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Issue #3 by William Sinclair
Jan 2010 |
“SEED OF EVIL – Part Three”
Earth 13,211, Manchester, Ten Years Ago…
The heavy rifle kicked like thunder as Captain Bran Bardic of the British Liberation Army rained down a hail of lead upon his enemies. The muzzle flashed like lightning, the weapon itself a berserker beast, barking out its fury with every rapid round unleashed, guzzling up the ammunition within the clip as though there was no tomorrow. Captain Bardic squeezed the trigger and did not pause, a constant flow and lethal fire descending down from his position, his sapphire eyes picking out the advancing enemy with cold intent, strafing down the endless hoard as they appeared.
With a sudden jolt and clumsy click, one that rammed the rifle against his shoulder, the clip ran dry and Captain Bardic ducked behind the crumbling wall that was his cover. The unleashed fury of a dozen rifles still rang out all around him, the men of his command laying down a sweeping barrage of their own, filling the air with scattered casings that rattled out onto the ground, burning shrapnel ejected from the rifles.
Captain Bardic could barely hear the chatter in his ear, the distant cries from some other battlefield being funnelled down through a transmitter. He didn’t care for the specifics of the communications of those who outranked him, not as he slammed a fresh clip into the butt of his heavy rifle; he’d been in this situation enough to know the truth. His unit was pinned down, on the verge of being lost, and no-one was coming to save them, they were on their own.
Command be Damned!!
He silently declared as he burst back up from behind his cover, ignoring the fuselage of chaos that surrounded him, and unleashed a fresh and hungry roar from his angry rifle. It thundered into instant life, kicking in his hands with every fire and frenzied burst, unleashing hot death with its primal scream.
A wall exploded not so far away, a fireball from hell itself, as a mortar found its target and obliterated everything within its path. Debris scattered up into the air, raining down a storm of rock, stone, mud and blood on anyone near by. If there had been a scream, Captain Bardic had not heard it, not above detonation of explosives and the roar of angered rifles, but the result was just the same, blue eyed Grimm was now dead and gone.
Captain Bardic cursed and spun behind his cover as his shoulder was torn open, a bullet from the storm that was being hurled towards them having ripped through his padded armour and bitten deep into his flesh. With clenched teeth; he grimaced as the girl who was their medic was immediately by his side, clamping the wound shut with crude pincers and a lack of any sympathy or care.
She was gone within an instant, her head kept low as she ran the line of soldiers, patching each one up in a timely manner and pointing them back towards the enemy. There was no-one here to help her as a random round separated half her cranium from her shoulders. The latest casualty to be killed in this endless conflict, he wasn’t even sure that he knew her name.
“CAPTAIN!” there was panic in the tone of the Private, the youngest in his unit and barely more than just a boy, the soldier known as Starsmore stumbling over to his position. He was clumsy with his weapon, almost dropping it entirely as he slid down to his Captains side, the endless hail of enemy fire and the constant storm of falling debris plummeting down around them.
“Calm yourself” Captain Bardic ordered, his features stained with blood and smeared with dirt, but his eyes as bright as ever, piercing deep into the soul of the fresh blood Private.
“We have incoming Sir…” Private Starsmore stammered for a moment, the hailstorm of bullets already raining down upon their position suggesting that the incoming had been upon them for some time.
“Heavy Infantry…” he corrected “…Hulkbusters!!”
Captain Bardic allowed himself a quite curse, his features hard and grim, his men were both tired and outnumbered, and yet, the worst was still to come.
“Damn it Stark” he muttered beneath his breadth, a moment passing before he launched back up from behind his cover, the furious roar of his angry rifle once again joining those of his battle brothers.
“DAMN YOU TO HELL!!”
# # # # #
Avalon, Earth Unknown, Today…
“Hello?” young Gwynn dared to quietly query as she flew slowly through the silent halls of sacred Avalon. The wings of a butterfly, protruding from the back of the elfin girl, glistened in the heavy gloom, a multitude of lights reflecting off the ancient stone and hand carved marble, revealing nothing but herself and endless rows of empty chambers.
Her face was streaked with both dirt and dust, thankfully the only harm she had come to in the recent conflict, a civil war that had been raging within these very walls not moments ago. The fighting had been fierce, the outcomes had been bloody, and the violence had consumed the ancient fortress from one wall to the other, only now it was entirely gone.
A crack of thunder had consumed her senses, a storm like no other had blinded her from the world, and then everything was here, and seemingly no-one else had come with it.
She paused for just a moment, the massive book she had decided needed to be protected still held tightly against her torso, both her arms securely wrapped around it. It was a tome of ancient knowledge, she could scarcely understand it, and yet it had been all that she could save.
It could not be more precious.
“Hello?” she tried again, the elfin girl fluttering inside the decimated chambers, the vast library now a shambles of its former glory. Bookshelves lay toppled and obliterated, furniture was both scattered and piled high, the books themselves had been discarded, trampled and defiled. Lore as old time itself, burning upon the floor.
“JASON!” young Gwynn shouted with sudden desperation, dropping the ancient text she clutched between her arms without another care, before blinking briefly from existence. She reappeared scant moments later, teleporting the short distance between herself and the fallen Captain, kneeling beside the young mans side. He was barely breathing, his chest a shattered mess, his flesh a sickly pallid, his eyes both blank and vaguely staring.
“It’s okay…” young Gwynn tried not to panic, the elfin girl wiping a shaking hand across his clammy forehead. She willed him to survive.
“I can fix this…” she promised, although she had little idea of how to do so. He didn’t answer, Captain Flagship of Earth Five-Fifteen, lost somewhere on the edge of death, his breathing short and shallow.
“I can fix this…”
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Berlin, Nine Years Ago…
Seventy years.
It wasn't the exact number, but it was the best math Captain Albion could do as he slammed backwards into an Osborn modified, Challenger Tank. The resulting explosion consumed the surrounding area with a hell spawned inferno, erupting with a vengeful howl of fire and fury, of shrapnel and death. Seven people died, a further sixteen injured as their world became as funeral pyre of pain. The fireball lit up the dying day, the explosion rattled the very sky.
Captain Albion exploded outwards from the inferno like a vengeful meteor of war.
His armour glistened despite the carnage all around him, the savage fighting that filled the streets, the hail of bullets that ricocheted from every building. The colours of his flag shone brighter than any day, his flight was like a shining spear, his path unswerving, his will never failing.
Captain Bran Bardic, formally of the British Liberation Army, had finally become the weapon he had always wanted. He finally had the power to gain his victory!!
Thunder rolled out across the city of his enemies as his fist collided with the jaw of the Master Man. The Nazi supremacist recoiled from the impact as though he had been struck by a vengeful God, his head snapping back with a violent shake, a sneer upon his lips as he retaliated.
The two supermen tumbled through the air, spiralling through the sky as they grappled with one another, the greatest champions of their respective nations locked together high above their warring armies.
Men were dying, the city was a burning ruin, clouds of blackened fire reaching high up into the sky as the fates conspired to end this conflict. Thunder boomed throughout the heavens, lightning flashed as mortals fought with powers beyond the human, the earth shook as over half a century of hate and murder came to a devastating head.
Captain Albion struck out, a lifetime of conflict unleashed into a single blow, a lifetime of misery and pain. His fist connected with a bone cracking fury, his sapphire eyes alight with conviction, the blow shattering ribs and plunging deep into the torso of the Master Man.
For a moment, there was nothing, two superman locked together in a fateful moment, the final moment. Finally he fell, the Master Man of the Nazi realm, the superman plummeting into the flames of his burning city as a limp and lifeless husk.
