Joey Chapman

USAgent

Sabra

Silverclaw

Scarlet Scarab

Cybermancer

Asia, little before Now

Nyoko Anda surveyed the computer printouts lined out on the workbench before her with intense interest. They were sophisticated diagrams of a new computer processor, one she hoped to find a way to cheaply mass-produce, and, she hoped, eventually combat illiteracy in the poorer regions in Asia and perhaps worldwide.

Suddenly, as if she were in some B movie, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She quickly spun around and scanned her private lab, carefully looking for anything suspicious or out of place. Finding nothing amiss, the Japanese heroine known as Honey Lemon chalked it up to her returned humanity simply playing tricks on her mind. Being transformed into a snake woman and then back had left her feeling little uneasy with her own body at times. She returned to her work, never realizing the man she'd sensed was standing over her left shoulder. The man observed Honey Lemon's work for a few moments, and left peacefully.

The Prime Minister of Japan felt a cold breeze down his neck as the stranger who'd invaded Nyoko's lab observed his work on trade agreements. He simply ignored the feeling, knowing how important his work was to his nation.

Kun Hai shuddered involuntarily as he went about managing the finances of his father's bank. All of a sudden, he felt like someone had walked over his grave. Unknown to him, he was being observed and carefully studied by one of his more curious (and invisible) countrymen. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he went back to his work.

Unseen by all as they went about their daily lives, a peculiar man walked thru the region of Asia , observing all that he saw, yet never being seen in turn. Whenever he tired of one location, the landscape around him would ripple like water, displaying a change of scenery. All the while, he was little more than an observant ghost, coming and going all about Asia as he pleased with no one being the wiser.

While the man himself was a proud member of his Asian lineage, born into a Shinpan Dynasty in fact, at first glance he hardly looked like your typical Asian male. He stood six feet tall and his body was covered in a silver armor with ancient silk robes draped over them. His natural skin pigmentation was altered by chemicals, magic and super science combined, all used to extend his life well past its intended span.

And now, he was on perhaps the strangest warpath in the history of mankind. The man slightly scolded himself. His forces were assembled, ready to be led into battle by one of the deadliest killers in the world. His campaign was carefully considered and meditated on while his agents had finished all preparations. All was in readiness to unleash terror against the foul polluters of the culture he loved so much, who were gnawing at the edges of his great and beautiful society, but something held him back. It certainly wasn't his conscious. No, when he lost that the man could never remember, for all he ever knew of it was its absence.

But his more rational mind wondered briefly if the crime committed against him and his would be equal to the punishment he would in turn mete out. Thankfully for the overlord, the matter was easily resolved.

With the powerful magic at his fingertips, the old Shinpan willed himself to remember the paths of broken destiny that littered his beloved homeland. These lines represented tragedy and potential forever unseen. He had to remember WHY, why he intended to punish the West for their vile poison. Why they had to be made to pay. Why they must be made to suffer. Remembering these painful tales of woe, the ancient wizard sent out a silent command, and let slip the dogs of war.

Why Asia

The scene before him shifted to the home of Katsuo Minoru, a brilliant young man who would eventually unlock the secrets of cold fusion, a radical discovery that would change the world and bring his family great honor.

Sadly, the combined pressure of school and societies expectations was too much for him. His seven days a week, eight hour classes always left him physically and emotionally depleted. No matter how much was done, no matter how hard he worked, there was always so much more to be done.

And his parents? Their expectations were too much for the boy as well. He always felt no matter how much he tried, he could never live up to their ideals that they had set down and be the son they truly wanted and would be proud of.

So like so many other gifted youths thru out Asia , he committed suicide, hanging himself from the light in his room. The ancient mystic shook his head remorsefully, and summoned another path.

Then Almagordo , New Mexico Months Earlier

Yuriko Oyama, proud samurai and the powerful cyborg killer known as Lady Deathstrike, struggled to remain conscious, an incredible task in and of itself given the fact that seventy percent of her cyborg body had been stripped of its cybernetic components for nefarious use elsewhere. One hand grasping the amputated hand of Armin Zola, Yuriko akmost wanted to laugh at the irony of her impending death.

