Back to Gatefold
Issue #4 by Hunter Lambright
Jan 2009 |
"LEGACY LOST - Part Four: Surging the Opponent"
Somewhere above New York
Four teenagers huddled together as they flew across the night sky in a shimmering, blue, lima-bean shaped vehicle. The magical manifestation only remained afloat because Billy Kaplan willed it to stay in the sky with his newfound abilities. He was a quick learner, and part of him wondered what his limit was if this was what he could do after just half a day with powers.
Since he had woken up that morning, life had changed for Billy Kaplan. No longer was he worried about algebra finals, money troubles, and if he’d cleared the history on the computer. His mind had been expanded to more dangerous and desperate situations in the world, like whether his actions would save or condemn Kate Bishop, among other extremely important items.
“We need costumes,” Billy said. His arms were stretched across the sides of the vehicle, and so his back was to the rest of the group.
Eli Bradley looked up. “What did you say?”
“I said, we need costumes,” Billy repeated.
Eli shook his head. “That’s what I thought you said, and I was giving you the opportunity to save yourself. Why the heck do we need costumes?”
Bryon cocked an eyebrow. The green-clad teen lifted the corner of his cape in Eli’s direction. “I have a costume. The Avengers all wear costumes. What’s wrong with costumes?”
“I am not gonna be laughed out of school because everyone saw me wearing spandex,” Eli said. He crossed his arms over his chest and pressed his lips together defiantly.
“I like the idea of wearing a costume,” Cassie chimed in. The blonde girl was the youngest member of the group, barely clocking in at fourteen years old.
“You’re outvoted,” Bryon said, looking at Eli. He turned to Billy. “If you’re able…?”
Billy nodded and began muttering under his breath. Golden dust sprinkled down over the group. Bryon’s costume was not altered in design, although the color brightened somewhat from the drab, dark green that must have only been cool in the war times. Cassie’s clothes shimmered in the dust before changing into a one-piece red and black spandex suit reminiscent of her father’s Ant-Man uniform. Where the dust landed was a black domino mask. She picked it up and fit it perfectly over her eyes. Billy’s clothes shimmered into a thick, black and blue leathery outfit that seemed like it drew equally from Norse legend and modern fashion. A ragged, red cape and a circular stone crown decorated with runes completed the costume. Eli was the last to be changed. Billy chalked it up to him being the one least receptive to the change in the first place. Eli’s clothing was replaced with a blue outfit with military star buttons and red gloves.
Eli stared at himself, looking himself over. “I told you, I am not going to do this if there’s a chance everyone I know will see me on TV and laugh me out of school, man!” He began to take the gloves off.
Billy looked at Bryon. “Face mask?”
Bryon nodded. “Face mask.”
A few short words later, Eli’s head and neck were covered with a mask the same color of the rest of his outfit. “See? Now no one can even tell you’re black, let alone that you’re Eli Bradley,” Billy said, pressing the flying craft onward. “Are we getting anywhere near close, Bryon? If we are, I need to know so we can drop into the woods and, you know, not be seen.”
“I don’t know,” Bryon admitted, looking around. “I can’t find the shadow.”
“I’m right here,” said the hissing voice of the shadow. No one knew who it was or where it had come from. All Bryon knew was that the shadow had been the one to grant him his powers and give him his missions. They had trusted each other, though some of the shadow’s recent actions had shaken that trust. “We’re about twenty miles off. In fifteen we’ll need to drop below the tree level, and three more after that we’ll have to walk.”
Billy absorbed this information and continued to concentrate on the flight. Bryon turned to the shadow. “Where have you been?”
“Taking care of business,” the shadow said. “You aren’t my only iron in the fire. You just happen to be the most important one at the moment.”
“Yeah? Well we need to be a little more focused. If we don’t do this right, we could be endangering several dozen more kids. Tell me those irons aren’t a little important right now. I dare you,” Bryon said with more than a little venom in his voice.
“I’m doing everything I can. You focus on your part. We’ll talk about this later, if we’re still alive to do so,” the shadow said evenly.
Bryon fumed because he hadn’t been able to provoke actual anger, but he let it go if only to make less of a fool of himself in front of Cassie and Eli, who he was certain had witnessed the entire exchange. “Fine. But we will talk later.”
“So, uh, anybody corporeal need a hug?” Billy asked, trying to break the almost palpable tension. “Because I’m a little busy, but I’m sure Eli’s in the mood.” No one reacted. “Riiiiight. I’ll just keep flying then.”
# # # # #
Stingray’s Quinjet, en route to New York
It hadn’t been easy to convince the hospital to let Michael come with Stingray. It had taken an explanation that he was on a superhuman hit list coupled with some of the assassin’s ejected bullet casings before Stingray had the hospital convinced both Michael and the hospital itself were better off if he could take the boy back to New York.
As soon as he wheeled the boy into the Quinjet, they took off for Avengers Mansion. Stingray knew that if anything was about to go down, it would happen there. After about half an hour of awkward silence, Stingray decided to ask something that had been bugging him since they had found out Michael was one of the targets. “So, what did you do, do you think, to get attacked like that, Michael?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, hard to believe, but this is my second time being attacked like that. First time was when I was on the beach, fighting off those Plodex things with my rapier, and then later at my house when—well, it’s a long story, but they came and got the Plodex that went home with me.”
Stingray absorbed this, made a mental note to ask for the full story later, and then said, “What did you say you were fighting them off with?”
“My rapier,” Michael said. “You know, the type of sword, I guess you’d call it, that you use for fencing.”
“Swordsman,” Stingray muttered. “You aren’t my Legacy, you’re the Swordsman’s.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said, his brow furrowed in confusion.
