This is it, where they pay for what I gave them, Neil Rogers thought to himself as he approached First Union Bank of New York.
“Sir, can I help you?” A guard asked him as he entered the bank. He was concerned about the fact that Neil was wearing a heavy trench coat despite the fact that it was eighty degrees outside. But he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Neil pulled out the .45 that he had been concealing and shot the guard in the liver. Without missing a beat, he quickly shot the two other bank guards, killing them instantly.
“Get done on the ground!” Neil Rogers yelled. Everyone, with the exception of one man, obeyed.
“What don’t you understand about get down?” Neil demanded.
I’m the bank manager,” The man replied nervously, “ I’m willing to help you empty the vault…if… if you just let these people go.”
Neil looked at him for a second, and shot him in the stomach.
“I don’t want money!” He bellowed. By now, cop cars had pulled up and surrounded the building. Neil looked walked thru his group of hostages, and grabbed a young girl who had been accompanying her mother to make a deposit.
“Leave her alone!” The child’s mother screamed as she lunged at him. Neil simply backhanded her to the ground.
“You’ll get her back, and when you do, you’ll truly know what was done to me.” He growled as he dragged the girl out the door with himself. When he walked out, a dozen cops leveled their weapons at him. Neil held the girl in front of himself, using her as a shield.
“Release the girl, place your weapon on the ground and place your hands behind your back now!” One officer ordered. Neil gave him a look that sent chills down his spine. He smiled.
“Alright.” He held the girl away from himself, giving the officers a clear shot, “ Go ahead and take the shot. I’m sure this sweet thing will remember the sight of me being gunned down for the rest of her life if you do, but if you don’t, I’ll kill each and everyone of you.”
Every officer paused for a moment. He wasn’t holding the girl’s life hostage; he was holding her sanity hostage. Every officer knew the toll it took on a person’s mind to see someone gunned down in front of them, and they didn’t want an innocent girl to have to live with that. But if they didn’t…
Neil grinned as his threat sunk in. But he didn’t intend to give the officers a chance to plan something. He leveled his gun at the nearest cop.
“He’s firing!” One cop yelled. Almost in unison, every cop fired at Neil. And Neil closed his eyes, content for the first time in a long time.
I won, He thought to himself, I finally won.
Neil was quite surprised, when after a few seconds; he didn’t feel anything strike him. No bullets ripping through his flesh, no hot metal cutting through his lungs. All he felt was a slight breeze. He opened his eyes and saw a man in a blue and gold uniform with a bucket in his head. The bullets that had been fired by the cops lay behind him, harmlessly on the ground.
“Nova!” Neil leveled his gun at him, but Nova snatched it out of his hands at incredible speed. Nova grabbed Neil and threw him high into the air.
“I’ve got some personal business with this one,” Nova said to the closest cop, “ I’ll bring him directly to the court house.”
Nova shot away, not waiting for a response and catching Neil long before he hit the ground. Nova held on to him and flew above the clouds.
“Why did you do it, Neil? Those people did nothing to you!” Nova screamed.
“Because someone had to pay for what was done to me!” Neil replied. In his fear, the fact that Nova knew his name had completely escaped him.
“Nothing was done to you! You volunteered!”
“Not for that! They never told us what we were volunteering for! What I saw, no one should have seen! They killed my soul in those jungles, I was just making him kill my body!”
“Others left the war behind,” Nova said as he swooped towards the police station, “ You should have found a way too.”
Nova handed Neil over to the police, barely taking any time to accept the thanks of the officers.
Well that just makes my day perfect, Nova thought to himself as he flew to the he shared with his girl friend apartment on the Upper East Side. As he entered, he heard the shower running and knew that Namorita was home. Not feeling like facing her right now, he hovered a few inches above the floor, trying to decide on whether or not to just leave.
“Care to join me, lover?” She offered.
“Thought I was being a quite as a church mouse.” Nova commented.
“You were. But living underwater does wonders for your hearing,” She explained, “ At least if you’re an Atlantean. You still haven’t answered me, care to join me?”
“Not really.”
“ You sure?”
“Positive.”
“So, what happened today? You take a blow to the head?”
“No, I just had a really bad day. My job hunt failed, again, and I met an old acquaintance today.”
