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#45 August 2008 |
“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.”
-Socrates
“Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung.”
-Heraclitus
The smoke curled and twisted into abstract aesthetics that an artist would wish he could understand. He watched it disappear across the setting horizon. The nicotine washed over him like the waves crashed along the shore, perilously only yards away.
Yards away? No, he peered over the cliffside and saw that the ocean had to be at least a hundred feet beneath him. Salty foam was white and bright against the blue calm before it, and that was a harsh contrast to the flood of orange and yellow before it.
St. John Allerdyce took another drag off the fag, then watched the smoke again as he exhaled. His right hand brought up another cigarette, to the one that was already in his mouth. After a few quick puffs, this cigarette was lit as well. He took a drag from both of them, and sighed. His eyes closed, he missed the smoke dance again in the Greek air before meeting the sunset.
Pyro took the newer cigarette between his fingers, and crushed it against the cold stone slab that lay in front of him. Sparks splattered to the wind.
“That’s for you, brother.” He whispered harshly, carbon monoxide leaving his throat as he did.
The slab’s only reply was the words etched in it:
“Here lies Dominikos Ioannis Petrakis
The Earth was his to master, and now she holds him forever to her bosom”
John chuckled. “That’s what you always wanted. To be buried forever in a bosom.”
Another drag, another tapestry to billow and fade into the orange sky.
Examining his remaining cigarette, John said, “Can you believe they wouldn’t even let me take these on the plane?” John sucked in a few more times before continuing, “I had to buy a brand new bloody pack as soon as I landed.” Pyro sighed, “These things aren’t half as good as American tobacco. But you wouldn’t smoke anything else.” He felt a swelling in his chest that he was at first worried about, but then it erupted through his mouth as laughter. And he didn’t stop for a long while. The salty air was cool against his lungs, and he had to suck in a lot of it. When he could finally control himself, his finger pulled tears from the corner of his eye. He coughed, then said, “Oh, you son of a bitch. No one could ever make me laugh like that.” Suddenly, the laughter returned.
Pyro had to brace himself, with two hands, against Avalanche’s tombstone.
He was still laughing as he said, “Do you remember that time in Riyadh? When we met those two American nurses? They had no idea we weren’t really American soldiers! You’d think our accents would have just given us away, but those girls were so desperate for a good time…” And there were more tears in his eyes. Cigarette smoke stung his nostrils, and blended with the oceanic breeze he inhaled.
“Or what about that July in Honduras? When we stole the coca crop from the rebels? And then we ran right into the entire national army? You saved my life twice that day.” Now John wiped water from his jaw line.
Fists slammed bluntly against stone. “You bugger!” He yelled, “That mess with Deus—all of these damn rumors and grave robberies…you were supposed to be alive, Dom! Even if I had to whip your ass again, son, I’d do it. It’s a second chance at life for God’s sake! I…I know you’d listen to me. I’m your best friend, dammit! You’d have listened to me, if you’d have come back.”
He crushed his own cigarette against the grave this time, and let the filter blow away in the wind. “Or maybe not.” Pyro stood up straight. “Who knows? You’re dead. Dee-eee-ay-dee. Dead.” His hand disappeared into his pocket, and returned with a silver flask. Unscrewing the top took but a second, and the swill took seconds longer.
John turned sharply on his heel, after swallowing the whiskey. He stepped quickly downhill, over the rocks and stones and mud that littered the pathway down from where Avalanche had been buried.
“All the way to Greece for nothing but bad cigarettes, weak moonshine, and a corpse!” Pyro yelled to the wind.
He kicked at rocks with sandaled feet, kept his hands in the pockets of his slacks, letting the breeze blow through his blonde hair, around his Hawaiian print shirt, and back up toward the deceased.
With one such kick, a big rock was sent twisting over itself through the air. Pryo watched it soar downhill. When it hit the ground, Pyro could have sworn he felt the ground beneath his feet shudder a little bit.
“Heh.” Pyro stopped and took the flask out of his pocket again. “You should’ve woken up a long time ago. Might as well stay down there now!”
Pyro picked up another rock and threw it in front of him. As soon as it hit the ground, John again felt the slightest shake, saw the soil tremble just a little, beneath his feet.
“Bloody…” John shook his head. “Bloody whiskey! Cheap moonshine I bought from a kid on the street!” But he knew what tremors felt like. He was friends with Avalanche for more than a decade…Pyro knew what a tremor felt like.
“No…” John nervously fingered at his shirt pocket for another cigarette. “Keep dreamin’ John. This place is volcanic anyway…”
But he didn’t dig out a cigarette. Instead, cautiously, John lifted another stone from the ground. Taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, ready to feel the slightest sensation through the earth under his toes…he launched the rock from his hand.
It hit the ground…
And so did Pyro.