Stingray set the Quinjet on autopilot and then turned to look at Michael. “I’m talking about the files. According to the Black Panther, every Avenger has a Legacy file, in case someone kills all the Avengers one day, or goes crazy and ‘disassembles’ us. We’d always assumed that, because my interests in aquatic science mirror your interests, you were my Legacy, but that’s now how it works, I don’t think. It’s based on the powers, the motif, I believe. So my Legacy is someone who wears an aquatic suit or has electrical abilities, just like Ant-Man’s Legacy is apparently his size-changing daughter, and so on.”
Michael leaned forward in the wheelchair. “But…what does this all mean, exactly?”
“I’m not sure,” Stingray said. “It’s all one confusing mess. It’s like, why are these people trying to kill certain individuals repeatedly while running at the first sign of an Avenger regarding other individuals? And if these people want superhuman teenagers dead, why are they only using bullets? Lead may be effective, but when they get down the list to the Legacies for the Hulk or Wonder Man…do you see what I mean? The logic is flawed. There’s another game being played here, and I’m not sure I understand the rules yet.”
“How long do we have until we touch down in New York?” Michael asked.
Stingray checked the aircraft’s computer. “Our ETA is still a couple of hours away. Why?”
“See if you can upload the files that the Avengers have put together. I want us to take a look at them. And you can take off your mask, Mr. Newell. I couldn’t remember where I’d heard your voice until you mentioned us having similar interests in aquatic science,” Michael explained. “S’okay, though. Secret’s safe with me. Let’s just do what we can to help out from afar. I don’t want anyone else to lose from this like I have if we can help it…”
# # # # #
Avengers Mansion
“They must have had trouble finding it,” Captain America said, pacing back and forth in the conference room. The star-spangled Avenger wore a frown that was set deep into his face. “That has to be what’s taking them so long.”
Carol Danvers, the Avenger known as Warbird, shook her head, displacing her blonde hair in the process. “I think the shadow gave us good information, Steve. Quicksilver has hardly been gone ten minutes. I think you might be taking his speed for granted.”
Steve grunted. “As long as he comes back with our ace in the hole, that’s what matters.”
“Something’s bugging you, Steve. I can tell,” Carol said, walking up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”
Steve shook his head. “It’s what that boy, the Young Avenger, what he said about Bucky. He struck a nerve there, and you could tell he meant to. I don’t want anything to happen to these kids any more than I wanted anything to happen to Bucky. Bryon has to know that, but he went for the low blow anyway. It just has me shaken is all.”
Carol looked Steve in the eyes with a sad look on her face. “He’s a kid, Steve. He wanted to do his own thing no matter what you said, and when it looked like you were going to stand in the way of that, he lashed out. That’s what kids do. You’ve looked madmen like the Red Skull in the eye plenty of times. You can’t let something like this get in the way.”
“That’s not all, Carol,” Steve replied, and she saw that his frown had deepened. “It’s the story he’s telling about what happened to the home front heroes at the end of the war. I keep wondering if I’d only been there…”
“Stop. Please, Steve, you can’t do this to yourself,” Carol said. “Promise me this. Until this is over, only one guilt-trip at a time, okay?”
Steve’s face lightened a little at this. “I’ll try to stow away my baggage, if that’s what you mean. I don’t want to bog the team down. I just want to be able to help. It’s just hard when everything about this reminds me of times I should have been able to help and couldn’t.”
“It gets to us all, Steve,” Carol said. “Maybe all it takes is a little faith to pull through.”
“Faith in what?” Steve asked.
Carol put her index finger on Steve’s chest. “Faith in yourself.”
# # # # #
The Adirondack Mountains
“So where are we going?” asked Cassie, following the three boys in the lead. They had naturally flanked out around her, but she hadn’t seemed to notice. She was too busy being spooked by the darkness of the woods and the jagged landscape.
Bryon turned around. “The shadow says the Superhuman Deployment Division is headquartered up in the mountains somewhere ahead of us. He’s scouting ahead, I think, although in this darkness he could be in front of me and I would never know it.”
“Boo.”
“Jeez!” Bryon shouted, stopping in his tracks. “You have a twisted sense of humor, you know that?”
The shadow materialized in the moonlight in front of them. “I’ve found the entrance. It’s one they used back in the fifties and sixties to shuttle out whoever they were defrosting for a mission. It sees little use now. It should be safe.”
“Emphasis on ‘should’?” asked Eli, cocking a skeptical eyebrow.
The shadow hovered in front of Eli. “You don’t trust me. That’s good. Your unwillingness to accept anything as fact will keep you alive longer in this game. Unfortunately, trusting me is our only chance of getting Kate back alive.”
The others began to move forward, but Eli remained where he was. Billy looked back over his shoulder. “You coming, Eli?”
Eli frowned. “Yeah. I’m coming.”
“Silence, now,” said the shadow from ahead. “I don’t know how far out they have their sonic detectors. Our movements would be picked up as animal movements, but our voices would be recognized instantly as a threat to the sanctity of the control center and all of its operations.”
They trudged onward, keeping heavy in mind the fact that any whimper, grunt, or cry from stumbling might send the Deployment Division’s guard dogs running. Eli guessed that they had walked a little over a mile when the shadow flittered over Bryon’s shoulder. Bryon waved his fellow teammates forward. Eli guessed that they had arrived.
In the blink of an eye, something swung out of the trees, taking Bryon off his feet and into the darkness. Eli planted his feet in a defensive position, tuning his senses to his surroundings. The silhouette appeared again, this time taking Bryon with a kick in the gut.
“Oh, no,” whispered the shadow. “No, this isn’t right. This isn’t right at all.”
“What’s not right?” Eli asked, as the immeasurably fast silhouette slammed into Cassie just as she was beginning to change size.
The shadow flickered across the moonlight on Eli’s chest. “He’s not right,” the shadow said.
It came for him, then, and Eli stood his ground. Both of the silhouette’s feet crashed into Eli’s chest, but he merely stumbled backward and grunted. “Wanna try that again?” he asked through gritted teeth.
