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Post By IW Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 08:06:04 am EST |
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Avengers: Underground #2 | |
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| Previously: Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, investigated the murder of a scholar of medieval literature with the help of former Avengers colleagues Crystal and Pietro (Quicksilver|) Maximoff. They blundered in a macabre trap of animated bone that they only escapde when Dane mysteriously found he had reacquired his cursed Ebony Blade. Meanwhile, Victor Shade (the synthezoid formerly known as the Vision) traced stolen World War II government papers to a European auction house but arrived too late to prevent the murder of their purchaser and the theft of the documents. This story is part of a collection of fan-fiction stories assembled by Ozbot at Avengers Anew. The principal characters in this story at the property of Marvel Comics, and this isn’t a challenge to their legal rights. Avengers: Underground #2 The thirty giant plasma screens showed video footage from the murder scene at the Galleria Zwiasku. One auction house accountant, two security flunkies, and a HYDRA terrorist section leader lay sprawled over the expensive carpet in odd twisted positions. The only trickle of blood ran from the Hydra leader’s eye like a crimson tear. Other images showed the same scene with a variety of different imaging techniques, from enhanced spectrum analysis to microscopic studies of the skin cells on the corpses. Computer screed ran down the margins of the imagery offering information about body temperate, flesh morbidity, and discolouration patterns. Victor Shade stood impassively in the midst of the playback from his internal monitors and watched his host scan through the vast amounts of data with remarkable celerity for a human. Had any outsider been able to glimpse into the shadowed labyrinth that was Wakanda’s underground technical jungle they would have hardly remarked on the tall gaunt individual with the light brown trenchcoat and the greying temples. They would have been far more fascinated by the muscular black man in the coal-black sacred garb of Wakanda’s national religious icon: the Black Panther. T’Challa son of T’Chaka crouched forward over his data panels, studying the wealth of clues his synthezoid guest had brought him. But even at so mundane a task he seemed like a cat coiled to spring, sleek and deadly. “You’ve done very well,” the King of the Wakandas admitted, collating his findings. “'Well' would have been retrieval of the stolen sealed wartime papers that the US Commission for Superhuman Affairs seems so intent of recovering,” Shade noted in carefully modulated human tones. “Or at least the tracing of the missing security guard who appears to have murdered three humans and disappeared with the package.” “I fear that would not have been simple,” The Panther admitted. “I’ve just pulled up the classified autopsy reports on Klaus Schick, Peter Schrammel, and Hydra Section Leader Soon Choi. The cause of death was internal damage caused by rapid mutative growth of their rib cages and other major skeletal components. In other words, their bones grew inwards through their internal organs. Their cranial cavities were pierced by their own skulls sprouting spikes.” “The slight discolouration of their epidermal layers suggested an internal trauma,” agreed Shade impassively. “The super-villain Scramble is documented as having body-modification abilities. The mutant Masque…” “This wasn’t a body modification,” T’Challa noted. “It was specific to the bone deposits. And it’s not the only recent incident of this kind. The other episode was rather more grand guinol, but the basic method appears to be the same.” He thumbed a key and more data for a very different murder scrolled across the screens, regarding the death of Canon Albert Cheyney. “And it looks like some old allies of ours are already involved,” the Black Panther said. Sunlight streamed through the mullioned windows of the University of York’s Particle Physics building. A dozen or more eager post and under-graduates clustered round hoping to be helpful as the famous scientist powered up several million pounds’ worth of analytical equipment. Pietro Maximoff watched the circus with a mild look of disdain. “Dane Whitman has his own fan club?” “Sir Dane is very well known in the field,” Professor Barker offered, straining his neck to see what the Black Knight might be doing with the atomic spectral analyser. “His work on faster-than-light particles and magnetism, his calculations on sub-space warp coil formation, his interpretation of the Richards harmonic vectors in relation to…” “I get the idea,” Quicksilver said impatiently. “He’s world famous amongst particle physicists.” “Sir Dane?” Crystal asked. “Oh,” Professor Barker worried. “Does he prefer Dr Whitman? I thought…” “Dane’s just fine,” the Black Knight called without ever