!
Comburere…

She could hear Arcane spouting his magicks, pointing his finger and the Si-Fan became engulfed in mystical fires. His hair grayed with every Cantrip, his face lining with age as his life essence was drained. She knew that he did not care. Since the death of his partner at the hands of Dracula’s minions he seemed to have a ‘Death Wish’. He was aging with every spell he cast and well on the way to dying soon if something did not change.

There was a crash and Misty turned to see Midnight and another come tumbling down the stairs. An Asian woman dressed in tight leathers came racing behind firing her Desert Eagle wildly at anything that moved. Misty cursed as a Magnum shell embedded in her prosthetic. Sparks crackled about her shoulder as she shifted her own .357 to her off-hand, drawing a bead ion the wildly firing Asian bitch. She looked vaguely familiar, as did the Chinaman that was wrestling with Midnight amidst the flames on the floor. The building was ablaze and the crazy Si-Fan vampires were panicking. She could not place the face in the mayhem. She cocked the hammer, taking aim…

A high, shrill cry made her shiver, like fingernails of a dying man dragging down a chalkboard. Misty Knight turned towards the sound and froze, absently noting that all motion seemed to cease save for the flickering flames…

He was tall…

Tall for a Chinee and gaunt, his skin was sallow though that could have been a trick of the light and smoke. He was dressed in gold, red and black, long, flowing formal robes and what could have been a fez though it was lacking the telltale tassel. His face was thin, cheekbones high. His eyes were slim and dark as his gaze scanned the battlefield with little concern. A baboon squirmed in his arms writhing as it barely allowed his long bony fingers to stroke its mane and Misty recalled that the Lord of Strange Deaths had a fascination with exotic pets. The creature shrieked again and Misty cringed, gritting her teeth at the noise.

“My wayward sons,” he said his voice as cold as the grave as he stroked the unruly beast in his arms, “together again. This most humble personage is honored at your visitation.” Something exploded upstairs but the Celestial – no one in fact- flinched at the sound, ignoring the raucous noise. All eyes focused on the august personage of Fu-Manchu…

Misty glanced up at the wrenching sound and saw a good chunk of the roof rip away. She blinked and rolled aside as dirt and debris rained down only vaguely acknowledging the figure that hovered over the suddenly gaping hole in the midst of roiling smoke trying to escape.

“Right! Not to worry! As the Yanks like to say, the cavalry has arrived! Stay calm an’ I’ll get you all out of there!”

Misty stared up at the blonde figure dressed in red, white and blue Union Jack tee shirt and burgeoning with muscle. A naïve, hopeful grin plastered his face as he cast the sizable chunk of rooftop aside and gently descended into the inferno.

“Captain Britain,” she said with a sad shake of her head. “Just what we needed…”

NEXT ISSUE: So I promised a Celestial and that’s what you got. Fu Manchu and his vampiric Si-Fan are on Ben’s agenda, but what about Captain Britain? Just how does the defender of Earth: Omega fit into the scheme of things? Find out next time as ‘The Twisted World’ rears its ugly head once, and the Jaspers Warp may never be the same again…