The silhouette ceased its darting and leaping and halted in disbelief in front of Eli. As it came into the moonlight, he could see that it was the muscular form of a teenage boy in golden armor and a flowing red cape. “Impossible. The strength of Hercules failed to fell a mortal?”
“You’ll have to do better than that, man,” Eli said, itching for a fight. There was something about this kid that made Eli really want to knock his teeth in, the same way Bryon got on him a little.
The boy nodded. “I won’t fail this time.” Then he struck.
Eli took a blow on the shoulder that he felt more than he let on. Then, while the boy was unguarded, he launched a gloved fist into the boy’s chin. “What’s not right?” Eli asked under his breath. He knew the shadow was still with him.
“That’s Martin Burns, the Marvel Boy from back in World War II,” the shadow hissed, and Eli had the feeling that it was saying this from right beside his ear. “If they’re using him, it means they know.”
“It means they know what?” Eli asked, barely catching himself as he stepped backwards and grasped for Marvel Boy’s cape. He whipped it around Marvel Boy’s left leg, only to reel backwards as Marvel Boy leapt up with a kick from his right.
“They’re using him because of me, to catch me off guard. That must be it, because they know,” the shadow said.
“Not to be a broken record, but what do they know?” Eli asked, with even more urgency. He landed another punch into the side of Marvel Boy’s helmet, but it hardly seemed to faze the other teen. He wondered if the ‘strength of Hercules’ granted him a level of invulnerability as well.
“It means that they know that I’m here…because I’m the one that gave him his powers,” the shadow said.
Eli opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t. He deflected another punch, painfully aware that he had next to zero combat experience. But his mind was worried about other things as well, like if Bryon knew just how much else the shadow hadn’t told him.
# # # # #
“I can’t believe we just ditched Eli back there!” Cassie spat, even as she tried to keep her voice down. “We need to go back!”
“He distracted that guy,” Bryon said matter-of-factly. “We have to leave it at that. If we go back and defeat the guard they sent, they’ll send more. They can do it. I’ve seen how many superhumans they have imprisoned here. Our only chance is to get in while Eli puts up a fight.”
“And your little friend? The one you can’t see at night?” Billy asked.
Bryon shrugged. “What he doesn’t know won’t kill him. He’s kept me in the dark for so long, maybe it’s time we see how things go if we make our own plan.”
“As long as it doesn’t get anyone killed,” Billy muttered, following Bryon into the hatch that led into the Superhuman Deployment Division’s headquarters. “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”
“I think I have an idea,” Bryon mumbled. “I was in here before, remember?”
“That’s confidence-inspiring,” Billy said, still sour after leaving Eli behind.
“No one’s keeping you here, following me,” Bryon said, stopping in his tracks. “If you want to go back, go back.”
“Guys,” Cassie said in a cautioning tone.
Billy’s temper flared. “I haven’t forgotten that the reason my family’s apartment was blown up is because you grabbed an extra file, man! I would still be at home, probably in front of the TV with a plate of cookies and glass of milk right now instead of nursing a gash in my stomach and chasing after a guy who’s going to kill some girl I’ve never met just because someone stuck an Avenger’s name on my file! I have powers I didn’t ask for that I never would have realized I had if you had just grabbed the folder with your name on it instead of the one with ours, too, okay? So don’t talk to me like I’m the one who’s causing you grief!”
“Guys…” Cassie warned.
Bryon took off his mask so that he could look Billy face to face. “You know what? I could’ve just as easily left town without trying to find and save you guys to make up for my mistake, but I didn’t. It may be my fault, but I’m trying my best not to screw this up worse. Like I said, if you want to help Eli, be my guest. As far as I’m concerned, Kate is the one in the most danger right now, and—”
“Guys!” Cassie said, growing to ten feet to separate the two. “We have incoming!”
“Cassie, shrink!” Bryon shouted, just as the men came around the corner. He could see that the Lieutenant hadn’t bothered sending more defrosted supermen after them. This time he had gone straight for the boys with guns.
The man in the lead leveled his gun directly at Bryon as soon as he saw his target. “Freeze! We’re under direct orders to terminate anyone who resists capture. If you try anything, any fighting, any magic, we will kill Kate Bishop as well.”
“Crap,” Billy muttered, holding up his hands. Bryon did the same.
The lead guard turned to one of his men at the side. “Heinberg, you and Cho get some duct tape on the wizard boy. Then the rest of you can get these boys in cuffs—the adamantium ones—and lead them down to the main room. Narfi wants to see them.”
Cassie watched from her position in the shadows where she cowered, no more than six inches tall. She saw her older teammates being shackled together before they were led in a funeral-like procession down the dank hallway toward the place where Narfi lay waiting for them.
It wasn’t until they were almost completely out of sight that Cassie felt it was safe to emerge from her shadowed hiding place. She only just got her head into the light when she heard someone coming down the hallway from the place they had entered. Pulling back, she witnessed the golden-armored form of another teenager dragging Eli’s limp form down the hallway behind him, forcing her to cover up her astonished gasp. The supposedly-invulnerable Eli was bleeding profusely from his nose.
“The best laid plans go to hell in a hurry, don’t they?” the shadow’s voice whispered in Cassie’s ear. Cassie jumped again, but held in her scream. “Looks like you’re the only one left, Cassie. Time to be a hero, eh?”
# # # # #
Stingray’s Quinjet
“Yep, I got it. I’m rerouting our course now,” said Stingray into the radio, then hung up.
Michael looked up from the files he was glancing at on the Quinjet’s onboard computer. “What was that?”
“It was Warbird. She gave me the coordinates to where they think the man who’s been coordinating these attacks is holed up. We’re going to meet them there and hopefully get this thing figured out once and for all,” Stingray explained. “What have you come up with so far?”