Yuriko Oyama was born the daughter of the Japanese crime lord Dark Wind. Her father was a brilliant man who'd created a process to bond the indestructible metal known as adamantium to the human body. But, the process was stolen and Dark Wind's notes destroyed. He spent long years, decades recreating the process, and as she grew to be an adult, his daughter vowed to punish those who'd stolen her father's work and as a result, stolen her father from her.

Eventually, her crusade had led her into conflict against the mutant known as Wolverine. She became convinced Wolverine was allied with those who'd stolen the life work of her father and swore to destroy him. With each encounter and each battle, Yuriko found herself surrendering more and more of her humanity just to slay her hated foe. But in time, she'd discovered it was all for naught. Wolverine had never stolen her father's work, but rather was an innocent victim of those who did. She'd sacrificed her humanity and honor… in a fool's quest against a great and honorable man.

And so, in one last desperate attempt to regain her honor, she'd willingly joined Wolverine when he began assembling a team to rescue his infant son from the clutches of the evil telepathic being known as the Shadow King.

The mission was an utter disaster. The others Wolverine had gathered were all killed outright in the fighting, the powerful mutant known as X-Man had sided with The Shadow King and defeated Wolverine and Yurike herself had been captured by Hydra, who needed certain cyborg parts from her body to, ironically, recreate her father's bonding process. To say that Lady Deathstrike suffered while they removed these parts was like saying the sun burned brightly.

But she vowed to endure until the tables could be turned, and eventually they were. Wolverine freed himself from Hydra control, and returned with a vengeance. He'd quickly killed Armin Zola (or at least seemed to. One could never be sure with him), Yuriko's tormenter and removed the monster's hand and given it to Yuriko to activate the base's self destruction option.

Lady Deathstrike had vowed to give Wolverine as much time as she could, to destroy the base with her last gasp, but was quickly discovering that time wouldn't be much at all. Her entire lower body was a mesh of wires that seemingly did nothing but radiate pain. Blackness was beginning to consume her vision and even worse, Lady Deathstrike found that her cybernetic limbs were slow and sluggish to respond to her commands. She began to fear that soon, not only would she die without vengeance, but that she wouldn't fulfill her final vow to the man she'd shamefully hounded.

"Your father would be ashamed." A voice, deep and ancient, snapped suddenly.

Lady Deathstrike found her attention almost unnaturally drawn to a spectral figure of a man who's just appeared before her. She found herself instinctively wanting to look away, sensing that he was a perversion of everything she held dear, but at the same time being helpless to do so. This man, if he could be called that, possessed such a piercing gaze that she simply couldn't look away.

"What...do you know of my father?" Lady Deathstrike stammered out.

"I know that he would never approve of you dying for the sake of wild westerners." The man spat.

Lady Deathstrike, remembering her father's abuse, lies and evil despite the love she felt for him, wanted to retort, but couldn't quite seem to find her voice. All she discovered she could say was, "I have given him my word."

"You have only sworn to destroy this facility. Not to give your life for a cause not your own. Still, no matter. I will ensure that you keep your vow, in return for your services as a warrior for the East."

It was more of a statement than a request. Within moments, the base was destroyed, the two long departed from the inferno. Soon, Lady Deathstrike would find herself wishing that she'd been destroyed alongside her enemies. For that would have far more honor.

Now Paris , France

Jonathon Peters had been saving for this trip to Paris for nearly three years now. He'd clipped every coupon, scrapped up every last dollar and pinched every penny to finally see the city of lights. Three years spent denying himself all the material pleasures he could think of to make this journey of a lifetime to one of the world's most famous cities.

But, as he and his fellow passengers on the tourist saw the peculiar man who'd just appeared out of no where in front of their tour bus, he realized his time couldn't have been worse.

