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Night. Full moon.
The Gehenna Valley outside Jerusalem glows under the silvery light of an impassible moon. His many ghosts of times past seem almost alive in a night like this. A lonely figure walks under the cold stare of the earth's satellite. A man who finds really ironic, if not dreadful, to be here. His thoughts conflicting and revolving around the strange things that happened during last month ...

"Mad about you! Really!" Baron Helmut Zemo thinks as he feels stupid being here in the middle of the night "What is it you're doing Heike? I know we parted ways badly after our last run-in with Captain America * and before the whole Thunderbolts mess. But trying to make me feel miserable is not like you ".

(* Heike, Baroness Zemo, Helmut's wife, last appeared in Captain America # 431-434, Alex)

He stops for a moment, trying to listen carefully ... as if a faint sound of a sigh had called for his attention ... but hearing nothing he returns to his musings.

"And 'calling' me here to meet you ... here, of all places! The very valley that represents Hell for the Jews!" he smirks "You are trying to get at me, dear wife? As if I ever cared for this or any other people. But still a move on your part revealing really poor taste!"

He staggers along, looking in every direction, scanning for danger, not even noticing the tingling at the base of his skull, that sense of being somehow "pushed" into this not completely of his own volition ...

High above, the Moon, a severe and hard witness ... but if someone would look at it with care he will notice a thin outline, giving up the presence of an invisible being ... clad in silvery garments, floating and staring impassively at the figure below. The beautiful eyes of Cynthia Bart contemplating this foreign and almost alien landscape, the evil glint of Karla Sofen in them savoring this moment.

"Revenge is near" Moonstone thinks.

"It took a while to plan but it's coming out perfectly" Moonstone revels in the memories of her life after the resurrection and of her careful plan to exact vengeance on Zemo.

"First obtaining the 'help' (maybe subservience is better) of Maximus the Mad and his recently boosted telepathic abilities *. Then gathering every bit of intelligence on Zemo and his family, through a clever use of her own abilities, coupled with the fact that she's officially dead. Then starting to plague the Baron with ghosts of his recent and distant past through a combination of her light manipulating powers and Maximus' mind suggestion" Moonstone recalls in flashbacks her maneuvers.

(* see last issue for this and other hints, Alex)

"And now he's here, the fool! Convinced that his wife has tried to get at him. Here to settle the score. He doesn't know how miserable I plan to make him feel. To the point that he will beg me to kill him in the end. And I'm not even sure about the killing part ... if I really break him as I plan it would be better let him live as a wretched and twisted thing. ... Well, that's for me to decide .... Now to make sure about the next step of the plan ... Maximus can you hear me in your mind?" She projects her thoughts.

"I hear you, my love!" Maximus' mental voice comes to her from a hidden bunker under the Gehenna Valley.
"How's the mental state of our foe?" she asks.
"Confused, uncertain, but still firmly in control ... he's contemplating the idea of simply killing Heike without even leaving her the time to explain her recent maneuvers against him" the Inhuman reports.
"Well, then move to Phase One, my 'dear'!" she commands, breaking the mind-link to let her express her total disgust for this useful but abhorrent man. "I will have to do something about this 'dear' thing ... it makes me puke at times"

Then she stares below at the valley ... and the man in it ... "He's in for a ghostly surprise" ... she laughs silently.

"Where are you Heike?" Helmut thinks "You've plagued me in my dreams, then with strange mail deliveries in hideouts that should have been undetectable even from the best scanning devices. You've shown yourself in glimpses at night many a time. You made me nervous. Techno nearly dared to think that I needed a mental fix. The fool! And all the deliveries came from Jerusalem. And all the dream were about this Valley. ... And then those messages hinting to a sort of judgment called upon me by Jews who were my father's victims in World War II. Is it really you, Heike? Or have they captured you and are using you to torture me?"

He looks around at the barren landscape. And wonders how come that he was so moved to be here after all.

"Baron Helmut Zemo, accursed spawn of the late and despicable Baron Heinrich Zemo. Face the legacy your father left you!"

