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Post By IW Sat Jan 08, 2005 at 09:08:48 am EST |
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Avengers: Underground #4 | |
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| Previously: During an investigation into a series of murders committed by the supernatural Bonewalker, the Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff), and his wife Crystal were caught in a huge explosion at York University's particle physics lab. The Vision (Victor Shade) was also at the scene, while the Black Panther (King T'Challa of the Wakandas) pursued other leads elsewhere. 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 #4 “…reporting live from the historic city of York, England, where firefighters are still combating the apparent gas explosion that has wrecked the Particle Physics building on the university campus and cost the lives of three Avengers…” “…speculation about super-villain attack given structural damage to the site before the explosion went off , leading bystanders to speculate…” “…noted physicist and adventurer Sir Dane Whitman was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but went on to become one of England’s greatest heroes after…” “…firefighters dragged the three bodies from the wreckage about half an hour ago, but sources say the corpses were unburned enough to enable positive identification of former Avengers Quicksilver, Crystal, and the Black Knight…” “…princess of the mysterious genetic sub-race the Inhumans, who are now thought to be off-planet, first came to prominence as an associate and later member of the Fantastic Four…” “…will investigate the possibility that some equipment in the Particle Physics laboratory was responsible for the magnitude of the explosion, which shattered…” “…gained notoriety after it was revealed that Pietro Leinsherr was actually the biological son of mutant terrorist Magneto, leading many to speculate on his reasons for joining the Avengers in the first place, especially after incidents where Leinsherr apparently co-operated with US and East German government initiatives to capture the Avengers…” “…cost of replacing the buildings is minimal compared to the equipment inside them, with an estimated destruction of seventy million dollars’ worth of…” “…what some are calling the Avengers’ curse, since these three heroes are only the latest in a recent string of tragedies including…” “…Edwin Jarvis, who said that the loss of these three good people is another sad blow, but that their valour and courage would always stand as a testimony to the best that humanity has to offer…” “…back to the studio for Julio and a look at the weather. Julio?” “Idiots,” scowled Pietro Maximoff. “The media is run by fools for fools.” His angry snort woke Crystal, who opened her eyes and looked around her blearily. “Pietro?” she called. “Why aren’t I dead?” Quicksilver was at his wife’s bedside in an instant. “You passed out from shielding us from the heat,” he reminded her. “Before I ran you to safety under cover of the smoke.” “I distinctly heard that my body had been found in the wreckage,” the Inhuman princess pointed out. “A ruse, although how our host gained the genetic material to perpetrate so comprehensive a hoax is something I look forward to discussing with him.” “Our host?” Crystal struggled painfully to her elbows. “Ouch.” “Gently, my love,” Quicksilver chided her. “The treatments that corrected minor harm caused to you by Bonewalker’s possession will make you sore for a few days.” Crystal remembered the minutes of stark terror as the monster’s puppet. “You saved me! And Dane.” “Yes,” agreed Pietro. “But more of this when you are well. You must take time to recover.” “I’ll recover better when I know where I am and what’s going on,” Crystal pointed out irritably. “Very well,” sighed Quicksilver. “We are in Wakanda, Crystal, and we are guests of the Black Panther. He has arranged so the world thinks we are dead by perpetrating the hoax at the university after we overcame the Bonewalker.” “But why?” “So you’re not the Vision any more?” the Black Knight asked his taciturn companion. “That is a designation that I have outgrown,” replied Victor Shade. “The nomenclature was given me when the Wasp first saw me emerging through her apartment wall: ‘It’s some kind of unearthly inhuman vision’. At the time that name seemed better than having none as my creator Ultron had intended. I share the distinction with the Hulk and the Thing of being named by the small-minded outcry of one terrified by what they beheld.” “I never thought of it like