“What’s so bad about meeting an old friend?”
“He killed three people before attempting suicide by cop.”
“Suffering Shad. Where did you know him from?”
“A support group.”
“Yes, and?”
“And what?”
“What kind of support group? I don’t want to play twenty questions, twenty answers with you Rich. So kindly stop being so stubborn, and tell me what the deal is with this friend of yours is.”
“Former friends. Alright, As you know, I got my powers from a dying member of the Xandar Nova Corps. I did the superhero thing for a while before I got roped into the war between Xandar and the skrulls. They gave me my powers, so I figured I owed it to them to help beat the green chins. I was there for about a year before we finally stopped them and I got to go home. Without my powers.” Nova said bitterly.
“Yeah?”
“Well, when I got home, my Dad thought I might have some trouble coping with what I saw. He was wrong, but he was also providing the room and board. He made me attend a support group for war veterans and that’s where I met Neil.”
“What war?”
“Vietnam. I’m not gonna go into what he saw, but it wasn’t pretty. He had a hard time sleeping at night, couldn’t hold down a job, the works. He used to always ask me, ‘How did you sleep at night, knowing tomorrow might be the last day of your life?’ But he seemed to get his life together last time I saw him.”
“Apparently not, poor guy.” Namorita said, “You know, today’s the first time that’s happened.”
“What’s the first time?”
“The first time you have remotely talked about your time at war in all the years that I have known you, Rich. Why is that?”
“No reason.” Nova quickly replied.
“Oh? I knew a few guys in college who went to Desert Storm. They couldn’t shut up about what they had seen and done. They would go one and on with their war stories, their tales of glory!” Namorita said sarcastically, “ Why not you?”
“Because I left the war behind me!” Nova snapped angrily before he flew out the window.
Left my life behind me when I went to war, He mused, Shame it wasn’t there for me when I got back. Nova thought back to his time at war. He spent the longest year of his life in space, fighting alongside the Xandar Nova Corps against the invading Skrulls. It seemed like the noble and smart thing to do at the time, but it wasn’t looking, in retrospect. It was a hard, dirty war, that forced Nova to make decisions that still haunted him today. The lines between right and wrong often became blurred and sometimes didn’t even seem to matter. When he returned from Xandar, stripped of his power; his life fell into shambles. He had missed his senior year of high school, and he never had the guts to go back. He was forced to do minimum wage jobs just to get by and always had to deal with the fact that his younger brother was a genius and the apple of his parent’s eyes.
“How do you go from flying thru space and bench pressing several tons to being some nameless smuck?” He asked aloud.
Daniel Rays wasn’t like most doctors. That was because he is really a skrull in hiding. He came to earth because it was the perfect place to blend in. He came to New York because it was filled with odd balls like himself. And he became a doctor because human biology was exceedingly simple to him. He grew to love earth, and now can’t even remember his skrull given name. As he swerved his car in and out of traffic and the pedal to the floor, he couldn’t believe that he had come to this.
I’m a Skrull for pity’s sake He futilely reminded himself, We don’t do this kind of stuff. He knew what he was doing was foolish, dangerous and possibly unnecessary, but he couldn’t take any chances. It wasn’t the skrull in him doing the driving, it was his adopted humanity.
One never should take risks like this, He thought to himself as he sped past another car.
Although his driving hadn’t drawn the attention of the police, yet, it had caught Nova’s.
Guy could give a lesson on road rage, Nova smirked. Don’t know why he’s weaving in and out like that, but I guess I’ll have to find out.
As he descended, he tried to decide the best coarse of action. He could simply grab the car, but that might hurt the passengers. Before he could make his choice, he noticed the automated built in sensors in his helmet were going off, a little red light went off, one that he hadn’t seen in years but could never forget.
The driver’s a Skrull! When he realized that, Nova’s course of action became clear. He shot down from the sky and smashed into the car, bringing it to an abrupt halt.
“What…the… hell are you doing?” Rays demanded as he tried to clear his head. He didn’t have time for this now and he knew it.
“I know what you are,” Nova growled as he pulled Rays out of the car, “ You’re a skrull!” With that, Nova threw Rays across the street and to the sidewalk. Thankfully for everyone concerned, the street that Rays had turned into before Nova attacked him was deserted.