The man was huge, to say the least. Standing eight feet tall and with a powerful frame suitable for a sumo wrestler, the man would have stood out in a crowd even if his skin weren't blazing gold, his eyes aflame while a small fire smoldered on his back. And the way he looked at them left no doubt as to his motives.

Peters and his fellow tourists were awash in flames before the idea of fleeing had barely begun to form within his mind. The sweet old lady two seats behind him, the squalling two year three seats to the left and the two young lovers behind him, all were consumed by a torrent of flame within seconds. The sound of their flesh burning was the only noise they made as they died.

The man now known as the Aviator Foundry turned away from the tour bus and examined the buildings that now surrounded him. Like most of the city, the architecture had an old world charm to it while housing modern conveniences such as shops, internet cafes, open air market places and small, family owned bakeries.

Logically, people began abandoning everything they were doing after Foundry had committed his wonton act of destruction. But no matter how fast or far they ran, Foundry knew there was no escape. As such, he turned his attention towards the buildings that surrounded him.

After all, he wasn't teleported into this quant Paris side-street at random. No, those were only the perks of his mission.

A Pre-strike recon had indicated that the majority of the shops and buildings around Foundry used substantial amounts of gas, either for personal heating or business related matters.

Foundry released a tidal wave of pure fire and hatred from his eyes, and didn't stop until all the structures he saw were utterly consumed in flames. It took only moments later for the gas inside the buildings to ignite, and the explosions sounded like the most wonderful music to Foundry's ears. His only regret was that he hadn't brought something to record this glorious act of cleansing.

Why Asia

Akemi Amaya wept as she handed her infant daughter off, like she was a bundle of goods, not a human being, to men she barely knew and trusted even less. The baby bawled as babies are wont to do, and the men handed Ms. Amaya the equivalent of two hundred dollars for the totality of her second born's life.

The child would be then be stuffed into a suitcase like a cheap suit, smuggled into the nearby city and sold into slavery of some kind. Whether she would be working on her back in some brothel, slaving away as a servant in some rich man's house, or in sold to some childless couple who could afford a child her mother didn't know, nor would she ever.

That was provided the young infant even survived the harsh and unforgiving trip inside an unair-conditioned compartment for miles on end to wherever her destination was. The overlord watched this scene with a heavy heart. The thought to intervene never really occurred to him. After all, what good would it do? This scene was being played out all across China in the poorer regions.

Then Location secret

The ancient wizard found his patience sorely tested by the presences of his four allies. They were fools one and all, who welded a powerful weapon that he craved for himself. Like so many others, they did not understand his true goal.

His objective wasn't just power as they allowed themselves to believe, but sole control over a weapon that took their pooled resources to control. The wizard never would have otherwise deigned to ally with such idiots who unknown to them, were beating a blind path to the world's destruction.

Thankfully, the old mage knew the errors of their ways. He would stay in this foolish alliance, prevent the destruction they might unwillingly wrought and then...then he would have full control over a weapon that literally dwarfed almost any other. Soon, it would be all his. And the world would tremble.

Now Paris France

Over forty French police squad cars sped thru the streets of the old city followed closely by military humvee, filled with specially trained members of the French Foreign Legion. The police officers carried M-16s armed with special armor piercing bullets supplied by the African nation of Wakanda while the members of the Foreign Legion carried a myriad of advanced weaponry, from taser nets, plasma cannons and high grade explosives. Following the successful kidnapping of their Prime Minister by the mutant terrorists known as the Fallen Angels and rise of terrorism in general, the French government had decided to invest even more money into their emergency response teams. The firepower these men and women possessed was enough to stagger even the Avengers, according to even the most critical of assessments. Not only that, the weaponry was always kept in good repair, and ready at a moment's notice.

So what happened when the officers approached the heart of the city, on their way to intercept Foundry, should have been impossible. It should not have happened, but sadly it did.

The tires of the vehicles in the lead exploded, and the car jack knifed. It was like a domino effect as the cars behind that single car tried desperately to swerve around that single car only to hit another officer's car, and then another. It got even worse when the humvees slammed into the smaller and weaker police cars. Within the span of a single minute, the French superhuman emergency response team became one of the biggest pileups in the history of France .