Michael shrugged. “Honestly? Nothing.” He shuffled some of the files around on the screen, then wheeled himself backwards out of the way so that Stingray could get a closer look. “Everything seems so random. From what I can gather, Eli Bradley and Billy Kaplan were attacked and should have died if not for their powers coming in at the exact right moment. But if the files describe their powers, these gunmen should have known that the guns would have been next to useless on Eli and that they might need something of a different caliber for Billy. The only one of us they killed was this Red Tigress girl in Wakanda. And the only one they maimed was, well, me.”
“What do you think that means, though?” Stingray asked. “You would think that this meant that they were only actually trying to kill you and the Wakandan girl, while they meant to be sloppy with the others. You’re also the only ‘failure’ that they sent a follow-up after.”
“Nothing fits,” Michael said. “You know what I found out? There haven’t been any bystander casualties yet.”
“Well, that’s good,” Stingray said.
“No, there’s more to it than that,” Michael said. “The three apartments below the Kaplan household were all crushed inward when Billy’s powers manifested, but no one was inside. The residents were at home at the time, but they were teleported onto the street just as the building collapsed. Same thing goes for the Bradley occurrence. The neighbors’ houses were strafed, too, but everyone ended up teleported across the street just before the gunfire opened up.”
Stingray considered this. “So someone’s orchestrating this, letting the kids know that they’re onto them, but making sure no one else gets hurt? Or is there someone else who has knowledge of the targets and is just trying to get there a step ahead of time?”
“It seems like it,” Michael agreed. “If we only just knew this Lieutenant guy’s agenda, maybe this would make a little more sense.”
Stingray nodded. “We can concentrate on the whys of what’s happening after we take the Lieutenant down. As far as I’m concerned, he’s gotten what’s coming to him, which is the entirety of the Avengers coming to lay him out. By the time we’re done with him, I hope to make sure he’s paralyzed from the waist down.”
# # # # #
The Superhuman Deployment Division Headquarters
When Eli came to, he was shackled to a metal stand in the center of a circular room. Chained around him in a similar fashion were Bryon and Billy. He mentally kicked himself for letting Marvel Boy get the upper hand, but knew that there was nothing he could do about it from his position. The dried blood on his lips was a reminder of that.
There were guards circling the perimeter of the room, save for an area at the front that had two wide computer screens and a doorway. Eli watched as the light above the doorway switched from red to green.
“Atten-shun!” shouted one of the guards. The door slid open from the side, revealing a thin, older man with the markings of a high-ranking officer on his uniform. Eli guessed that he ranked higher than lieutenant, just by the look of fear in some of the guards’ eyes at his presence.
“At ease, soldiers,” Narfi said, eyeing the prisoners. “I thought you said you captured all of them?”
“We captured all those who attempted to enter the facility, sir,” said one soldier.
Narfi unstrapped his gun and, without looking in the soldier’s direction, fired it directly at him. The man crumpled to the ground, gripping his knee and moaning. “Anyone else want to admit to failure? Find the Lang girl. She’s somewhere in the facility. I know it.”
The soldiers all exited the room in a hurry. Two dragged their injured man out the door behind them. Once they were gone, Narfi looked at his prisoners. “Thought you’d pull one on me, didn’t you? Well, that didn’t exactly work. They’ll be combing the facility for bio-signs and as soon as they hit a lock that isn’t already registered in the database, we’ll have one big happy family, won’t we?”
“What are you talking about?” Bryon asked, struggling against his bonds even though it was clear he wasn’t going to be breaking free.
Narfi laughed. “Still haven’t figured it out, have you, kids? It’s like all of the Brady kids’ kids getting together for a family reunion, Avengers style! Maybe I if I change?” At his words, the façade of the war-weathered lieutenant faded, replaced with a much more youthful looking guise. Narfi now looked like a twenty-year-old playing dress up in military clothing. “That help?”
“Not really,” Eli said.
Narfi nodded, as if he’d expected that. “Yeah, that’s what my dad gets me for wearing that ugly-ass horned helmet all the time. You can’t really tell we have the same hair, but then, I don’t wear mine in a ponytail either.”
“You know? I agree with Bryon for once. What are you talking about?” Eli asked. He wondered briefly why Billy wasn’t saying anything before he realized that Billy’s mouth had been duct taped shut all the way around his head.
Narfi paused and looked around behind him instead of answering. “Oh, look! We have visitors from the adults’ party. That’s no good.” At his words, the screen on the left focused in on a Quinjet that was angling in on the facility from one side, and the screen on the right lit up on a second Quinjet that was coming in just as quickly. “Can we get some anti-aircraft guns and some rockets fired at the party crashers? Thank you!”
Again, his request occurred at his words as if by magic. They could do nothing but watch as rockets were fired up at the two Quinjets. The cameras lost sight of the aircrafts as they sank below the tree line, although whether their landing had been forced or crashed, none of them could tell.
“Phew, glad that’s been taken care of. Now, where were we?” Narfi asked, then snapped his fingers. “That’s right! I was going to follow through on my word!”
“Wait—what do you mean?” Eli asked, feeling more and more like a broken record.
Narfi turned his back to them, going back into the corridor between the two screens as he spoke. “Well, I’m going to do what I said I would do if you came after me.” He emerged from the corridor pulling Kate Bishop by the hair. She was struggling, but the fight seemed to have been beaten out of her. “I’m going to kill Kate Bishop.”
“Man, who the hell do you think you are?” asked Eli, struggling to get free.
Narfi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m Narfi. I’ve told you that, for the love of Odin. Don’t kids these days get a lesson or two in Norse mythology anymore? I’m a second-generation trickster, kiddos, and where Papa Loki brought together the Avengers…well, it looks like I’ve got me the young ones…”
To Be Concluded!
# # # # #
Author’s Note
Hoo-boy, I think there are a few things. Oh, first off, the thing Michael was telling Stingray about some Plodex? That’s happening in an as-yet-unfinished Marvel Fanfare issue that I started in Florida over Christmas break. It got me in a monsters-from-the-sea-attack-the-beach mood.
