|
 |
| Issue #10 August 2010 |
"The Kansas Effect" Part Three Written By Thomas Deja |
||||||||
|
|||||||||
Previously: A dimensional wormhole appeared above the Brand Park basketball court, disgorging mutant teleporter Portal...and The Omega Centurion, a twisted alternate universe version of Nova. The WACkoes managed to take out the villain, but have learned that the Centurion's teammates in 'The West Dominion Revengers' are intending to travel to our Earth and destroy it--apparently for kicks. The team decides to travel through the wormhole back to the world of The West Dominion Revengers to take back that world on behalf of the inhabitants. But before they do, Monica calls Angelica 'Firestar' Jones and Sekhmet Conoway to activate something she calls 'The West Coast Substitute Avengers.'
Meanwhile, the mysterious arms dealer who sicc'd the Ultron Mark X on the team has decided to target them as part of a plan to make unspecified personages on the East Coast team pay. And that Portal guy? He's acting real sneaky-like.
"You have got to be kidding, Ms. Jones."
Angelica Jones was an attractive girl, albeit one who never traded on her looks. Usually, Miguel Sandoval would welcome having a redheaded knockout like this in his dorm room looking at him. But the way she was staring at Miguel Santos, eyes narrowed, nose scrunched up, mouth compressed into a tight half-cresent, was positively frightening. The fact that she was saying nothing scared him even more.
"This is a new semester. I have a 24 credit schedule, plus a work-study and a weekend job to pay for student housing. I don't...."
Her stare seemed to burn into Miguel, the accusation behind it speaking volumes.
"I was late for my final the last time I helped..."
Miguel thought that she narrowed her eyes a minute amount. The tightness of the line of her mouth got tighter.
He sighed. "Someone will speak to my professors?"
Her mouth relaxed. Her nose smoothed.
"I'll get my stuff."
Angelica Jones smiled.
"Oh, God Bless You, Cordova."
Elsa Bloodstone half ran toward the navy blue Explorer. The only indication that this was anything other than your average mini-van was the small stylized 'A' hood ornament and the certificate on the top of the dashboard that granted the driver the same parking privileges afforded police officers and government officials Standing next to it was the West Coast Avengers' chief of staff, Kune Cordova, a large duffel bag in hand.
"I don't think Jarvis ever mentioned this in my job description," the hulking man said as he handed the package over to the monster hunter. The others approached the vehicle from their vantage point near the space portal.
"I'm sure Hawkeye asked him to bring some spare arrows at one time."
"Hawkeye had a quiver full of them. Maybe you can take some lessons?"
"I don't think so. I've always been more of an improvisational gal, yeah?"
From out of the duffle, Elsa extracted two large bore rifles that looked even more humongous in the slim girl's grip. She hefted them up with ease and cocked them as one with strength half derived from her heritage and half from the Bloodstone choker around her neck. She smiled at the sound of the metal slides moving back to allow the first bullet to chamber. Smoothly, she held out one, then the other in front of her, one eye squinted to check the sightlines.
Watching this display, Nova stage-whispered, "I don't know whether to be disturbed or turned on."
"Imagine how I feel," Wonder Man replied.
Photon stepped forward. "Did you bring them?"
"Of course."
Kune once more reached into the back of the minivan to extract a number of helmets. He passed one to Songbird. She turned it over in her hands. "What are these things?"
"Standard issue Avengers Pressurized Sealed Environmental Suits."
Simon looked on, puzzled, as Kune handed an identical helmet to Elsa. "But Monica--"
"Photon," the Avengers chairman corrected him.
"Photon," Simon continued, giving his teammate a quizzical glance, "We don't have Avengers Pessurized Sealed Environmental Suits."
"We do now," Monica deadpanned.
"More marketing?" Vance asked as he received his helmet.
"One of these days, I will convince you people that marketing is not a four letter word."
"It's a nine letter word," Elsa drawled. "Usually spelled with thoroughly filthy letters."
"I don't know what we're going to find ourselves in after we go through this portal, people...and we're not going to be able to close this rift--"
"And save the indigenous population of that reality," Melissa helpfully offered as she shimmied into the tight-fitting suit.
"And free the indigents," Monica continued, "if we die from inhaling the toxic atmosphere, or succumb to a vacuum. So everyone but myself and Nova needs to wear one of these suits."
The powerfully built Colossus returned his helmet to Monica. "I do not need this. When I am in my organic metal form, I do not breathe."
"But can you retain your ferro-organic form when you've been knocked unconscious?"
The young Russian hero was silent. Monica smirked.
