"He's
gone! And so is Firefly!"
Aleta,
panicked, almost flew headlong into Joseph. Finally,
after days of being pulled from one timeline to the
next, the Exiles had had a chance to relax; and Aleta
and Joseph had decided to use the downtime to
interrogate their new tag-a-long, Nachtgleiskette,
who had claimed to know of a way to resurrect the
team's fallen member, Daywalker.
Only...
Nachtgleiskette had disappeared along with, Aleta
realised, their youngest member: Firefly.
More
than anything else, Aleta worried for their safety.
The Exiles were, for all intents and purposes,
prisoners in Castle Symkaria - the seat of power for
Prime Minister Sakrova and the headquarters of the
Wild Pack. They were being treated well, but Sakrova
was determined to find out how the Exiles had managed
to penetrate a massive energy dome surrounding the
eastern European nation and had demanded that the
Exiles remain in the castle until their secret was
discovered.
If
Nachtgleiskette had hurt Firefly, she would hurt him.
She knew that. But if, for some reason, they had
left the castle together - then she could
not help but worry about what might happen if the
Wild Pack found out.
"Scamp
is gone, too," Joseph told her. "Only
Ph-Eros remains in his quarters."
"We
need to find them, Joseph, before the Wild Pack do.
Stand close."
Joseph
stood beside Aleta, so close that their bodies were
almost touching. As Aleta closed her eyes and
visualised a disc of solid light appearing beneath
their feet, he guessed what she had planned and put
his arms around her waist. She continued to
concentrate and, a moment later, the two Exiles were
entirely invisible and floating on the light-disc.
They
floated past dozens of guards as they searched for an
exit from the castle, thankful that the Wild Pack
seemed to have retired for the night. They knew from
experience that Aleta's ability to refract light in
order to simulate invisibility meant nothing to the
Wild Pack*, and they simultaneously sighed in
relief as they finally left the castle unmolested.
[ * - see issue eight - All-seeing
Adrian ]
"Where should we begin to
look?" Joseph whispered.
Aleta shivered. In her entire life,
only three men had been as close to her as Joseph was
then and each had, in some way, betrayed her. The
first was her husband Stakar, who Aleta thought for a
long time had allowed their three children to be
killed. She learned years later that Stakar had done
everything reasonably within his power to save them,
but the resentment and sense of betrayal had remained
and, Aleta suspected, always would.
The next had been her fiance, Vance
Astro. His betrayal was far less intentional -
corrupted by a black costume of alien origin, Vance
had yelled at Aleta at least twice and, eventually,
the suit itself had attacked her before revealing
itself as the long-lived 'Venom' symbiote**. Aleta did
not blame Vance for any of that, but the fact that
her becoming so close to her partner was what made
her vulnerable made her reluctant to become close to
him again.
[ ** - see GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Y4
ANNUAL, part of the ZODIAC RISING crossover event -
Also Adrian ]
It was that longing for closeness that
drove Aleta into the arms of Kristoff Vernard***, a young man
from the 20th century who had managed, through
various means, to effectively become the ruler of
Earth in the 31st. Eventually, he betrayed her as
well**** - more accurately, he
betrayed the Guardians - but in betraying them he
also turned them against her, which amounted to the
same thing in her eyes.
[ *** - in GOTG #70; **** - in GOTG
#72 - Also Adrian Again and Again ]
So what about Joseph? Aleta
thought. I still love Vance. We are still
engaged... I hope. I don't know how he has taken my
relationship with Kristoff... who I also still love.
But Joseph... I may never... NO. I am not doing this.
Not again. Not now.
"Aleta?"
Aleta felt the mutant's breath on her
neck and shivered again. "Th-the forest were we
first arrived," she answered, finally. "It
seems as good a place as any."
They rapidly passed over the green
canopy of the forest, both keeping their eyes peeled
for anything that may suggest the presence of their
teammates. After almost an hour of searching, Joseph
spotted, in a clearing, the red flash of fire
temporarily lighting up the night sky.
"Aleta! Look!" he said.
"I see it!" Aleta began to
descend, and to gain speed as she did so. The wind
whipped past them, and Aleta forgot for a moment that
Joseph was not used to her means of flying. She felt
him grip her more tightly, and despite her logical
protestations, she knew that she did not dislike the
sensation... not at all.
"You cannot see them,"
Nachtgleiskette calmly told Firefly, "but Aleta
and Joseph are approaching, hidden by Aleta's light
powers. They are too far away to see us, but have
undoubtedly been drawn here by your flaming assault
on Namor and Doctor Savage*.
[ * - last issue - Still the same old
Adrian ]
"You have a choice to make,
Firefly. Will you reveal your attempts to kill your
teammate, or allow them to continue to perceive you
as the weak child you have presented yourself as thus
far?"