Captain Albion could barely breadth, suspended in the air and staring across the dying city, witnessing this fateful moment.
Seventy years.
Seventy years of constant war.
Ended in one.
Captain Albion could only pause, suspended above the burning city, above the sounds of an ending conflict, his right hand stained with blood.
Just one.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Somewhere Over Britain, Now...
The rain was burning.
Brian could feel it, even with his enchanted skin; he could feel it lashing down from dark and angry clouds and sear him deep into his soul. He couldn't hear anything, not the thunder, no matter how much it roared and cracked, not as he tore through the heavens above his country at supersonic speeds. But he could see it, he could feel it, his Nation crying out in pain.
He could feel it, not only through the poison that fell from the conflicted skies, but he could feel it in his bones. He didn't really understand it, the affinity he shared with the land he had been born to protect, as though the earth far below, the very air he breathed, was as much a part of him as his own heart.
He didn't understand it, but he could feel it.
He could feel that his country was afraid.
Brian blinked as the corrupted storm conspired to blind him, resisting the urge to wipe a waterlogged sleeve across his senses. His clothes were soaking from the downpour, the fibres drenched in the foul and reeking moisture. It wasn't making it any easier to fly.
He should have worn the suit.
He didn't want to...
Suddenly he haltered, pulling short with a sonic boom as he almost fell from the very sky. A blast of lighting tore apart the air right before him, a crooked lance of light and fury and fiery vengeance, a scream that had tried to strike him. In a moment it was gone, the claw of angry malice, the crooked hand of death.
That wasn't from his nation, the angry clouds and the poison rain, the twisted stab of venom. His country was afraid, this pestilence had invaded, Britain itself was under siege.
With narrowed eyes, Brian pierced the endless darkness, and launched forwards once again. The air shook and thunder roared, the sound barrier both reached and broken.
Britain was afraid.
Brian Braddock wouldn't stand for it.
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Genosha, Seven Years Ago…
Captain Albion would not stand idly by while tyranny took hold once more, not even as his twin sister plunged a dagger deep into his shoulder. He howled in pain and grimaced harshly as the blade of midnight black bit deep into flesh and muscle, bypassing the chinks in his sacred armour and tearing into the tissue underneath.
She moved without a single flaw, the woman with crimson hair, Lisa Bardic, his only sibling, spiralling above his head and landing without a sound behind him. She moved like magic, a phantom on the fleeting wind, a dancer wielding ebony blades of night.
The Island was under siege, Captain Albion leading the invasion of the very shores the two siblings now fought and bled upon. It was like any conflict, a catastrophe of sound, a horrific display of violence, one race of superhumans throwing themselves against another. A war between the Gods.
"Eisenhardt is a Madman!" Bardic grimaced as he pulled the blade of ebony night from his shoulder, casting it aside with a spurt of crimson blood. He ignored the pain of injured flesh, his sapphire eyes alight with fury. He loved his sister more than she ever could, and still she betrayed him.
"Lord Magnus will be our Savour!" she hissed her return, the telepathic mutant crouching low and levelling her blades towards him. There were screams and frenzied shouting, explosions and intense lighting, the very earth itself was shaking, and yet she saw nothing else but him and her.
Siblings of a shared womb.
Enemies by their genetics.
"XAVIER WAS YOUR SAVOUR!" Captain Albion lunged and gripped the pommel of his sword with both hands. It sang with righteous conviction, it flew with the sweetest song, it blazed like the brightest star as its keen edge swept forwards, aiming to separate a head from its torso.
Lisa ducked and dived forwards, a fiery trail of blood red hair sailing out behind her, the deadly dancer striking like a viper. The ebony night deflected of her siblings breastplate, his sword harmlessly missed her cranium.
"XAVIER WAS A FOOL!" Lisa Bardic spat as she pivoted, gracefully thrusting towards the gut of her golden haired sibling. Her 'chosen' sibling, her 'perfect' sibling, the precious Champion of her Nation.
"XAVIER!" Bran Bardic had, had enough, snatching out with superhuman speed and grasping a hold of his sisters outstretched wrist with inhuman strength. She squealed in pain, the bone shattering beneath his iron fingers, her ebony blade dropping limply from her lifeless didgets.
"Xavier was my friend!" his tone turned hard and his sapphire eyes became as cold as steel, the sentinel of the Corps staring down at his cringing sister. She had looked the same throughout her life, in his minds eye, his sister the very same as his memory of their childhood. His sister, his only sister, his beloved sister, he couldn't live without his sister.
The sister for whom he had nearly died for.
"I will not..." he backhanded her savagely with the pommel of his majestic sword, bone cracking and flesh turning swollen, and yet only part of him could see it. Some part of him despised it.
"Let my world..." he struck her a second time, some dark and heated anger swelling deep within his torso.
"BE PLUNGED INTO ANOTHER WAR!" he roared, his sapphire eyes alight with sudden fury, swinging down his blade and reversing the blunted grip.
No pommel struck her cheek this time; instead its keen edge caught her throat and did not falter. Resistance was not an issue, not bone or flesh or even muscle, not a moments pause as her head was sliced cleanly off her torso.
There was a spray of blood and nothing else, no cries or murmurs or final words, nothing but the finality of death.
The Island Nation of Genosha was under siege, Captain Albion had brought it down upon its shores, the death toll would be in the thousands.
War was not an option.
The momentum would end here, upon the bodies of the fallen.
One mass grave to prevent another...
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Elizabeth Braddock emptied the contents of her stomach with a gut wrenching heave, the bile spraying past her lips and exploding into a waiting bucket, one she clutched greedily before her hunched form. She could barely see, her flesh both pale and feverish, lank and purple hair clinging to her sweating cheeks, her muscles shaking from the strain, and yet there was no escaping the vile pool of bile that fermented at the bottom of the bucket.
The stench of it alone was enough to fell full grown hoarse.
It seemed to breadth, the pestilence that had been expelled from her body as projectile vomit, a pulsating mass of black and murky fluids. It breathed and hissed, a venomous mass that was unnatural.
A foul obscenity that should not exist.
“Charming…” she smiled a little, despite the shaking of her shoulders and the paleness of her skin, this was clearly not her finest hour.
For a moment, as the burning fervour passed for the briefest second, Elizabeth Braddock felt calm enough to put her bucket down, leaving it on the floor beside the bed where she had found it. She had known it would be there, waiting for when she needed it, and Elisabeth had to smile a little fondly at the memory, memories that always lingered whenever she came home.
There had always been a bucket there, left by a quieter brother, a moment of attentiveness for a sister doing what she always shouldn’t.
Brian.
BRIAN!!
Elizabeth looked up, startled by the sudden thought of urgency, ignoring the pain that wracked her battered frame, the protests of her many wounds. Where was Brian!?!
“You should be lying down!”
Elizabeth spun her head towards the source of those stern words, half expecting to see a sibling, and instead finding his devoted wife. She was standing in the doorway, as radiant as ever, the elfin women an embodiment of the living earth. Somehow, now, she was even more so, a protective hand resting upon the rounded bump of her growing womb. And yet something was amiss, something different in the woman that she barely knew.
There was a coldness in those blue eyes, a hardness that was not common, a malice that was directed towards the sister of her husband.
“You’ve caused enough disruption as it is…”
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, London, Six Years Ago…
Parliament.