“Is that all?” Rays asked. Nova was on him an instant, his hands tight around Rays’ throat.
“It’s all I really need!”
Rays, realizing that reasoning with Nova was impossible, dropped his human disguise and shape shifted his arm into a mass of tentacles and shoved them down Nova’s throat.
“I don’t have time for you, burn out!” He hissed.
Nova unleashed a weak gravity pulse and dislodged Rays. Being called a burn out infuriated Nova. During the war, “Burn out” was a slur for members of the Nova Corps who were stripped of their powers for failure to do their duty, and the Skrulls loved to call everyone that.
“I'm no burn out, space dung!” Nova declared as he tried to hit Rays with a right. Normally, he would have been able to hit him with ease, but Nova’s powers had changed considerably. Gravity pulses were harder to generate now, taking most of his energy.
“Look, I’ve done nothing to you, why are you attacking me?” Rays asked as he avoided another blow.
“You’re a skrull, and that’s all I need to know you’re up to no good!” Nova replied.
“Arrrgh! Someone please help me!” A female voice cried. Both men stopped fighting and turned their attention to the car. Nova rushed to the car, and saw a very pregnant woman in the back seat, bleeding and breathing heavily.
“She’s two months early, and she needs to get to a hospital now.” Rays explained.
“Dammit.” Nova muttered. He knew what he had to do, but what would happen if he let a stinking Skrull go free?
“I’ll wait here for you if that’s what you need, but get her to a god damned hospital, now!” Rays shouted.
Nova carefully picked up the damaged car, and flew it to Mercy Hospital, which he noted was barely a few blocks away. He quickly explained the situation to the paramedics, with a liberal does of B.S as they took the woman out of the car and into E.R. Nova stayed just long enough to learn that the woman and her child were alright before returning to the alley that he had left Rays in. True to his word, Rays was still there, waiting.
“How is she?”
“Doctors said I got her there just in time.”
“You.” Rays muttered under his breath.
“Yeah, me. Now you give me one reason why I shouldn’t hand your green butt over to S.H.I.E.L.D right now?”
“Maybe because I haven’t committed any crime?”
“And you’re in this country, much less planet, legally?”
“I’m here seeking asylum, like many other humans. What does my planet of origin matter?”
“Asylum? For what?”
“This.” Rays said. He held out his arm and it burst into flames. Rays, however, was unharmed.
“That’s a new trick. I didn’t know skrulls could do that.”
“No it isn’t, really” Rays explained, “ I’m a skrull mutant. What that means to the skrull high command is that I am to be killed at birth, no questions or exceptions. My mother learned this fact while she was still pregnant with me. She fled the empire and escaped to earth where she gave birth to me. We made a life for ourselves here and lived as a some what normal family for a time. I only know a little bit about my skrull heritage really.”
“How much?”
“Enough not to be proud of it.”
“What happened? What do you mean by…for a time.?”
“The empire sent agents after us. They have long memories and hold longer grudges, especially when it comes to genetic purity. She was forced to take the craft we arrived here in to lure them away from earth. I can only presume that she is dead.”
“My heart bleeds,” Nova said without a trace of pity, “ But you still haven’t given me a reason not to take you in.”
“Do you intend to turn yourself in as well?”
“Excuse me?”
“When you smashed into my car like you did, you endangered that woman’s life. I was trying to save it. It seems to reason that if I have done some criminal act, so have you.”
“That’s pretty thin reasoning.”
“So is attacking me, and endangering my passenger simply because I am a skrull. She could have been killed, you know.”
“…”
“Let me ask you this, outside of the fact that I am a Skrull, do you have any proof whatsoever that I have committed a single crime?”
“You’re here illegally.”
“Actually, like I said, I was born here. Anything else?”
“No.” Nova sighed, “ But I want to know one thing. What’s your connection to that woman?”
“None really. She’s just my neighbor whom I pass in the hall every now in then. She knew I was a doctor and came to me when she realized something was wrong.”
“Your…neighbor?”
“Yes, my neighbor. Is it so incomprehensible that I was simply doing something out of the goodness of my heart?”
Nova didn’t respond at first, and Rays started to walk away.
“Yes, it is,” Nova muttered, “ But that’s only because sometimes it’s hard to leave wars behind you.”