that, V… Victor,” Dane Whitman admitted. “I don’t think any of us did.” “I have gone beyond the need for human recognition or validation,” the synthezoid replied. “Is this about the Avengers’ reaction to you being ripped apart when She-Hulk went berserk?” the Black Knight worried. “Look, you have to understand that things were terribly pressured…” “For weeks a mindless automaton had replaced me in the team’s ranks while I secretly aided T’Challa in his investigation,” Shade replied, with just an undertone of irritation in his modulated tones. “Nobody noticed. Even my own former wife didn’t notice.” “Things weren’t right those last few weeks,” Dane argued. “Everybody says so. Folks were acting all out of character, things were getting weird. Maybe Wanda was…” “The Scarlet Witch is supposed to have gone insane at the loss of her children,” Victor Shade cut in. “She reshaped reality to create Thomas and William, then the chaos magics drove her mad as she tried to cope with losing them, and from then on she altered the world around her to a greater or lesser degree to cope with her madness. I do not accept this.” “But Viz…. Victor, there’s a big hole in Avengers Mansion right now that…” “Three points for you to consider,” interrupted the synthezoid coldly. “The first, that when Wanda was possessed by the Serpent Crown, and again when she was controlled by Chthon, she struggled and overcame her slavery, by the power of her love. Secondly, that the Scarlet Witch’s apparent attacks against the Avengers in her latter madness were focussed on those who loved her and whom she loved the most, and for some reason upon Scott Lang, as if those who knew her best had to be eliminated.” Victor Stone glowered with red pinprick eyes at the Black Knight. “And thirdly, Thomas and William were my children too. Good day.” The beam of light seared down from the skies, a rainbow cylinder that flashed to coherent white light and then became a young black woman in a black and white silk costume with a pinkish sheen. Monica Rambeau looked around her at the devastated university site and sought somebody in authority. “I’m George Gallowglass,” the tired looking police inspector told her, recognising the former Chairwoman of Earth’s mightiest heroes. “But I guess I’m not in charge here since the Men from UNCLE got here.” He nodded his head sideways to the blue jumpsuited SHIELD technicians that were crawling over the wreckage. “I heard you recovered three bodies,” Photon said. “Of the Black Knight, Quicksilver, and Crystal.” “I’m sorry,” Gallowglass told her. “Initial findings suggest they were overcome by the fumes when the site caught fire in combat with an unidentified superhuman.” “You’re sure it’s them?” “One of them was carrying a big black sword,” the Inspector pointed out. “But really I guess you’d need to talk to James Bond over there.” Monica picked her way past the SHIELD agents bagging and logging the death scene and found the officer in charge. “Special Agent Sitwell?” “Oh, Photon. Are you here on official business?” “There isn’t any official Avengers business now, is there Agent Sitwell?” Photon answered bluntly. “But when the story about Dane and the others broke Jan asked me to come over and take a look.” “You’re willing to identify the bodies?” Jasper Sitwell checked. “They’re not a pretty sight, and there’s not that much left to recognise.” “I’ll do it,” agreed Photon. She’d worked for the New Orleans Harbour Police for eight years. She was used to gristly corpses. Agent Sitwell led her to a pitched tent guarded by a serious looking young man with a futuristic rifle. He led her inside, to where three black body bags lay on metal trestles. “You can take a look,” he told Monica. “We’ve already taken the samples we need for DNA matching. But don’t expect much.” Photon took her time inspecting the corpses, but she couldn’t tell from the charred remains whether they were her former comrades or not. “Where’s the Ebony Blade?” she asked. “Shipped back to the helicarrier,” Sitwell told her. “That’s one dangerous doohickey.” He checked something off on a clipboard then said, “Look, I don’t wish to be insensitive but we have a lot to do here. Is there anything else you need before you go?” “I’m not going anywhere,” Photon assured him. “Three Avengers are dead, and the villain who caused it is at large. Whether we’re officially bust or not, we take care of our own.” “Ah,” sighed Jasper Sitwell. “I suspected as much.” He lifted open the tent flap and called in the guard. “Agent Porter?” Photon’s brow furrowed. “Mr Sitwell? I know I no longer have an official clearance, but