The voice startles him ... coming apparently from everywhere ... in fact existing only in his mind. He again looks around ... not seeing everything moving ...

"A legacy of hatred. Of vengeance. Of genocide!"

Again Helmut uses his sophisticated equipment, included in the new version of his outfit by the 'faithful' Techno. No answers. No heat readings. No movement in a mile-radius range.

"Do not fear the threat of living things, mortal. Judgment is called upon you from the dead!"

"The dead can't do such things!" he speaks aloud "Heike! Wherever you are, show yourself up! And leave aside these parlor tricks! I don't believe in the dead! Nor in an afterlife!" he performs another wide range scan without perceiving anything ...

Then the few hair at the base of his skull become erect as a shiver involuntarily runs through his body at the sight his eyes and mind report to him.

From the barren landscape hundreds of silvery ghostly figures rise. All of them appearing emaciated as the Jews reported in old photos from the concentration camps. All of them with the sign of the Nazi hooked cross imprinted on their forehead. All of them pointing silently at him. And then their voice, again ...

"The dead have always walked this Valley, miscreant! And we've been granted by our Righteous God the chance to exact punishment on the spawns of our past jailers, torturers and killers. You're only one of the many on the list ... Do not think so high of yourself ... this is not at all done solely for you. You're one of the many insignificant recipients of our curse"

"This can't be true! This is only an elaborated ruse!" he shouts. He scans the valley with his equipment and the instruments' answer makes another chill run up his spine ... there they are ... hundreds of ethereal presence ... yet detectable ...

"Heike! Give up this pathetic light show!" he shouts again as the ghosts silently close in.

"Maximus, report Zemo's mental condition!" Moonstone orders from above ... while straining her light manipulation powers to control the wide range holographic projection.
"Increased excitement! Hints of fear! You were right, my mistress. He's been more shocked by discovering the 'reality' of the images than them turning out to be only fictional fragments of his mind". Maximus answers.
"I know him! He's a pragmatist! Physical threats scare him more than supernatural ones. He must be driven to the edge. Then he will believe in anything I want him to believe. I want him crushed! Keep sending the mental voices ... and prepare for Phase Two!" she comments.
"As you wish, my love!" the mad scientist replies.

"We're here Zemo! Believe it or not! We're here to punish you!"

The figures approach him. Their right arm raised, pointing at him with skeletal fingers. He closes his eyes, trying to regain control, to calm down, to exorcise these images ... that *are* there! Then as the nearest figures are almost touching him he grabs his laser gun, firing at one of them.
He stares as the laser beam momentarily disrupts the figure, for a second or two before the 'ghost' resumes his previous appearance ...

Then one of the figures grabs his weapon ... and incredibly the weapon melts in his hand, burning him through the gauntlet ... as drops of fused metal fall to the sandy ground and a shriek escapes Helmut's lips.

High above Moonstone presses on the holographic projection as one of her hands still glows for her carefully aimed laser attack on Zemo's weapon. Her concentration boosted by the entity protecting her from the Moon.

"You can't be real! This is NOT happening!" Zemo shouts as another figure finally touches him ... its ghostly finger phasing through him as a searing pain pierces his mind and body (resulting from the combination of a mental attack from Maximus and a laser discharge from Moonstone above carefully coordinated).

He cries in pain as ghost after ghost touches him, each of them bringing forth shocking currents of electricity through his nervous system as well as burning effects on his costume and skin. Wave after wave his executioners approach. Every figure disappears after having given out its amount of punishment. Physical punishment. Mental agony. Shattering confidence.

He lashes out at them with his arms, bringing himself more pain at every contact. They come in hundreds, thousands. endlessly, mercilessly. Rising out from the sand. Converging on him as he tries to escape. His legs giving away at times as he runs unsteadily on the barren ground. His psyche in a raging inferno of thoughts as his pragmatist mind tries to analyze the situation in vain.

Then madness overcomes him as he loses consciousness under the uncountable attacks. He falls to the ground sobbing. The last image his eyes see are the unending multitude of ghosts submerging him. And thankfully he blacks out.

