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MARVEL FANFARE presents
Where Do You Belong?
(MARVEL FANFARE
#142)
Tom Lynch
August Year Five
* * *
Bodyweight rubbed his eyes wearily. “And?”
“…And I don’t think she likes what’s going on, Owen,” Cascade said. “She thinks something’s up with this guy MacLeod.”
“I’m not sure I can blame her,” Bodyweight returned. “It does seem like he’s planned all this out suspiciously carefully. And he came up with Ventura a bit quickly, too.” He shrugged his shirt off and tossed it aside, turning back to her. “But I don’t see what we can do about it, so let’s try and relax for a bit, shall we? God knows we haven’t been getting nearly enough private time since we joined up, though it’s early days yet…”
Chloe smiled back, bringing her arms up around him. They leaned in together…
“Give it time, love. It’ll settle down…”
…and kissed.
It had taken him too long to return, he knew that. But he had had things to do, and had not been able to spare the time to visit his old friends.
Until now.
The man who entered the compound was a big man; tall, and broad-shouldered, but his size was perhaps more emphatic than it needed to be due to the wolf pelt he wore about his head and shoulders and the quiver, bow and spear that protruded, strapped to his back. A mask hid his eyes from view behind white fabric, stretched tight enough that he could see easily through it. His chest was covered by some kind of tabard, which stretched apron-like down to his knees. And he wore traditional leather trousers and moccasins. Beside him padded a great grey wolf; Lobo, second of his pets to bear that name.
William Talltrees, the Red Wolf, had returned to the
Rangers.
“Someone outside,” Stephen Dacord observed laconically, watching the security monitors and chewing his way through lunch. “Should I sic the defence systems on ‘em?”
“No! Er… what do they look like?”
It was Jack Gersen who spoke; the mutant who called himself Desert Fire.
The Miracle Man shrugged. “Tonto or other stereotypical Native American,” he said, flippantly. “You know, I all but killed a tribe of these guys once and none of them looked this… Hollywoodised, I guess.*”
“You’d be amazed how little I needed reminding that one of my teammates is a criminal,” Gersen commented.
“Ex-criminal, thank you,” Dacord corrected him sharply. “And one of these days, I’ll have proved it often enough that you’ll accept it.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Jack continued, now peering over Dacord’s shoulder at the monitor. “Well, it sure ain’t Susie,” he muttered. “Looks familiar,” he said, raising his voice again. He triggered the comm-unit built into his costume. “Hey, Twister,” he said. “Unidentified guy in a costume at the gates. Got a wolf with him. Reminds me of someone… Think you might know him. Want to come look?”
“I’m on my way.” Drew’s gruff voice came through the comm system clearly, and Gersen dropped into the seat beside Dacord. “We’ll soon find out.”
“Indeed we will,” Dacord replied. “So, who’s Susie?”
Gersen’s head snapped round and he fixed the ex-villain with the sternest gaze he could muster. “Someone you should forget you heard the name of.”
“OK.”
“Good.”
“But should I remember if she shows up here?”
Gersen nearly bit his head off. But it was a sensible question, he eventually realised…
“Yeah. Just call me. No funny business…”
Dacord smiled as the mutant stalked away, and waited for
the Texas Twister to show up.
Drew smiled broadly when he saw the monitor image of the visitor, still nosing around the exterior of the new compound.
“Red Wolf,” he said. “Let him in, Stephen.”
“You got it, man…”
The Miracle Man started flipping switches.
The compound’s lights blinked on in the twilight, and Drew’s voice carried across the compound via amplifiers. “Good evening, Red Wolf. If you’d follow the sound of my voice, we’ll let you in…”
William Talltrees nodded, and headed toward the source of
the sound.
The door opened and the man known as Red Wolf stepped into the main building, Lobo padding along behind him.
Drew clasped the man in a bearhug, before releasing him and stepping back for a moment. “It’s been too long, William,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”
“I’ve gone wherever I had to,” he replied. “You know how it is. Where’s Victoria?”
“She’s in one of the training simulators,”
Drew said. “Getting her target practice in. We haven’t
really had time recently to keep our training up… It’ll
calm down, of course, but at the moment we’re busy working
all the kinks out of the setup. Come on in, have a look
around…”
“It had to happen, I suppose,” Eclipse muttered, his voice low. Sharon Ventura heard, all the same. “What did?”