Other than that, hang in for the ride. One more issue before I catch up to the already-released Christmas special, and then the series takes off from there!
-Hunter Lambright
Four teenagers huddled together as they flew across the night sky in a shimmering, blue, lima-bean shaped vehicle. The magical manifestation only remained afloat because Billy Kaplan willed it to stay in the sky with his newfound abilities. He was a quick learner, and part of him wondered what his limit was if this was what he could do after just half a day with powers.
Since he had woken up that morning, life had changed for Billy Kaplan. No longer was he worried about algebra finals, money troubles, and if he’d cleared the history on the computer. His mind had been expanded to more dangerous and desperate situations in the world, like whether his actions would save or condemn Kate Bishop, among other extremely important items.
“We need costumes,” Billy said. His arms were stretched across the sides of the vehicle, and so his back was to the rest of the group.
Eli Bradley looked up. “What did you say?”
“I said, we need costumes,” Billy repeated.
Eli shook his head. “That’s what I thought you said, and I was giving you the opportunity to save yourself. Why the heck do we need costumes?”
Bryon cocked an eyebrow. The green-clad teen lifted the corner of his cape in Eli’s direction. “I have a costume. The Avengers all wear costumes. What’s wrong with costumes?”
“I am not gonna be laughed out of school because everyone saw me wearing spandex,” Eli said. He crossed his arms over his chest and pressed his lips together defiantly.
“I like the idea of wearing a costume,” Cassie chimed in. The blonde girl was the youngest member of the group, barely clocking in at fourteen years old.
“You’re outvoted,” Bryon said, looking at Eli. He turned to Billy. “If you’re able…?”
Billy nodded and began muttering under his breath. Golden dust sprinkled down over the group. Bryon’s costume was not altered in design, although the color brightened somewhat from the drab, dark green that must have only been cool in the war times. Cassie’s clothes shimmered in the dust before changing into a one-piece red and black spandex suit reminiscent of her father’s Ant-Man uniform. Where the dust landed was a black domino mask. She picked it up and fit it perfectly over her eyes. Billy’s clothes shimmered into a thick, black and blue leathery outfit that seemed like it drew equally from Norse legend and modern fashion. A ragged, red cape and a circular stone crown decorated with runes completed the costume. Eli was the last to be changed. Billy chalked it up to him being the one least receptive to the change in the first place. Eli’s clothing was replaced with a blue outfit with military star buttons and red gloves.
Eli stared at himself, looking himself over. “I told you, I am not going to do this if there’s a chance everyone I know will see me on TV and laugh me out of school, man!” He began to take the gloves off.
Billy looked at Bryon. “Face mask?”
Bryon nodded. “Face mask.”
A few short words later, Eli’s head and neck were covered with a mask the same color of the rest of his outfit. “See? Now no one can even tell you’re black, let alone that you’re Eli Bradley,” Billy said, pressing the flying craft onward. “Are we getting anywhere near close, Bryon? If we are, I need to know so we can drop into the woods and, you know, not be seen.”
“I don’t know,” Bryon admitted, looking around. “I can’t find the shadow.”
“I’m right here,” said the hissing voice of the shadow. No one knew who it was or where it had come from. All Bryon knew was that the shadow had been the one to grant him his powers and give him his missions. They had trusted each other, though some of the shadow’s recent actions had shaken that trust. “We’re about twenty miles off. In fifteen we’ll need to drop below the tree level, and three more after that we’ll have to walk.”
Billy absorbed this information and continued to concentrate on the flight. Bryon turned to the shadow. “Where have you been?”
“Taking care of business,” the shadow said. “You aren’t my only iron in the fire. You just happen to be the most important one at the moment.”
“Yeah? Well we need to be a little more focused. If we don’t do this right, we could be endangering several dozen more kids. Tell me those irons aren’t a little important right now. I dare you,” Bryon said with more than a little venom in his voice.
“I’m doing everything I can. You focus on your part. We’ll talk about this later, if we’re still alive to do so,” the shadow said evenly.
Bryon fumed because he hadn’t been able to provoke actual anger, but he let it go if only to make less of a fool of himself in front of Cassie and Eli, who he was certain had witnessed the entire exchange. “Fine. But we will talk later.”
“So, uh, anybody corporeal need a hug?” Billy asked, trying to break the almost palpable tension. “Because I’m a little busy, but I’m sure Eli’s in the mood.” No one reacted. “Riiiiight. I’ll just keep flying then.”
# # # # #
Stingray’s Quinjet, en route to New York
It hadn’t been easy to convince the hospital to let Michael come with Stingray. It had taken an explanation that he was on a superhuman hit list coupled with some of the assassin’s ejected bullet casings before Stingray had the hospital convinced both Michael and the hospital itself were better off if he could take the boy back to New York.
As soon as he wheeled the boy into the Quinjet, they took off for Avengers Mansion. Stingray knew that if anything was about to go down, it would happen there. After about half an hour of awkward silence, Stingray decided to ask something that had been bugging him since they had found out Michael was one of the targets. “So, what did you do, do you think, to get attacked like that, Michael?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, hard to believe, but this is my second time being attacked like that. First time was when I was on the beach, fighting off those Plodex things with my rapier, and then later at my house when—well, it’s a long story, but they came and got the Plodex that went home with me.”
Stingray absorbed this, made a mental note to ask for the full story later, and then said, “What did you say you were fighting them off with?”
“My rapier,” Michael said. “You know, the type of sword, I guess you’d call it, that you use for fencing.”
“Swordsman,” Stingray muttered. “You aren’t my Legacy, you’re the Swordsman’s.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael said, his brow furrowed in confusion.
Stingray set the Quinjet on autopilot and then turned to look at Michael. “I’m talking about the files. According to the Black Panther, every Avenger has a Legacy file, in case someone kills all the Avengers one day, or goes crazy and ‘disassembles’ us. We’d always assumed that, because my interests in aquatic science mirror your interests, you were my Legacy, but that’s now how it works, I don’t think. It’s based on the powers, the motif, I believe. So my Legacy is someone who wears an aquatic suit or has electrical abilities, just like Ant-Man’s Legacy is apparently his size-changing daughter, and so on.”
