#13 - Knocking on Doors, Waiting for Answers

By Gary Dreslinski

There’s nothing like a gun to your head for motivation. Unless of course its a gun to someone else’s head. Sersi was still out of it the last time I saw her, in the distance. Her eyes were still foggy from the venom blast they both had taken.* Clearly, she got the a stronger dose of it. I can’t imagine though anything strong enough to take her down. She’s one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, and not just emotionally. She could go toe to toe with Thor if she wanted to. As an Eternal, the strength is as much an inherent part of who she is as a total lack of split-ends.

* Last issue - GD

I should be there, slicing my way to the truth. Asp caught us by surprise, it would take the whole damn Serpent Society to save her if I decided I wanted her head right now. But I don’t know what she did to Sersi. She loves me so much, I see it in her eyes every time we kiss. I can’t let her die just because I was embarrassed. And that’s what would happen if I tried to rush in and save her. The Asp was very clear about that. There’s only one antidote for a dosage that strong, one that the Society had created for her. She would give it to me, to save Sersi, in exchange for my services.

She didn’t look cute when she said it either. She looked serious.

I could take my chances, and Sersi could die. Or I could do what she wanted me to do, and Sersi would live. I decided to sit down and listen to her. She loves me so much. The risk just wasn’t worth it.

The door wasn’t as thick as I thought it would be. The Sword of Light had it reduced to metal splinters in a couple of swings. A couple of goons rushed forward, one of them had feathers coming out of his face. I hit him with the flat of the blade first, catching him square in the face. Obviously he was either one of the recent transformations or some sort of mutant. I wanted him out of the fight first. The other guy’s fist hit the Shield of Night. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Skin over bone impacted super concentrated mystical forces in a land where that sort of thing was now increased. You don’t have to be a scientist to figure out what was going to happen. But it certainly doesn’t hurt. That guy was running passed me out of the door holding what left of his hand before I even had the chance to threaten him.

The feather faced guy had taken a couple of steps back into the room, eyeing me cautiously. "What do you want?"

"I’ve here to speak to Dr. Hendrick."

"You didn’t get the hints from all the people outside. She doesn’t like visitors."

"You didn’t get the hint? They couldn’t stop me from coming in anyway. It seems that she’s going to have a visitor whether she likes it or not."

This wasn’t my first "conversation". Over the past week, at the Asp’s "request" I’ve been having quite a few of them. I go in and give people advice they can use. They usually don’t want to hear it. I make them listen.

The French government, and private interests have managed to grab hold of nearly every French national with any credibility in the national scientific community and put them places where no one can get to them. Some of them went over to Doom. Some of them are dead. All of them are afraid. That goes double for the non-nationals. The same sort of thing happened to a lot of them. But no one guaranteed them any sort of rights. So it wasn’t as gentle of process. A few of them though were still where people could get at them. If you knew the right sort of people, or came in with the right sword of weapon, oops, I meant sort of weapon…

People will tell you where to find all sorts of thing when push comes to shove.

And I tend to shove quite a bit when I have to.

The spiel was this: The Asp wanted to call a council of what was left of the scientific community. She wanted them to start working together toward the common goal of figuring out the barrier.

It wasn’t a bad goal, if that’s what it was. I knew better, most of them did too. It was a power play. Nothing more or less. I could spot it a mile away. There was no way that a member of a terrorist organization like the Society was going to be doing anything that wasn’t ultimately looking out for her own best interests. Maybe she thought she could build up a base of knowledge and go it alone, with whatever resources she was able to get together. Perhaps she would take it and use it as barter with the whoever had the most to offer her. Maybe it was protection for when Doom came to town.

She wanted to increase her own power base - and I was the one out doing it for her. A Pendragon, an Avenger. I lent her credibility. Or would have, if I didn’t also tell them about working for Sycorp. We were going to need people in the field as well. As long as I was there, talking to these people, there was no reason not to earn my paycheck. Sersi would be the first one to understand. There were few people who were as practical as she could be at times.

