Back to Gatefold
Issue #4 by William Sinclair
|
“SEED OF EVIL – Part Four”
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, A Lifetime Ago…
His Father called it the Hall of Heroes.
Brian Braddock wasn't really old enough to understand, barely able to remain upright and surrounded by his heritage. He was a child, not much more than an infant, standing defiantly against the will of gravity and suckling uncertainty upon his thumb. They were giants, all around him, giants forged from steel and blazing iron, they were his ancestors.
He waddled forwards, short legs supporting his diminutive frame as best they could, each new found step a new and glorious victory. It was a new trick, the mastery of his feet, and the infant had been quick to take advantage, wondering away from under the watchful gaze of his parents, and finding his way here. He was alone, except for them, the ring of silent sentinels from the distant past.
He gazed upon them with a quite coo, blue eyes wide with silent wonder, the suits of armour both polished and gleaming. There seemed to be so many, tall and imposing, each standing guard and keeping vigil, the will of the Braddock Bloodline bound tightly within their fibres.
He looked upon their helms, closed and silent, hiding vacant eyes from ages past. He fancied he could see them, raising one chubby hand, flexing his dumpy fingers in awed welcome, the infant Braddock held in wonder. He could see them, those ageless eyes, gazing down through both time and space, one generation reaching out towards the other.
He could hear them, the clash of swords and the crash of shields, the cries of victories and the woes of failure. He could hear them, from forgotten times, surrounding him with their wisdom.
With uncertain steps, he waddled further, one tiny hand outstretched and searching. He could see it, with blue eyes, wide with wonder; he could see the sword between the gauntlets of his forbearer. It seemed unreal, so bright and alien, the markings along its flat brighter than the blade. It seemed unreal and yet so true, he could hear the sounds of singing.
"NO BRIAN!"
Suddenly he was flying, young Brian Braddock cooing his surprise! He was whisked high up into the air by his mothers arm and held protectively to his mothers breast, the parent looking disapprovingly upon her infant son. His wide eyes were confused, his blue eyes were uncertain, her own eyes were only worried.
"Sharp!"
She told him, Brian suckling upon his thumb with little understanding.
"Sharp Brian!"
His mother repeated, Brian opting to droop his head against her shoulder, listening to her words and gazing about the Hall of Heroes, the armour and the shields, the swords and the ageless eyes.
"Not today..."
His mother carried him from the past, his eyes now heavy from his adventure, his will now slipping into slumber, the past now drifting into dreams.
Memories half forgotten.
"...not today".
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
The car came to a sudden halt, breaking harshly and shuddering to a stand still, Alex Kent grimacing in pain as it did so. His side was torn open, one hand reaching for the wound while the other gripped the steering wheel. The injury had been poorly tended; his entire midriff wrapped shoddily in duct tape, the jagged seams of the bullet wound held together by force alone.
He could feel the wound was weeping, the crimson stain leaking down his hip, Alex Kent all but slamming his forehead down against the steering wheel in an attempt to ignore the hammering of his temples. The injury had been as clean as it could be, the bullet having slammed into his back and shot out through his front without hitting any organs. It still hurt like holy hell; he still had a hole the size of an acorn running through his midriff.
He was still bleeding to death.
He could hear the rain, slamming down against his vehicle, an angry hiss lashing against his windows, a vicious venom in the wind, the cries of fury in the thunder. He could feel the Beast of Countless Voices tearing apart the very world; he could feel it ripping at the edges of reality.
He could feel the ending of mankind.
Agent Kent opened his eyes and looked outwards through the windscreen, staring upon the battered landscape of a country under siege. The poison had no ending, the darkness was consuming, and the Manor was there before him, silhouetted by the final night.
With a painful grimace, one that contorted his pale features, Alex Kent pulled his handgun from its holster, the weight of which was cold within his hands. He tried to see her, as he held the weapon he had once put down, he tried to see her in the seat beside him, half asleep and nearly dreaming.
He tried to see her but he couldn’t.
His one and only failure.
With a frustrated snarl, Agent Kent slammed his car door open, his gun in hand as he stepped out into the destructive darkness. The poison rain consumed him, washing over all his senses, leaking into his mind and biting at his very spirit. The wound across his midriff flared with angry violence, protesting with a spit of blood as he took his every step.
He tried to see her but he couldn’t, his wife and only love, his infant child and her quite cooing. He tried to see them but he couldn’t.
Not today.
Not on any day he was out to kill…
# # # # #
Earth 616, Darkmoor Nuclear Research Centre, Ten Years Ago...
His shoulder was on fire, but Brian Braddock could ill afford to slow down. He could barely see where he was going, tearing down the mountain road as quickly as his motorcycle could carry him, the engine roaring, the half moon and the starless sky doing nothing to illuminate the way before him. His life had become a blur, his heartbeat was like a canon, his life was almost over.
Shots rang out, several of them ripping through the air and whipping past his cranium, a thunder crack of violence. He kept his head low, his body crouched along his motorcycle, his hands gripping the accelerator until his knuckles had turned both white and pale. The thunder cracks continued, whipping past his speeding frame as he sped around a sharp corner, tires screaming for safe purchase, oblivion reaching out beside him.
There was blood dripping from his shoulder, pooling from a shredded wound and leaking a crimson trail behind him. He ignored it as best he could, the bullet wound that had torn his flesh. With gritted teeth he saw past it, with desperate determination he sped forwards, with suicidal speed he descended.
They were right behind him, gaining with every heartbeat, the car of midnight black packed with those who had killed his friends and peers. They would kill him because they could, they would kill him because he couldn’t stop them.
Suddenly his world exploded, something ripping into his back and exploding savagely outwards from his torso. There was nothing but the sound, the ringing and the awful screeching, the blood and his final ending. It seemed to last a lifetime, the moment in which it happened, his body going limp and sent hurtling towards a chasm, the pain and torment and the startling clarity.
He could see the sky, as he tumbled towards his early doom, the heavens and its eerie calm. He could see forever, in that moment, the past and the present and the final moment. He could see the armour and the sword, he could see his mother and his sister, he could see his father and the moment.
The only moment from a lifetime.
Then there was the pain, the falling and the tumbling, the broken bones and battered flesh. For the first time in his life, Brain Braddock died.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Meggans heart skipped a beat as she saw the moment that would kill her.
She flinched as the gun was fired, the perpetrator of this violence standing in her open doorway, a man she trusted and thought she knew. There was but a moment to react on instinct, the elfin women not thinking of herself, her hands moving protectively around the rounded hump of her pregnant belly, her unborn infant panicking within her womb.
She closed her eyes and thought of Brian, even as Alex Kent fired the single bullet, a final memory for her absent husband, praying for his well being.
But then, as the wind parted beside her head, the moment passed and she was not dead.
Megan opened her eyes in stark surprise, spinning rapidly as a horrific scream erupted in the air behind her. She was left aghast by the vision that she witnessed, the monster of shadow black reeling backwards, a spray of sickly ichors erupting from its torso, its high pitched wailing echoing throughout the hallways. Its corrupted form collapsed upon the floor, its scything arms flapping wildly as its pointed jaw shrieked obscenities, its blackest form withering into the foulest stain of filth.
The beast had almost killed her, Alex Kent had saved her, and Meggan Braddock felt immediately compelled to spin around and apologise for questioning his behaviour. There was no time for the words to escape her lips, not as her hand snatched forwards, grabbing the startled Agent Kent by the collar and dragging him bodily inside.
The world erupted where he had just been standing, dozens more of the foulest creatures falling from the sky and erupting upwards from the earth. They were barbaric, gibbering creatures of demented violence, gibbering at the jaws, wailing at the world, thrashing their way towards her.
The door was slammed shut before the beasts could enter, Elizabeth Braddock temporarily sealing them outside
Why?
Meggan could only think of that, gripped by panic and confusion, outright terrified for the safety of her unborn infant, her only child.
She couldn’t understand, she didn’t want to understand, how could anything hate so much?
# # # # #
Earth 616, London, Nine Years Ago…
The firestorm hit him like a freight train, one that sent Brian Braddock plummeting from the sky and slamming backwards into the pavement. He hit the concrete with a thunderous crash, the earth itself rippling from the explosion, a shockwave that upturned cars, smashed windows and toppled entire buildings. There was a catastrophe of sound, of screams and cries and panicked yelling, and yet Brian Braddock could barely hear it, dragging himself from the debris, deafened and bleeding from the forehead.