Michael leaned forward in the wheelchair. “But…what does this all mean, exactly?”
“I’m not sure,” Stingray said. “It’s all one confusing mess. It’s like, why are these people trying to kill certain individuals repeatedly while running at the first sign of an Avenger regarding other individuals? And if these people want superhuman teenagers dead, why are they only using bullets? Lead may be effective, but when they get down the list to the Legacies for the Hulk or Wonder Man…do you see what I mean? The logic is flawed. There’s another game being played here, and I’m not sure I understand the rules yet.”
“How long do we have until we touch down in New York?” Michael asked.
Stingray checked the aircraft’s computer. “Our ETA is still a couple of hours away. Why?”
“See if you can upload the files that the Avengers have put together. I want us to take a look at them. And you can take off your mask, Mr. Newell. I couldn’t remember where I’d heard your voice until you mentioned us having similar interests in aquatic science,” Michael explained. “S’okay, though. Secret’s safe with me. Let’s just do what we can to help out from afar. I don’t want anyone else to lose from this like I have if we can help it…”
# # # # #
Avengers Mansion
“They must have had trouble finding it,” Captain America said, pacing back and forth in the conference room. The star-spangled Avenger wore a frown that was set deep into his face. “That has to be what’s taking them so long.”
Carol Danvers, the Avenger known as Warbird, shook her head, displacing her blonde hair in the process. “I think the shadow gave us good information, Steve. Quicksilver has hardly been gone ten minutes. I think you might be taking his speed for granted.”
Steve grunted. “As long as he comes back with our ace in the hole, that’s what matters.”
“Something’s bugging you, Steve. I can tell,” Carol said, walking up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”
Steve shook his head. “It’s what that boy, the Young Avenger, what he said about Bucky. He struck a nerve there, and you could tell he meant to. I don’t want anything to happen to these kids any more than I wanted anything to happen to Bucky. Bryon has to know that, but he went for the low blow anyway. It just has me shaken is all.”
Carol looked Steve in the eyes with a sad look on her face. “He’s a kid, Steve. He wanted to do his own thing no matter what you said, and when it looked like you were going to stand in the way of that, he lashed out. That’s what kids do. You’ve looked madmen like the Red Skull in the eye plenty of times. You can’t let something like this get in the way.”
“That’s not all, Carol,” Steve replied, and she saw that his frown had deepened. “It’s the story he’s telling about what happened to the home front heroes at the end of the war. I keep wondering if I’d only been there…”
“Stop. Please, Steve, you can’t do this to yourself,” Carol said. “Promise me this. Until this is over, only one guilt-trip at a time, okay?”
Steve’s face lightened a little at this. “I’ll try to stow away my baggage, if that’s what you mean. I don’t want to bog the team down. I just want to be able to help. It’s just hard when everything about this reminds me of times I should have been able to help and couldn’t.”
“It gets to us all, Steve,” Carol said. “Maybe all it takes is a little faith to pull through.”
“Faith in what?” Steve asked.
Carol put her index finger on Steve’s chest. “Faith in yourself.”
# # # # #
The Adirondack Mountains
“So where are we going?” asked Cassie, following the three boys in the lead. They had naturally flanked out around her, but she hadn’t seemed to notice. She was too busy being spooked by the darkness of the woods and the jagged landscape.
Bryon turned around. “The shadow says the Superhuman Deployment Division is headquartered up in the mountains somewhere ahead of us. He’s scouting ahead, I think, although in this darkness he could be in front of me and I would never know it.”
“Boo.”
“Jeez!” Bryon shouted, stopping in his tracks. “You have a twisted sense of humor, you know that?”
The shadow materialized in the moonlight in front of them. “I’ve found the entrance. It’s one they used back in the fifties and sixties to shuttle out whoever they were defrosting for a mission. It sees little use now. It should be safe.”
“Emphasis on ‘should’?” asked Eli, cocking a skeptical eyebrow.
The shadow hovered in front of Eli. “You don’t trust me. That’s good. Your unwillingness to accept anything as fact will keep you alive longer in this game. Unfortunately, trusting me is our only chance of getting Kate back alive.”
The others began to move forward, but Eli remained where he was. Billy looked back over his shoulder. “You coming, Eli?”
Eli frowned. “Yeah. I’m coming.”
“Silence, now,” said the shadow from ahead. “I don’t know how far out they have their sonic detectors. Our movements would be picked up as animal movements, but our voices would be recognized instantly as a threat to the sanctity of the control center and all of its operations.”
They trudged onward, keeping heavy in mind the fact that any whimper, grunt, or cry from stumbling might send the Deployment Division’s guard dogs running. Eli guessed that they had walked a little over a mile when the shadow flittered over Bryon’s shoulder. Bryon waved his fellow teammates forward. Eli guessed that they had arrived.
In the blink of an eye, something swung out of the trees, taking Bryon off his feet and into the darkness. Eli planted his feet in a defensive position, tuning his senses to his surroundings. The silhouette appeared again, this time taking Bryon with a kick in the gut.
“Oh, no,” whispered the shadow. “No, this isn’t right. This isn’t right at all.”
“What’s not right?” Eli asked, as the immeasurably fast silhouette slammed into Cassie just as she was beginning to change size.
The shadow flickered across the moonlight on Eli’s chest. “He’s not right,” the shadow said.
It came for him, then, and Eli stood his ground. Both of the silhouette’s feet crashed into Eli’s chest, but he merely stumbled backward and grunted. “Wanna try that again?” he asked through gritted teeth.
The silhouette ceased its darting and leaping and halted in disbelief in front of Eli. As it came into the moonlight, he could see that it was the muscular form of a teenage boy in golden armor and a flowing red cape. “Impossible. The strength of Hercules failed to fell a mortal?”