Some of them were more receptive to me once I told them who to contact at Sycorp. That was something I was getting a paycheck to do. Self interest is something everyone understands.

Another door to break down. Another bodyguard to "convince" of my sincere wishes to meet with the person in their care. It seemed like they just kept coming, one after the other. I would go back to the Asp, and she would hand me another page of the "invitation" list. I couldn’t help but think, if this was Paris… if this was the organized heart of France, what was the rest of the continent like?

Doom must look very attractive when faced with total breakdown of social structures... the guy with the rules usually does.

It’s mid-day before I start finding people I’m coming to visit have been relocated. It’s evening before I find out about the Oracle.

No one wanted to talk about it at first. I quickly changed their minds.

From what I had been told, the Oracle had appeared over the last 24 hours. No one was sure what it was, but everyone seemed to agree that it was wise, and powerful. People were flocking there to be listen to it. They were looking for something to believe in, someone to tell them what to do. Had Doom walked down the street, most of them would have been on their knees kissing his metal tipped toes.

Some of the people I was looking for had gone there, to visit the Oracle, to learn what the future had in store for them. Which meant I could cool my heels, and wait. Or, I could go looking for them…

It wasn’t much of a choice. Besides, I might actually learn something…

Just breathe… in and out… he coughed again, spitting out blood. It was hard. He should be dead. Galactus had destroyed Battleworld.* Whatever force had brought tore him away to that far off world, had sent him there to die.

* In Pendragons #17 - what do you mean you haven’t read "A Secret War"??? Go read it NOW - GD

He had felt the death-throes of the planet beneath him, and felt his body being torn apart in the awesome energies that Galactus was unleashing. He clutched the Ebony Blade closer, hugging it to himself. There was no reason why he should be alive, other than his destiny was still unfulfilled.

He looked around, he was in an alley. Not the best of fates, but certainly it was better than being dead.

Alec Drake felt a smile creep over his face. It felt good there. He spat out more blood. Something, or someone, had saved him. He looked up at the sky, feeling with his mind the glorious mystical barrier he had helped to create. The Hellfire Club was gone, broken apart and scattered at the very hour of their victory. But he was free again. Whatever force had taken him, had placed him in the gravest of peril, it had also set him free… free to rebuild a Hellfire Club to suit his vision. As the Black King, he would gather the most powerful and ambitious to his banner. They would regain what had been taken from them, and become masters of the new world.

Alec coughed again, wiping the blood from his lips. With the Ebony Blade in his hand, and the reformed Hellfire Club at his side, no one would be able to stop them. Not the Black Knight, not the Pendragons, not the…

The energy blast knocked him off his feet before he knew what was happening. He landed on his back, the blade slipping from his grasp, and skittering across the cobblestones of the alleyway. Alec dove for it, if he could get the blade in his hand… apparently his assailant understood his line of thought all too well. The boot came down, hard, not on the blade, but on his hand. Alec screamed out in pain, grasping the boot with his other hand. He had to get to the blade… he looked up at his assailant, as he tried to get his hand free, hitting the chain mail that guarded the man’s leg to seemingly no avail.

The face of Dane Whitman stared back down at him, with red glowing eyes and a dead calm expression on his face. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"The blade is mine!" Alec shouted, "Fight me like a man Whitman! Fight me like a man!"

His assailant looked for a moment like he was going to let him up. He looked as if he was going to give him a fair fight after all.

But that expression didn’t last more than a minute.

"You think he’s stupid, don’t you?" Dane asked, not waiting for an answer, "You think that just because he’s a hero, that he always going to do the right thing… God, you people just don’t know me at all, do you?"

Dane kicked Alec in the face, and while he was clutching his face, managed to grab the Ebony Blade from the ground. It felt good in his hand. It felt natural. The blade was back where it was supposed to be, doing what it was created to do: Punish the enemies of Avalon.