Sadly, that was no where near the worst of it.

High powered energy weapons began malfunctioning and exploded with the force of a landmine. Explosives that were not armed and as such shouldn't explode even if exposed to the high intensity flames of the crash, detonated and threw shrapnel into the air. Not a single survivor of the crash managed to free themselves in time to escape the radical malfunctions of their arsenal.

The gray, beaked Aviator known as Quake turned looked towards his fellow Aviator, the Asian woman dressed in fine robes and floating in the air, known as Butterfly.

“Lovely work, it truly warms my heart. But you left none for me.” He complained.

“Oh, not at all, Quake. I've left plenty for you, if you'll just wait a moment.”

The flames of the crash burned like a great bonfire, and began to reach a height of three stories. Small sparks began jumping to the nearby buildings and within moments, they too were aflame. The civilians who'd sought shelter in them ran into the streets and most, upon seeing the two Aviators ran in the opposite direction.

They found no refuge there. Quake and Butterfly had the foresight to lead the French police into a trap, and had blocked every entry point into the block except the direction from which the police had come.

It quickly became apparent that the only way to escape would have to be making it past Quake. Fear and courage mixed, and the people, French, immigrants and tourists alike formed a human wave that rushed past the large Aviator to what they hoped would be freedom.

Quake threw his arms out wide and laughed. They actually thought they could escape!

“Seek the skies for a moment, Butterfly. I wouldn't want your delicate ears to hear what I am about to say.”

Butterfly quickly raised herself high in the sky, and once Quake was satisfied she was a safe enough distance away, slammed his hands together,

-Boom!-

The sonic boom his hands created as they slammed together shattered ear drums, ruptured spleens, livers and other important internal organs as the shockwave slammed outwards. Everyone fell limp to the ground, in too much pain for rational thought, let alone fleeing.

Quake, however, was never one to leave things half done. He hefted a smashed police car into his gravel hands, strode to where his first victim lay helpless, and slammed the car down upon the woman like it was an oversized fly swatter. One wet splat later, Quake spotted a family of three holding hands to pool their courage as they lay powerless on the ground, and he knew his next victims.

Why Asia

Fu Ai looked into the eyes of his beautiful wife of twenty three years, and wept. To supplement their meager earnings as farmers, both he and his wife has taken to selling their plasma, their blood, on the black market. Sadly, the man who extracted their life's fluid simply couldn't be bothered to so much as use a clean needle each time he drew blood.

And because of that callousness, Fu Ai and his wife were now infected with HIV. They had no money to purchase the anti viral drugs needed to prevent AIDS and if they revealed their condition to government health care workers, their entire family would be shunned, dishonored. They were trapped in a cultural prison that they could never break free of, and the walls seemed to get smaller every day.

Then Private Chambers

He'd spent hours meditating and he'd vowed to spend hours more if that's what it took while he sought out his final weapon. He was working largely on for lack of a better term, guess work. He'd learned about the weapon thru various sources, the files of his enemy who'd once wielded the weapon and lost it, and classified debriefing files from the first Force Works.

Finally, the fates rewarded the patient Asian warlord with what he sought. Visually, it was far from impressive. It was the size of a medicine ball and colored the deepest, darkest black that the old mage had ever seen before in his long life. But as the object hovered before him, one thing regarding it was unmistakable.

Power. The object seemed to pulse with an energy quite unlike anything the old wizard had ever seen before in his long life and myriad travels. Better yet, while the object, known as the Heart of Darkness, was brimming with power, the old mage could sense that that power couldn't be easier to harness for his own ends. His contemporary had used this power against his own people, but he had a far better idea for it.

A smile came across the old man's aged and cracked lips as he thought of the events soon to come, now that he had his final weapon.