That’s what used to stand here, on this spot, the political heart of an entire Nation, the centre piece of its leadership, a gathering of men who had plunged thousands upon thousands of men into an endless war. They were dead now, buried beneath his feet and lost in the sands of time. Their agendas were spent, their decrees were forgotten.
Their blood stained legacy would never fade.
Their building had been destroyed.
Upon the ashes and the broken rubble, upon the scattered stone and shattered masonry, a new Manor was being built, a new symbol of a United and Reborn Nation, the Fortress of House Bardic, defender of the British Realm!!
Captain Albion stood upon the highest rampart, high above the sounds of hammers and saws, of machinery and gears, of countless men who toiled to make his dream a reality. His helmet was removed, tucked neatly beneath his shoulder, his free hand resting upon the pommel of his ancient sword, quite and at rest.
With piercing eyes, both sapphire and strong, he gazed across the capital, the skeletal ruins of a once strong city, dragging itself up from the pit into which it had fallen. His country had died, through seventy years of war, as though the very land drowned in the blood of her children.
His country had died.
And now, with the coming dawn, it could be reborn.
Its people, could be reborn.
“Have you heard?”
Bran Bardic, Captain Albion of the Corps, turned his head at the sound of that one voice, his confidant and companion, his lover and best friend. Not that they hadn’t butted heads, not that they hadn’t disagreed, Bran, steadfast and proud, and she, intelligent and stubborn.
His wife.
Katherine Pyrde.
An American, a Mutant, and at least a decade his junior.
Oh, Bran Bardic thought with wry amusement, the Scandal.
“And what would that be?” he inquired, returning his eyes to the horizon, the reds and oranges of the infant day, relinquishing his arm as she linked hers with his.
“Talk of Kings” Katherine prodded, brushing aside a strand of chocolate hair from her hazel eyes.
“Oh…” Bran’s wry smile was filled with amusement, his head of golden hair caught in the whispering wind, his armour glistening in the morning light “…and of Queens?”
“That would follow, yes” Katherine laughed with clear amusement “…but that is not the point”.
“No” he agreed before falling silent, his chiselled features formed in sombre musings.
“Should I be King?” he inquired, his sapphire eyes not wavering from that endless skyline.
“They want you to be King” she insisted, only saying what was true, prodding him to understand that.
“And you can not lie to me…” she forced him to look at her, a hand against his cheek to turn his head, her Husband, and savour of an entire world “…You want to be King!”
She trapped his eyes in hers, unwavering an unflinching, defying him to bend the truth, to try and hide behind deception. He couldn’t, not anymore.
“Yes…”
“Then be King!” she announced, releasing his arm with a smile in his eyes and pride in her heart.
“Be who you are”.
“I will try” Bran Bardic nodded, Captain Albion of the Corps, hero of the endless war, savour of his people. He watched her go as she disappeared inside, his wife and one true love.
The future mother of his child.
King.
He mused with quite amusement.
…King Albion.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Britain, Today…
Alex Kent slammed down the breaks and released a shout of pain, his car careening beyond control and slipping along the muddy road. With squeals of protest and the savage groans of grinding gears, the vehicle of poor mechanics jolted to a sudden halt, rocking everything inside and rattling the senses of its driver.
There was a silence, a quite moment at the centre of the storm, the driving rain and the howling wind, Alex Kent aware that he was still alive. He stared unmoving, with dark and sombre eyes, both hazel and unblinking and he saw the tree before him. An ancient oak, sat forebodingly before his windscreen, wrapped in night and draped in shadow, a silent sentinel in place to stall him.
For a moment he was uncertain, the man of middle years and a violent past, both murderer and champion, both hero and villain. The darkness was complete, a blanket of foreboding madness, the sky a rolling mass of frenzied vengeance, a storm of hate and sorrow.
Of sadness and regret.
The final moment...
It was the smallest whisper, a quite hush and a tiny breath, his wife and only love beside him. She wasn't there, even as he looked, both quite and asleep, content and at peace. She wasn't there, his wife and infant child, his life and precious cargo.
She wasn't there.
She was never there.
Alex closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, forgetting the howling winds and starless sky, the fuel of fear and loathing falling from the shattered heavens. He ignored it and drove on, igniting the ignition and leaving the oak of ancient years behind but not forgotten.
A silent sentinel in place stall him, a moments pause to remind him.
"The road..."
He whispered to himself with grim resolve, peering past the howling wind and driving storm, the pestilence of fear.
"...watch the road".
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Genosha, Four Years Ago…
She was screaming, and Captain Albion could not save her.
He hurled himself forward, his sapphire eyes alight with fury, his every limb restrained by those he called his brothers. Colony and Legion, Vigilant and Freedom, Captains all, Champions of their own Worlds, the only ones who could prevent a King from killing himself beside his Queen.
She was burning, imprisoned within a pyre of unholy fire, flames as black as night and smoke as foul as hell. She was burning, trapped and helpless, left to suffer by her tormenters, the final followers of a tyrant and false messiah.
They lay dying at his feet, bleeding from their savage wounds, butchered by his blade, executed by his vengeance. There was a gurgle and spit, a hacking laughter that reached from beyond the shallow grave, a final spit in the face of a broken King. They laughed and hacked as his Queen died.
His Queen and unborn child.
"KATHERINE!!" he yelled to no effect, his howl a mournful cry to echo her desperate screaming, buried deep within the pyre of hate and sin.
He cried and pulled to no avail, held back by those he called his brothers. He cried and cursed and bellowed his eternal vengeance, he cried and wept until he was all but spent, a King amongst his Captains, a King without his conscience.
She screamed, long into the starless night, deep within the burning pyre.
She screamed until there was nothing else but that.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Something was wrong.
She could not explain it, but she could feel it, her attachment to this world, her affinity with the planet, she could feel it in her soul. Something was wrong, something poisonous and lecherous, something sinister and parasitic, something she couldn’t see.
Something was wrong, in the wailing storm and the poison rain, something was wrong and it broke her heart that she couldn’t stop it, that she couldn’t save the planet from its pain, that she couldn’t save her husband.
That she didn’t know how to.
“Elizabeth…” Megan tried to pause, looking back towards the stairs that she knew lead down into the foundations, only to find herself pulled forwards, the surprisingly strong fingers of her husbands sister wrapped tightly around her wrist. She did not enjoy this, a frown creasing her flawless features, worry etched across her brow as she was being hustled hastily throw her own home.
She had tried to be stern, but Elizabeth had been insistent, the woman with violet eyes whom had only just been at deaths door now acting with verve and conviction that one would expect from the fully fit. She had all but leapt from her bed, casting aside her sickness as though it was a passing hindrance, and dragged the elfin wife of her twin brother from the room, insisting that they leave the Braddock home, demanding that they do so.
Demanding without explaining why.
Meggan managed a second fleeting glance back towards the stairwell before it disappeared behind a corner. The foundations and her husbands private fortress, built beneath Manor and housing the Network to…
"We have to leave!" the twin sister of Brian Braddock, the telepath known as Psylocke, the leader of The Hand, pulled more harshly on the arm of Meggan Braddock, leading her sister in law through the Manor and towards the entrance.
"Elizabeth, I don't..." Megan did not like this, not one bit, not as the woman she had been entrusted to care for dragged her through her home, not as the natural world wept around her, not as she cradled a protective hand around the rounded bump of her pregnant womb, not as she feared for her unborn child.
The fitful child of her absent husband.
"Now!" her tone was harsh, her eyes were hard, violet and certain, desperate and…afraid?