"W-what...?" Firefly
stammered. He looked to the skies but, as
Nachtgleiskette had said, he could not see Aleta and
Joseph. He turned to look behind him, and the Doc
Savage, who - after Firefly's exposure to the strange
blue sphere given to the team by Spratt during their
trip to 8162 A.D. - had reverted to his less-harmful
Mysterious Stranger form and was last seen walking
along the river which bisected the clearning, could
no longer be seen.
"Where did he go?!" he
roared. "I wasn't done! He killed Daywalker!
He... he..."
Firefly found himself suddenly short
of breath. And his muscles ached. And his head hurt.
And his heart felt like it was going to explode from
his chest. Panicked, he looked down at his body and
saw his muscles - practically non-existent under
normal circumstances - rapidly growing and bulging
beneath his stretching skin.
He touched his face and found that his
nose and lips had flattened to sit almost flush with
the rest of his face and his ears had become
fin-like. His brow began to push outward, his chin to
lengthen - and, he realised as his skintight bodysuit
tore apart, his skin had turned a rust-like red.
"Interesting,"
Nachtgleiskette said.
"What's happened to me?!"
Firefly asked.
"I think that orb of yours has a
sense of humour," Nachtgleiskette grinned and
stepped back into the shadows between two trees, his
naturally jet-black body becoming entirely visible.
"Where are you goi - "
"Stranger!" Aleta cried as
she and Joseph settled on the ground and she dropped
her refractive light field, making them visible
again. "What are you doing with the orb?"
Firefly looked down and saw the orb
still held firmly in his right hand. He did not know
what to do; Aleta and Joseph thought he was
Doc Savage. If he revealed the truth, there would be
questions - about how he got the orb, what had
happened to him, where the real Savage was...
questions he was not prepared to answer. He already
worried about Ph-Eros revealing his plan to the
team!
Still, if he let them think he was
Savage, and that he had somehow managed to take
the orb from Prime Minister Sakrova... he didn't know
what would happen. So he simply raised the
orb and threw it hard towards the river, still
burning from his attack on Namor, and ran.
Both Aleta and Joseph took to the air
in an effort to reach the orb, and both missed; it
hit the burning liquid and sank, and with neither
Exile possessing an immunity to fire, it seemed
irrecoverable. They turned back to the clearing,
where 'the Stranger' had been standing, but he was
gone.
"We can't look for him,"
Aleta said. "Firefly and Scamp take priority.
They are our teammates, and we need to make sure
they're safe."
Joseph tightly hugged Aleta as she
once again formed her light-disc and began to refract
the light around them. Only a few feet away, hidden
in the trees, Firefly began to sob quietly... and in
the darkness, he did not notice as his body returned
to normal.
The Mysterious Stranger kept walking.
Since his experiences in Daywalker's home dimension*, he had lost
all control of his mind and body. All he could do was
what came instinctively to the Xin'garoth demon that
was the true identity of his 'Doc Savage'
manifestation. Minutes earlier, the Xin'garoth seemed
to leave his body, leaving him able only to keep
walking until he hit something.
[ * - specifically EXILES #6 - Fred,
because Adrian has run out of asterisks. Seriously,
who uses four at once? ]
And hit something he did - the strong
energy barrier cutting Symkaria off from the rest of
the world. He continued to press against it, unable
to think clearly enough to conceive or turning away.
The first sensation was one of pressure but, with
each new touch he felt searing, burning pain.
Suddenly, his mind cleared.
Where am I? he wondered. What
is this... barrier?
He reached out with one hand and laid
his palm against the energy barrier, which
immediately vanished. He stepped past it and observed
what lay beyond - a dense forest, much of it burned;
air, thick with pollution; and dead animals - dead people
- laying all around. It was nothing like the
beautiful forest he had been able to see when looking
out from within the confines of the energy dome, but
what concered him more was the realisation that he
was naked.
"That won't do," he
muttered. He waved his right hand over his body and
thick, heavy, red and gold robes covered him from his
neck down. He began to levitate, only a few feet
when, suddenly, the chaos of his mind came flooding
back. He dropped to the burnt, ashen ground and began
to walk aimlessly once more.
Inside Castle Symkaria, the news of
the barrier's disappearance was met first with
incredulity, and then with fear. Guards which had
been posted at the barrier's perimeter rushed back
with news of the devastated landscape beyond
Symkaria's borders, and fear for what that
devastation may mean.
"Mobilise our reconnaisance
forces," Prime Minister Sakrova ordered.
"von Doom was behind this, and he must be
confronted." She turned to Battlestar, the
leader of her elite guard, known as the Wild Pack.