taking his eyes from the viewing scope of the equipment he was using to scan mutated bone fragments from York Minster’s crime scene. “I have a few doctorates but most of them are honorary so I don’t usually bother. And over here in England I was knighted by Her Majesty after Galactic Storm, which is kind of ironic when you think about my main contribution to that event.” “So you’re a genuine knight of the realm, too?” Crystal observed. “I’ve been knighted four times now,” Dane replied, changing over slides and checking some hard-copy readouts on mutant gene analysis. “But for some reason Burke’s Peerage and Debrett’s Who’s Who don’t seem to count the times my ghostly ancestor Sir Percy did it, or King Richard the Lionheart, or King Brian of Otherworld.” “Fascinating,” noted Quicksilver ascerbicly. “Have you discovered anything about that bone-thing yet? Anything at all?” “It’ll take some time,” the Black Knight pointed out. “Science is an exact discipline.” His adoring spectators seemed to take this as the word from the mountaintops. “Right,” Pietro declared through gritted teeth. “Crystal and I shall see if we can’t do something useful. My wife, will you speak again with the Archbishop and try to discover more on the nature of Canon Cheyney’s research?” “Of course,” agreed the elemental. “Where are you going?” “I have other contacts,” Quicksilver replied. “Experts in other fields.” And then he was gone. The king of Wakanda looked up from his analysis. “The missing security guard has been located.” He diverted a data stream to the computer where Victor Stone was plugged in to the sophisticated Wakandan intelligence systems. The synthezoid absorbed the contents of police reports and press articles. He noted that the involvement of the Panther’s foster-brother the White Wolf in the discovery of the corpse had not been documented. Hugo Muller had been retrieved from the Danube where it meandered through the Wienerwald hills north of the city. His neck was snapped so badly that his head was facing backwards. “There are some interesting features to this report,” Shade conceded. “The contusions on the head suggest that he twisted it round himself. That is beyond usual human capacity.” If T’Challa noted the distinction the creature formerly called the Vision kept making between himself and the flesh beings whose world he inhabited he did not remark it. “The bizarre patterns of flesh bruising and muscle damage are equally concerning,” he noted. “It’s as if Muller’s muscles were trying to fight against being forced to move. As if his skeleton walked off and he tried to resist it.” “An adversary with the ability to manipulate bone,” Shade surmised. “It is possible that Muller was effectively possessed as a means of extracting the documents from the Auction House.” “Possibly,” agreed the Panther. “But who sent him? AIM? SHIELD? The new Invaders? The Commission for Superhuman Affairs?” “SHIELD and the Commission are unlikely to use a metahuman agent to commit murder,” Shade argued. The Panther snorted. “What world have you been living in, my friend? Didn’t all of those and thirty other nations and agencies conspire to kidnap and dismantle you a while back?” “Yes,” agreed Shade bleakly. “In their defence I had previously been affected by the malfunction of a limiting control crystal built into my hardware, after an unwise interface with the Titanian computer system ISAAC. I had attempted to use ISAAC’s technology to take command of all computer systems on Earth to engender an age of peace and harmony.” “Ages of peace and harmony can’t be engendered,” T’Challa replied. “But that new ability of yours to do that, however briefly, scared the leaders of this planet very badly. Including me. Wakanda also contributed technology to your brain wipe.” “You knew I was to be murdered?” the Vision declared. His dark eyes had red-glowing pinpricks burning in their core. “No. I believed you would simply have that part of your memory erased that had allowed you to seize computer control of the world. So did Mockingbird, who contributed secure Avengers data to the operational concept. Neither of us realised that other agreements had been made with other powers who wished to see you utterly demolished; such as Victor von Doom.” The unexpected turn of the conversation had shaken Shade from his aloof poise. “Von Doom? He was behind my murder?” The Panther shook his head. “He might have suggested your destruction – he once swore revenge on you for thwarting his plans with Hydrobase and he always keeps his word – but it was many frightened nations who banded together to destroy you, Victor. And the United States of America was one of those nations. So do not believe that the Commission on Superhuman Affairs is above playing dirty when it suits them.” Shade glowered again. “What is in the stolen package that makes it so important to them? And to you? What makes you believe it is related to your rumoured plot to eliminate all super-heroes?” “For that we’re going to have to find some more