"Elizabeth!!" Meggan pulled back harshly, twisting free from the grasp of her sister in law and coming to a sudden stop. Her sapphire eyes were flaring, for but a moment, refusing to be a bystander any longer.
"Explain to me what is happening!"
For a moment, Elizabeth stopped and paused, regarding the elfin woman who carried her unborn nephew, the caring wife of her brother, the grateful daughter of the planet, a warrior in her own right.
"I should not have come here" Elizabeth admitted quietly, looking between the entrance to the Manor and the elfin woman she had placed in danger. The world had shifted, the course of history had been changed, and there was little chance of redemption for those who had caused it.
For those who had let it happen.
"Why?” Meggan questioned, the harshness fleeing from her sapphire eyes, a sense of caring flowing to her youthful features. The elfin woman with golden hair had an affinity for the natural world, and just as easily, the many people within it. She knew pain, she had felt it all too often, she could see it within her minds eyes.
She could see the butterfly trying desperately to survive.
“…what have you done?" there was no accusation; such things would lead them no-where, just a hand that reached out for a sister. A sister, with whom, she had to admit she had her reservations.
Her disagreements.
"I haven't...” Elizabeth sighed, immediately losing patience and taking a hold of Meggans wrist once more, there was no time for this, no time for anything but action. Let Brian over think the matter, by the time he does so he’ll be dead and buried and this time nothing will bring him back.
Elizabeth was not about to let his wife be buried next to him, not on her account.
“…there are people that Brian shouldn't trust, events that I can't explain. I will help him, but first we must get you out of here!"
Meggan hesitated but did not falter, she did not like this but opted not to argue, allowing herself to be lead on for the moment. Something was wrong, her husband was in trouble, and regardless of the intentions of her houseguest, she would not allow the situation to remain the same for long.
Not when she had…
She winced and almost stumbled as they reached the doorway, the archway and entrance to Braddock Manor, the unborn child protected within her belly fighting for reasons she did not know. He was kicking, demanding to be acknowledged, demanding to be heard, demanding that his mother know that he was not happy.
That he was afraid.
She tried to sooth the troubled child, her only son and precious cargo, willing him to feel both warm and safe as Elizabeth swung open the massive doors to her Estate. The storm outside was in no way natural, it was foul and pestilent, it was offensive and unnerving, it was the harbinger of death.
It was not alone.
He stood silently in the doorway, as if waiting for someone to appear, a man of dark hair and darker eyes. A man of sadness and regret, a man of guilt and despair, a man she had come to know these last few months, one drenched from head to toe in the rain of poison.
"...Mr. Kent?" she questioned in surprise, her sapphire eyes alight with worry. Worry that disappeared within a single moment, a moment in which he pulled his firearm from its holster.
A moment in which he fired a single shot…
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, London, Fort Braddock, 2 Years Ago…
His Throne Room was burning.
He could feel the fire searing deep into his soul, the inferno a maelstrom of wrathful flame that wrapped around the columns and slid violently along the walls. Tapestries were ablaze, finely crafted and ancient beyond mortal years, alight with fury and flickering in the dying day.
There was screaming, echoing throughout the stone lined halls, a thousand banshees and tortured souls, a city in its final death throes. There was fighting, the clash of swords and the bark of angry rifles, shouts and curses, cries and shrieks, his entire planet was at war.
The Thirteen-Two-Eleven was under apocalyptic siege.
There was a roar of pain, and Captain Albion was hurled backwards, crashing through the massive doors of ancient oak, and sent crashing into his own throne room. The burning was intense, a thousand frenzied fingers digging deep into his fragile flesh, burning skin and charring bone as he slid along the marble floor, armour plates sparking as he collided against the stone.
With a savage tug Captain Albion wrenched off his helmet from atop his head, hurling it aside and allowing it to clatter into the roaring flames. With a desperate snarl he swept his sword out wide, a deadly arc of enchanted steel, aiming for a villain that was not there.
With tear streaked eyes he scanned the throne room, the burning fortress consumed by smoke and the foulest flame. From left to right his head darted, gripping the pommel of his mighty blade, his sapphire eyes both red and raw, his crown of golden hair both lank and ragged, his flesh was clammy, his breathing heavy, his shoulder bleeding from a savage wound.
There!!
The creature flashed before his vision, a man of flesh and bone and little muscle, a mockery of a mortal. It darted like a phantom, diving backwards through the air, gliding through the fire and flame like a fallen angel, its limbs both twisted and demented, its arms wrapped in rusted chains and crooked hooks, its eyes both vacant and missing, empty sockets buried deep within a crooked skull.
It seemed an eternity, and yet it was but a single moment, the crooked man with crooked teeth darting from here to there, chains of rusted steel snapping outwards like angry vipers and tearing at Captain Albion’s flesh and muscle. The hooks dug deep, a cry accompanying the tearing of his body, a curse and vengeful cry as those chains snapped back, returning to their master and disappearing amongst the endless flames, a portion of his arm taken as their bounty.
He lashed out, the singing of his ancient blade whistling as it pierced the burning air, but there was nothing for him to aim for. Nothing until the crooked man erupted from the inferno, bouncing and spiralling as those rusted chains lashed out, a blinding fury of spinning iron, the deadly dance of some demented demon, a mortal driven to insanity.
In desperation he ducked down, Captain Albion diving forwards as one such chain whistled above his head, the hooks spinning wildly, the blades singing in their fury. The distance between the man and monster disappeared in but a moment, a fraction of a second and phantom was within his reach, its splintered features scowling, its hollow eyes staring, its broken teeth screaming, as Captain Albion thrust his blade forwards.
There was no contact, the crooked phantom flipping high above his head, a fleeting vision followed by blinding pain. The rusted hooks of burning metal dug deep into the mans torso, piercing the armour across his chest, splitting both flesh and muscle, shattering his ribs and puncturing both his lungs. Bran Bardic could only spit and choke, falling to his knees and staring deep into his burning throne room.
There was screaming, a billion voices echoing throughout the final day, a catastrophe of a choir, the dying of his people. He could but watch and stare and his world died, his life’s blood ebbing freely from a broken torso. He could hear them, the thundering of the rifles, in the long and distant past, the shouts and the curses and the endless war. He could feel them, the burning of his enemies, the city drowning in a sweeping fire, his hand caked in crimson blood. He could see them, those dying upon the beaches, the impaled upon his sword, those buried beneath a thousand corpses.
He could remember them, his every moment, his endless cycle, a lifetime of misery and death, the persecutor of a war.
The warrior of peace.
“Where is your Mother now?”
There was a question, a query from the burning world, a whisper upon the absent wind, the sweet melody of violence.
“Is she here, did you know her, is she gone?”
There was an Angel, a vision from the endless flame, striding from the furnace to stand before him, cloaked in sin, carried by vengeance. A phantom of a thousand voices, the epitome of despair.
The carrier of the Midnight Sphere.
“Reveal your sin, and I will tell you mine, such things to show you, such things to tell you…”
She promised with rose lips, with music and enchantment, with the Sphere of midnight black, the Sphere of endless torment, the Sphere of the Final Moment.
“Behold the sin, so many sins, the answer and the question, the cost and the consequence…behold sweet boy, behold and weep for the final moment…”
She was smiling sweetly, the phantom with the darkest eyes.
“…BEHOLD THE SIN OF MERLIN!!”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: The soul of Britain is under siege and Braddock Manor is suddenly at the forefront, but with Captain Britain absent, what does that mean for those still residing there? Meanwhile, Avalon has appeared in a place unknown, while Captain Albion and his invaders have disappeared, but if they are no longer besieging the Fortress of the Corps, to where have their conquests led them?