-Fin-
“Sir, can I help you?” A guard asked him as he entered the bank. He was concerned about the fact that Neil was wearing a heavy trench coat despite the fact that it was eighty degrees outside. But he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Neil pulled out the .45 that he had been concealing and shot the guard in the liver. Without missing a beat, he quickly shot the two other bank guards, killing them instantly.
“Get done on the ground!” Neil Rogers yelled. Everyone, with the exception of one man, obeyed.
“What don’t you understand about get down?” Neil demanded.
I’m the bank manager,” The man replied nervously, “ I’m willing to help you empty the vault…if… if you just let these people go.”
Neil looked at him for a second, and shot him in the stomach.
“I don’t want money!” He bellowed. By now, cop cars had pulled up and surrounded the building. Neil looked walked thru his group of hostages, and grabbed a young girl who had been accompanying her mother to make a deposit.
“Leave her alone!” The child’s mother screamed as she lunged at him. Neil simply backhanded her to the ground.
“You’ll get her back, and when you do, you’ll truly know what was done to me.” He growled as he dragged the girl out the door with himself. When he walked out, a dozen cops leveled their weapons at him. Neil held the girl in front of himself, using her as a shield.
“Release the girl, place your weapon on the ground and place your hands behind your back now!” One officer ordered. Neil gave him a look that sent chills down his spine. He smiled.
“Alright.” He held the girl away from himself, giving the officers a clear shot, “ Go ahead and take the shot. I’m sure this sweet thing will remember the sight of me being gunned down for the rest of her life if you do, but if you don’t, I’ll kill each and everyone of you.”
Every officer paused for a moment. He wasn’t holding the girl’s life hostage; he was holding her sanity hostage. Every officer knew the toll it took on a person’s mind to see someone gunned down in front of them, and they didn’t want an innocent girl to have to live with that. But if they didn’t…
Neil grinned as his threat sunk in. But he didn’t intend to give the officers a chance to plan something. He leveled his gun at the nearest cop.
“He’s firing!” One cop yelled. Almost in unison, every cop fired at Neil. And Neil closed his eyes, content for the first time in a long time.
I won, He thought to himself, I finally won.
Neil was quite surprised, when after a few seconds; he didn’t feel anything strike him. No bullets ripping through his flesh, no hot metal cutting through his lungs. All he felt was a slight breeze. He opened his eyes and saw a man in a blue and gold uniform with a bucket in his head. The bullets that had been fired by the cops lay behind him, harmlessly on the ground.
“Nova!” Neil leveled his gun at him, but Nova snatched it out of his hands at incredible speed. Nova grabbed Neil and threw him high into the air.
“I’ve got some personal business with this one,” Nova said to the closest cop, “ I’ll bring him directly to the court house.”
Nova shot away, not waiting for a response and catching Neil long before he hit the ground. Nova held on to him and flew above the clouds.
“Why did you do it, Neil? Those people did nothing to you!” Nova screamed.
“Because someone had to pay for what was done to me!” Neil replied. In his fear, the fact that Nova knew his name had completely escaped him.
“Nothing was done to you! You volunteered!”
“Not for that! They never told us what we were volunteering for! What I saw, no one should have seen! They killed my soul in those jungles, I was just making him kill my body!”
“Others left the war behind,” Nova said as he swooped towards the police station, “ You should have found a way too.”
Nova handed Neil over to the police, barely taking any time to accept the thanks of the officers.
Well that just makes my day perfect, Nova thought to himself as he flew to the he shared with his girl friend apartment on the Upper East Side. As he entered, he heard the shower running and knew that Namorita was home. Not feeling like facing her right now, he hovered a few inches above the floor, trying to decide on whether or not to just leave.
“Care to join me, lover?” She offered.
“Thought I was being a quite as a church mouse.” Nova commented.
“You were. But living underwater does wonders for your hearing,” She explained, “ At least if you’re an Atlantean. You still haven’t answered me, care to join me?”
“Not really.”
“ You sure?”
“Positive.”
“So, what happened today? You take a blow to the head?”
“No, I just had a really bad day. My job hunt failed, again, and I met an old acquaintance today.”
“What’s so bad about meeting an old friend?”