"Release the 'Exiles', but encourage them
to aid us in finding Doom. And someone - make sure
the barrier cannot reappear!"
Battlestar rushed out of Sakrova's
throne room and hurried to the wing of the castle to
which the Exiles had been confined. He moved from
room to room, but found them empty; all save one. He
crossed the room, to the bed where Ph-Eros lay
sleeping. He pulled on the naked Exile's right arm
and dragged him from the bed, then pressed him hard,
face-first, against the cold stone wall.
"Where are your friends?"
Battlestar shouted the question. "Do not lie to
me!"
"I... don't know," Ph-Eros
answered. "To be honest... if they aren't here,
I'll be kinda peeved that they left without me!
Although I could probably forgive them for thinking I
loved your unique hospitality!"
Battlestar jerked his knee hard,
sending it into the small of Ph-Eros' back. Were he
not being held upright, the Exile would have fallen
to his knees from the pain. Instead, he momentarily
lost conscious control of his powers, and exposed to
Battlestar something he had worked hard to keep
hidden since the moment he and the Exiles were
brought together; his back, arms, neck, face and
chest were marred by raised scars; his lips, mouth
and nose were twisted as if in a permanent,
deliberate sneer. Ph-Eros concentrated, and the scars
seemed to instantly vanish - prompting a surprised
Battlestar to let him go.
"What did you just do...?"
Battlestar asked. He immediately threw himself again
Ph-Eros again and held him back against the wall.
"Actually, I do not care. Tell me where your
friends are." He tightened his grip on Ph-Eros'
arm and began to twist it slightly. "Now."
"I told you... I don't
know!" Ph-Eros shouted. "And you really
want to let go of me."
"Do I? Why is that?"
Ph-Eros whispered, and Battlestar let
go. The Wild Pack leader crossed the room and began
to slowly remove his red-and-black striped costume.
When he was completely naked, he handed the costume
to Ph-Eros, before finally running headlong into the
wall and falling back, unconscious.
"That's why,"
Ph-Eros said as he slid into Battlestar's costume,
fully aware that he not only waited too long before
making his clever remark, but that there was no-one
there to hear it.
The costume, which had tightly hugged
Battlestar's slim but athletic body, was a little
loose on Ph-Eros' lanky frame; but they were roughly
the same height, so he knew that he could "grow
into it" if he really wished to. The boots and
gloves fit perfectly, and he quickly located a small
button inside the right glove that caused
Battlestar's rectangular shield to materialise and
anchor intself to the same glove.
Awesome, he thought.
Ph-Eros appreciated his existing
powers, but he was also completely cognizant of the
fact that there were some foes he would simply never
be able to fight in the same way as Aleta or Joseph.
He had never had any intention of becoming a
'superhero', and certainly no intention of all but
mugging Battlestar but, as with every other major
event in his life, he was not going to pass up an
opportunity to get what he wanted - regardless of how
he had to go about doing it.
"Just like becoming an
Exile."
Ph-Eros was not sure if the voice in
his head was his own; that certainly was not
something he was likely to think. Becoming an Exile
had not been the result of a spontaneous opportunity,
and almost definitely not something he would have chosen
to do. But the idea had entered his mind
nonetheless - and the realisation that the thought
may not have been his own terrified him.
The Wild Pack, unable to find their
missing leader, had deployed themselves across the
country in an effort to control the mass exodus of
Symkarians, willing to subject themselves to the
ravage world beyond the fallen barrier rather than
risk being trapped should it rise again. So focussed
was the Wild Pack on their assigned task that they
failed to notice the squadron of futuristic fighter
jets crossing the city.
They could not help but notice the
giant, armoured, floating head that appeared above
Castle Symkaria, or the words that emerged from its
holographic mouth:
"People of Symkaria, I am Victor
von Doom, ruler of Latveria," it said. "For
months, your nation has been secured behind an
imprenetrable barrier of my own design, to create a
sanctuary, immune from the suddenly-escalating
dangers of the outside world - a world which, you can
now see, has been ravaged by war.
"Yet you have met my kindness
with distrust, and destroyed the barrier that
protected you. Doom has no desire to safeguard a
people who do not desire his protection. You have two
hours to evacuate your country. At that time, the
Latverian army will take charge of Symkaria - and any
Symkarians remaining within your borders will swear
allegiance to Doom... or perish."
The image faded abruptly and the Wild
Pack turned to one another for a reaction; but, met
with a universal shrugging of shoulders, they simply
began to redouble their efforts to assist the fleeing
people of Symkaria. Prime Minister Sakrova would know
what to do... they hoped.
NEXT ISSUE: Someone
takes a Savage beating in the finale to
'Divided'!