His crimson uniform was shredded, torn and bloodied from a conflict he could scarcely grasp. The mask was mostly gone, a visage that identified him as Captain Britain, the young man looking upwards with a swollen eye. The sky above the city was on fire, twisted to the whims of a mad man wrapped in tattered robes and stinking cloth, his eyes both wide and staring, his voice both shrill and shrieking. The man had lost it, consumed by the forces he had tried to wield, unravelling the laws of reality itself.
He didn’t understand it; such imagery defied all his lifetimes learning’s. Everything had changed, from the moment he had made his choice, everything about the world was different, everything about himself was different. He could feel it, even as he pulled his battered body upright, fire and brimstone raining down around him, he could feel his country and his people. He could feel it in his fibres, in his soul, the whisper in his mind, the echo in his heart; he could feel their pain and fear.
But he didn’t understand it.
Suddenly the sky descended, directed by the whims of a lunatic, a cyclonic roar of burning fire and fury descending down towards the city streets. People screamed and cried, out of fear and for mercy, mothers and their children, fathers and their families, brothers and their sisters, his people. The very ones he was here to save.
With a defiant shout he hurled his mace upwards, the silver sceptre held tightly within his grasp. He struck the maelstrom of hate and malice as it descended, the two opposing forces of ancient might colliding with catastrophic fury. It was like standing in the eye of hell, his sceptre held aloft before him, fuelled by his courage and sheer defiance, the howling fury of a firestorm held back and kept at bay.
It was tearing at his fibres, an ancient beast of primal fury, pulling at his very being but he would not falter. His people were behind him, protected just beyond the human shield, saved by the avatar of their entire nation.
He didn’t understand it, his life and who he had become, but he didn’t have to. He could feel it, deep within his soul, his people and his country; he could feel himself and his purpose.
He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t have to, he was a shield, he was a guardian, and today, he refused to falter…
# # # # #
Earth Unknown, Avalon, Today…
Young Gwynn was at a loss, the elfin girl standing beside his bed, fraught with worry and filled with nervous impulse, the two of them the only occupants within the Hall of Healing, the only souls left in Avalon.
He was barely breathing, the young man known as Captain Flagship clinging to his life while his ribcage was a shattered ruin. Hesitantly she stroked his forehead, the flesh feverish beneath her fingers, wishing desperately she had even the basic understanding of how to save him. He was so pale, fitful in his dreaming, young Gwynn having already cast what enchantments she could think of, all to no avail.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he was strong and confident and full of life. He wasn’t supposed to be like this, so weak and frail and so terribly helpless. None of this was right, everything had gone so wrong. Why was she the only one still here?
Why...why couldn’t she save him?
She was flinching at every sound, the elfin girl suspicious of every whisper, the ghosts that travelled throughout the corridors and the phantoms in the dark. Barely hours ago Avalon had been at war, its Captains had waged a bloody conflict, Brothers had set upon each other. Gwynn was just a girl, an apprentice with no taste for battle; she had never before seen the face of violence.
She jumped as there was a heavy crashing; an awful sound of clanking that filled the chambers with an angry banging! It echoed all around her, flashing between the shadows, Gwynn pulling back her wings as she stood between the ailing Captain Flagship and the open doorway.
From her belt, she whipped out her tiny knife and held it unsteadily before her, pointing it towards the phantom foes. She wanted desperately to flee, to take flight from this haunted place and leave any sense of danger far behind her. She wanted to, but she wouldn’t, she couldn’t, the frightened girl refusing to falter from the wounded side of Captain Flagship, refusing to be a coward when she was needed.
She refused to leave him to his fate.
Her hands were shaking, the tiny blade flashing brightly in the dim light, her lip set in her greatest ever show of defiance.
She had never been so scared, fearful of something just beyond the corner, not even as the Leviathan of Steel dropped a heavy hand upon her shaking shoulder…
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Genosha, Seven Years Ago...
The impact was horrendous, slamming against his chin and sending Brian Braddock, Captain Britain of Earth Six-Sixteen, hurtling backwards and straight into a building. He crashed through one side and smashed out through the other, scattering debris in all directions and erupting a small path of destruction within a heartbeat. He tumbled backwards through the air, both defying and surrendering to the primal forces that were gravity, regaining his bearings just in time to see the instigator of his freefall plummeting down towards him. Captain Albion, Bran Bardic, the champion of this world, and the man responsible for ending the lives of over half a million.
With a harsh tug, Captain Britain yanked his helmet from off his head, and swung in wildly in a rapid arc before him. There was a terrific crash, the hardened headpiece smashing against the side of Albion’s face as he descended. The crack was almost sickening, the sound of enchanted steel battering against mortal flesh. The helmet buckled beneath the impact, warping about the features of Bran Bardic, the mans all too fragile cheek doing likewise.
There was a spray of blood as the head of Bran Bardic twisted harshly from the impact, the chosen champion of this world tumbling beyond control towards the ground below them. He landed amongst the dead, amidst the shallow graves of those who had lived here; their hollow screams howling back as he struggled in the mud.
Albion could only snarl as he looked back upwards towards the sky, the blackened clouds and angry fires silhouetting the intruder of his realm. He reached for the pommel of his blade as Captain Britain of the Six-Sixteen descended, the two of them reflections of the other. He ignored the blood of his broken cheek as he unsheathed his enchanted sword, listening to its music as he swung it wide, crying out as the two inhuman men collided with inhuman force.
The ground was shaking throughout the impact, the gutted buildings on either side crumbling to their foundations. Both men spat, wrestling for the blade, struggling amongst the fallen, fighting above the dead.
"THAT IS ENOUGH ALBION!" Brian Braddock snapped, struggling with his counterpart from another world "THESE PEOPLE ARE DEFEATED, THIS IS WRONG!"
"THIS IS WAR!" Bran Bardic returned with equal venom, slamming his head forwards with a savage motion. His forehead smashed into Braddock’s nose, a flash of pain crashing through his senses, his counterpart stumbling backwards from the impact.
This isn't what he had wanted, Bran Bardic making a discovery as he assembled an army from the myriad ranks of the Corps. He had not only found a brother Captain on the world of Six-Sixteen, but also a brother in genetics, a man who shared his face. Their worlds were not the same, Braddock’s had been spared seventy years of endless war, but surely they were not so different, surely he had found his kin.
A man who could understand him.
He spat again, Bardic's mouth filled with blood, blinking through the rain that fell from sick and heavy clouds. The sky turned dark and mournful, loud and violent.
"THIS IS MURDER!" Captain Britain retained his footing, blinded by both his pain and the boiling rain. The city was in ruins, its people were all but dead, a blackened husk of raging fires, drowning beneath the falling sea of sorrow.
He felt sick, he felt poisoned, he felt doubt.
This was wrong.
This was all wrong.
"THIS IS GENOCIDE!" he raged, the Captains sent hurling forwards, driven by their pasts, fated by their futures, colliding beneath a violent sky.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Adrenalin was her addiction.
She launched backwards off a wall, Elizabeth Braddock pivoting with unnatural grace as her summoned blade of midnight black pierced the air with an inhuman wail. Its keen edge made contact with a slavering beast, one warped from shadows and fuelled by frenzy, the blade slipping through its skull and toppling the creature into a pile of sickly vapours. She landed with a feather touch, spiralling and spinning, lashing outwards with a piercing strike and penetrating the torso of another beast.
Her heart was beating faster than was natural, thundering against her ribcage as she circled the pregnant Meggan, maintaining a swift perimeter with the stranger Alex Kent, the trio of them moving down the hallway, the painted eyes of Braddocks past glaring downwards as they retreated. Her muscles were fit to burst, torn and shredded by days of conflict, exhausted and fatigued by endless punishment. She was almost dead, on the very brink of collapse, and yet something refused to let her falter.
At times like this, so close to death, she never felt more alive.
Her blood was rushing through her system, all her senses on high alert as she darted to the left, a pair of scything talons crashing downwards into the floor, the wood panelling erupting into splinters. She danced from one foot onto the other, pivoting and slashing, breathing and attacking, cutting down each black spawn creation as they ripped and tore their way into the living world.
She had known them once, the lives behind those sightless eyes; she had known them and believed that they could be better.