The tremor wasn’t tremendous, but it was most definitely a tremor. Rocks and soil upturned. Trees shook and swayed, their roots blistering through the ground. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was long enough for Pyro to smack his tailbone on the damp ground, and then tumble forward a bit.
Then it stopped.
Pyro was already back on his feet.
“That’s it, boy!” he shouted, running back up the hill to the grave. “I’m here!” He was shouting as loud as he could, hoping his voice could penetrate six feet of cold soil. “Just breathe, Dom! I’m coming to get ya!”
John was within grasping distance of the tombstone, and started digging. He had no shovel, only bare hands. They pulled oversized clumps of dirt and rock, as much as they could. His clothes were already brown with the stains, but he kept flailing dirt over his shoulder. “I’m here! I’m right here! Gonna get you out, Dom! You hear me, mate?”
And the tremors started again.
This time, Pyro was ready for them, and he braced himself. It was so strong this time that the soil around the grave was starting to palpitate, like a heart’s beat. The tombstone itself lurched backward and fell over.
John was smiling, and digging, as hard as he ever had. The sound of the earth’s shudders had replaced the crashing on the shore.
“Come on, Dom!”
It was too much. Tremors threw Pyro from the shallow hole he had dug around himself, flinging him back at least twelve feet. He landed head over heels, backward, but he scrambled to keep a steady eye on the grave.
The ground split and spewed more dirt into the sky. Rumbling accompanied the gaping of the grave.
Then it stopped.
Pyro, still on the ground, eyes hooked on the pit that had just opened in front of him, stayed still for just a second, in case it wasn’t done.
And he heard a whisper, like it was riding the wind brushing past his ears:
“John.”
Pyro froze.
“John!”
He was back on his feet. But he kept himself from running to the grave, which is what he wanted to do more than anything. Pyro was succumbing to a feeling that he wasn’t expecting to receive on what should have been a quick jaunt to Heraklion. He was feeling…dread. It was something forced into him during his time with the X-Men—to expect that nothing was as it seemed. But—
“John!”
Pyro spun on his heels, looking in all directions, pushing his windswept hair from his eyes to do so. Where was this voice coming from? The grave? His own mind? What had just happened? Was this just some coincidence? Had the seismic island played its own fateful trick?
“I’m here, John!”
He couldn’t resist it anymore. He ran to the grave. He peered inside.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Or rather, absolute nothingness. Pitch blackness. For as much as Pyro knew…this hole went down and down and down, past the bowels of Hell, into forever.
“Johhhhnnn…”
That wasn’t a whisper. That wasn’t the wind. It was not his mind. That was a voice. It was a voice John knew well enough.
He kept peering. “Dom…?”
Out of the darkness of the grave, something began to rise toward him. It was small, and Pyro had to peer a bit closer to see…
…a hand. It was bare, and muddy. It bore the scars of fights long past.
Pyro couldn’t help himself. He grasped at the hand. He pulled it toward him.
It pulled him back.
“John!”
The voice was harsh, rasping. The hand pulled at Pyro harder and harder, until John was almost forced into the grave himself, to tumble into the darkness below.
“No…” John heard himself whisper, and he pulled back from the arm with all the strength in his sinewy arms. “You’re dead, you bastard…you leave me alone…”
“Johhhhhnnn…” the voice returned, “I’m dead. Dead…because of you!”
The hand released him. The suddenness of the release sent Pyro back a few feet away from the grave. He tried to scramble back…but the ground was moving again. Rumbling again, it was pushing him closer to the grave, closer to darkness.
“You killed me, John!”
Pyro tried to kick at the soil pulling in him in. “No! Stop! You won’t take me, dammit! You hear me!”
Just as Pyro was going to find him sliding into the pit below, he saw the arm had returned. It was clawing against the soil, just above the hole, toward him. Pyro finally got a good look at it in the dimming light.
The flesh was pale and swollen. Fingernails were brittle, cracked, and yellow. A fractured ulna had burst through the forearm.
“Good god…” The soil underneath Pyro was still moving.
Another arm appeared. It shared the rancid condition of its counterpart. Its muscle was peeled open like a fruit’s peel, and hundreds of tiny spiders scurried from the wound, crawling over the arm, then over the soil, and up the advancing legs of Pyro.
“Jeezus!” Pyro kicked at the arachnids, but realized that only expedited him toward the void.
The arms scraped at the soil, and Pyro knew what he’d see next.
Pulling himself from the grave, Avalanche was there. His torso was bare, but his head still wore the smooth helmet that had become his trademark. It was cracked on one side. His eyes were simply sullen sockets. His mouth was thin and bony. His teeth were crooked and yellow. His tongue was long and slimy. From the back of his throat, he vomited maggots.
The flesh of his chest was grey and bloated, like it was threatening to explode. It did, seconds later, revealing more maggots, more spiders.
And Avalanche spoke, “John…you should have died with me. We were friends, brothers-in-arms. You should have been there to die with me.”