Alec’s eyes went wide, as he saw what was about to happen. He scrambled, trying to get to his feet. But when it came, there was nothing he could do to stop it. His destiny had been a lie, the universe’s chance to play one last trick. The blade came down in a wide arc, and the head of Alec Drake, the Black King of the Hellfire Club, the Ebony Knight, came clean off his shoulders. His body crumpled in a heap where he had stood.

Dane Whitman stared down at his latest victim, enjoying the feel of having the Blade in his hand again. It had been much too long. The word would go out, he would make sure this reality’s Dane Whitman heard what had just occurred. He would make sure that Sersi knew. The Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, who had devoted his existence to destroying her, universe after universe, had returned, and he now had the Ebony Blade. Proctor was back.

Dane Whitman stood in front of the line to see the Oracle. Others had been waiting in line. They had stepped aside when he had approached. The Oracle had, it seemed, been waiting to see him.

He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

It wasn’t the type of place that you’d expect to find an actual Oracle, a stone of wisdom and seeing. But, if stories he had already heard were true, this wasn’t your usual kind of Oracle.

Someone called his name, and he stepped forward into the blackness of the room. Someone was there, he could feel them. His hand went to the energy sword on his belt. In a pinch, he would be able to use that to buy time to summon the Sword of Light.

"Easy there buddy," a familiar voice said, with a touch of a brogue.

It took him a moment to realize where he knew the voice from… but it was impossible.

Slowly, the lights in the room started to flicker on… leaving him staring at the middle of the room, and the pedestal. Someone had placed a decapitated head there… one that was staring at him, amused, with a huge smile on its face.

It was the head of his protégé, Sean Dolan.

"Sean?" he asked carefully…

The head’s smile got bigger, "You came here looking for answers." Sean proclaimed, as Dane inched closer, " I guess now we get to see how good of an Oracle I actually am…"

"A Show of Force"
Part 2

Days had become months. Months had become years. He had sat, and waited for the right moment to leave. But the time never seemed right. He had come over to serve in the French Foreign Legion as a way to fight the good fight. He had always intended on going back home, once the Great War was over. But something had kept him. World War II had broken out what seemed like the weekend after that. He had been able to hit the Germans a couple of good blows before falling by the wayside as the younger heroes came into their own. He stood back and let them do their thing, knowing that there was still plenty left to be done. He kept his eyes on them. He kept them safe from true harm simply by staying near. Men dressed in bright costumes, like Captain America, the Angel, the Human Torch. These were a new breed of supermen. They were going to be important one day, he could feel it. So he kept his eye on them, and kept them as safe as he could without revealing his presence.

When World War II ended, he went back into hiding, waiting for the next war to break out in Europe.

There were minor ones, civil wars. But never anything big enough to pull him back into the fray. Not until the Barrier came that is.

Hugo Danner had been called many things in his long life, well preserved among them. He had been a young man at the beginning of the last century. He still resembled a young man in the beginning of the new millennia. Other things he had been called included the Gladiator, and the Man-God.

Neither of those fit very well though. Gladiator came right out of nowhere, other than the fact that he had once quite enjoyed fighting. Man to man, that was one thing, The modern world though had long shelved that idea, making war far more horrifying each and every time he took it out of Pandora’s box. As for the name "Man-God", Hugo couldn’t imagine actually calling himself that. He was stronger, and faster, than anyone he had ever encountered. His abilities seemed to increase to outmatch whoever he was facing. But a "Man-God"? It seemed immodest.

The Barrier had come when things had seemed the lowest. There was nothing to do, no one to fight. Hugo had traveled the world, many times over, and each time, he had come back to France - to wait for what was coming next. The barrier was clearly the sign he had been waiting so many years to see.

There was evil in the world. The type of pure evil that was worth fighting. It had shown its power by cutting Europe off from the rest of the world, by bringing the mysterious and fantastic back to being the norm. He had sat up from bed, and started paying attention to the world around him once more.

Hugo learned all that he could about what was happening… and then set out. There were people he needed to talk to, people who needed to be gathered, to be forged into a new force to be reckoned with. The woman in his dreams had detailed it all to him. He would bring them together.

The world needed him. And he could not refuse her call.

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