Elizabeth cried out as a fresh wound was split open across her shoulder, the newest of a dozen, the trails of blood spinning in the air as she retreated. For several steps she stumbled, keeping pace with the other two, before pivoting and bringing her soul born blade to muster. Two of the creatures stood before her, the latest of the phantoms to breach her Manors walls, both of them slavering and spitting with a hateful wail.
She should be dead and yet she would not falter, her adrenaline her addiction.
“Come then children...”
Her gaze was piercing towards the phantom monsters, the men that no longer were so.
“...show Mother what you have learned!”
# # # # #
Between Worlds, Avalon, Six Years Ago…
Doubt.
It was poison, clouding his every judgement, weighing down upon his soul, Brian Braddock could not see beyond his own confusion.
He was alone within the Greeting Hall, his only company within the vast, domed chamber, his breathing the only sound. The coliseum that surrounded him was empty, the seats vacant and unused, the very air itself, tinged with the scent of apples from the orchids just outside, was undisturbed by the presence of his brother Captains. Brian Braddock was alone, guised in the form of Captain Britain of Earth Six-Sixteen, gazing upon the history of the Corps.
The pillars seemed unending, impossible to count, almost moving when one stopped looking, always room for further exploits. They reached high up towards the ceiling, supporting the sea of stars born across its surface, each one forged from the strongest stone, and carved from the purest marble. The images were beautiful, crafted by no mortal hand, each one flowing into the next, an endless tide of endless victories, the greatest heroes of the Corps. Each of them remembered, each of them immortalised, each of them a hero.
Brian had to wonder, as he looked upon them with quite musing, his helm tucked stiffly beneath his shoulder, if any of them had been real, he had to wonder if any of this had happened. He had to wonder if it was all a lie.
A lie, Brian frowned, his head bowed low and his shoulders tensing, a lie just like himself. His identity was in question, his choices were no longer valid, his entire life had become a mockery, he knew the truth, and it enraged him to know the answer.
His life was a lie.
His Father had not been human, an agent born on Otherworld, his Mother had been his accomplice, his birth…his birth had been an experiment. He had not been born, he was not a child of chance, he had been built by science, forged by magic, and spat out mewling into the world to serve a single purpose. He had not been born, he had been created, Merlin’s simple plaything.
Doubt.
Everything in his life was now wrought with doubt, the choices he had made, the paths he had taken, all of it had been planned, all of it had been manipulated. He had decided nothing for himself, not even the deeds that made him strong, he could not even claim his failures.
Doubt.
How much of it was true? He had to wonder, his sapphire eyes sweeping across the chamber, the vastness of this great history open out before him. How much of it was true, how much of it was lies, how much of it was deceit? How many of them were being controlled?
He didn’t like the answers, and he didn’t like the choices.
Doubt.
Brian closed his eyes and returned his helm to across his features; it was a poison in his veins, a burden upon his soul, one he found hard to live with.
Captain.
He thought bitterly to himself, the man he had been born to be.
…Captain Britain.
# # # # #
Earth Unknown, Avalon, Today…
“OH MY GOD, I’M SO SORRY!!” young Gwynn apologised profusely as she took several hurried steps backwards, both her wings pulled in tightly as she bit her lower lip. The eyes of the elfin girl were focused entirely upon her dagger, the tiny blade now buried to the hilt in the shoulder of her unexpected guest. She had plunged it there, with all her might, spinning in surprise and striking like a clumsy viper, she sincerely wished she hadn’t.
She had just attacked the Guardian of Avalon.
It wasn’t human, a mechanised creation from an Earth she didn’t know, a machine built to vaguely resemble the form of man. There seemed to be no reason to its construction, the manner in which it had been formed, its materials were random, its structure was erratic. There was no symmetry between one half and the next, no precision in its outer shell, all its parts appeared archaic.
The Machine of Tomorrow built from the remnants of a steam train.
With a tilt of its inhuman head, blue eyes of light peering outwards from its metallic skull, it observed the knife buried deep within its shoulder with quite interest. With a grinding of hidden gears, and a whistling burst of air erupting from a shoulder mounted piston, the mechanised creation raised its other arm, tapping the hilt of ornate dagger before he pulled it free.
There was a spurt of what Gwynn assumed was oil, the elfin girl still biting her lower lip, watching as the mechanised creation flipped the blade in its massive fingers. There was a moments pause, the Guardian of Avalon observing some hidden truth, before the young apprentice broke the silence.
“I’m really sorry!” she professed sincerely “does its hurt Captain… Captain…?” she struggled to remember.
“VIGILENT!” the mechanised creation announced with a sudden dramatic flourish, bowing deeply with a swish of its unwounded arm.
Young Gwynn stepped quickly backwards, startled by the sudden movements and the mannerisms that were entirely alien to the malformed construct. She watched wide eyed as it stood tall, its awkward body moving with inhuman grace, its simulated voice as hollow as a fog horn.
“Fear not, ‘tis but a flesh wound!” the mechanised creation declared, flipping the blade and offering it back towards the elfin girl.
“It does me well to see that the Heart of Avalon still beats!”
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, One Year Ago...
Meggan always enjoyed company.
He could see her down below, in the summer sun, as he looked downwards from one of the Manors many balconies, his elfin wife ‘guiding’ a most welcome guest through the clearings of her vast garden. It seemed so natural, to see her amongst the trees and the flowers and the many bushes, the orchids seemingly an extension of her vibrant spirit. It was true, in a sense, the natural world flocking for her attention, finding unity within her presence.
She was explaining everything in great detail, pointing out each new plant and new breed of flower with ever greater interest, her enthusiasm forcing her every sentence to run rapidly into the next. Young Katherine Pryde was trying to keep up; valiantly so in fact, but no mortal mind could hope to do so. Instead she would nod and smile, indulging the Lady of the House as the she was led deeper into the grove, each new corner leading to even newer discoveries, most of which would only end up being half explained before the next one was fast upon them.
Brian could only smile, standing tall with shoulders straight, a sigh of satisfaction filling his large torso. Contentment, it was a state of mind that had so frequently eluded him; it was one he could grow used to. Confidence in himself, confidence in his place, confidence in the choices he had made. This was his life, for better or worse, and he was the one who had decided it.
“I noticed you have made your escape” Brian commented without turning, his hands resting upon the marble railings.
“Ja...” Kurt Wagner admitted with a devilish grin, the blue furred former X-Man emerging from the shadows and perching himself upon the railing with an acrobatic flourish. He seemed oddly out of place in the sunlight, the sapphire nature of his complexion at odds with the summer sun “...I believe it is time for young Ms. Pryde to take one for the team!”
“She’ll not forgive you” Brian made a sideways glance towards his long time friend, and at times, his harshest critic.
“Which one?” Kurt Wagner queried, tapping his chin with semi-perplexed thought.
“Both!” Brian laughed with a small amount of mirth “Meggan especially, she most certainly adores you”.
“I will make it up to her I promise” Kurt smiled with a flick of his tail, his roughish mannerisms coming to the fore, that is until they rapidly reseeded at the sight of the Orchids down below them. “I feel, however, that I acted in self preservation...as odd as it may sound, I believe your garden is not...fond of me!”
“It isn’t” Brian agreed as he too looked down towards the orchids, well aware of that other presence amongst the trees, a sense of jealously that was impossible to shake. “You’re not the only one”.
There was a pause for just a moment, the two former team mates and founders of Excalibur watching as the Lady of the House and Katherine Pryde disappeared from view, turning a corner and out of sight. Brian was the first to break it, his mood turning swiftly sombre, confident he was beyond the range of Meggans empathy.
“She wants to have a child” he stated somewhat flatly, his rigid posture suddenly ill at ease.
“Really!” Kurt stated in surprise, an expression that turned swiftly from a grin and quickly into concern “Is that not good?”
“I don’t...yes...I want us to have a child”.
“And yet?”
“I’m not convinced it’s possible” Brian admitted as he leaned forwards, his elbows upon the marble railing, his brow furrowed with familiar confusion. So much of his own childhood had been engineered, his genetics and his behaviour, the doubt was always there, the lingering seed of mistrust, the ever present hand of control. Just how much of his life was planned?
Was his ending already written?
Had a new beginning been foretold?
“I’m not convinced it should be...”
“And if it is?” Kurt Wagner questioned, frequently concerned for the mental state of his companion.