“He killed three people before attempting suicide by cop.”
“Suffering Shad. Where did you know him from?”
“A support group.”
“Yes, and?”
“And what?”
“What kind of support group? I don’t want to play twenty questions, twenty answers with you Rich. So kindly stop being so stubborn, and tell me what the deal is with this friend of yours is.”
“Former friends. Alright, As you know, I got my powers from a dying member of the Xandar Nova Corps. I did the superhero thing for a while before I got roped into the war between Xandar and the skrulls. They gave me my powers, so I figured I owed it to them to help beat the green chins. I was there for about a year before we finally stopped them and I got to go home. Without my powers.” Nova said bitterly.
“Yeah?”
“Well, when I got home, my Dad thought I might have some trouble coping with what I saw. He was wrong, but he was also providing the room and board. He made me attend a support group for war veterans and that’s where I met Neil.”
“What war?”
“Vietnam. I’m not gonna go into what he saw, but it wasn’t pretty. He had a hard time sleeping at night, couldn’t hold down a job, the works. He used to always ask me, ‘How did you sleep at night, knowing tomorrow might be the last day of your life?’ But he seemed to get his life together last time I saw him.”
“Apparently not, poor guy.” Namorita said, “You know, today’s the first time that’s happened.”
“What’s the first time?”
“The first time you have remotely talked about your time at war in all the years that I have known you, Rich. Why is that?”
“No reason.” Nova quickly replied.
“Oh? I knew a few guys in college who went to Desert Storm. They couldn’t shut up about what they had seen and done. They would go one and on with their war stories, their tales of glory!” Namorita said sarcastically, “ Why not you?”
“Because I left the war behind me!” Nova snapped angrily before he flew out the window.
Left my life behind me when I went to war, He mused, Shame it wasn’t there for me when I got back. Nova thought back to his time at war. He spent the longest year of his life in space, fighting alongside the Xandar Nova Corps against the invading Skrulls. It seemed like the noble and smart thing to do at the time, but it wasn’t looking, in retrospect. It was a hard, dirty war, that forced Nova to make decisions that still haunted him today. The lines between right and wrong often became blurred and sometimes didn’t even seem to matter. When he returned from Xandar, stripped of his power; his life fell into shambles. He had missed his senior year of high school, and he never had the guts to go back. He was forced to do minimum wage jobs just to get by and always had to deal with the fact that his younger brother was a genius and the apple of his parent’s eyes.
“How do you go from flying thru space and bench pressing several tons to being some nameless smuck?” He asked aloud.
Daniel Rays wasn’t like most doctors. That was because he is really a skrull in hiding. He came to earth because it was the perfect place to blend in. He came to New York because it was filled with odd balls like himself. And he became a doctor because human biology was exceedingly simple to him. He grew to love earth, and now can’t even remember his skrull given name. As he swerved his car in and out of traffic and the pedal to the floor, he couldn’t believe that he had come to this.
I’m a Skrull for pity’s sake He futilely reminded himself, We don’t do this kind of stuff. He knew what he was doing was foolish, dangerous and possibly unnecessary, but he couldn’t take any chances. It wasn’t the skrull in him doing the driving, it was his adopted humanity.
One never should take risks like this, He thought to himself as he sped past another car.
Although his driving hadn’t drawn the attention of the police, yet, it had caught Nova’s.
Guy could give a lesson on road rage, Nova smirked. Don’t know why he’s weaving in and out like that, but I guess I’ll have to find out.
As he descended, he tried to decide the best coarse of action. He could simply grab the car, but that might hurt the passengers. Before he could make his choice, he noticed the automated built in sensors in his helmet were going off, a little red light went off, one that he hadn’t seen in years but could never forget.
The driver’s a Skrull! When he realized that, Nova’s course of action became clear. He shot down from the sky and smashed into the car, bringing it to an abrupt halt.
“What…the… hell are you doing?” Rays demanded as he tried to clear his head. He didn’t have time for this now and he knew it.
“I know what you are,” Nova growled as he pulled Rays out of the car, “ You’re a skrull!” With that, Nova threw Rays across the street and to the sidewalk. Thankfully for everyone concerned, the street that Rays had turned into before Nova attacked him was deserted.