"Thought so. Put on the suit." She looked toward Kune. "You've got your marching orders?"
The hulking half-Hawaiian, half-Dominican man nodded, the corner of his eyes crinkling in mirth. "Angel and Sekh are already on it. I'll be heading to Boone's the moment you're through the hole."
Monica nodded. "Good. I'm counting on you guys."
"Don't you always?"
Vance looked from Monica to Kune and back as he detached his costume's cape. "What's that all about?"
"Insurance," the leader of the Avengers replied. "Let's get this show moving, people!"
"'Chere, I'm rather busy."
Sekhmet was not having it. "You promised me."
"But Sekh...I am extremely busy."
"Was that....is someone firing on you?"
"When are they not?"
"When we came to you about this--"
"When you came to me in that lil' dress, which you proceeded to lose....weren't fair, no."
"--you promised that if we needed you...is that--"
"I jus' didn't expect you to ever need me...cher, I really need to run now."
"You better not duck this responsibility, LeBeau. I'm warning you."
"You don't understand, Sekh...I really have to run....they've got lasers."
"Promise!"
"Sekh--"
"PROMISE!"
"Alright!"
"My....God."
The gathered West Coast Avengers set down on the ground of the alternate universe. Behind them, the portal shimmered, the disquieting hum it emitted when it hovered over Brand Park now an angry rumble. Nova, Colossus and Wonder Man, forming a wedge, entered first....
And the sight that greeted them was disheartening.
Around them was a city in absolute ruins. The ground was a series of cracks and fissures, dirt and debris scattered for as far as the eye could see. Portions of the landscape smoked and smoldered, and the air had an angry reddish orange tinge. The lush landscape that they left a few minutes previously had absolutely disappeared, to be replaced by a dull, flat, grey vision.
"It's not just the portal," Nova finally murmured. His eyes swept the broken, destroyed world around him.
"Pardon?" asked Justice. The telekine stepped forward, then added in a harsh whisper, "This can't be L.A....can it?"
"The rumbling...my sensors are picking up seismic activity under our feet. Very subtle, probably easy to tune out."
"But how--" Simon asked.
"Neglect? If these guys are the jerks we think they are, they pretty much didn't pay attention to such things as civil engineering. Maybe the infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate--"
"That it is threatening to slide into the Ocean?" Colossus suggested.
"Like the mystics and statistics say it will," murmured Simon. He walked ahead, his feet kicking at the rubble and the dusty ground.
"What?"
"Probably before your time, Piotr," Simon replied. He knelt down and picked up a handful of silt he ran it through his hands. "It's got a greasy feel like....Good Lord, this can't be--"
"Given what that not-me said...it could be."
"You know you are not supposed to break the wedge until Photon says so, tovarisch."
"I'm sure it's okay at this point," Nova said. "Monica would have said something by now."
"That's the problem," Songbird said very quietly.
As one, the West Coast Avengers turned to see Melissa staring at the place where the team leader should be. Next to her, Elsa had her rifles held out in offense positions, scanning the area with a hunter's squint.
"Something," the monster hunter growled, "made off with our leader."
Kune Cordova squeezed his way through the pebbled glass door. Said door--and the small office it opened into--had seen better days. Several letters had gone missing from the legend painted at eye level:
R ch d B one J So u io s I c.
There was not much on the other side of the door--a scratched and splintery desk that seemed to have been around since World War II...or I, a leather-upholstered chair that sported streaks of dust, a metal file cabinet with dents in its side. The weirdest item was a display case mounted over a second door which held a six gun from another era. Kune glanced around and was surprised at how, save for the display case and some old tintype-style photographs of the old west, the place reeked of neglect and a lack of caring. He wondered how long it had been since the man saw a client in this office....
"Mr. Boone?"
"I'll be with you in a minute!" a voice called out, smooth and cultured and deep--the kind of voice Kune would have expected to hear during an opera intermission or a charity function. "Take a seat...or on second though...don't."
Kune stood. He absent-mindedly checked his PDA--nothing from Rambeau or the others who headed through the portal, an e-mail from Conoway informing him she was on her way to the Tower of Shadows.
The inner door opened. Kune looked up to see a well-built man with dark brown hair and a matinee idol's face step into the office. Of course, it wasn't the man himself that would draw attention, but the purple outfit, complete with bulletproof plates on his chest and limbs for protection.
"Mr. Boone, I'm Kune Cordova--"
The man put down the helmet he held tucked under one arm, a goggled number that resembled a WWI aviator's helmet from the right angle. "You're from the Avengers, I gather."