“If it is...” Brian stood up straight, pausing for but a moment as he looked outwards towards the horizon “...if it is, I would ask you to be the God Father...”
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now...
Her husband called it the Hall of Heroes.
She had felt safer from the moment the three of them had entered, Meggan finding herself being shepherded ever deeper into the Manor as more of the foulest creatures from the eternal night found entrance into her home. She could still hear them, jabbering their insane wailings, even as the heavy doors of this domed chamber were slammed shut, her sister-in-law muttering some quite incantation even as they were being sealed. She could still hear them, but they seemed so distant, the way obstructed by the silent sentinels that surrounded them.
The moments that followed were filled with precious silence, Meggan taking stock of her surroundings, her hands cradling her pregnant womb, the unborn child no longer fitful and quietly sleeping. She feared for his safety, her only son and precious cargo, she feared for her two guardians.
They stood defiantly, and yet they could barely stand, both wounded and at deaths door. They protected her but they shouldn’t, they protected her although they couldn’t.
She looked to the Braddocks that surrounded them, the suits of armour that bore shield and sword, the silent sentinels from times past, the champions of another era. They stood resilient, wordless in their vigilance, soundless in their stewardship of a legacy. Meggan had never really understood it, how they seemed to whisper, and yet she had never felt ill at ease within their company.
She never felt alone.
There was a great crashing upon the door, an unholy racket that forced all three to step backwards, both sword and blade brought to bear. The punishment continued, a howling of angry violence, an incredible force of howling fury that battered upon the barricade, the final barrier and her doom. They were coming, the fiends of frenzied voices, they were coming to kill her family.
With an angry frown, Meggan marched from her place of safety at the centre of the room, ignoring the protests of Elizabeth and reaching outwards for both sword and shield. The suit of armour did not protest, surrendering the weapon without a single whisper, the markings upon its flat brighter than the blade.
Its seemed unreal and yet so true, she could hear the sounds of singing.
“Meggan, stay back” Elizabeth insisted!
“No!” Meggan refused with a defiant turn of her chin, returning to the centre of the room, surrounded by the heroes of ages past, armed with both singing sword and blazing shield.
“This is my home!” the elfin women with golden hair glared defiantly upon the failing doorway, her sapphire eyes alight with conviction.
“These monsters are not welcome!”
# # # # #
Earth 616, Nottingham, Six Months Ago…
The sky had opened wide and swollen Brian Braddock whole.
He was falling, tumbling through the destruction of a planet, the shattering of a cosmos, deafened by the cries of a billion souls. They tore at him, with dead eyes and clawing fingers, with sharp teeth and shattered jaw lines, with broken bones and howling torment. They clawed and scratched and ripped into his torso, they screeched and they cried as they dragged him down towards the pits of hell.
“Brian…”
There was singing, a single harmony, reaching from today and right into tomorrow, an echo of a tune, a memory within a heartbeat. There was singing, mournful and forgotten, regret and cries for mercy. The lyrics of a ballad, the lamenting of a choir, the songs of angels that were falling. The void and the silence and the endless echo.
The Final Moment.
Defiance within a heartbeat.
“Brian!”
The obelisk of night was crumbling, the sea of sand was failing, the spire of light was unending, reaching towards the heavens, collapsing every star, swallowing the universe towards the final moment. One last moment, a final memory, a stolen kiss.
The Final Moment of Mankind.
“CAPTAIN!!”
Suddenly it was gone, Brian Braddock panicking as he stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet as he was ripped out from that world and sent tumbling into another. Relief flooded through his system, he was back, alive and whole, the world around him both physical and breathing. He could feel it, his nation beneath his fingers, solid and unmoving; he could feel it, carrying him atop its shoulders.
“Captain?”
The sense of clarity was startling, to be removed from that nightmarish realm and to be back beneath the skies of Britain. He was sweating, his skin both pale and pallid, and his hands…his hands were both burned and black.
Agent Baynam was beside him, the woman with amber eyes laying a hand across his shoulder. She shook him, demanding his attention, demanding that he recognise the here and now.
“Captain, what happened?” for a moment she was concerned “We almost lost you there”.
“I don’t…” Brian looked to his hands and then the Sphere, the blot of shadow that stained the landscape, the seed of pestilence and fear. It was no larger than his fists, and yet it echoed for eternity. It hung suspended in the air, midnight black and sickening to the touch. It was a disease, an infection, one that poisoned everything around it.
Brain curled his lip and found his feet, the very presence of the thing offensive in its nature. He could still feel it, a whisper in his memory, a stain upon his conscience; he could still hear it, echoing across eternity, the sins of all mankind.
“Captain!” Agent Baynam pulled his arm back, pulling down the mask that protected her from the airborne poison. She ignored the sickening taste upon her tongue; she forced him to stare into amber eyes.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know…” Brian confessed, straightening his shoulders, glaring back towards the Sphere and all its silent violence. He could see into its surface, the shimmering pearl of midnight, he could see its beating heart.
“Kill it!” he demanded harshly.
“Excuse me?” Agent Baynam questioned, ready to remind the former Captain he was only here as a consultant.
“Destroy it!” he snapped, glaring deep into that Sphere of night, the stain upon mankind. He could almost see that moment, the memory beneath the torment, a lingering sense that he had seen it once before.
“Or I will…”
# # # # #
Earth 616, London, The Black Library, Now…
The cigarette was poison, she knew that, and yet Agent Baynam had long since grown beyond such small concerns. She inhaled deeply, the black smoke filling her jaw and settling down across her tongue, it was foul, the choking vapours filling her nose and seeping down her throat. For long moments she held it there, unmoving and not breathing, suffocating on the toxins. Her amber eyes rolled backwards, hidden by dark glasses, before she finally exhaled and ejected the inky blackness from her system.
She stared intently out her office window, standing before the glass and gazing into the night time hours. The rain was thundering against its surface, pounding at the barrier, unleashed from the raging heavens and sent hurtling down into a howling world. The storm was growing more fearsome, the clouds turned ever darker, the fibres of the Nation were unravelling.
She inhaled a second time, the cigarette between her finger tips blazing brightly, she did not exhale. Instead she swallowed, the cloud of poison slipping into her system, clouding all her senses, causing her lungs to hack and shudder. Again her amber eyes rolled backwards, staring deep into the confines of her skull, Agent Baynam of MI-13 clinging to that moment between life and death.
Then there was a thunderclap, one that was followed by his presence, the arrival of the man shaking the very world around him. He plummeted from the sky outside the building, blazing past the window and crashing to a thunderous landing upon the pavement. He was unharmed; she could see that even from her vantage, staring down towards the man who would impose himself into her personal affairs, a man who was no longer wanted, a man who was no longer needed.
Brian Braddock, formally Captain Britain, the man who waded through the flooded streets of poison rain towards her building, a man who had refused to stand by her side. She resisted the urge to curl her lip in irritation, instead pressing the still lit tip of her cigarette into her open palm as penance; she owed the man an apology, not her disdain.
“He’s here” she commented shortly, intoxicated by the fleeting stench of burning flesh “I could bar him entrance”.
“No…” her frequent guest and new partner unfolded his frame from sitting up to standing, accompanied by the clanking of his polished armour “…allow him entrance, have your men show him to the Gallery”.
“Are you certain?” Agent Baynam questioned calmly, retrieving her handgun from the desk draw, removing with it a second item, one both smooth and polished, the metal freezing to the touch.
“He may not understand…”
“I assure you he won’t” the giant of a man promised with a self indulgent grin, the expression contorted by the golden mask of a lion welded across his upper features, its jaws smeared with the blood of brothers.
“But Brian Braddock once saw fit to dictate policy on my world!” Bran Bardic, Captain Albion of Earth Thirteen-Two-Eleven growled with sudden venom, all sense of mirth and amusement vanishing within a heartbeat.
“It is only right that I do likewise!”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: There is a dark secret buried within the foundations of the Corps, a sin against Mankind that has been long forgot, and with the emergence of the Sphere in the Six-Sixteen, the unraveling of the Multiverse is to be our punishment. Is the Final Moment fast approaching, or has is already come and gone, and why does Brain Braddock feel as though he’s seen this all before? ‘Seed of Evil’ enters its penultimate chapter, and where there could be answers, there may only be more questions, and where there was once peace...there can be only War!
