All they want to do is change the world.
They are a band of young heroes drawn together by a knowledge of what's right, and a willingness to take on the battles their adult counterparts won't.
Welcome to the battlefield...

Issue #13

Land Of The Free
Part 3

by David Ingram & Brent Lambert

Michiko 'Mickey' Muashi wears a cybernetic battlesuit with nuclear-powered turbofans, giving her high-speed flight and the ability to generate concussive bursts of wind. Mickey was an on-again-off-again member of the previous incarnation of the Warriors. Her good friend, Michael Jeffries, whom she once shared the battlesuit with, died fighting a Dire Wraith, and Mickey is still trying to recover emotionally from his loss.
Turbo

Chris Bradley is a mutant with the ability to generate and manipulate electricity. He was recently brainwashed by the mutant highlord Apocalypse and made to commit mass murder in that villain's name as a member of the Pale Riders. Though free of the brainwashing, Chris still carries guilt over his part in Apocalypse's schemes.
Bolt

Mattie Franklin was given the gift of power in a mystic ritual called the Gathering of Five. Patterning herself after her favorite superhero, Spider-Man, Mattie became third Spider-Woman, and subsequently gained the powers of the previous Spider-Women. In addition to great strength and flight, Mattie can stick to walls, discharge bio-electric 'venom blasts', generate 'psi-webbing', grow large spider-like legs from her back. She is also given to precognitive flashes. Mattie lives with her aunt and uncle, Marla and J. Jonah Jameson.
Spider-Woman

Johnny Gallo is a former member of the disbanded team, the Slingers, as well as a mutant with superhuman agility and a precognitive 'danger sense'. He carries 4 weighted metal disks attached to his costume that he uses as hurled weapons.
Ricochet

Eddie McDonough was given the Hornet suit by a retired Golden Age crimefighter called the Black Mask. With the suit, bookworm, handicapped Eddie becomes a technological superhero. After a brief time away, Eddie has recently reclaimed the Hornet armor at his best friend, Ricochet's, insistence.
Hornet

Suzy Sherman thought she was nothing more than a California girl. That was before a confrontation with a mutant-hunting Sentinel revealed she was actually an alien Kree... and a mutant Kree to boot. As Ultra-Girl, Suzy has massive regeneration abilities, great strength, and can fly.
Ultra-Girl

A hero of the night, born in tragedy, Dwayne Taylor watched his parents killed by their best friend while he was just a child. Trained from childhood by a witch named Tai for purposes of her own, Night Thrasher is the founder of the New Warriors. Recently he traded in his urban riot gear for a high-tech suit of armor.
Night Thrasher

Night Thrasher and Mimic, the respective members of the New Warriors and X-Camp knew that they were in some deep shit. Here they were with both of their teams trapped in a forsaken old mine filled with children, one of which was a girl who could bring the whole damn thing down on their heads. And it wasn’t like they could go toe to toe with the girl either because they could end up causing just as much damage. For both of them their main priority was the children’s safety and getting them out of this cave alive. 

“So,” Mimic said looking in the direction of Dwayne. 

“So,” Night Thrasher replied with a look just as stern. 

“You got a plan hero?” Calvin asked as he looked up at Lorna with the purple telekinetic energy billowing wildly from her body. 

“We gotta get these kids out of here first off,” Night Thrasher said looking back to see all the children stampeding out like a herd of buffalo and Donny was at the lead of them. All of Mimic’s worst fears came to life at that sight. X-Camp was suppose to be the place where these young children were turned around and not made to be the next Magneto or Shadow King. 

“Looks like even if we beat Lorna now we’re going to have a bigger problem on our hands,” Calvin said throwing an accusatory look at Night Thrasher. Him and his group of interlopers had just made life a lot harder for him. 

Night Thrasher maintained his fiery glare and simply said, “We’ll worry about it later.” 

“You won’t have time to worry about anything little man!” Lorna yelled as the dirt and stone all around the cave began to shape itself into animated stone men. Her telekinesis was the only thing holding them together and they were quickly moving towards the New Warriors and X-Camp staffers. 

Looking at the creatures he was about to face Mimic made this comment, “Lorna really put some detail into these creatures. They all look very human like. In fact I would say they’re all identical.” 

“I could care less how detailed they are! Just take them down!” Night Thrasher exclaimed as he flipped into the air his feet planting themselves in the middle of one of the stone men’s faces. The creature flew back into the ground and fell to pieces. With Dwayne making the first move the battle with Lorna had been joined. 

Bolt and Archer bombarded a group of the stone men with a combination of light and electricity. The creatures fell apart as easy as paper was torn, but they still weren’t making any kind of progress. Soon as they knocked one stone man down another two rose up. They would have to take out Lorna and do it fast. 

Ultra Girl made her way to Lorna punching through the stone men and throwing them around like bowling pins. Gritting her teeth she threw her shoulder forward and charged her way through the stone men until she was only a few yards from Lorna. It was then that she got a call in her communicator. 

“Hindsight this better be good,” Ultra Girl said tapping her ear to activate the communication device. 

“It is Suzy. I know why Lorna was so on edge. In all my research her behavior coincides with abuse by a male figure in her life. My assumption would be her father,” Hindsight explained. 