"Yes. I've been told that Co-Chairman Rambeau had--"
"I know. I worked out the parameters of the arrangement with Janet months ago. When the first payment cleared my account, I knew someone would be coming to fetch me."
He opened his desk drawer and removed a strange looking pistol with an elongated barrel and a pair of flanges on either side of the hammer. He inspected it briefly. "How long have these...arrangements been made."
"I'm not sure," the man replied as he holstered his weapon. "All I know is that as long as weekly payments are made, I'm an Avenger."
The man put on his helmet, attached the chin strap and smiled. "That comes with room and board, right?"
"How can we lose an entire Avenger?" Rich murmured.
"Tony Stark lost an entire spaceship," Vance pointed out. He scanned the landscape slowly.
"Don't remind me," Nova muttered, worry briefly showing on his face.
From around Songbird, wings of pale pink unfurled. "I'm going to look for her."
Simon glanced over at his teammate. "Mel, no...," he said, suddenly aware at how his teammates were focused on him. "We're in unfamiliar territory, obviously hostile, most likely homicidal. We can't draw attention to ourselves right out of the box. Rich, you've got a lot of sensory equipment in that suit, right? Any far ranging ones?"
"Yeah."
He faced the young hero. "Do a scan, immediate areas then expanding outward in a circle. Look for energy signatures. Once you locate Monica, start working on that wormhole."
Rich nodded. "Gotcha."
Simon turned to Elsa. "Elsie, you're our hunter. Stake out the perimeter. Bring Piotr. Give us a report on any areas of attack. Until we move out, we all need to know what parts of our back we need to watch."
"I'll have it done in five, yah?"
Simon nodded. "Man, this is going to be a disaster," he whispered under his breath. Slowly he was aware that he had once again been forced into a leadership position in a matter of weeks. He focused his attention on the remaining two members of the group. "Vance, Mel...you've had knowledge of the criminal mind--no offense, Mel."
"None taken...I think," Mel shot back uncertainly.
"We need to get together and extrapolate where these Revengers are. We know they're the bad us....let's figure out where the bad us are likely to go."
Silently, Simon Williams was praying that this mission wasn't doomed from the start.
The Tower of Shadows, Sekhmet Conoway decided, was aptly named. Overlooking the Odd Fellows Cemetery on Whittier, the tower rose into the sky like a visitation from another time, it uneven bricks joining together in a way that made looking at the place straight on difficult. Each brick caught the light in a different way, giving the whole facade an oily, grimy appearance.
The foreboding was palatable.
As Sekhmet approached the moldering edifice, her hand went to the bracelet around her wrist. Her fingers tapped at the jewels, seemingly made of paste...but they shimmered, a byproduct of the Pym Particles she borrowed from Tony Stark trapped within being released....
And suddenly, there was a taser pistol in her hand. She continued moving forward, scanning for an entrance into the edifice that was usually only spoken of in whispers. A satisfied smile played on her lips; the field test of her new weapon-deployment system seemed to be a success.
But then the shadows moved, the individual stones of the tower reflecting a blackness that shifted and slid across the surface with a life of its own. She held the pistol in front of her, the feeling of satisfaction suddenly erased by the increased pounding of her heart.
You faced down the Hulk back in Vegas, and now you're acting all girly, Sekhmet reminded herself. Get a grip.
The shadows flowed towards her like a fogbank, whisps of a blackness Sekhmet never imagined was so dark coming off it as it roiled forward. She was aware of the warm breeze sliding around her body, aware of the sweat dotting her brow. From deep in the inky void came a voice that slithered into Sekhmet's ears.
"You have some nerve bringing weapons to my home."
For a moment, Sekhment thought she saw a figure in the darkness, one that approximated the man she had come to find. She kept her weapon level and said, "The Avengers sent me."
"Just what Tick Tock predicted you'd say," the voice whispered, seemingly in Sekhmet's right ear. She spun just as her weapon was plucked from her hands by a tall, gaunt figure in a black cloak--
or more precisely, a shroud.
The man's upper face was thoroughly covered by the hood of his shroud, yet Sekhmet had the sense that he was studying her, evaluating her. He gripped the weapon, and for a moment the young scientist worried that she was about to be injured by her own ordnance. But then the man held the taser pistol out to her. "Luckily for you, he also said you were speaking the truth..."
Sekhmet took her pistol and pressed it to one of the jewels on her bracelet, sliding it back into the Pym Particle Field and shrinking it down. "Mr. Shroud--"
"Just Shroud."