His Father called it the Hall of Heroes.
Brian Braddock wasn't really old enough to understand, barely able to remain upright and surrounded by his heritage. He was a child, not much more than an infant, standing defiantly against the will of gravity and suckling uncertainty upon his thumb. They were giants, all around him, giants forged from steel and blazing iron, they were his ancestors.
He waddled forwards, short legs supporting his diminutive frame as best they could, each new found step a new and glorious victory. It was a new trick, the mastery of his feet, and the infant had been quick to take advantage, wondering away from under the watchful gaze of his parents, and finding his way here. He was alone, except for them, the ring of silent sentinels from the distant past.
He gazed upon them with a quite coo, blue eyes wide with silent wonder, the suits of armour both polished and gleaming. There seemed to be so many, tall and imposing, each standing guard and keeping vigil, the will of the Braddock Bloodline bound tightly within their fibres.
He looked upon their helms, closed and silent, hiding vacant eyes from ages past. He fancied he could see them, raising one chubby hand, flexing his dumpy fingers in awed welcome, the infant Braddock held in wonder. He could see them, those ageless eyes, gazing down through both time and space, one generation reaching out towards the other.
He could hear them, the clash of swords and the crash of shields, the cries of victories and the woes of failure. He could hear them, from forgotten times, surrounding him with their wisdom.
With uncertain steps, he waddled further, one tiny hand outstretched and searching. He could see it, with blue eyes, wide with wonder; he could see the sword between the gauntlets of his forbearer. It seemed unreal, so bright and alien, the markings along its flat brighter than the blade. It seemed unreal and yet so true, he could hear the sounds of singing.
"NO BRIAN!"
Suddenly he was flying, young Brian Braddock cooing his surprise! He was whisked high up into the air by his mothers arm and held protectively to his mothers breast, the parent looking disapprovingly upon her infant son. His wide eyes were confused, his blue eyes were uncertain, her own eyes were only worried.
"Sharp!"
She told him, Brian suckling upon his thumb with little understanding.
"Sharp Brian!"
His mother repeated, Brian opting to droop his head against her shoulder, listening to her words and gazing about the Hall of Heroes, the armour and the shields, the swords and the ageless eyes.
"Not today..."
His mother carried him from the past, his eyes now heavy from his adventure, his will now slipping into slumber, the past now drifting into dreams.
Memories half forgotten.
"...not today".
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
The car came to a sudden halt, breaking harshly and shuddering to a stand still, Alex Kent grimacing in pain as it did so. His side was torn open, one hand reaching for the wound while the other gripped the steering wheel. The injury had been poorly tended; his entire midriff wrapped shoddily in duct tape, the jagged seams of the bullet wound held together by force alone.
He could feel the wound was weeping, the crimson stain leaking down his hip, Alex Kent all but slamming his forehead down against the steering wheel in an attempt to ignore the hammering of his temples. The injury had been as clean as it could be, the bullet having slammed into his back and shot out through his front without hitting any organs. It still hurt like holy hell; he still had a hole the size of an acorn running through his midriff.
He was still bleeding to death.
He could hear the rain, slamming down against his vehicle, an angry hiss lashing against his windows, a vicious venom in the wind, the cries of fury in the thunder. He could feel the Beast of Countless Voices tearing apart the very world; he could feel it ripping at the edges of reality.
He could feel the ending of mankind.
Agent Kent opened his eyes and looked outwards through the windscreen, staring upon the battered landscape of a country under siege. The poison had no ending, the darkness was consuming, and the Manor was there before him, silhouetted by the final night.
With a painful grimace, one that contorted his pale features, Alex Kent pulled his handgun from its holster, the weight of which was cold within his hands. He tried to see her, as he held the weapon he had once put down, he tried to see her in the seat beside him, half asleep and nearly dreaming.
He tried to see her but he couldn’t.
His one and only failure.
With a frustrated snarl, Agent Kent slammed his car door open, his gun in hand as he stepped out into the destructive darkness. The poison rain consumed him, washing over all his senses, leaking into his mind and biting at his very spirit. The wound across his midriff flared with angry violence, protesting with a spit of blood as he took his every step.
He tried to see her but he couldn’t, his wife and only love, his infant child and her quite cooing. He tried to see them but he couldn’t.
Not today.
Not on any day he was out to kill…
# # # # #
Earth 616, Darkmoor Nuclear Research Centre, Ten Years Ago...
His shoulder was on fire, but Brian Braddock could ill afford to slow down. He could barely see where he was going, tearing down the mountain road as quickly as his motorcycle could carry him, the engine roaring, the half moon and the starless sky doing nothing to illuminate the way before him. His life had become a blur, his heartbeat was like a canon, his life was almost over.
Shots rang out, several of them ripping through the air and whipping past his cranium, a thunder crack of violence. He kept his head low, his body crouched along his motorcycle, his hands gripping the accelerator until his knuckles had turned both white and pale. The thunder cracks continued, whipping past his speeding frame as he sped around a sharp corner, tires screaming for safe purchase, oblivion reaching out beside him.
There was blood dripping from his shoulder, pooling from a shredded wound and leaking a crimson trail behind him. He ignored it as best he could, the bullet wound that had torn his flesh. With gritted teeth he saw past it, with desperate determination he sped forwards, with suicidal speed he descended.
They were right behind him, gaining with every heartbeat, the car of midnight black packed with those who had killed his friends and peers. They would kill him because they could, they would kill him because he couldn’t stop them.
Suddenly his world exploded, something ripping into his back and exploding savagely outwards from his torso. There was nothing but the sound, the ringing and the awful screeching, the blood and his final ending. It seemed to last a lifetime, the moment in which it happened, his body going limp and sent hurtling towards a chasm, the pain and torment and the startling clarity.
He could see the sky, as he tumbled towards his early doom, the heavens and its eerie calm. He could see forever, in that moment, the past and the present and the final moment. He could see the armour and the sword, he could see his mother and his sister, he could see his father and the moment.
The only moment from a lifetime.
Then there was the pain, the falling and the tumbling, the broken bones and battered flesh. For the first time in his life, Brain Braddock died.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Meggans heart skipped a beat as she saw the moment that would kill her.
She flinched as the gun was fired, the perpetrator of this violence standing in her open doorway, a man she trusted and thought she knew. There was but a moment to react on instinct, the elfin women not thinking of herself, her hands moving protectively around the rounded hump of her pregnant belly, her unborn infant panicking within her womb.
She closed her eyes and thought of Brian, even as Alex Kent fired the single bullet, a final memory for her absent husband, praying for his well being.
But then, as the wind parted beside her head, the moment passed and she was not dead.
Megan opened her eyes in stark surprise, spinning rapidly as a horrific scream erupted in the air behind her. She was left aghast by the vision that she witnessed, the monster of shadow black reeling backwards, a spray of sickly ichors erupting from its torso, its high pitched wailing echoing throughout the hallways. Its corrupted form collapsed upon the floor, its scything arms flapping wildly as its pointed jaw shrieked obscenities, its blackest form withering into the foulest stain of filth.
The beast had almost killed her, Alex Kent had saved her, and Meggan Braddock felt immediately compelled to spin around and apologise for questioning his behaviour. There was no time for the words to escape her lips, not as her hand snatched forwards, grabbing the startled Agent Kent by the collar and dragging him bodily inside.
The world erupted where he had just been standing, dozens more of the foulest creatures falling from the sky and erupting upwards from the earth. They were barbaric, gibbering creatures of demented violence, gibbering at the jaws, wailing at the world, thrashing their way towards her.
The door was slammed shut before the beasts could enter, Elizabeth Braddock temporarily sealing them outside
Why?
Meggan could only think of that, gripped by panic and confusion, outright terrified for the safety of her unborn infant, her only child.
She couldn’t understand, she didn’t want to understand, how could anything hate so much?
# # # # #
Earth 616, London, Nine Years Ago…
The firestorm hit him like a freight train, one that sent Brian Braddock plummeting from the sky and slamming backwards into the pavement. He hit the concrete with a thunderous crash, the earth itself rippling from the explosion, a shockwave that upturned cars, smashed windows and toppled entire buildings. There was a catastrophe of sound, of screams and cries and panicked yelling, and yet Brian Braddock could barely hear it, dragging himself from the debris, deafened and bleeding from the forehead.