“You’ll have to do better than that, man,” Eli said, itching for a fight. There was something about this kid that made Eli really want to knock his teeth in, the same way Bryon got on him a little.
The boy nodded. “I won’t fail this time.” Then he struck.
Eli took a blow on the shoulder that he felt more than he let on. Then, while the boy was unguarded, he launched a gloved fist into the boy’s chin. “What’s not right?” Eli asked under his breath. He knew the shadow was still with him.
“That’s Martin Burns, the Marvel Boy from back in World War II,” the shadow hissed, and Eli had the feeling that it was saying this from right beside his ear. “If they’re using him, it means they know.”
“It means they know what?” Eli asked, barely catching himself as he stepped backwards and grasped for Marvel Boy’s cape. He whipped it around Marvel Boy’s left leg, only to reel backwards as Marvel Boy leapt up with a kick from his right.
“They’re using him because of me, to catch me off guard. That must be it, because they know,” the shadow said.
“Not to be a broken record, but what do they know?” Eli asked, with even more urgency. He landed another punch into the side of Marvel Boy’s helmet, but it hardly seemed to faze the other teen. He wondered if the ‘strength of Hercules’ granted him a level of invulnerability as well.
“It means that they know that I’m here…because I’m the one that gave him his powers,” the shadow said.
Eli opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t. He deflected another punch, painfully aware that he had next to zero combat experience. But his mind was worried about other things as well, like if Bryon knew just how much else the shadow hadn’t told him.
# # # # #
“I can’t believe we just ditched Eli back there!” Cassie spat, even as she tried to keep her voice down. “We need to go back!”
“He distracted that guy,” Bryon said matter-of-factly. “We have to leave it at that. If we go back and defeat the guard they sent, they’ll send more. They can do it. I’ve seen how many superhumans they have imprisoned here. Our only chance is to get in while Eli puts up a fight.”
“And your little friend? The one you can’t see at night?” Billy asked.
Bryon shrugged. “What he doesn’t know won’t kill him. He’s kept me in the dark for so long, maybe it’s time we see how things go if we make our own plan.”
“As long as it doesn’t get anyone killed,” Billy muttered, following Bryon into the hatch that led into the Superhuman Deployment Division’s headquarters. “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”
“I think I have an idea,” Bryon mumbled. “I was in here before, remember?”
“That’s confidence-inspiring,” Billy said, still sour after leaving Eli behind.
“No one’s keeping you here, following me,” Bryon said, stopping in his tracks. “If you want to go back, go back.”
“Guys,” Cassie said in a cautioning tone.
Billy’s temper flared. “I haven’t forgotten that the reason my family’s apartment was blown up is because you grabbed an extra file, man! I would still be at home, probably in front of the TV with a plate of cookies and glass of milk right now instead of nursing a gash in my stomach and chasing after a guy who’s going to kill some girl I’ve never met just because someone stuck an Avenger’s name on my file! I have powers I didn’t ask for that I never would have realized I had if you had just grabbed the folder with your name on it instead of the one with ours, too, okay? So don’t talk to me like I’m the one who’s causing you grief!”
“Guys…” Cassie warned.
Bryon took off his mask so that he could look Billy face to face. “You know what? I could’ve just as easily left town without trying to find and save you guys to make up for my mistake, but I didn’t. It may be my fault, but I’m trying my best not to screw this up worse. Like I said, if you want to help Eli, be my guest. As far as I’m concerned, Kate is the one in the most danger right now, and—”
“Guys!” Cassie said, growing to ten feet to separate the two. “We have incoming!”
“Cassie, shrink!” Bryon shouted, just as the men came around the corner. He could see that the Lieutenant hadn’t bothered sending more defrosted supermen after them. This time he had gone straight for the boys with guns.
The man in the lead leveled his gun directly at Bryon as soon as he saw his target. “Freeze! We’re under direct orders to terminate anyone who resists capture. If you try anything, any fighting, any magic, we will kill Kate Bishop as well.”
“Crap,” Billy muttered, holding up his hands. Bryon did the same.
The lead guard turned to one of his men at the side. “Heinberg, you and Cho get some duct tape on the wizard boy. Then the rest of you can get these boys in cuffs—the adamantium ones—and lead them down to the main room. Narfi wants to see them.”
Cassie watched from her position in the shadows where she cowered, no more than six inches tall. She saw her older teammates being shackled together before they were led in a funeral-like procession down the dank hallway toward the place where Narfi lay waiting for them.
It wasn’t until they were almost completely out of sight that Cassie felt it was safe to emerge from her shadowed hiding place. She only just got her head into the light when she heard someone coming down the hallway from the place they had entered. Pulling back, she witnessed the golden-armored form of another teenager dragging Eli’s limp form down the hallway behind him, forcing her to cover up her astonished gasp. The supposedly-invulnerable Eli was bleeding profusely from his nose.
“The best laid plans go to hell in a hurry, don’t they?” the shadow’s voice whispered in Cassie’s ear. Cassie jumped again, but held in her scream. “Looks like you’re the only one left, Cassie. Time to be a hero, eh?”
# # # # #
Stingray’s Quinjet
“Yep, I got it. I’m rerouting our course now,” said Stingray into the radio, then hung up.
Michael looked up from the files he was glancing at on the Quinjet’s onboard computer. “What was that?”
“It was Warbird. She gave me the coordinates to where they think the man who’s been coordinating these attacks is holed up. We’re going to meet them there and hopefully get this thing figured out once and for all,” Stingray explained. “What have you come up with so far?”
Michael shrugged. “Honestly? Nothing.” He shuffled some of the files around on the screen, then wheeled himself backwards out of the way so that Stingray could get a closer look. “Everything seems so random. From what I can gather, Eli Bradley and Billy Kaplan were attacked and should have died if not for their powers coming in at the exact right moment. But if the files describe their powers, these gunmen should have known that the guns would have been next to useless on Eli and that they might need something of a different caliber for Billy. The only one of us they killed was this Red Tigress girl in Wakanda. And the only one they maimed was, well, me.”