The heavy rifle kicked like thunder as Captain Bran Bardic of the British Liberation Army rained down a hail of lead upon his enemies. The muzzle flashed like lightning, the weapon itself a berserker beast, barking out its fury with every rapid round unleashed, guzzling up the ammunition within the clip as though there was no tomorrow. Captain Bardic squeezed the trigger and did not pause, a constant flow and lethal fire descending down from his position, his sapphire eyes picking out the advancing enemy with cold intent, strafing down the endless hoard as they appeared.
With a sudden jolt and clumsy click, one that rammed the rifle against his shoulder, the clip ran dry and Captain Bardic ducked behind the crumbling wall that was his cover. The unleashed fury of a dozen rifles still rang out all around him, the men of his command laying down a sweeping barrage of their own, filling the air with scattered casings that rattled out onto the ground, burning shrapnel ejected from the rifles.
Captain Bardic could barely hear the chatter in his ear, the distant cries from some other battlefield being funnelled down through a transmitter. He didn’t care for the specifics of the communications of those who outranked him, not as he slammed a fresh clip into the butt of his heavy rifle; he’d been in this situation enough to know the truth. His unit was pinned down, on the verge of being lost, and no-one was coming to save them, they were on their own.
Command be Damned!!
He silently declared as he burst back up from behind his cover, ignoring the fuselage of chaos that surrounded him, and unleashed a fresh and hungry roar from his angry rifle. It thundered into instant life, kicking in his hands with every fire and frenzied burst, unleashing hot death with its primal scream.
A wall exploded not so far away, a fireball from hell itself, as a mortar found its target and obliterated everything within its path. Debris scattered up into the air, raining down a storm of rock, stone, mud and blood on anyone near by. If there had been a scream, Captain Bardic had not heard it, not above detonation of explosives and the roar of angered rifles, but the result was just the same, blue eyed Grimm was now dead and gone.
Captain Bardic cursed and spun behind his cover as his shoulder was torn open, a bullet from the storm that was being hurled towards them having ripped through his padded armour and bitten deep into his flesh. With clenched teeth; he grimaced as the girl who was their medic was immediately by his side, clamping the wound shut with crude pincers and a lack of any sympathy or care.
She was gone within an instant, her head kept low as she ran the line of soldiers, patching each one up in a timely manner and pointing them back towards the enemy. There was no-one here to help her as a random round separated half her cranium from her shoulders. The latest casualty to be killed in this endless conflict, he wasn’t even sure that he knew her name.
“CAPTAIN!” there was panic in the tone of the Private, the youngest in his unit and barely more than just a boy, the soldier known as Starsmore stumbling over to his position. He was clumsy with his weapon, almost dropping it entirely as he slid down to his Captains side, the endless hail of enemy fire and the constant storm of falling debris plummeting down around them.
“Calm yourself” Captain Bardic ordered, his features stained with blood and smeared with dirt, but his eyes as bright as ever, piercing deep into the soul of the fresh blood Private.
“We have incoming Sir…” Private Starsmore stammered for a moment, the hailstorm of bullets already raining down upon their position suggesting that the incoming had been upon them for some time.
“Heavy Infantry…” he corrected “…Hulkbusters!!”
Captain Bardic allowed himself a quite curse, his features hard and grim, his men were both tired and outnumbered, and yet, the worst was still to come.
“Damn it Stark” he muttered beneath his breadth, a moment passing before he launched back up from behind his cover, the furious roar of his angry rifle once again joining those of his battle brothers.
“DAMN YOU TO HELL!!”
# # # # #
Avalon, Earth Unknown, Today…
“Hello?” young Gwynn dared to quietly query as she flew slowly through the silent halls of sacred Avalon. The wings of a butterfly, protruding from the back of the elfin girl, glistened in the heavy gloom, a multitude of lights reflecting off the ancient stone and hand carved marble, revealing nothing but herself and endless rows of empty chambers.
Her face was streaked with both dirt and dust, thankfully the only harm she had come to in the recent conflict, a civil war that had been raging within these very walls not moments ago. The fighting had been fierce, the outcomes had been bloody, and the violence had consumed the ancient fortress from one wall to the other, only now it was entirely gone.
A crack of thunder had consumed her senses, a storm like no other had blinded her from the world, and then everything was here, and seemingly no-one else had come with it.
She paused for just a moment, the massive book she had decided needed to be protected still held tightly against her torso, both her arms securely wrapped around it. It was a tome of ancient knowledge, she could scarcely understand it, and yet it had been all that she could save.
It could not be more precious.
“Hello?” she tried again, the elfin girl fluttering inside the decimated chambers, the vast library now a shambles of its former glory. Bookshelves lay toppled and obliterated, furniture was both scattered and piled high, the books themselves had been discarded, trampled and defiled. Lore as old time itself, burning upon the floor.
“JASON!” young Gwynn shouted with sudden desperation, dropping the ancient text she clutched between her arms without another care, before blinking briefly from existence. She reappeared scant moments later, teleporting the short distance between herself and the fallen Captain, kneeling beside the young mans side. He was barely breathing, his chest a shattered mess, his flesh a sickly pallid, his eyes both blank and vaguely staring.
“It’s okay…” young Gwynn tried not to panic, the elfin girl wiping a shaking hand across his clammy forehead. She willed him to survive.
“I can fix this…” she promised, although she had little idea of how to do so. He didn’t answer, Captain Flagship of Earth Five-Fifteen, lost somewhere on the edge of death, his breathing short and shallow.
“I can fix this…”
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Berlin, Nine Years Ago…
Seventy years.
It wasn't the exact number, but it was the best math Captain Albion could do as he slammed backwards into an Osborn modified, Challenger Tank. The resulting explosion consumed the surrounding area with a hell spawned inferno, erupting with a vengeful howl of fire and fury, of shrapnel and death. Seven people died, a further sixteen injured as their world became as funeral pyre of pain. The fireball lit up the dying day, the explosion rattled the very sky.
Captain Albion exploded outwards from the inferno like a vengeful meteor of war.
His armour glistened despite the carnage all around him, the savage fighting that filled the streets, the hail of bullets that ricocheted from every building. The colours of his flag shone brighter than any day, his flight was like a shining spear, his path unswerving, his will never failing.
Captain Bran Bardic, formally of the British Liberation Army, had finally become the weapon he had always wanted. He finally had the power to gain his victory!!
Thunder rolled out across the city of his enemies as his fist collided with the jaw of the Master Man. The Nazi supremacist recoiled from the impact as though he had been struck by a vengeful God, his head snapping back with a violent shake, a sneer upon his lips as he retaliated.
The two supermen tumbled through the air, spiralling through the sky as they grappled with one another, the greatest champions of their respective nations locked together high above their warring armies.
Men were dying, the city was a burning ruin, clouds of blackened fire reaching high up into the sky as the fates conspired to end this conflict. Thunder boomed throughout the heavens, lightning flashed as mortals fought with powers beyond the human, the earth shook as over half a century of hate and murder came to a devastating head.
Captain Albion struck out, a lifetime of conflict unleashed into a single blow, a lifetime of misery and pain. His fist connected with a bone cracking fury, his sapphire eyes alight with conviction, the blow shattering ribs and plunging deep into the torso of the Master Man.
For a moment, there was nothing, two superman locked together in a fateful moment, the final moment. Finally he fell, the Master Man of the Nazi realm, the superman plummeting into the flames of his burning city as a limp and lifeless husk.