information,” suggested the Black Panther. “And for that we’re going to need to recruit some more help.” It took Pietro a little under quarter of an hour to reach the Carpathian mountains and another ten minutes to locate the tangle of gypsy wagons he was seeking out. Unlike many modern Romanies who had eschewed the traditional carved wooden vardos for camper/trailers, this little group remained true to their heritage, with five ringed “readers’ wagons” with their huge cart wheels and elaborately carved sidings. Pietro Maximoff felt a twinge of homesickness. For the first sixteen years of his life sights and smells like these had meant home. An alert dog noted his presence and set up an alarm. Half a dozen men appeared from the wagons and woodland and glared at the intruder. “I’ve come to see the Grandmother,” Pietro told them in Romany. “I have the right.” “You have the right,” the leader of the gypsies admitted. “What family are you?” “I’m Django Maximoff’s son,” Quicksilver answered. “And I need to talk to the Grandmother of the Winding Way.” The door to the oldest, smallest, and most decorated of the vardos opened. “Send him in,” said Margali. “He has the right.” The Inhuman princess had never seen the point of the outside world’s custom of boiling bits of dead tree. She politely sipped the English tea the Archbishop's wife had made when Crystal had arrived at the Archbishop's Palace to ask her questions. “What was Canon Cheyney working on at the time of his death?” Crystal enquired, swallowing the weak brew down. “Albert?” snorted the Archbishop. “Many things, as usual. He had an enquiring mind and he always had a half-dozen papers on the go.” The churchman looked mournful. “I’m really going to miss him.” “But was he working on anything new or special?” Crystal persisted. “You said you were going to look through his papers.” “It’s going to take a while,” the prelate noted. “Albert had an awful lot of papers. And he’d just received a new shipment of facsimile documents from one of his correspondents in Europe too.” Crystal perked up. “He had? Was he by any chance working on them the night he was murdered?” The Archbishop considered this. “I imagine he might have been trying to see if he could verify their authenticity by matching some of the content with the old proceedings books he was examining in the aumbrey. He was looking at the transcripts of those rather grisly witchcraft trials under James I, and the copies he got from his correspondence purport to be all about the European witch persecutions of the same period.” “Purport to be?” “It’s a sad world and these kind of documents are sometimes forgeries,” the clergyman regretted. “Canon Cheyney was a world expert in his field. He was often sent material to authenticate.” “But he was working on accounts of mediaeval witch trials, and he had received new information from his overseas correspondent?” Crystal remarked. “Who did he receive these papers from, your… you grace?” It took ten minutes of hunting to track down the name of Baroness Astrid Mordo. Dane punched the final figures into the mainframe and waited while it processed the results. Professor Barker almost applauded. “Watching you had been a real education Sir D… I mean Dane. The way you used the latent mutant genome as a register marker to trace vestigial atypical particles was absolutely brilliant.” “After a while with the Avengers you start to know what to look for,” the scientist shrugged diffidently. “This was something I worked up with Hank McCoy a few years back when I was trying to avoid losing any more to him at cards. But it should tell us what was powering that grotesque rapid bone growth and how it was…” The computer pinged to indicate its work was done. Dane looked at the output. “Oh.” “Oh what?” Professor Barker asked. “Don’t make me go get my Richards on Spectral Trandimensional Particles. What is it?” “The rapid growth was caused by drawing in copied matter from the Kosmos sub-plane via Pym particles,” the Black Knight announced. “This just got bad.” “This is a piece of what attacked us,” Pietro told Margali of the Winding Path. It was dark and stuffy inside the caravan, and the bundles of hanging herbs made the young mutant sleepy and dreamy. “We weren’t able to stop it. When we broke it each piece continued to grow. Until the Black Knight summoned his Ebony Blade. Then the bones stopped expanding.” “Interesting,” the old gypsy woman answered. “So I concluded that since Whitman has a magical sword, these things might well be magical too. Some kind of possession or…” His voice petered out. “Before I’d have just asked my sister, or her mentor Miss Harkness. Now…” Margali held out a wrinkled hand. “Cross my palm with silver.” Quicksilver took out the 1837 silver guinea issued for Queen Victoria’s coronation that he had purchased at Covent Garden Market en route and laid in on the gypsy’s hand. She brought her other palm down to clasp coin and mutant alike. “If I answer this, Pietro, your life will be changed forever,” she warned him. “Tell me,” answered