His crimson uniform was shredded, torn and bloodied from a conflict he could scarcely grasp. The mask was mostly gone, a visage that identified him as Captain Britain, the young man looking upwards with a swollen eye. The sky above the city was on fire, twisted to the whims of a mad man wrapped in tattered robes and stinking cloth, his eyes both wide and staring, his voice both shrill and shrieking. The man had lost it, consumed by the forces he had tried to wield, unravelling the laws of reality itself.
He didn’t understand it; such imagery defied all his lifetimes learning’s. Everything had changed, from the moment he had made his choice, everything about the world was different, everything about himself was different. He could feel it, even as he pulled his battered body upright, fire and brimstone raining down around him, he could feel his country and his people. He could feel it in his fibres, in his soul, the whisper in his mind, the echo in his heart; he could feel their pain and fear.
But he didn’t understand it.
Suddenly the sky descended, directed by the whims of a lunatic, a cyclonic roar of burning fire and fury descending down towards the city streets. People screamed and cried, out of fear and for mercy, mothers and their children, fathers and their families, brothers and their sisters, his people. The very ones he was here to save.
With a defiant shout he hurled his mace upwards, the silver sceptre held tightly within his grasp. He struck the maelstrom of hate and malice as it descended, the two opposing forces of ancient might colliding with catastrophic fury. It was like standing in the eye of hell, his sceptre held aloft before him, fuelled by his courage and sheer defiance, the howling fury of a firestorm held back and kept at bay.
It was tearing at his fibres, an ancient beast of primal fury, pulling at his very being but he would not falter. His people were behind him, protected just beyond the human shield, saved by the avatar of their entire nation.
He didn’t understand it, his life and who he had become, but he didn’t have to. He could feel it, deep within his soul, his people and his country; he could feel himself and his purpose.
He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t have to, he was a shield, he was a guardian, and today, he refused to falter…
# # # # #
Earth Unknown, Avalon, Today…
Young Gwynn was at a loss, the elfin girl standing beside his bed, fraught with worry and filled with nervous impulse, the two of them the only occupants within the Hall of Healing, the only souls left in Avalon.
He was barely breathing, the young man known as Captain Flagship clinging to his life while his ribcage was a shattered ruin. Hesitantly she stroked his forehead, the flesh feverish beneath her fingers, wishing desperately she had even the basic understanding of how to save him. He was so pale, fitful in his dreaming, young Gwynn having already cast what enchantments she could think of, all to no avail.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he was strong and confident and full of life. He wasn’t supposed to be like this, so weak and frail and so terribly helpless. None of this was right, everything had gone so wrong. Why was she the only one still here?
Why...why couldn’t she save him?
She was flinching at every sound, the elfin girl suspicious of every whisper, the ghosts that travelled throughout the corridors and the phantoms in the dark. Barely hours ago Avalon had been at war, its Captains had waged a bloody conflict, Brothers had set upon each other. Gwynn was just a girl, an apprentice with no taste for battle; she had never before seen the face of violence.
She jumped as there was a heavy crashing; an awful sound of clanking that filled the chambers with an angry banging! It echoed all around her, flashing between the shadows, Gwynn pulling back her wings as she stood between the ailing Captain Flagship and the open doorway.
From her belt, she whipped out her tiny knife and held it unsteadily before her, pointing it towards the phantom foes. She wanted desperately to flee, to take flight from this haunted place and leave any sense of danger far behind her. She wanted to, but she wouldn’t, she couldn’t, the frightened girl refusing to falter from the wounded side of Captain Flagship, refusing to be a coward when she was needed.
She refused to leave him to his fate.
Her hands were shaking, the tiny blade flashing brightly in the dim light, her lip set in her greatest ever show of defiance.
She had never been so scared, fearful of something just beyond the corner, not even as the Leviathan of Steel dropped a heavy hand upon her shaking shoulder…
# # # # #
Earth 13,211, Genosha, Seven Years Ago...
The impact was horrendous, slamming against his chin and sending Brian Braddock, Captain Britain of Earth Six-Sixteen, hurtling backwards and straight into a building. He crashed through one side and smashed out through the other, scattering debris in all directions and erupting a small path of destruction within a heartbeat. He tumbled backwards through the air, both defying and surrendering to the primal forces that were gravity, regaining his bearings just in time to see the instigator of his freefall plummeting down towards him. Captain Albion, Bran Bardic, the champion of this world, and the man responsible for ending the lives of over half a million.
With a harsh tug, Captain Britain yanked his helmet from off his head, and swung in wildly in a rapid arc before him. There was a terrific crash, the hardened headpiece smashing against the side of Albion’s face as he descended. The crack was almost sickening, the sound of enchanted steel battering against mortal flesh. The helmet buckled beneath the impact, warping about the features of Bran Bardic, the mans all too fragile cheek doing likewise.
There was a spray of blood as the head of Bran Bardic twisted harshly from the impact, the chosen champion of this world tumbling beyond control towards the ground below them. He landed amongst the dead, amidst the shallow graves of those who had lived here; their hollow screams howling back as he struggled in the mud.
Albion could only snarl as he looked back upwards towards the sky, the blackened clouds and angry fires silhouetting the intruder of his realm. He reached for the pommel of his blade as Captain Britain of the Six-Sixteen descended, the two of them reflections of the other. He ignored the blood of his broken cheek as he unsheathed his enchanted sword, listening to its music as he swung it wide, crying out as the two inhuman men collided with inhuman force.
The ground was shaking throughout the impact, the gutted buildings on either side crumbling to their foundations. Both men spat, wrestling for the blade, struggling amongst the fallen, fighting above the dead.
"THAT IS ENOUGH ALBION!" Brian Braddock snapped, struggling with his counterpart from another world "THESE PEOPLE ARE DEFEATED, THIS IS WRONG!"
"THIS IS WAR!" Bran Bardic returned with equal venom, slamming his head forwards with a savage motion. His forehead smashed into Braddock’s nose, a flash of pain crashing through his senses, his counterpart stumbling backwards from the impact.
This isn't what he had wanted, Bran Bardic making a discovery as he assembled an army from the myriad ranks of the Corps. He had not only found a brother Captain on the world of Six-Sixteen, but also a brother in genetics, a man who shared his face. Their worlds were not the same, Braddock’s had been spared seventy years of endless war, but surely they were not so different, surely he had found his kin.
A man who could understand him.
He spat again, Bardic's mouth filled with blood, blinking through the rain that fell from sick and heavy clouds. The sky turned dark and mournful, loud and violent.
"THIS IS MURDER!" Captain Britain retained his footing, blinded by both his pain and the boiling rain. The city was in ruins, its people were all but dead, a blackened husk of raging fires, drowning beneath the falling sea of sorrow.
He felt sick, he felt poisoned, he felt doubt.
This was wrong.
This was all wrong.
"THIS IS GENOCIDE!" he raged, the Captains sent hurling forwards, driven by their pasts, fated by their futures, colliding beneath a violent sky.
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now…
Adrenalin was her addiction.
She launched backwards off a wall, Elizabeth Braddock pivoting with unnatural grace as her summoned blade of midnight black pierced the air with an inhuman wail. Its keen edge made contact with a slavering beast, one warped from shadows and fuelled by frenzy, the blade slipping through its skull and toppling the creature into a pile of sickly vapours. She landed with a feather touch, spiralling and spinning, lashing outwards with a piercing strike and penetrating the torso of another beast.
Her heart was beating faster than was natural, thundering against her ribcage as she circled the pregnant Meggan, maintaining a swift perimeter with the stranger Alex Kent, the trio of them moving down the hallway, the painted eyes of Braddocks past glaring downwards as they retreated. Her muscles were fit to burst, torn and shredded by days of conflict, exhausted and fatigued by endless punishment. She was almost dead, on the very brink of collapse, and yet something refused to let her falter.
At times like this, so close to death, she never felt more alive.
Her blood was rushing through her system, all her senses on high alert as she darted to the left, a pair of scything talons crashing downwards into the floor, the wood panelling erupting into splinters. She danced from one foot onto the other, pivoting and slashing, breathing and attacking, cutting down each black spawn creation as they ripped and tore their way into the living world.
She had known them once, the lives behind those sightless eyes; she had known them and believed that they could be better.