“That,” he replied, pointing at the scene before them, where Red Wolf and Miracle Man faced each other warily. “From what Twister’s told us, Red Wolf’s the avatar or whatever of some Red Indian god or animal spirit or something-“
“Presumably a wolf,” Sharon interposed, a slight smile on her lips.
“Yeah,” Lazarus continued. “Anyway, he’s kinda defender of the faith, way I heard it. And Stephen…”
“Stephen’s the one who nearly destroyed a tribe of them.”
“That’s right. Had an argument with their gods, too, from what I can gather…”
“So… you think there’s going to be payback here?”
“I’d say so, yeah.”
“Mm… assuming Wolf’s tribe and the tribe Stephen massacred were friends.”
“Sorry?”
“Red Indian doesn’t mean one united bunch, Eclipse. Just a catchall for the tribes who were here before Columbus. Their own arguments, their own feuds, different religions and languages…”
“Yeah, yeah, alright…” Lazarus mumbled.
The possible ramifications hit Drew at about the same time.
He exchanged a nervous glance with Victoria, but it didn’t
help much. All they could really do now was stand and watch, and
intervene if it got too hairy…
William Talltrees, avatar of the Wolf Spirit.
Stephen Dacord, the man who stole the power of a tribe’s shamans, killed almost all of the tribe and was imprisoned by it’s gods.
Of course, that was the past now. To Stephen, and to the Cheemuzwa gods - but did Talltrees know this? Did the wolf by his side?
And if they didn’t, should he fight back?
All these questions rushed through Stephen’s mind virtually instantaneously. It wasn’t necessarily a good setup. Once, he’d been able to conjure illusions which had a physical presence. But the gods had removed that power from him, and had not restored it when they’d set him free to redeem himself.
Red Wolf had the advantage, somewhat. All Stephen could have was the element of surprise.
Talltrees held out his hand and smiled. Stephen looked at it, baffled.
“Ah…”
“I have been told about your… bargain with your captors,” Talltrees said. “I wanted to show you I have faith in you.”
Stephen blinked dazedly, but he shook the proffered hand. “Ah… thanks.”
Drew and Victoria exchanged glances, baffled. Jack Gersen, standing in the background, raised his eyebrows.
What was that all about, then?
“What was he talking about?”
Gersen had struck a deal with Eclipse; silent transportation into the room in which Dacord sat. He’d done so purely for effect, and the man who’d once tried to kill him had agreed to help. It was, Lazarus thought, some sign of hope…
Dacord turned, startled. “What was who talking about when?”
“Red Wolf. This… bargain thing.”
“Oh… yes. I hadn’t explained why I’ve gone straight, had I?”
“No,” Gersen said, taking a seat casually. “So spill. And maybe I’ll feel better disposed to you.”
Stephen looked at him, puzzled, but eventually shrugged. “If that’s how you want it… I was imprisoned by the Cheemuzwa gods, eventually, when they realised just how far I’d go. But where most people just claim there’s a rehabilitative effect, they made sure there was. One of their gods was a philosopher of sorts… We spent, subjectively, three decades arguing the pros and cons of villainy. Or it felt like three decades; probably would have been if we’d just been talking. But when you’re a god, you can fiddle with that a bit… In any case, he-“
“He made you see the error of your ways.” Gersen’s voice dripped contempt. “Come on, Dacord, you can do better than that.”
“Let me finish, Jack… please.” Stephen sighed heavily. “He didn’t make me see the error of my ways; I was already perfectly aware that what I was doing was wrong. What he did was rub my nose in it. He recreated what I’d done in simulation, picked out the weakest member of the crowd, and suspended me in their consciousness. He did… a number of things along those lines. I don’t really like remembering it. Anyway, at the end of it all I made a deal with them. I was going to go out and try to set the record straight. Try to put my house in order.” He shrugged. “It’s easier for people to accept you’re doing that if you’re part of a team.”
Gersen’s eyes hadn’t left his face all the way through. “So you turned good basically because a god kicked your ass until you agreed?”
“That’s more or less accurate. Mostly less, but hey…”
The mutant smiled. “I’ll buy that one. Just one last thing…”
“Yes?”
“You hadn’t done any of this heroic stuff until after the press conference, right?”
“Er… right…” Stephen looked confused. Where was all this going?
“So how the hell did MacLeod know you were available?”
“Ah…”
Drew’s fingers beat out a menacing tattoo on the table.