Captain Albion could barely breadth, suspended in the air and staring across the dying city, witnessing this fateful moment.
Seventy years.
Seventy years of constant war.
Ended in one.
Captain Albion could only pause, suspended above the burning city, above the sounds of an ending conflict, his right hand stained with blood.
Just one.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Somewhere Over Britain, Now...
The rain was burning.
Brian could feel it, even with his enchanted skin; he could feel it lashing down from dark and angry clouds and sear him deep into his soul. He couldn't hear anything, not the thunder, no matter how much it roared and cracked, not as he tore through the heavens above his country at supersonic speeds. But he could see it, he could feel it, his Nation crying out in pain.
He could feel it, not only through the poison that fell from the conflicted skies, but he could feel it in his bones. He didn't really understand it, the affinity he shared with the land he had been born to protect, as though the earth far below, the very air he breathed, was as much a part of him as his own heart.
He didn't understand it, but he could feel it.
He could feel that his country was afraid.
Brian blinked as the corrupted storm conspired to blind him, resisting the urge to wipe a waterlogged sleeve across his senses. His clothes were soaking from the downpour, the fibres drenched in the foul and reeking moisture. It wasn't making it any easier to fly.
He should have worn the suit.
He didn't want to...
Suddenly he haltered, pulling short with a sonic boom as he almost fell from the very sky. A blast of lighting tore apart the air right before him, a crooked lance of light and fury and fiery vengeance, a scream that had tried to strike him. In a moment it was gone, the claw of angry malice, the crooked hand of death.
That wasn't from his nation, the angry clouds and the poison rain, the twisted stab of venom. His country was afraid, this pestilence had invaded, Britain itself was under siege.
With narrowed eyes, Brian pierced the endless darkness, and launched forwards once again. The air shook and thunder roared, the sound barrier both reached and broken.
Britain was afraid.
Brian Braddock wouldn't stand for it.
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Genosha, Seven Years Ago…
Captain Albion would not stand idly by while tyranny took hold once more, not even as his twin sister plunged a dagger deep into his shoulder. He howled in pain and grimaced harshly as the blade of midnight black bit deep into flesh and muscle, bypassing the chinks in his sacred armour and tearing into the tissue underneath.
She moved without a single flaw, the woman with crimson hair, Lisa Bardic, his only sibling, spiralling above his head and landing without a sound behind him. She moved like magic, a phantom on the fleeting wind, a dancer wielding ebony blades of night.
The Island was under siege, Captain Albion leading the invasion of the very shores the two siblings now fought and bled upon. It was like any conflict, a catastrophe of sound, a horrific display of violence, one race of superhumans throwing themselves against another. A war between the Gods.
"Eisenhardt is a Madman!" Bardic grimaced as he pulled the blade of ebony night from his shoulder, casting it aside with a spurt of crimson blood. He ignored the pain of injured flesh, his sapphire eyes alight with fury. He loved his sister more than she ever could, and still she betrayed him.
"Lord Magnus will be our Savour!" she hissed her return, the telepathic mutant crouching low and levelling her blades towards him. There were screams and frenzied shouting, explosions and intense lighting, the very earth itself was shaking, and yet she saw nothing else but him and her.
Siblings of a shared womb.
Enemies by their genetics.
"XAVIER WAS YOUR SAVOUR!" Captain Albion lunged and gripped the pommel of his sword with both hands. It sang with righteous conviction, it flew with the sweetest song, it blazed like the brightest star as its keen edge swept forwards, aiming to separate a head from its torso.
Lisa ducked and dived forwards, a fiery trail of blood red hair sailing out behind her, the deadly dancer striking like a viper. The ebony night deflected of her siblings breastplate, his sword harmlessly missed her cranium.
"XAVIER WAS A FOOL!" Lisa Bardic spat as she pivoted, gracefully thrusting towards the gut of her golden haired sibling. Her 'chosen' sibling, her 'perfect' sibling, the precious Champion of her Nation.
"XAVIER!" Bran Bardic had, had enough, snatching out with superhuman speed and grasping a hold of his sisters outstretched wrist with inhuman strength. She squealed in pain, the bone shattering beneath his iron fingers, her ebony blade dropping limply from her lifeless didgets.
"Xavier was my friend!" his tone turned hard and his sapphire eyes became as cold as steel, the sentinel of the Corps staring down at his cringing sister. She had looked the same throughout her life, in his minds eye, his sister the very same as his memory of their childhood. His sister, his only sister, his beloved sister, he couldn't live without his sister.
The sister for whom he had nearly died for.
"I will not..." he backhanded her savagely with the pommel of his majestic sword, bone cracking and flesh turning swollen, and yet only part of him could see it. Some part of him despised it.
"Let my world..." he struck her a second time, some dark and heated anger swelling deep within his torso.
"BE PLUNGED INTO ANOTHER WAR!" he roared, his sapphire eyes alight with sudden fury, swinging down his blade and reversing the blunted grip.
No pommel struck her cheek this time; instead its keen edge caught her throat and did not falter. Resistance was not an issue, not bone or flesh or even muscle, not a moments pause as her head was sliced cleanly off her torso.
There was a spray of blood and nothing else, no cries or murmurs or final words, nothing but the finality of death.
The Island Nation of Genosha was under siege, Captain Albion had brought it down upon its shores, the death toll would be in the thousands.
War was not an option.
The momentum would end here, upon the bodies of the fallen.
One mass grave to prevent another...
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Elizabeth Braddock emptied the contents of her stomach with a gut wrenching heave, the bile spraying past her lips and exploding into a waiting bucket, one she clutched greedily before her hunched form. She could barely see, her flesh both pale and feverish, lank and purple hair clinging to her sweating cheeks, her muscles shaking from the strain, and yet there was no escaping the vile pool of bile that fermented at the bottom of the bucket.
The stench of it alone was enough to fell full grown hoarse.
It seemed to breadth, the pestilence that had been expelled from her body as projectile vomit, a pulsating mass of black and murky fluids. It breathed and hissed, a venomous mass that was unnatural.
A foul obscenity that should not exist.
“Charming…” she smiled a little, despite the shaking of her shoulders and the paleness of her skin, this was clearly not her finest hour.
For a moment, as the burning fervour passed for the briefest second, Elizabeth Braddock felt calm enough to put her bucket down, leaving it on the floor beside the bed where she had found it. She had known it would be there, waiting for when she needed it, and Elisabeth had to smile a little fondly at the memory, memories that always lingered whenever she came home.
There had always been a bucket there, left by a quieter brother, a moment of attentiveness for a sister doing what she always shouldn’t.
Brian.
BRIAN!!
Elizabeth looked up, startled by the sudden thought of urgency, ignoring the pain that wracked her battered frame, the protests of her many wounds. Where was Brian!?!
“You should be lying down!”
Elizabeth spun her head towards the source of those stern words, half expecting to see a sibling, and instead finding his devoted wife. She was standing in the doorway, as radiant as ever, the elfin women an embodiment of the living earth. Somehow, now, she was even more so, a protective hand resting upon the rounded bump of her growing womb. And yet something was amiss, something different in the woman that she barely knew.
There was a coldness in those blue eyes, a hardness that was not common, a malice that was directed towards the sister of her husband.
“You’ve caused enough disruption as it is…”
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, London, Six Years Ago…
Parliament.
That’s what used to stand here, on this spot, the political heart of an entire Nation, the centre piece of its leadership, a gathering of men who had plunged thousands upon thousands of men into an endless war. They were dead now, buried beneath his feet and lost in the sands of time. Their agendas were spent, their decrees were forgotten.