in a case like this…” “Remove her,” Sitwell told Porter. Then there was a brief flash and Agent Porter was gone. “Completely satisfied?” Sitwell asked Photon. “I’ll tell as much to any others who want to snoop,” Photon assured the SHIELD agent. “Count on it.” The sun was especially good on the Cote d’Azur at this time of year, but the news on the TV at the beach bar brought a chill to one woman who watched it. She gestured and the sound of the set turned up so she could hear about the tragedy in England. She unclipped a tiny mobile phone from the string of her micro-bikini and thumbed a speed-dial number. “Jaques? A change of plans. Book me on the next flight to Manchester. Yes, I know, dear, but something’s come up. Business before pleasure. Old business. Something I have to do.” Then Sersi placed her drink on the bartop, shifted her clothing into something suitable for a taxi ride to the airport, and strode away. “I trust you’ve all recovered from your exertions,” the Black Panther told his guests as he made them welcome in the Wakandan palace beneath the solemn gaze of the Panther God statue. “We’re fine thanks, T’Challa,” Dane Whitman answered, “but we’re all a little bit puzzled as to why we suddenly have to be dead.” “Given recent events it’s not in the best possible taste,” Crystal pointed out. “I can see why you’d be puzzled,” the Panther admitted. “But Victor and I felt there was no other way to extricate you from the situation you’d stumbled into.” “A murder investigation,” Quicksilver noted, “which seems to have become something rather more.” “Did you have to blow up the Particle Physics building?” the Black Knight complained. “Bystanders could have been hurt.” “Bystanders were kept well clear by the damage caused by the Bonewalker,” the Vision replied. “There were also operatives of the Wakandan intelligence services amongst the crowd ensuring people stayed away.” “York University will be receiving some generous bequests from private donors to repair the damage,” T’Challa promised. “But when you see what we’re up against I hope you’ll feel Victor and I were justified.” Taku, the Wakandan security chief brought a slim black laptop over to his King. T’Challa flicked it open and quickly briefed Dane, Crystal, and Pietro on the incidents in Vienna. “I can’t wait to hear what links US Government papers from sixty years ago with a mediaeval witch trial,” Quicksilver observed. “Or with that creature that claims he was slain by my ancestor,” the Black Knight added. “You have got the Bonewalker secure?” Crystal worried. “He is confined in my technological jungle,” the Panther assured her. “So far he has declined to communicate since Victor captured him.” Crystal smiled across at the dour synthezoid. “Did we thank you for saving us?” she asked a little uncertainly. “Thanks are not necessary,” replied Shade. But Crystal rather thought they were. “The documents the Bonewalker absconded with purport to detail secret conspiracies to shut down the slew of American wartime heroes after 1945,” T’Challa told them. “I suggest it was these documents’ theft and subsequent auctioning that triggered off the current round of violence.” “We still don’t know where they ended up yet, right?” Dane checked. “But we do know that the Bonewalker was somehow raised up from his confinement on Wundagore Mountain to retrieve the papers,” Quicksilver noted. “And also that he felt for some reason he had to destroy copies of documents being authenticated by Canon Cheyney.” “The documents were accounts of the suppression of witches,” Victor Shade contributed. “In it’s own way, and if some of the people destroyed had genuine gifts, was that not also shutting down a generation of metahumans?” “You’re saying this wasn’t the first time somebody conspired to wipe out superheroes?” Dane asked. “I’m saying it has happened before and it may be happening again now,” T’Challa suggested. “I further posit that when you stumbled across Cheyney’s murder there were very specific reasons why you had to die.” “Stumbled across the murder?” frowned Crystal. The pretty Inhuman shook her head. “That Bonewalker had specific links to Dane and to Pietro. That’s too big a coincidence to be a coincidence.” “A telling point,” conceded the Vision. “I need people I can trust,” the Panther admitted. “I suspect, but do not know, that one or more of the Avengers may have been compromised, and may be working with those who seek a holocaust of superheroes. Other high-profile heroes are being watched too closely to contact, and informing them of our suspicions would be to give them a death sentence.” “So