"So delicious! And it's only the beginning!" Moonstone thinks from above, relaxing a bit after the strain of creating such a prolonged holographic projection and laser discharge "But I was almost on the verge of fainting myself ... The idiot does have a strong fiber ... it took more than I thought before he passed out from the sheer pain".
"Are you pleased with your servant, mistress?" Maximus asks in her head like a faithful dog.
"I am very impressed, my 'dear'! I will reward you for this! Now prepare for Phase Three ... then wake him up ... painfully!" she orders while an evil smile forms on her beautiful face.

Zemo's mind. A dream. A reality?

A form takes shape. A purple clad woman wearing a slightly different version of his own costume. His wife!
"Heike!" he calls in his dream, trying to keep out the aching coming from every part of his body.
"I'm here, Helmut! You pig! You traitor! You deserve to die! You deserve to suffer as I did!" with this the figure fires at him with a strange gun and his mind is again coursed with a shot of pain and anguish ... waking him up screaming.

"HEIKE!! Why are you doing this to me?" he shouts, finding himself laying in the sand. His costume ripped in many points, his skin burnt in many places ... the ghosts disappeared.

He tries to calm down and evaluates the situation. He's not an amateur. There are forces acting against him ... great forces but now that the visions are gone he finds hard to believe they were really ghosts after all ... There must be an explanation ... but his equipment is totally ruined now ... destroyed by the burning touch of the 'ghosts'.
His mind draws back from the searing pain the memory of the previous attack brings to him.
He's somewhat scared but mostly infuriated with himself for his lack of control ... for his almost coward attempt at fleeing ..
He fumes, staggering to his feet, aching all over, and then he sees her ...

"Heike!"

A purple figure approaches, appearing solid and holding the gun from his dream in one hand. Moonstone smiles under the disguise. How she's loving this, till the last bit of pleasure it's bringing her.

"What are you doing here? What's this? Answer me!" he moves enraged towards her, stopping only as he sees her finger contracting on the trigger ...

"Do not be rude to me, Helmut!" she answers ... the sound of her voice altered through Maximus' efforts.
"I'm here to complete what the ghosts started ... to enact judgment on your evil and useless life ... a disappointing amount of failures I have to add" she answers grinning at him.
"What are you saying, Heike? How dare you???" he answers enraged.

Then he charges at her, discarding the thought of the gun ... and unbelievably he passes through her falling on the sand behind her ... as she laughs amused.

"Oh what a sight you are, Helmut!!" she laughs again mocking him "You should see your face ... your ugly face I mean ... you look so confused ... You traitor!" and suddenly her gaze becomes cold as ice as she fires at him with the gun a powerful laser blast hitting him full force as the smell of charred meat fills his nostrils and pain almost makes him pass out.

"What are you saying? I didn't betray you! You left me! And why are you immaterial like those ... 'ghosts'?" he utters the words through the pain he feels trying to clear his mind and staggering again to his feet. A pitiful sight, indeed.

"I am immaterial because I AM dead! You monster! And it's all your fault!!!" she shouts firing again at him.

Zemo avoids this blast darting to the side, as his tired and aching body slowly responds to his mental command ... as if his mind was having trouble exerting his control over him.

"What ... ?" he asks watching carefully Heike's finger to be prepared for another blast.

Under her disguise Moonstone smiles charging up her fist for yet another shot.

"I was brought here before and killed by the ghosts because I was your closest living relative!" she answers visibly enraged "This is what your accursed lineage brought upon me! I begged them to spare me ... cause I was your wife no more! This is all you've given me in our wretched love story!"

She starts sobbing as a sense of failure indeed begins to plague Helmut's mind.

"No love, no affection! Just discomfort and in the end torture and death!!" she sobs even more "I begged 'them' to spare me ... but they said it was part of YOUR punishment ... they said they were innocent too and your father had no mercy at all for them ... you brought this on me ... you idiot! You! With your mad plans for revenge and conquest! You! With your failures! You! With ... oh!" her voice breaks again "I HATE you! You hear me! I HATE you! You pitiful wretched thing ..."