Sekhmet nodded. She avoided the man's masked gaze--if he was gazing at her behind the solid cloth that hid his face. "Shroud--I've been led to understand that you had an arrangement with the chairwoman of our West Coast Branch."
The Shroud smiled grimly. "I have had an understanding with all of the incarnations of the West Coast Avengers."
"Well, this arrangement concerned your serving with The Avengers when the main line-up is otherwise occupied."
"I do know what you are talking about, Sekhmet Conoway--"
"How do you know--"
"I was there. Usually my responsibility is to the Night Shift. Without my guidance and influence, they will return to their malevolent ways."
The man turned, his cape seeming to bleed darkness as it moved, and walked away. Sekhmet fast-walked to keep up with his movements. "But...but Chairperson Rambeau assured me you agreed to help us out--and what's with your knowing my name?"
"My responsibility is to them....but there are signs that something is coming, something that will threaten all of us. And I could use the extra allies."
"Signs...like what, faces in oatmeal and animal migration and stuff?"
"Dansen's...patron refuses to answer her," the Shroud replied. He stopped and turned to face the young scientist. "She tells me she can feel her fear."
"So?"
"Dansen worships Kali."
Something cold settled into Sekhmet's stomach. "The...the Indian goddess of death?"
The Shroud nodded. "Ask yourself this. What is so terrifying that a death aspect runs in fear from it?"
Around him, darkness flowed, engulfing Sekhmet in its absolute inky nature. The emotional cold spread throughout her body, as something primal seemed to unlock inside her, something she hadn't felt since she was a small child back in Morocco. She looked around for some lightness in the deep black, an indication of an exit.
"I will be in touch," the voice of The Shroud whispered in her ear.
And the darkness was gone.
Rich Ryder scanned the area surround what was, in his reality, Brand Park, going in an ever-increasing circle. Years of experience had taught him how to observe the visual and audible information he was receiving and the readings from his helmet's heads-up display simultaneously.
And as his scan continued to widen, his depression deepened.
Rich had only been an Angeleno for a very short time. But he had been looking forward to exploring all the cultural and recreational options the city had to offer, both on his own and, when she returned to Earth, with Carol. And it hurt to see the vital city he had transferred to had been thoroughly decimated.
Large patches of the city had become expanses of rubble and dust. There were still signs of life--more than he had expected, but still sparse. Those thermal imprints of living humans seemed thin and weak, some seeming to flicker in and out. Rich knew what that meant; it was something he had seen on a daily basis during the time he had fought for what was left of Xandar. And knowing that the Avengers had come to help too late to save those scattered, dimming lifesigns made him sadder by the minute.
What was curious was what was left relatively unscathed. As his scan hit downtown Los Angeles, he caught sight of The Staples Center, kept intact and built upon, a giant spire reaching toward the sky. There were select highways left undamaged, and a portion of Griffith Park stood unmolested, its foliage still bright and green.
Someone must be keeping these areas maintained....and it's easy to guess who.
As he continued to expand further, something out of the corner of his eye caught Rich's attention. He refocused himself....
"What the....?"
Angelica and Kune found him in a dumpster. And it wasn't his appearance that caused them to reel back, but the stench.
"Jesus....it's like he bathes in puke," Kune muttered.
"Monica did warn us."
He was dark haired, thin and caked with filth, his snore cutting through the L.A. twilight like a chainsaw. From beneath the pile of rotting food and trash he was nestled in, the two could make out the heavily stained white shirt with a big black star on the chest.
"Do you want to do it, or should I?" Angelica asked, arms folded.
"As much as I think this guy needs the kind of deep cleansing microwaves could give him," Kune replied, rubbing the back of his neck, "maybe I should."
The hulking Hawaiian covered his mouth with his shirt tail and banged on the side of the dumpster. Immediately, the green metal container began to shake. A shower of debris flew up from inside, spattering the two.
"What the #%*$*?"
"Hey," Kune said sternly. "There's a lady present!"
"#(^&$@ the lady, and !$&*^ you!" roared the man as he rose up from his makeshift bed, unmindful of smasked tomato that was sliding down his shirt, leaving a pale reddish smear. "No one @%!*& with Captain (^@!%>!"
Kune smirked. His hands were curled into fists. "Oh, that's going to look good on the press release."
Angelica stepped forward warily. "You're The Captain?"
"Captain (^@!%>, sister! Captain (^@!%>, who you just woke up...and I woke up mighty cranky!"
"That's it, he's coming with us unconscious."