just phoning Cap up is out,” sighed Crystal. “I need people willing to go underground for a while,” King T’Challa continued. “To follow this through quietly and secretly, while the enemy thinks they are dead.” “And you chose us without consulting us,” Pietro objected. “Suppose we decide to simply leave? Not to play your paranoid games?” “Then you may leave,” the Black Panther told him. He didn’t say anything about what might happen next. “I just hate unsolved mysteries,” Dane Whitman admitted. “And I really need to know how I got the Ebony Blade back. I thought the link between us was broken, the curse lifted. I need to know what happened to Sean and the Bloodwraith, and what happened with Sir Percy of Scandia and this Bonewalker. And if somebody was behind that incident recently with Wanda…” “They will be found and dealt with,” answered Victor Shade, in tones as hollow as a tomb. “I guess you have your team,” Crystal told the Panther. “The Bonewalker is fallen, destroyed or captured.” “This was hardly the swift clean operation we envisaged. His revival was an error.” “We are committed now. We will have to accelerate the timetable before one of the remaining heroes understands what is to come.” “Whom do you suggest we appoint to undertake any necessary conclusions?” “Why not the one who co-ordinated things for us in ’45? If things need to be dealt with in such macabre grand guinol fashion, who better to undertake the slaughter than Wexford the Dissected Man?” “Who indeed? Set him loose then, and let the slaughter begin. Continued… Footnotes for the Continuity Maven: Pietro co-operated to have the Avengers arrested by Freedom Force in Avengers Annual #15, and with East German security forces and half of Hank Pym’s rogues’ gallery in West Coast Avengers around #38 or so. These gross betrayals, along with Quicksilver leading the robotic incarnation of the Zodiac against the Avengers in West Coast Avengers Annual #1, were later attributed to the mind-control of Inhuman Prince Maximus the Mad. Edwin Jarvis was first Tony Stark’s butler, and then became the long serving butler at Avengers Mansion. He has previously been shown to have befriending Pietro, and especially the Vision. The Vision was so named in Avengers #57. He was apparently ripped apart in Avengers #401. The Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff, seemed to lose control of chaos magics that Dr Strange claimed didn’t exist in Avengers #400-403, and may have been responsible for a number of anomalous incidents before that. She overcame the siren call of the Serpent Crown in #147, which also features one of the most romantic moments in comics when Wanda worried because Vision is now carrying the dark object. The synthezoid doubts it can affect his electronic brain, but concludes to his wife that if he is affected, “then I too shall be redeemed by the power of love.” Chthon’s possession of the Scarlet Witch in Avengers #187 ends differently. Despite the vision’s assertion in the story above, it was her step-father Django Maximoff’s love and sacrifice that saved her from the Elder God. Twins Thomas and William were conceived and born in the second Vision and the Scarlet Witch limited series, and were retconned to have been shards of demon-lord Mephisto’s soul around Avengers West Coast #55 or so. Photon, (Monica Rambeau), formerly known as Captain Marvel, gained the ability to change herself into any form of energy after an accident with one of those weird science machines that so many villains have sitting around their headquarters ships in the Marvel Universe. She went on to become an Avenger, and her eventual promising stint as Chair of Earth’s Mightiest heroes was cut short by the mind-manipulations of Dr Druid, himself being influenced by the villainess Nebula. She rejoined the Avengers on a part-time basis just before Kang’s largest attempt at world conquest (The Kang Dynasty), but was another of the heroes who was strangely ineffectual during the events of #400-403. Jasper Sitwell is a second generation SHIELD agent, one of Nick Fury’s most trusted operatives, and was once known for his boy-scout attitude and his overuse of the phrase “Don’t yield – back SHIELD!” At one point he seemed to have been murdered (along with most of the interesting SHIELD cast) by rebel Life Model Decoy robots, but was eventually discovered in stasis and returned to duty. Sersi is another former Avenger, the foremost matter manipulator of the Eternals, an offshoot race of humanity. We’ll footnote her more thoroughly another time. |
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