"STOP!!! STOP!!! Stop telling this Heike!" he shouts as the feeling of uneasiness and defeat pervades his soul even more.

"Shut up! Traitor!" and again she fires at him, as he falls to the ground to avoid the blast. Closing in on her. He jumps at her ... having noticed that when she fires her appearance becomes more solid.

They connect and roll on the sandy ground, the gun falling from her hand.

Behind her deception Moonstone is astonished at the will to fight that Zemo still sports after all he's been through ... "Well, this is only making things better" she thinks.

"You're real! You're not a ghost! Who are you? Tell me!!!" he says starting to hit Heike's face and finding only the sand of the valley's floor. "WHAT ARE YOU?"

She disappears.

"WHAT ARE YOU?" he shouts again to the empty valley.

"She's your biggest failure, my child!" a voice startles him and as he turns he knows what dreadful image he's going to behold ...

"Mutter! What are you saying?" he says as the old figure of Hilde Zemo appears shining from the sand.
"Do not call me that! I'm rejecting you as my son!" she states with a cold and uncaring voice "I don't want to be remembered as the mother of such a disappointment for all the human race!"
"Mutter, please, this is not like you! You've been the kindest person I ever knew!" he speaks to her, totally enthralled by the illusion ... his mind slowly giving away to the madness he's been bombarded with so far.
"And I taught you NOT to follow your lamented Vater's path of injustice and evil" she answers "but you forgot my teachings and went to him to be an even more pathetic version of him!! You're such a pity!"

"NO! This is not true! WHO ARE YOU? I know you're real! I know this is not what my mother thinks of me! WHO ARE YOU? Why are you driving me mad?" he shouts desperately.

And to his horror Hilde disappears as another dreadful voice calls him from behind.

"A failure indeed, my son!"

"Vater! Not you! I did it all for you! I devoted my life to exact revenge on the accursed Captain America and his Avengers! I did it for you! Please do not turn your back on me ... Please!" he begs ... his voice broken, his spirit shattered!
"And what did you accomplish? You made the name Zemo even more laughed at!!" Baron Heinrich Zemo answers under his mask. "You're a total disappointment my son! I thought I taught you better than that ... Here you are, cowering like a scared rabbit in this accursed land of the Jews!!! You're not even pathetic ... you're simply too near to nothing to even waste a single thought on you!!!"

"No, Vater! It's not true ... I did much! Please forgive me, Vater!" he uncertainly walks to the Baron's figure and ...

SLAP!

A powerful hand slaps him hardly, breaking his jaw, and sending him flying a few yards back, landing in a heap on the desert sand. And the shimmering figure of his father closes in ...

"NO! I see it! You're another deception! WHO ARE YOU? If you want to kill me, do it! But show yourself! WHO ARE YOU?" again his voice shouts to a high pitch as his confidence is totally broken and his coherence almost completely lost from the ordeal he's been put through.

And to his horror the figure changes, reshapes itself ... in the golden form of .... METEORITE!!!

"It's me! Dear Helmut!!" she speaks with such a degree of enjoyment in her voice ...

"NO!!! I killed you! I saw that!! I'm sure ... You're just another fake ghost conjured to haunt me!" he shouts, craziness in his voice ... and hysteria.

"Oh, but I'm real, Helmut!" she comes closer "Or maybe I am a ghost! But nonetheless here to destroy you!"
"I don't believe you! You're not real! You're not here! You're ..."

WHAMMMM!!!!

Her right fist punches him in the gut! Three ribs broken! Internal hemorrhage starting in his left lung!

"I am real! And it was me all along, Helmut! Failure! Disappointment! NOTHING!" she's savoring every single instant.

BRAAAKKK!!!

She backhands him, almost dislodging his head from his neck and making him land roughly, one leg broken.

"It's not you! Not you! Not you!" he whines incessantly, pain flowing through him.