"Kune, hush," Angelica stage whispered. Silently, she hoped that she didn't have to resort to using her abilities herself and risk the health of her developing baby. She looked the man in the eyes and said in the levelest voice she could muster, "Monica Rambeau...Photon...sent us for you, Mr....uh...can I just call you The Captain?"
"Photon?" For a moment, the man's face softened. "Is the Beyond Corporation back? Do I need to kick that $&(@ Anger in his (@$!#?"
"Uhhhhhh.....no," Angelica replied. She forced herself to smile in the most placating way she could muster. "But she does need you."
"She needs you to be an Avenger."
"I bleeding hate alternative dimensions."
Colossus shrugged. "When I was with the X-Men, a week we did not visit an alternative dimension was considered a change of pace."
The mutant was walking with Elsa Bloodstone. The monster hunter was walking slowly along a stretch of land, rifles at the ready, eyes crinkled as she appraised the landscape. She swept her weapons slowly in a wide arc, ready to react at a moment's notice. "Alternative dimensions mean different rules, different denizens. All the knowledge my father and I amassed can go out the hang."
"This makes you uncomfortable?"
"Quite."
"If there is one constant in this universe, it is that no one can prepare for everything."
"Those people, Petey," the young blonde shot back, "never met a...."
The two caught sight of it as one. A swarm of dots approaching, dots that seemed to glow with a purplish light...
Dots that, as they grew closer, were revealed to be men.
As blackness slowly gave way to a gray, throbbing pain, Monica suspected something was very, very wrong.
Even if she had been knocked unconscious during the trip through the portal, the place where she was resting didn't feel right. They should have landed on some analog of the park, which meant soft ground, maybe some sort of vegetation, some form of breeze or wind against her face...
She immediately pulled herself into a sitting position. She hadn't put on her PSE suit, assuming that her energy form would protect her...but if that suit was gone...
....she could apparently still breathe.
She opened her eyes slowly, blinked against the roar of pain that accompanied such a simple action. What she saw was not some variation of a municipal park, but...well, the closest thing she could compare it to was a casino. Gaudy, overlit, overlarge, stuffed to the gills with devices that could resemble games of chance...
and spooky by its silence.
The pain behind her eyes continued to nag at her, but it was slowly lessening. She experimentally got to her feet. Monica closed her eyes--this dulled the pain even further and willed herself to shift into a light form.
Because if there was anything this smelled like, it was a trap. And Monica would be damned if she was going to fall for a trap after all she invested in this version of the West Coast Avengers. She was prepared for an attack that could come from any side...
But not for a voice saying, "There you are, sexy. You want a drink?"
<hr>
Simon had barely started strategizing with Songbird and Justice when the others came running toward them.
"Wondy, we got--"
"---coming in from the east, spreading--"
"--powered--"
"--not here for biscuits--"
Simon stood up as his teammates all talked at once, their words all mashing together into a lingual wall of white noise. And Simon was once more reminded of how out of his depth he was. Monica would know how to get everyone to cooperate so they could find out what the threat was. Monica would know how to prioritize and mobilize. But he was lost as to how to assert his authority and find out what was coming...
And he saw them. A number of them, coming at them fast and circling....
men who glowed with a purplish light, ionic crackle surrounding them.
As his teammates got up to their feet, Justice said, "They looks like--"
"I did...when Wanda brought me back." Simon finished. An extremely profound sense of deja vu had come over him--a short time ago, they surrounded an intruder into their dimension, and now they were the intruders, and these new arrivals were surrounding them.
The intruders began to land around them, closing off exits and venues of escape. Through the roiling, crackling ionic energy, the Avengers could perceive details of a uniform with a decidedly military bent.
"Alright, you bints," Elsa called out defiantly, "who the Hell do you happen to be?"
One of the glowing purple men looked actively surprised. "They don't know?"
"Must've come from the wormhole."
"Good. The bosses have been waiting for Centurion to come back."
"None of these bozos look like the Centurion."
"Let's get out of here," Rich called out. "Seems they're too concerned with yapping at each other."
The dozen of these men glanced toward Nova as one. "Can't allow for that to happen."
"We got our orders."
"Anyone comes out of the wormhole that isn't the Centurion..."
"The Power Corps gotta take them in."
Next: The West Coast Avengers have to fend off The West Dominion Revengers' Power Corps...without their leader! What happened to Photon? She's about to get a warning about a menace that will make The Revengers look like schoolkids. And if that isn't enough, the West Coast Substitute Avengers continue to come together as a menace that threatens the very soul of Los Angeles starts to emerge. Join us as Monica learns that "They're Coming To Get You, Monica...." in the next part of "The Kansas Effect!"