Their blood stained legacy would never fade.
Their building had been destroyed.
Upon the ashes and the broken rubble, upon the scattered stone and shattered masonry, a new Manor was being built, a new symbol of a United and Reborn Nation, the Fortress of House Bardic, defender of the British Realm!!
Captain Albion stood upon the highest rampart, high above the sounds of hammers and saws, of machinery and gears, of countless men who toiled to make his dream a reality. His helmet was removed, tucked neatly beneath his shoulder, his free hand resting upon the pommel of his ancient sword, quite and at rest.
With piercing eyes, both sapphire and strong, he gazed across the capital, the skeletal ruins of a once strong city, dragging itself up from the pit into which it had fallen. His country had died, through seventy years of war, as though the very land drowned in the blood of her children.
His country had died.
And now, with the coming dawn, it could be reborn.
Its people, could be reborn.
“Have you heard?”
Bran Bardic, Captain Albion of the Corps, turned his head at the sound of that one voice, his confidant and companion, his lover and best friend. Not that they hadn’t butted heads, not that they hadn’t disagreed, Bran, steadfast and proud, and she, intelligent and stubborn.
His wife.
Katherine Pyrde.
An American, a Mutant, and at least a decade his junior.
Oh, Bran Bardic thought with wry amusement, the Scandal.
“And what would that be?” he inquired, returning his eyes to the horizon, the reds and oranges of the infant day, relinquishing his arm as she linked hers with his.
“Talk of Kings” Katherine prodded, brushing aside a strand of chocolate hair from her hazel eyes.
“Oh…” Bran’s wry smile was filled with amusement, his head of golden hair caught in the whispering wind, his armour glistening in the morning light “…and of Queens?”
“That would follow, yes” Katherine laughed with clear amusement “…but that is not the point”.
“No” he agreed before falling silent, his chiselled features formed in sombre musings.
“Should I be King?” he inquired, his sapphire eyes not wavering from that endless skyline.
“They want you to be King” she insisted, only saying what was true, prodding him to understand that.
“And you can not lie to me…” she forced him to look at her, a hand against his cheek to turn his head, her Husband, and savour of an entire world “…You want to be King!”
She trapped his eyes in hers, unwavering an unflinching, defying him to bend the truth, to try and hide behind deception. He couldn’t, not anymore.
“Yes…”
“Then be King!” she announced, releasing his arm with a smile in his eyes and pride in her heart.
“Be who you are”.
“I will try” Bran Bardic nodded, Captain Albion of the Corps, hero of the endless war, savour of his people. He watched her go as she disappeared inside, his wife and one true love.
The future mother of his child.
King.
He mused with quite amusement.
…King Albion.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Britain, Today…
Alex Kent slammed down the breaks and released a shout of pain, his car careening beyond control and slipping along the muddy road. With squeals of protest and the savage groans of grinding gears, the vehicle of poor mechanics jolted to a sudden halt, rocking everything inside and rattling the senses of its driver.
There was a silence, a quite moment at the centre of the storm, the driving rain and the howling wind, Alex Kent aware that he was still alive. He stared unmoving, with dark and sombre eyes, both hazel and unblinking and he saw the tree before him. An ancient oak, sat forebodingly before his windscreen, wrapped in night and draped in shadow, a silent sentinel in place to stall him.
For a moment he was uncertain, the man of middle years and a violent past, both murderer and champion, both hero and villain. The darkness was complete, a blanket of foreboding madness, the sky a rolling mass of frenzied vengeance, a storm of hate and sorrow.
Of sadness and regret.
The final moment...
It was the smallest whisper, a quite hush and a tiny breath, his wife and only love beside him. She wasn't there, even as he looked, both quite and asleep, content and at peace. She wasn't there, his wife and infant child, his life and precious cargo.
She wasn't there.
She was never there.
Alex closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, forgetting the howling winds and starless sky, the fuel of fear and loathing falling from the shattered heavens. He ignored it and drove on, igniting the ignition and leaving the oak of ancient years behind but not forgotten.
A silent sentinel in place stall him, a moments pause to remind him.
"The road..."
He whispered to himself with grim resolve, peering past the howling wind and driving storm, the pestilence of fear.
"...watch the road".
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Genosha, Four Years Ago…
She was screaming, and Captain Albion could not save her.
He hurled himself forward, his sapphire eyes alight with fury, his every limb restrained by those he called his brothers. Colony and Legion, Vigilant and Freedom, Captains all, Champions of their own Worlds, the only ones who could prevent a King from killing himself beside his Queen.
She was burning, imprisoned within a pyre of unholy fire, flames as black as night and smoke as foul as hell. She was burning, trapped and helpless, left to suffer by her tormenters, the final followers of a tyrant and false messiah.
They lay dying at his feet, bleeding from their savage wounds, butchered by his blade, executed by his vengeance. There was a gurgle and spit, a hacking laughter that reached from beyond the shallow grave, a final spit in the face of a broken King. They laughed and hacked as his Queen died.
His Queen and unborn child.
"KATHERINE!!" he yelled to no effect, his howl a mournful cry to echo her desperate screaming, buried deep within the pyre of hate and sin.
He cried and pulled to no avail, held back by those he called his brothers. He cried and cursed and bellowed his eternal vengeance, he cried and wept until he was all but spent, a King amongst his Captains, a King without his conscience.
She screamed, long into the starless night, deep within the burning pyre.
She screamed until there was nothing else but that.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Something was wrong.
She could not explain it, but she could feel it, her attachment to this world, her affinity with the planet, she could feel it in her soul. Something was wrong, something poisonous and lecherous, something sinister and parasitic, something she couldn’t see.
Something was wrong, in the wailing storm and the poison rain, something was wrong and it broke her heart that she couldn’t stop it, that she couldn’t save the planet from its pain, that she couldn’t save her husband.
That she didn’t know how to.
“Elizabeth…” Megan tried to pause, looking back towards the stairs that she knew lead down into the foundations, only to find herself pulled forwards, the surprisingly strong fingers of her husbands sister wrapped tightly around her wrist. She did not enjoy this, a frown creasing her flawless features, worry etched across her brow as she was being hustled hastily throw her own home.
She had tried to be stern, but Elizabeth had been insistent, the woman with violet eyes whom had only just been at deaths door now acting with verve and conviction that one would expect from the fully fit. She had all but leapt from her bed, casting aside her sickness as though it was a passing hindrance, and dragged the elfin wife of her twin brother from the room, insisting that they leave the Braddock home, demanding that they do so.
Demanding without explaining why.
Meggan managed a second fleeting glance back towards the stairwell before it disappeared behind a corner. The foundations and her husbands private fortress, built beneath Manor and housing the Network to…
"We have to leave!" the twin sister of Brian Braddock, the telepath known as Psylocke, the leader of The Hand, pulled more harshly on the arm of Meggan Braddock, leading her sister in law through the Manor and towards the entrance.
"Elizabeth, I don't..." Megan did not like this, not one bit, not as the woman she had been entrusted to care for dragged her through her home, not as the natural world wept around her, not as she cradled a protective hand around the rounded bump of her pregnant womb, not as she feared for her unborn child.
The fitful child of her absent husband.
"Now!" her tone was harsh, her eyes were hard, violet and certain, desperate and…afraid?
"Elizabeth!!" Meggan pulled back harshly, twisting free from the grasp of her sister in law and coming to a sudden stop. Her sapphire eyes were flaring, for but a moment, refusing to be a bystander any longer.