The entire team was assembled in the briefing room. Gersen and Dacord had called the meeting, so they stood at the head of the table by the display screen. Currently the screen was displaying a picture of Guy MacLeod.
“I know I shouldn’t have kept this from you,” Stephen was saying, “but I really wasn’t sure the team would stay together. I’m still not… and I need that. I need this team to stick around. Or I’m really going to have some trouble.”
“Get on with it,” Drew practically snarled.
“Right… Basically, Guy MacLeod isn’t the man’s real name. He’s somewhat better known as the Advisor; he’s got some useful defensive powers and for some reason he’s obsessed with causing destruction. I think, going on our fights so far, that was his thing with us. And he wasn’t the only recruiter…”
“Oh, great,” Sharon said. “Go on, who else is involved?”
“Mesmero. And I think he’s almost certainly gotten to you, for a start.”
“Me?” Sharon looked shocked. “But-“
“You came at pretty short notice, didn’t you? Why?”
“Because…” Sharon’s voice tailed off.
She was sure she’d had a good reason, but her memory
wasn’t letting her in on it. “Oh, great.”
“I’m working on it, OK?” Lazarus was getting snappy. His fingers danced across the keyboard. “It’s not easy to track someone when they’ve spent this much money on electronic anonymity. In fact, it’s damn near impossible.”
“There’s some good stuff on file in a private FTP somewhere,” Stephen offered. “The Red Skull set it up in case his employees needed to trace someone…”
“OK, where is it?”
Stephen leaned across and tapped the location ident into the box. “Password’s ‘Skeleton’,” he said.
“Thanks…”
“Might want to get a copy of everything in case we need it again, then let SHIELD know what the address is,” Stephen said.
“I can’t believe we’re using a criminal’s tools,” Gersen muttered.
“You can try finding him without it, if you like,” Drew said. He was getting truly sick of this. Once again he made a note to have a talk with each of his team members, as soon as this was over.
And that thought reminded him; one of the people in this room wasn’t in the team.
“William,” he said. “You willing to come along on this?”
“Sure.”
Eclipse’s Darkforce tendril smashed the door down before Gersen could burn through it. He looked affronted for a moment, shrugged, and headed on in with the rest of the team.
Well, most of the rest of the team.
Wind built steadily above them, whirling… not quite above their heads.
Texas Twister ripped the house’s roof off, and Shooting Star rode the wind down through the hole. Cascade, riding a great slab of water, dropped in after her. This, then, was the pincer movement.
Stephen Dacord, too, stood outside, hiding the damage done to the building from passers by and neighbours with an illusion or two. No need to get them panicked, after all.
In the hallway, the team began to split up, each choosing a different door to enter by.
Bodyweight found MacLeod before the others, and dived
forward toward him.
Jason Trenner again - it’s good to see the familiar face back…
Amazing issue. I can't wait to find out who MacLeod really is.. On to the questions
1)How will this team last to a second year? This team looks like its about ready to explode...
2)Are anyone people going to be mind controled to join the team?
3)Will the Scourges of the Underworld take another crack at killing Miracle Man?
4)Will the Mandrill try to get revenge on Bodyweight and Cascade for their defeating him?
5)Is there any chance of the team fighting the Technoanarcy?
Hope you found the revelation of MacLeod’s identity measured up to expectations, Jason…
1) Well, lessee. Two of their members are under Mesmero’s mental influence, and one of them has vanished. They’ve discovered their funding comes from the supervillain they’re fighting, and hardly any of them actually like any of the others apart from the couples. The first twelve issues are plotted and almost done, but all I’m going to tell you is that they make it. As for how, well, you’ve still got a few issues to go before you’ll find out.
2) No. Mesmero’s influence is beginning to wane…
3) They never actually took a first crack; as already explained by Miracle Man himself and earlier revealed in other MV1 work, many of the Scourge killings were merely a pretence by the Red Skull to provide him with henchmen the heroes weren’t looking for. The others were genuine, but a smokescreen.
4) Not any time soon. Mandrill’s been thrown into the Vault at the moment.
5) Again, not any time soon. Internal pressures are hitting the team hard enough as it is at the moment, and Austin isn’t a hotbed of superhumanity… yet.
Tom Lynch, kal.jerico@lineone.net
NEXT ISSUE
The combat with the Advisor continues! And… where the hell’s Mesmero got to? All this and, (possibly) more!