Now Paris , France

Peter Jackson and three of his fellow officers had just finished lunch when the call came in. Though they weren't an active part of the pre planned emergency response team, they knew when they were needed. They slapped some money down on their tables and rushed to their cars. Taking what they knew to be a slightly faster route to the scene than the normal route, they began steeling themselves for whatever horror they would find. The emergency call had said superhuman, and they had no illusions about how dangerous they could be.

But before they reached the site of the reported incident, the officers saw something that forced them to slam on the brakes. Tires squealed loudly and the smell of burning rubber was added to the fresh air of the city of Paris.

The block was like something out of a tourist guide to Paris . Well within eyesight of the Eiffel Tower was a block reserved solely for open air cafes and shops for tourists. While that itself still stood, relatively untouched, no one else did. Bodies littered the landscape. Blood was splattered upon the walls; some was even atop the umbrellas that protected the customers from the Sun's onslaught.

And standing in the middle of this street of the butchered, was an Asian woman with short, jet black cropped hair. Her body was covered in a pure black suit while her hands gleamed with silver. She stood with her head down as the policemen jumped out of their cars and aimed their service weapons at her.

Lady Deathstrike looked up, and mouthed the words ‘I'm so sorry' silently before springing into action.

The officers had stood side to side, to present a unified front against and obviously more powerful enemy. But it would also mean that they would die that much quicker.

Lady Deathstrike landed on the far left of the officers. She drew her hand back, and slashed her hand into the stomach of the closest officer. She swooped out all the blood, viscera and internal organ matter she could like it was so much ice cream, and flung it at the remaining three officers.

Blinded as they were by their fellow's blood, the first instinct of all the officers was not to fire their guns for fear of hitting a bystander or a fellow officer. They didn't know all possible bystanders were already dead, or that Lady Deathstrike counted on them to react like that. Regardless, their small caliber bullets wouldn't have hurt her cyborg body.

Lady Deathstrike elongated her other arm, stuck out her index finger, and slashed towards the officers. Their throats were cut almost as one, and they fell dead seconds later, leaving Lady Deathstrike alone, or so she thought.

“How goes the assault?” Lady Deathstrike's body froze despite her best efforts to the contrary. She wanted to run, escape or even hide if that's what it took to free herself from her so called savior, but her internal processors wouldn't allow her that. She was his puppet now, body and soul.

“It…goes well. Many have already fallen, and we have been unopposed. Shall we retreat?” Lady Deathstrike proposed, though she knew it to be naively optimistic.

“Don't you know our plan? Need I remind you?” The voice of her master inquired.

“No.” Deathstrike answered, as close to the verge of tears as her programming would allow.

“Our current plan of attack is to undermine the societies' ability to police and regulate itself. As such, our targets are policemen, emergency workers and such. First responders, essentially. Tell me my dear, how do we kill as many of them as possible?” The ancient voice rasped.

Her chest heaving in sorrow as her programming forced a smile to come across her inhuman lips, Lady Deathstrike answered, “That is simplicity itself. We set two bombs, reasonably timed apart.”

“Excellent, my dear. Now, I think it's time for the second bomb.”

To be continued….

Next issue: The second bomb and Excalibur.

Sword Strokes

Issue four gots me a letter from our esteemed editor Chris Munn!

“Yet another update, so yet another Editor's Choice.”

“Excalibur # 4 by David Ingram”

Yeah, go me!

“Although I've never really been the biggest fan of the whole Excalibur concept (a United Nations sponsered super-team, for those of you not in the know), David's managed to keep my interest in the first few issues of his run.  The cast is decent enough, but the real thing that keeps me reading (other than being the editor, 'natch), is Ingram's work on the character of Joey Chapman, the former Union Jack turned Excalibur bastard-in-charge.  I like bastard characters, and Chapman definately fits in that category.  Lots of cool character interactions take place in this ish, capped off by the return of a forgotten character that really shouldn't be forgotten, Spitfire.”

You like bastards in charge, eh? Yeah, I can relate ;)

“So, yeah, if you like superheroes with a political slant, check this series out!”

Chris

Heed and obey the mighty Munn-thing!