Ultra Girl felt like smacking herself in the head at that very moment. It was all so obvious now. Why she freaked out whenever a guy touched her and why she nearly bled herself to death while taking a shower. And looking at these stone men it was even more obvious. They were all molded to look like her father! 

“Lorna stop this! I know your father hurt you, but it doesn’t have to be like this,” Ultra Girl yelled over everything else that was going on. Suddenly, the stone men stopped fighting and simply became statues. 

“How? Who…” Lorna asked confused. She hadn’t told anyone but Donny and he wouldn’t betray her. He couldn’t of! 

Suzy moved closer to Lorna and said, “Donny is only using you. I know you’re with him because he believes you, but trust me he’s only exploiting you for his own good.” 

“Liar!” Lorna yelled as she lifted up a rock and flung it at Ultra Girl so fast that it cut a chunk out of her shoulder. The pain was needless to say less than pleasant. 

Suzy’s heart pounded and her vision was doing twists and turns, but she couldn’t give up. Suzy clamped her hand over the wound and looked towards Lorna. Despite what the girl had just done, the look wasn’t one of hatred or anger, but of concern, “I’m actually glad you did that,” Suzy gasped, “See, you hurt me, and I bled as a result.” Suzy extended the hand that she had been using to cover the wound. The hand had so much blood on it, one would swear it was straight from a Slasher flick, “the human body’s funny like that. It reacts in certain ways no matter what you want. Doesn’t mean it’s your fault, and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person because of it.” 

For Lorna Stockbridge, that was the two by four that broke the camel’s back. Her powers faltered as she began weeping hysterically. She might have fallen to her death were it not for Ultra Girl, who swiftly caught the young woman and lowered her to the ground, “It’s okay now Lorna, we know. And I promise you, you’ll get the help you deserve.” 

Night Thrasher and Mimic came out of the cave prepared to fight the children who were now more than likely following Donny’s lead much like Lorna had. Instead the scene they found made them both look at each other and smile. 

At the center of a circle of cadets was Donny and two other cadets tied up and gagged shut. Calvin walked up to one of the cadets and asked, “What the hell happened here?” 

“None of us wanted to follow Donny. We were just trying to get the crap out of that cave. He did manage to turn two kids though,” the blonde haired, blue-eyed boy replied. 

Ricochet almost had laughed hysterically at the sight of the two that Donny had managed to turn. It was his two jerkwad roommates, Zack and Jim. The day couldn’t get any more perfect for Ricochet at that moment. 

“Life does have a bit of justice after all,” Ricochet said to himself with a grin. Looking Zack and Jim’s way he flicked them both off and walked away laughing. 

“So who’s the guy in charge around here?” Night Thrasher asked Mimic figuring that the mutant was indeed the head of X-Camp. 

“That would be me. The name’s Frank Bohannon,” the older man said extending a hand out to Dwayne. 

“I’m Night Thrasher. We need to talk about X-Camp,” Dwayne said taking the hand and shaking it.

The Crashpad (The Next Day) 

“Frank agreed to do better screening of the children and take a softer approach. All in all I would have to say we did good work. Though there were some instances when we almost slipped up and we’re going to work on improving those areas ASAP,” Dwayne reported as he stood at a podium in front of his whole New Warriors team. 

“You’re going to have to do it without me Dwayne. I finally got some things off my chest and I need to take a breather,” Chris Bradley said rising from his seat and heading towards the door. 

Night Thrasher didn’t even attempt to stop him and just looked on as Chris left. 

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Crux demanded. 

“If he’s found some peace I’m not going to try and interfere with that. I could tell Bolt had something on his mind since joining this team. It’s about time he got over it. He knows when to come back. I trust him,” Night Thrasher replied.

“Can you believe that he just left like that?” Ricochet asked Hornet as he flipped through one of his friend’s engineering magazines. 

“It was quite the shock, but stuff happens like that. He’s gotta take his own path though the way he decided to take it is a little questionable,” Hornet replied when the phone rang. With lightning speed Hornet grabbed the phone and put it to his ear. 

“Hello? What? Of course. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Hornet said as he hung up the phone. All the color was drained from his face. 

“What’s wrong Hornet. You looked like you just talked to Hannibal Lecter.” 

“That was Prodigy on the phone. He needs us. Just us and he says it’s important.” 

Ricochet suddenly turned very serious, “All right. Then lets go and see what the big yellow guy wants.” 

Bolt walked along the road making his way to the railroad station and he felt each step was a little lighter. Everything around him looked a little brighter and every child’s innocent smile he saw felt a little brighter. It was as if a great burden had just been uplifted off his shoulders and thrown out the window crashing to whatever fate awaited it. 

I think I need to see David. The last time we talked I don’t think we ended on good terms. 

Just then a green light blinded Chris and he fell backwards hitting the pavement. The light kept growing stronger and everyone that was looking on saw Chris Bradley disappear into thin air. 

Author’s Notes 

This is my last New Warriors and I can say that it has been a fun ride. I’ll be happy to work with Ingram again in a scripter/plotter relationship again sometime in the future. Anyway look for Hornet and Ricochet in the new Slingers series and Bolt will appearing over in Pathetix. Look out for those two. And check out next issue which will be the beginning of Eric Faynberg and David Ingram’s run on this title. It should be something explosive. 

-Brent Lambert

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