Elizabeth cried out as a fresh wound was split open across her shoulder, the newest of a dozen, the trails of blood spinning in the air as she retreated. For several steps she stumbled, keeping pace with the other two, before pivoting and bringing her soul born blade to muster. Two of the creatures stood before her, the latest of the phantoms to breach her Manors walls, both of them slavering and spitting with a hateful wail.
She should be dead and yet she would not falter, her adrenaline her addiction.
“Come then children...”
Her gaze was piercing towards the phantom monsters, the men that no longer were so.
“...show Mother what you have learned!”
# # # # #
Between Worlds, Avalon, Six Years Ago…
Doubt.
It was poison, clouding his every judgement, weighing down upon his soul, Brian Braddock could not see beyond his own confusion.
He was alone within the Greeting Hall, his only company within the vast, domed chamber, his breathing the only sound. The coliseum that surrounded him was empty, the seats vacant and unused, the very air itself, tinged with the scent of apples from the orchids just outside, was undisturbed by the presence of his brother Captains. Brian Braddock was alone, guised in the form of Captain Britain of Earth Six-Sixteen, gazing upon the history of the Corps.
The pillars seemed unending, impossible to count, almost moving when one stopped looking, always room for further exploits. They reached high up towards the ceiling, supporting the sea of stars born across its surface, each one forged from the strongest stone, and carved from the purest marble. The images were beautiful, crafted by no mortal hand, each one flowing into the next, an endless tide of endless victories, the greatest heroes of the Corps. Each of them remembered, each of them immortalised, each of them a hero.
Brian had to wonder, as he looked upon them with quite musing, his helm tucked stiffly beneath his shoulder, if any of them had been real, he had to wonder if any of this had happened. He had to wonder if it was all a lie.
A lie, Brian frowned, his head bowed low and his shoulders tensing, a lie just like himself. His identity was in question, his choices were no longer valid, his entire life had become a mockery, he knew the truth, and it enraged him to know the answer.
His life was a lie.
His Father had not been human, an agent born on Otherworld, his Mother had been his accomplice, his birth…his birth had been an experiment. He had not been born, he was not a child of chance, he had been built by science, forged by magic, and spat out mewling into the world to serve a single purpose. He had not been born, he had been created, Merlin’s simple plaything.
Doubt.
Everything in his life was now wrought with doubt, the choices he had made, the paths he had taken, all of it had been planned, all of it had been manipulated. He had decided nothing for himself, not even the deeds that made him strong, he could not even claim his failures.
Doubt.
How much of it was true? He had to wonder, his sapphire eyes sweeping across the chamber, the vastness of this great history open out before him. How much of it was true, how much of it was lies, how much of it was deceit? How many of them were being controlled?
He didn’t like the answers, and he didn’t like the choices.
Doubt.
Brian closed his eyes and returned his helm to across his features; it was a poison in his veins, a burden upon his soul, one he found hard to live with.
Captain.
He thought bitterly to himself, the man he had been born to be.
…Captain Britain.
# # # # #
Earth Unknown, Avalon, Today…
“OH MY GOD, I’M SO SORRY!!” young Gwynn apologised profusely as she took several hurried steps backwards, both her wings pulled in tightly as she bit her lower lip. The eyes of the elfin girl were focused entirely upon her dagger, the tiny blade now buried to the hilt in the shoulder of her unexpected guest. She had plunged it there, with all her might, spinning in surprise and striking like a clumsy viper, she sincerely wished she hadn’t.
She had just attacked the Guardian of Avalon.
It wasn’t human, a mechanised creation from an Earth she didn’t know, a machine built to vaguely resemble the form of man. There seemed to be no reason to its construction, the manner in which it had been formed, its materials were random, its structure was erratic. There was no symmetry between one half and the next, no precision in its outer shell, all its parts appeared archaic.
The Machine of Tomorrow built from the remnants of a steam train.
With a tilt of its inhuman head, blue eyes of light peering outwards from its metallic skull, it observed the knife buried deep within its shoulder with quite interest. With a grinding of hidden gears, and a whistling burst of air erupting from a shoulder mounted piston, the mechanised creation raised its other arm, tapping the hilt of ornate dagger before he pulled it free.
There was a spurt of what Gwynn assumed was oil, the elfin girl still biting her lower lip, watching as the mechanised creation flipped the blade in its massive fingers. There was a moments pause, the Guardian of Avalon observing some hidden truth, before the young apprentice broke the silence.
“I’m really sorry!” she professed sincerely “does its hurt Captain… Captain…?” she struggled to remember.
“VIGILENT!” the mechanised creation announced with a sudden dramatic flourish, bowing deeply with a swish of its unwounded arm.
Young Gwynn stepped quickly backwards, startled by the sudden movements and the mannerisms that were entirely alien to the malformed construct. She watched wide eyed as it stood tall, its awkward body moving with inhuman grace, its simulated voice as hollow as a fog horn.
“Fear not, ‘tis but a flesh wound!” the mechanised creation declared, flipping the blade and offering it back towards the elfin girl.
“It does me well to see that the Heart of Avalon still beats!”
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, One Year Ago...
Meggan always enjoyed company.
He could see her down below, in the summer sun, as he looked downwards from one of the Manors many balconies, his elfin wife ‘guiding’ a most welcome guest through the clearings of her vast garden. It seemed so natural, to see her amongst the trees and the flowers and the many bushes, the orchids seemingly an extension of her vibrant spirit. It was true, in a sense, the natural world flocking for her attention, finding unity within her presence.
She was explaining everything in great detail, pointing out each new plant and new breed of flower with ever greater interest, her enthusiasm forcing her every sentence to run rapidly into the next. Young Katherine Pryde was trying to keep up; valiantly so in fact, but no mortal mind could hope to do so. Instead she would nod and smile, indulging the Lady of the House as the she was led deeper into the grove, each new corner leading to even newer discoveries, most of which would only end up being half explained before the next one was fast upon them.
Brian could only smile, standing tall with shoulders straight, a sigh of satisfaction filling his large torso. Contentment, it was a state of mind that had so frequently eluded him; it was one he could grow used to. Confidence in himself, confidence in his place, confidence in the choices he had made. This was his life, for better or worse, and he was the one who had decided it.
“I noticed you have made your escape” Brian commented without turning, his hands resting upon the marble railings.
“Ja...” Kurt Wagner admitted with a devilish grin, the blue furred former X-Man emerging from the shadows and perching himself upon the railing with an acrobatic flourish. He seemed oddly out of place in the sunlight, the sapphire nature of his complexion at odds with the summer sun “...I believe it is time for young Ms. Pryde to take one for the team!”
“She’ll not forgive you” Brian made a sideways glance towards his long time friend, and at times, his harshest critic.
“Which one?” Kurt Wagner queried, tapping his chin with semi-perplexed thought.
“Both!” Brian laughed with a small amount of mirth “Meggan especially, she most certainly adores you”.
“I will make it up to her I promise” Kurt smiled with a flick of his tail, his roughish mannerisms coming to the fore, that is until they rapidly reseeded at the sight of the Orchids down below them. “I feel, however, that I acted in self preservation...as odd as it may sound, I believe your garden is not...fond of me!”
“It isn’t” Brian agreed as he too looked down towards the orchids, well aware of that other presence amongst the trees, a sense of jealously that was impossible to shake. “You’re not the only one”.
There was a pause for just a moment, the two former team mates and founders of Excalibur watching as the Lady of the House and Katherine Pryde disappeared from view, turning a corner and out of sight. Brian was the first to break it, his mood turning swiftly sombre, confident he was beyond the range of Meggans empathy.
“She wants to have a child” he stated somewhat flatly, his rigid posture suddenly ill at ease.
“Really!” Kurt stated in surprise, an expression that turned swiftly from a grin and quickly into concern “Is that not good?”
“I don’t...yes...I want us to have a child”.
“And yet?”
“I’m not convinced it’s possible” Brian admitted as he leaned forwards, his elbows upon the marble railing, his brow furrowed with familiar confusion. So much of his own childhood had been engineered, his genetics and his behaviour, the doubt was always there, the lingering seed of mistrust, the ever present hand of control. Just how much of his life was planned?
Was his ending already written?
Had a new beginning been foretold?
“I’m not convinced it should be...”
“And if it is?” Kurt Wagner questioned, frequently concerned for the mental state of his companion.