Quicksilver. “I am not afraid.” “Then you should be,” Margali told him. “Your adversary is the Bonewalker, an ancient creature that can shift from skeleton to skeleton, controlling, twisting, growing. It has slept for many years but has now been awoken.” “It’s a demon of some sort?” “It was a man once,” Margali replied. “But he transgressed. The story is not mine to tell.” She looked up at Quicksilver’s face and her eyes locked onto his. “He was buried on Wundagore Mountain.” Pietro blinked. “But… Wanda and I were born on Wundagore.” “Yes.” “The demon Chthon altered Wanda, her powers and her destiny because she was born on Wundagore.” “Yes.” Margali of the Winding path leaned forward. “Tell me, Django’s son, Magnus’ son, do you believe that Chthon touched only one of the twin children in your mother’s womb?” Crystal hurried from the Bishop’s Palace and hailed a taxi to get her back to Dane. “The university,” she instructed, hefting the thick stacks of photocopied documents she’d borrowed from the late Canon’s collection onto the seat beside her. The Inhuman princess was woefully ignorant of human history, but she knew it included many periods where minorities had been persecuted for their appearance, culture, skin colour, or beliefs. It seemed that some four hundred years ago the first joint King of England and Scotland had instituted a Witchcraft Act that authorised the destruction of heretics and conjurors, ushering in another dark chapter of bloodshed and violence. At the same time on the continent the Inquisition had destroyed many accused of working magics. It all seemed very alien to a woman brought up in the sciences and mysteries of the Great Refuge of Attilan. Crystal was in a grim mood when the cab pulled up outside the Particle Physics building. “Thanks,” she told the cabbie, holding out an unfamiliar large brown ten pound note. “Is this enough.” “No,” the driver told her, brushing against her fingers. She felt a small stab as a needle of bone jerked from his thumb and stabbed the back of her hand. “I demand your life.” And then the Inhuman couldn’t move her skeleton. It was under the control of another. “Now,” the Bonewalker told her, “Let’s destroy you.” Continued… Footnotes for the Anxious Historian: The Vision’s destruction took place in the “Better a Widow” storyline beginning in Avengers West Coast #46. His previous attempted takeover of the planet for its own good was depicted in Avengers #254, “Absolute Vision”. Dr Doom swore revenge upon the synthezoid in Avengers #156. The White Wolf (Hunter) is T’Challa’s adopted brother, and chieftain of the Hatut Zeraze (pronounced hah-TOO sir-AH-say), the former Wakandan Secret Police. He’s not entirely nice, but is fanatically loyal to Wakanda. His intelligence-gathering capabilities make him an ideal man to send to find a missing body. The Commission for Superhuman Affairs is a powerful government institution with a number of divisions (administrative and in terms of ethics). Its most famous former member is probably Henry Gyrich. In the past the Commission has forced Steve Rogers to give up the mantle of Captain America and has pressured the West Coast Avengers to accept USAgent into their ranks. Some of its shadier moments have been when the it was under outside manipulation from villains such as the Red Skull. Margali Szardos of the Winding Path is a gypsy sorceress, formerly a circus-owner, the foster mother of Nightcrawler and mother of Jimane. She’s had a complicated history including a time she claimed to be “sorceress supreme” and had to be expunged of the evil possessing her by Dr Strange, a period as Red Queen of an occult-based Hellfire Club, and as a member of the seldom-seen Shadow Hunters team. Her appearance is likewise mutable, from blue-skinned ram-horned mystic to blonde hottie to here true shape of an elderly gypsy witch. Here she’s depicted back at her roots. Baroness Astrid Mordo is the daughter of Dr Strange’s original (and deceased) enemy. She’s an accomplished and very nasty sorceress, last seen in Dr Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #79 in a mystic extraplanar sleep. Hank McCoy is better known as ex-Avenger and X-Man geneticist, the Beast. Pym Particles, named after their discoverer Dr Henry Pym, are the medium through which various heroes and villains transform their sizes, shunting or replicating mass to and from the sub-atomic dimension of Kosmos. Kosmos was last seen in Thunderbolts being threatened with conquest by Kang. Wundagore Mountain is the prison of primal elder entity Cthon, who seeks freedom to bring terror and plague across the world. In recent years it was the location of the High Evolutionary’s science citadel, to which Magda Lehnsherr fled from her husband Magneto to birth her twins Pietro and Wanda. Cthon is known to have adapted Wanda’s mutant powers to grant her control over probabilities and magic, and he once possessed the Scarlet Witch in an attempt to break free from captivity. |
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