WHAMM!!! SLAPPPP! THOOOKKKK! THUDDD!
Blow after blow she hits him, an eye crushed, an arm broken, several internal hemorrhages started.

"Tell me what you want now Zemo! Tell me" she taunts him.

"Go ... to ... Hell!" he answers with the last vestiges of his pride.

She closes her fist around his left hand and crushes it to a pulp under the screaming sound of Zemo's pained voice.

"What you want, Helmut?" she asks again sweetly but coldly at the same time.

"... Be .... damned .... wench!" he defiantly replies, almost passing out from the pain.

"Oh, are we playing macho man again Zemo? You chauvinist Nazi boy!!!" she mocks him "Well, let's see how manly you will be after this!"

And with that she slips down her hand around his crotch ... charging up her laser blasts and vaporizing Helmut's genitals while cauterizing the wound not to let him die ... yet.

ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The scream pouring out of Zemo's tortured form is dreadful to hear. He agonizes on the sand, a pitiful resemblance of a man ...

"So, Helmut ... should I leave you this way? What do you want now???" she asks maliciously.

" ... you ... ... you ... must ... kill me!" he speaks totally crushed and defeated.
"Ask me again!" she gloats.
" ... kill ... me ... wench!" he whispers with a last sign of defiance in him.
"I'm almost tempted not to, Helmut!" she answers ... contemplating the idea for a second ..."but then I am also practical ... even in this state you could come back and be a real pain for me ... And even if vengeance has been a sweet pleasure to me ... I'm not that vain to risk your future meddling with my life ... Good bye Helmut! See ya in Hell someday ... and be sure, Hell does exist ... I've been there! I know!" she laughs.

Then she points her hand at Zemo's head, seeing the horror in his face at her last words ... and not noticing a tiny cable coming out of the sand below Zemo's head connecting to his brain ...

SHRAAZZZAAAAAAAAKKKK!!!

A laser blast is all that's needed to vaporize Zemo's head completely ... not even a small remnant of his brain ... and the tiny cable disappears under the sand still unnoticed.

A noise from behind ... the desert floor opens as a strange craft lifts off from the underground complex ... Maximus at its controls.

Moonstone resumes her current silvery garments and turns towards the craft.

"Is everything fine, mistress?" Maximus asks in her mind.
"Perfect!" she answers, calm, cold, satisfied ... the last remnant of the delighting pleasure she felt in killing Zemo still rippling through her body ... almost erotic in nature.
"Yes, perfect!" she repeats "But now we must go my 'dear'! There are plans to be built, other revenges to savor! And a full new life to live! A beautiful life indeed!" she smiles and phases through the ship's hull as Maximus programs take-off.

In a few instants they're gone, leaving behind only the carcass of what once was Baron Helmut Zemo ... under the cold stare of the moon.

Minutes pass and then a stirring under the sand ... as the cybernetic form of Techno rises from his hiding place under the ground ... holding a strange glowing cube in his hand.

"And so, my dear Baron! I did well following you, didn't I?" he speaks in his cold mechanic voice.
"And now what to do with your cybernetic imprint ... this precious consciousness of yours I stored just before death claimed you? Do you want a new body? One like mine? An organic one? ..." he asks ironically ...

"Oh, and being in my power finally! Will you remember this? Are you even conscious enough now to know this? ... What to do? What to do?" his voice amused ...

"Well, we'll see, dear Helmut ... we'll see!" and with that Techno ignites his boot-jets and disappears in the sky.

The Gehenna Valley remains silent, as a soft breeze starts blowing ... as the sand slowly claims Zemo's body.

A smirk on the moon's face ... amused ... is the last thing we see as the scene fades into oblivion ....

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Ok this is it! The dreadful finale of this limited series re-introducing the best villainess in the Marvel Universe back in the MV1. If you liked this mini-series and are looking for more on the deadly Moonstone ... rest easy ... I have definitely more plans coming up for the revived Dr. Sofen.

Look out for future Newsarama announcements ... and remember ... the Moon watches you from above ... beware!

E-mail your comments, thoughts and constructive criticism to  AlexM@mclink.it

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