“If it is...” Brian stood up straight, pausing for but a moment as he looked outwards towards the horizon “...if it is, I would ask you to be the God Father...”
# # # # #
Earth 616, Braddock Manor, Now...
Her husband called it the Hall of Heroes.
She had felt safer from the moment the three of them had entered, Meggan finding herself being shepherded ever deeper into the Manor as more of the foulest creatures from the eternal night found entrance into her home. She could still hear them, jabbering their insane wailings, even as the heavy doors of this domed chamber were slammed shut, her sister-in-law muttering some quite incantation even as they were being sealed. She could still hear them, but they seemed so distant, the way obstructed by the silent sentinels that surrounded them.
The moments that followed were filled with precious silence, Meggan taking stock of her surroundings, her hands cradling her pregnant womb, the unborn child no longer fitful and quietly sleeping. She feared for his safety, her only son and precious cargo, she feared for her two guardians.
They stood defiantly, and yet they could barely stand, both wounded and at deaths door. They protected her but they shouldn’t, they protected her although they couldn’t.
She looked to the Braddocks that surrounded them, the suits of armour that bore shield and sword, the silent sentinels from times past, the champions of another era. They stood resilient, wordless in their vigilance, soundless in their stewardship of a legacy. Meggan had never really understood it, how they seemed to whisper, and yet she had never felt ill at ease within their company.
She never felt alone.
There was a great crashing upon the door, an unholy racket that forced all three to step backwards, both sword and blade brought to bear. The punishment continued, a howling of angry violence, an incredible force of howling fury that battered upon the barricade, the final barrier and her doom. They were coming, the fiends of frenzied voices, they were coming to kill her family.
With an angry frown, Meggan marched from her place of safety at the centre of the room, ignoring the protests of Elizabeth and reaching outwards for both sword and shield. The suit of armour did not protest, surrendering the weapon without a single whisper, the markings upon its flat brighter than the blade.
Its seemed unreal and yet so true, she could hear the sounds of singing.
“Meggan, stay back” Elizabeth insisted!
“No!” Meggan refused with a defiant turn of her chin, returning to the centre of the room, surrounded by the heroes of ages past, armed with both singing sword and blazing shield.
“This is my home!” the elfin women with golden hair glared defiantly upon the failing doorway, her sapphire eyes alight with conviction.
“These monsters are not welcome!”
# # # # #
Earth 616, Nottingham, Six Months Ago…
The sky had opened wide and swollen Brian Braddock whole.
He was falling, tumbling through the destruction of a planet, the shattering of a cosmos, deafened by the cries of a billion souls. They tore at him, with dead eyes and clawing fingers, with sharp teeth and shattered jaw lines, with broken bones and howling torment. They clawed and scratched and ripped into his torso, they screeched and they cried as they dragged him down towards the pits of hell.
“Brian…”
There was singing, a single harmony, reaching from today and right into tomorrow, an echo of a tune, a memory within a heartbeat. There was singing, mournful and forgotten, regret and cries for mercy. The lyrics of a ballad, the lamenting of a choir, the songs of angels that were falling. The void and the silence and the endless echo.
The Final Moment.
Defiance within a heartbeat.
“Brian!”
The obelisk of night was crumbling, the sea of sand was failing, the spire of light was unending, reaching towards the heavens, collapsing every star, swallowing the universe towards the final moment. One last moment, a final memory, a stolen kiss.
The Final Moment of Mankind.
“CAPTAIN!!”
Suddenly it was gone, Brian Braddock panicking as he stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet as he was ripped out from that world and sent tumbling into another. Relief flooded through his system, he was back, alive and whole, the world around him both physical and breathing. He could feel it, his nation beneath his fingers, solid and unmoving; he could feel it, carrying him atop its shoulders.
“Captain?”
The sense of clarity was startling, to be removed from that nightmarish realm and to be back beneath the skies of Britain. He was sweating, his skin both pale and pallid, and his hands…his hands were both burned and black.
Agent Baynam was beside him, the woman with amber eyes laying a hand across his shoulder. She shook him, demanding his attention, demanding that he recognise the here and now.
“Captain, what happened?” for a moment she was concerned “We almost lost you there”.
“I don’t…” Brian looked to his hands and then the Sphere, the blot of shadow that stained the landscape, the seed of pestilence and fear. It was no larger than his fists, and yet it echoed for eternity. It hung suspended in the air, midnight black and sickening to the touch. It was a disease, an infection, one that poisoned everything around it.
Brain curled his lip and found his feet, the very presence of the thing offensive in its nature. He could still feel it, a whisper in his memory, a stain upon his conscience; he could still hear it, echoing across eternity, the sins of all mankind.
“Captain!” Agent Baynam pulled his arm back, pulling down the mask that protected her from the airborne poison. She ignored the sickening taste upon her tongue; she forced him to stare into amber eyes.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know…” Brian confessed, straightening his shoulders, glaring back towards the Sphere and all its silent violence. He could see into its surface, the shimmering pearl of midnight, he could see its beating heart.
“Kill it!” he demanded harshly.
“Excuse me?” Agent Baynam questioned, ready to remind the former Captain he was only here as a consultant.
“Destroy it!” he snapped, glaring deep into that Sphere of night, the stain upon mankind. He could almost see that moment, the memory beneath the torment, a lingering sense that he had seen it once before.
“Or I will…”
# # # # #
Earth 616, London, The Black Library, Now…
The cigarette was poison, she knew that, and yet Agent Baynam had long since grown beyond such small concerns. She inhaled deeply, the black smoke filling her jaw and settling down across her tongue, it was foul, the choking vapours filling her nose and seeping down her throat. For long moments she held it there, unmoving and not breathing, suffocating on the toxins. Her amber eyes rolled backwards, hidden by dark glasses, before she finally exhaled and ejected the inky blackness from her system.
She stared intently out her office window, standing before the glass and gazing into the night time hours. The rain was thundering against its surface, pounding at the barrier, unleashed from the raging heavens and sent hurtling down into a howling world. The storm was growing more fearsome, the clouds turned ever darker, the fibres of the Nation were unravelling.
She inhaled a second time, the cigarette between her finger tips blazing brightly, she did not exhale. Instead she swallowed, the cloud of poison slipping into her system, clouding all her senses, causing her lungs to hack and shudder. Again her amber eyes rolled backwards, staring deep into the confines of her skull, Agent Baynam of MI-13 clinging to that moment between life and death.
Then there was a thunderclap, one that was followed by his presence, the arrival of the man shaking the very world around him. He plummeted from the sky outside the building, blazing past the window and crashing to a thunderous landing upon the pavement. He was unharmed; she could see that even from her vantage, staring down towards the man who would impose himself into her personal affairs, a man who was no longer wanted, a man who was no longer needed.
Brian Braddock, formally Captain Britain, the man who waded through the flooded streets of poison rain towards her building, a man who had refused to stand by her side. She resisted the urge to curl her lip in irritation, instead pressing the still lit tip of her cigarette into her open palm as penance; she owed the man an apology, not her disdain.
“He’s here” she commented shortly, intoxicated by the fleeting stench of burning flesh “I could bar him entrance”.
“No…” her frequent guest and new partner unfolded his frame from sitting up to standing, accompanied by the clanking of his polished armour “…allow him entrance, have your men show him to the Gallery”.
“Are you certain?” Agent Baynam questioned calmly, retrieving her handgun from the desk draw, removing with it a second item, one both smooth and polished, the metal freezing to the touch.
“He may not understand…”
“I assure you he won’t” the giant of a man promised with a self indulgent grin, the expression contorted by the golden mask of a lion welded across his upper features, its jaws smeared with the blood of brothers.
“But Brian Braddock once saw fit to dictate policy on my world!” Bran Bardic, Captain Albion of Earth Thirteen-Two-Eleven growled with sudden venom, all sense of mirth and amusement vanishing within a heartbeat.
“It is only right that I do likewise!”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: There is a dark secret buried within the foundations of the Corps, a sin against Mankind that has been long forgot, and with the emergence of the Sphere in the Six-Sixteen, the unraveling of the Multiverse is to be our punishment. Is the Final Moment fast approaching, or has is already come and gone, and why does Brain Braddock feel as though he’s seen this all before? ‘Seed of Evil’ enters its penultimate chapter, and where there could be answers, there may only be more questions, and where there was once peace...there can be only War!