“What do you think that means, though?” Stingray asked. “You would think that this meant that they were only actually trying to kill you and the Wakandan girl, while they meant to be sloppy with the others. You’re also the only ‘failure’ that they sent a follow-up after.”
“Nothing fits,” Michael said. “You know what I found out? There haven’t been any bystander casualties yet.”
“Well, that’s good,” Stingray said.
“No, there’s more to it than that,” Michael said. “The three apartments below the Kaplan household were all crushed inward when Billy’s powers manifested, but no one was inside. The residents were at home at the time, but they were teleported onto the street just as the building collapsed. Same thing goes for the Bradley occurrence. The neighbors’ houses were strafed, too, but everyone ended up teleported across the street just before the gunfire opened up.”
Stingray considered this. “So someone’s orchestrating this, letting the kids know that they’re onto them, but making sure no one else gets hurt? Or is there someone else who has knowledge of the targets and is just trying to get there a step ahead of time?”
“It seems like it,” Michael agreed. “If we only just knew this Lieutenant guy’s agenda, maybe this would make a little more sense.”
Stingray nodded. “We can concentrate on the whys of what’s happening after we take the Lieutenant down. As far as I’m concerned, he’s gotten what’s coming to him, which is the entirety of the Avengers coming to lay him out. By the time we’re done with him, I hope to make sure he’s paralyzed from the waist down.”
# # # # #
The Superhuman Deployment Division Headquarters
When Eli came to, he was shackled to a metal stand in the center of a circular room. Chained around him in a similar fashion were Bryon and Billy. He mentally kicked himself for letting Marvel Boy get the upper hand, but knew that there was nothing he could do about it from his position. The dried blood on his lips was a reminder of that.
There were guards circling the perimeter of the room, save for an area at the front that had two wide computer screens and a doorway. Eli watched as the light above the doorway switched from red to green.
“Atten-shun!” shouted one of the guards. The door slid open from the side, revealing a thin, older man with the markings of a high-ranking officer on his uniform. Eli guessed that he ranked higher than lieutenant, just by the look of fear in some of the guards’ eyes at his presence.
“At ease, soldiers,” Narfi said, eyeing the prisoners. “I thought you said you captured all of them?”
“We captured all those who attempted to enter the facility, sir,” said one soldier.
Narfi unstrapped his gun and, without looking in the soldier’s direction, fired it directly at him. The man crumpled to the ground, gripping his knee and moaning. “Anyone else want to admit to failure? Find the Lang girl. She’s somewhere in the facility. I know it.”
The soldiers all exited the room in a hurry. Two dragged their injured man out the door behind them. Once they were gone, Narfi looked at his prisoners. “Thought you’d pull one on me, didn’t you? Well, that didn’t exactly work. They’ll be combing the facility for bio-signs and as soon as they hit a lock that isn’t already registered in the database, we’ll have one big happy family, won’t we?”
“What are you talking about?” Bryon asked, struggling against his bonds even though it was clear he wasn’t going to be breaking free.
Narfi laughed. “Still haven’t figured it out, have you, kids? It’s like all of the Brady kids’ kids getting together for a family reunion, Avengers style! Maybe I if I change?” At his words, the façade of the war-weathered lieutenant faded, replaced with a much more youthful looking guise. Narfi now looked like a twenty-year-old playing dress up in military clothing. “That help?”
“Not really,” Eli said.
Narfi nodded, as if he’d expected that. “Yeah, that’s what my dad gets me for wearing that ugly-ass horned helmet all the time. You can’t really tell we have the same hair, but then, I don’t wear mine in a ponytail either.”
“You know? I agree with Bryon for once. What are you talking about?” Eli asked. He wondered briefly why Billy wasn’t saying anything before he realized that Billy’s mouth had been duct taped shut all the way around his head.
Narfi paused and looked around behind him instead of answering. “Oh, look! We have visitors from the adults’ party. That’s no good.” At his words, the screen on the left focused in on a Quinjet that was angling in on the facility from one side, and the screen on the right lit up on a second Quinjet that was coming in just as quickly. “Can we get some anti-aircraft guns and some rockets fired at the party crashers? Thank you!”
Again, his request occurred at his words as if by magic. They could do nothing but watch as rockets were fired up at the two Quinjets. The cameras lost sight of the aircrafts as they sank below the tree line, although whether their landing had been forced or crashed, none of them could tell.
“Phew, glad that’s been taken care of. Now, where were we?” Narfi asked, then snapped his fingers. “That’s right! I was going to follow through on my word!”
“Wait—what do you mean?” Eli asked, feeling more and more like a broken record.
Narfi turned his back to them, going back into the corridor between the two screens as he spoke. “Well, I’m going to do what I said I would do if you came after me.” He emerged from the corridor pulling Kate Bishop by the hair. She was struggling, but the fight seemed to have been beaten out of her. “I’m going to kill Kate Bishop.”
“Man, who the hell do you think you are?” asked Eli, struggling to get free.
Narfi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m Narfi. I’ve told you that, for the love of Odin. Don’t kids these days get a lesson or two in Norse mythology anymore? I’m a second-generation trickster, kiddos, and where Papa Loki brought together the Avengers…well, it looks like I’ve got me the young ones…”
To Be Concluded!
# # # # #
Author’s Note
Hoo-boy, I think there are a few things. Oh, first off, the thing Michael was telling Stingray about some Plodex? That’s happening in an as-yet-unfinished Marvel Fanfare issue that I started in Florida over Christmas break. It got me in a monsters-from-the-sea-attack-the-beach mood.
Other than that, hang in for the ride. One more issue before I catch up to the already-released Christmas special, and then the series takes off from there!
-Hunter Lambright