"Explain to me what is happening!"
For a moment, Elizabeth stopped and paused, regarding the elfin woman who carried her unborn nephew, the caring wife of her brother, the grateful daughter of the planet, a warrior in her own right.
"I should not have come here" Elizabeth admitted quietly, looking between the entrance to the Manor and the elfin woman she had placed in danger. The world had shifted, the course of history had been changed, and there was little chance of redemption for those who had caused it.
For those who had let it happen.
"Why?” Meggan questioned, the harshness fleeing from her sapphire eyes, a sense of caring flowing to her youthful features. The elfin woman with golden hair had an affinity for the natural world, and just as easily, the many people within it. She knew pain, she had felt it all too often, she could see it within her minds eyes.
She could see the butterfly trying desperately to survive.
“…what have you done?" there was no accusation; such things would lead them no-where, just a hand that reached out for a sister. A sister, with whom, she had to admit she had her reservations.
Her disagreements.
"I haven't...” Elizabeth sighed, immediately losing patience and taking a hold of Meggans wrist once more, there was no time for this, no time for anything but action. Let Brian over think the matter, by the time he does so he’ll be dead and buried and this time nothing will bring him back.
Elizabeth was not about to let his wife be buried next to him, not on her account.
“…there are people that Brian shouldn't trust, events that I can't explain. I will help him, but first we must get you out of here!"
Meggan hesitated but did not falter, she did not like this but opted not to argue, allowing herself to be lead on for the moment. Something was wrong, her husband was in trouble, and regardless of the intentions of her houseguest, she would not allow the situation to remain the same for long.
Not when she had…
She winced and almost stumbled as they reached the doorway, the archway and entrance to Braddock Manor, the unborn child protected within her belly fighting for reasons she did not know. He was kicking, demanding to be acknowledged, demanding to be heard, demanding that his mother know that he was not happy.
That he was afraid.
She tried to sooth the troubled child, her only son and precious cargo, willing him to feel both warm and safe as Elizabeth swung open the massive doors to her Estate. The storm outside was in no way natural, it was foul and pestilent, it was offensive and unnerving, it was the harbinger of death.
It was not alone.
He stood silently in the doorway, as if waiting for someone to appear, a man of dark hair and darker eyes. A man of sadness and regret, a man of guilt and despair, a man she had come to know these last few months, one drenched from head to toe in the rain of poison.
"...Mr. Kent?" she questioned in surprise, her sapphire eyes alight with worry. Worry that disappeared within a single moment, a moment in which he pulled his firearm from its holster.
A moment in which he fired a single shot…
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, London, Fort Braddock, 2 Years Ago…
His Throne Room was burning.
He could feel the fire searing deep into his soul, the inferno a maelstrom of wrathful flame that wrapped around the columns and slid violently along the walls. Tapestries were ablaze, finely crafted and ancient beyond mortal years, alight with fury and flickering in the dying day.
There was screaming, echoing throughout the stone lined halls, a thousand banshees and tortured souls, a city in its final death throes. There was fighting, the clash of swords and the bark of angry rifles, shouts and curses, cries and shrieks, his entire planet was at war.
The Thirteen-Two-Eleven was under apocalyptic siege.
There was a roar of pain, and Captain Albion was hurled backwards, crashing through the massive doors of ancient oak, and sent crashing into his own throne room. The burning was intense, a thousand frenzied fingers digging deep into his fragile flesh, burning skin and charring bone as he slid along the marble floor, armour plates sparking as he collided against the stone.
With a savage tug Captain Albion wrenched off his helmet from atop his head, hurling it aside and allowing it to clatter into the roaring flames. With a desperate snarl he swept his sword out wide, a deadly arc of enchanted steel, aiming for a villain that was not there.
With tear streaked eyes he scanned the throne room, the burning fortress consumed by smoke and the foulest flame. From left to right his head darted, gripping the pommel of his mighty blade, his sapphire eyes both red and raw, his crown of golden hair both lank and ragged, his flesh was clammy, his breathing heavy, his shoulder bleeding from a savage wound.
There!!
The creature flashed before his vision, a man of flesh and bone and little muscle, a mockery of a mortal. It darted like a phantom, diving backwards through the air, gliding through the fire and flame like a fallen angel, its limbs both twisted and demented, its arms wrapped in rusted chains and crooked hooks, its eyes both vacant and missing, empty sockets buried deep within a crooked skull.
It seemed an eternity, and yet it was but a single moment, the crooked man with crooked teeth darting from here to there, chains of rusted steel snapping outwards like angry vipers and tearing at Captain Albion’s flesh and muscle. The hooks dug deep, a cry accompanying the tearing of his body, a curse and vengeful cry as those chains snapped back, returning to their master and disappearing amongst the endless flames, a portion of his arm taken as their bounty.
He lashed out, the singing of his ancient blade whistling as it pierced the burning air, but there was nothing for him to aim for. Nothing until the crooked man erupted from the inferno, bouncing and spiralling as those rusted chains lashed out, a blinding fury of spinning iron, the deadly dance of some demented demon, a mortal driven to insanity.
In desperation he ducked down, Captain Albion diving forwards as one such chain whistled above his head, the hooks spinning wildly, the blades singing in their fury. The distance between the man and monster disappeared in but a moment, a fraction of a second and phantom was within his reach, its splintered features scowling, its hollow eyes staring, its broken teeth screaming, as Captain Albion thrust his blade forwards.
There was no contact, the crooked phantom flipping high above his head, a fleeting vision followed by blinding pain. The rusted hooks of burning metal dug deep into the mans torso, piercing the armour across his chest, splitting both flesh and muscle, shattering his ribs and puncturing both his lungs. Bran Bardic could only spit and choke, falling to his knees and staring deep into his burning throne room.
There was screaming, a billion voices echoing throughout the final day, a catastrophe of a choir, the dying of his people. He could but watch and stare and his world died, his life’s blood ebbing freely from a broken torso. He could hear them, the thundering of the rifles, in the long and distant past, the shouts and the curses and the endless war. He could feel them, the burning of his enemies, the city drowning in a sweeping fire, his hand caked in crimson blood. He could see them, those dying upon the beaches, the impaled upon his sword, those buried beneath a thousand corpses.
He could remember them, his every moment, his endless cycle, a lifetime of misery and death, the persecutor of a war.
The warrior of peace.
“Where is your Mother now?”
There was a question, a query from the burning world, a whisper upon the absent wind, the sweet melody of violence.
“Is she here, did you know her, is she gone?”
There was an Angel, a vision from the endless flame, striding from the furnace to stand before him, cloaked in sin, carried by vengeance. A phantom of a thousand voices, the epitome of despair.
The carrier of the Midnight Sphere.
“Reveal your sin, and I will tell you mine, such things to show you, such things to tell you…”
She promised with rose lips, with music and enchantment, with the Sphere of midnight black, the Sphere of endless torment, the Sphere of the Final Moment.
“Behold the sin, so many sins, the answer and the question, the cost and the consequence…behold sweet boy, behold and weep for the final moment…”
She was smiling sweetly, the phantom with the darkest eyes.
“…BEHOLD THE SIN OF MERLIN!!”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: The soul of Britain is under siege and Braddock Manor is suddenly at the forefront, but with Captain Britain absent, what does that mean for those still residing there? Meanwhile, Avalon has appeared in a place unknown, while Captain Albion and his invaders have disappeared, but if they are no longer besieging the Fortress of the Corps, to where have their conquests led them?