“Is that all?” Rays asked. Nova was on him an instant, his hands tight around Rays’ throat.
“It’s all I really need!”
Rays, realizing that reasoning with Nova was impossible, dropped his human disguise and shape shifted his arm into a mass of tentacles and shoved them down Nova’s throat.
“I don’t have time for you, burn out!” He hissed.
Nova unleashed a weak gravity pulse and dislodged Rays. Being called a burn out infuriated Nova. During the war, “Burn out” was a slur for members of the Nova Corps who were stripped of their powers for failure to do their duty, and the Skrulls loved to call everyone that.
“I'm no burn out, space dung!” Nova declared as he tried to hit Rays with a right. Normally, he would have been able to hit him with ease, but Nova’s powers had changed considerably. Gravity pulses were harder to generate now, taking most of his energy.
“Look, I’ve done nothing to you, why are you attacking me?” Rays asked as he avoided another blow.
“You’re a skrull, and that’s all I need to know you’re up to no good!” Nova replied.
“Arrrgh! Someone please help me!” A female voice cried. Both men stopped fighting and turned their attention to the car. Nova rushed to the car, and saw a very pregnant woman in the back seat, bleeding and breathing heavily.
“She’s two months early, and she needs to get to a hospital now.” Rays explained.
“Dammit.” Nova muttered. He knew what he had to do, but what would happen if he let a stinking Skrull go free?
“I’ll wait here for you if that’s what you need, but get her to a god damned hospital, now!” Rays shouted.
Nova carefully picked up the damaged car, and flew it to Mercy Hospital, which he noted was barely a few blocks away. He quickly explained the situation to the paramedics, with a liberal does of B.S as they took the woman out of the car and into E.R. Nova stayed just long enough to learn that the woman and her child were alright before returning to the alley that he had left Rays in. True to his word, Rays was still there, waiting.
“How is she?”
“Doctors said I got her there just in time.”
“You.” Rays muttered under his breath.
“Yeah, me. Now you give me one reason why I shouldn’t hand your green butt over to S.H.I.E.L.D right now?”
“Maybe because I haven’t committed any crime?”
“And you’re in this country, much less planet, legally?”
“I’m here seeking asylum, like many other humans. What does my planet of origin matter?”
“Asylum? For what?”
“This.” Rays said. He held out his arm and it burst into flames. Rays, however, was unharmed.
“That’s a new trick. I didn’t know skrulls could do that.”
“No it isn’t, really” Rays explained, “ I’m a skrull mutant. What that means to the skrull high command is that I am to be killed at birth, no questions or exceptions. My mother learned this fact while she was still pregnant with me. She fled the empire and escaped to earth where she gave birth to me. We made a life for ourselves here and lived as a some what normal family for a time. I only know a little bit about my skrull heritage really.”
“How much?”
“Enough not to be proud of it.”
“What happened? What do you mean by…for a time.?”
“The empire sent agents after us. They have long memories and hold longer grudges, especially when it comes to genetic purity. She was forced to take the craft we arrived here in to lure them away from earth. I can only presume that she is dead.”
“My heart bleeds,” Nova said without a trace of pity, “ But you still haven’t given me a reason not to take you in.”
“Do you intend to turn yourself in as well?”
“Excuse me?”
“When you smashed into my car like you did, you endangered that woman’s life. I was trying to save it. It seems to reason that if I have done some criminal act, so have you.”
“That’s pretty thin reasoning.”
“So is attacking me, and endangering my passenger simply because I am a skrull. She could have been killed, you know.”
“…”
“Let me ask you this, outside of the fact that I am a Skrull, do you have any proof whatsoever that I have committed a single crime?”
“You’re here illegally.”
“Actually, like I said, I was born here. Anything else?”
“No.” Nova sighed, “ But I want to know one thing. What’s your connection to that woman?”
“None really. She’s just my neighbor whom I pass in the hall every now in then. She knew I was a doctor and came to me when she realized something was wrong.”
“Your…neighbor?”
“Yes, my neighbor. Is it so incomprehensible that I was simply doing something out of the goodness of my heart?”
Nova didn’t respond at first, and Rays started to walk away.
“Yes, it is,” Nova muttered, “ But that’s only because sometimes it’s hard to leave wars behind you.”
-Fin-