Pyro wasn’t saying anything. It was hard enough to take a breath. He just kept kicking and kicking, at the maggots that writhed up thighs, at the spiders that had already crawled under his clothing.
The rotting Avalanche still clawed at the soil just atop the grave, his torso straining to pull itself farther toward Pyro.
“Johhhhn…” the voice cracked like glass. “Are you ready to die?”
Pyro tried to feel along his person, to maybe find that elusive cigarette pack…and his lighter, the one sure hope he had. He was so close to the grave now…a cold, putrid hand grasped his ankle. Pyro tried to force it away, but it was strong. The grip was like iron manacles.
Pockets, pockets…Pyro rifled through them. It had to be there somewhere. Was that it? Pyro looked down at his hand…
Yes! He had his lighter!
Pyro looked back at the fetid visage that was once his friend—and saw that Avalanche was crawling out of the grave now, his legs just as bony and decayed as the rest of him. He was pulling himself out over Pyro, running rigid arms up his lower torso, mouth open spewing more crawlers.
Pyro could barely manage to grunt—
“No…not today.”
He flicked the lighter. The air ignited.
MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS...
“WHAT
GOOD ARE
THE MAXIMS OF DEAD MEN?”
Featuring Pyro
Written
by Bryan Locke
 |
Pyro |
“A man needs good
friends and ardent enemies,
for the former instruct him, and the
latter take him to task.”
-Diogenes
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
-Plato
He leaned down. Wiping the dirt, to make sure they’d not been scorched to nothing, he then picked up the pack of cigarettes.
Dominikos Ioannis Petrakis pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it, with his own lighter, which he grabbed from the pocket of the suit he wore. The suit was heavy, like most of the reinforced armors he had worn over his life. He felt the wind—the same wind of his childhood—blow through his hair. His helmet was in his hand.
When he exhaled, the smoke wrapped its way around the wind, toward Pyro.
Avalanche examined him: bloody, broken, not from the fire, but from the force of the fire. He was unconscious, because the fire had sucked all the oxygen from the air around him. John lay near the grave…Avalanche’s grave. Dom shuddered.
“He’s still alive? Damn. After a blast like that, I thought it’d be enough to kill him.”
Avalanche couldn’t help but whip his chin over his shoulder at Fred Dukes. Dom didn’t want his annoyance to be that apparent, but—
“Aww…what’re you lookin’ at?” The Blob sauntered slowly, lazily, over to him. “You sad your friend almost killed himself? Or are you sad you didn’t get to do it yourself?”
The Blob seemed to be expecting a real answer to that question. Dom just rolled his eyes and looked back at Pyro’s body, unconscious to the meeting around him.
Another voice, to his other side, said, “I’m surprised that he’s in such fair condition. If any of us had been near him when he exploded…we wouldn’t have been nearly that lucky.”
Avalanche looked over his other shoulder at Regan Wyngarde. Then, turning fully around and away from Pyro, he walked past the Blob and Mastermind, down the hill that he had once been buried upon. He exhaled smoke and watched its artistry as he walked. Avalanche didn’t seem to mind, nor necessarily care, about his comrades flanking him.
Mastermind squinted, analyzing, but made no motion to stop Avalanche.
The Blob piped up quietly from beside her, “I don’t know if he’s still got what it takes.”
Mastermind cocked her head, folded her arms over her chest. “We’ll know soon enough.”
“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
-Aristotle
“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes that see reality.”
-Nikos Kazantzakis
It was cold what awoke him. But it wasn’t for a few more seconds he realized exactly what awoke him. Water, splashes of it. Light splashes, anyway. John tried opening his eyes, only to shut them again tightly when the light flooded his retinas.
“I remember you were never one to sleep the night away, St. John.”
John once more opened his eyes, blinking as he did. The light was much more acceptable. The voice, however, not quite as much.
“Dom.” John said, not even bothering to look up from where he sat.
There was a sigh. “We always wondered which one of us would go into the great beyond first, right? We never wondered which one would come back.”
John gulped, then saw his friend. Dom looked the same as he ever did, smoking those filthy Greek cigarettes. There was a sinking in his stomach, and then in his chest. The pain there rivaled the sharpness at his wrists, and his ankles, and he realized they were bound by rope to a thin, wooden chair.
Dom ran a hand through his dark hair, and then quickly dabbed out his cigarette. “Heh, sorry. Wouldn’t want any sudden fires, would we?”
John chuckled, “You been gone a long time, mate. I can make my fire now.”
Dom returned John’s grin. From across John, Dom leaned against a counter, near a sink. Around him were all the modern furnishings of a kitchen…gas stove, fridge, cabinets, tile beneath his feet. Dom, in slacks and turtleneck sweater, leaned over to brace himself on his knees, and be eye level with John.
“Then why don’t you do it?” Dom said.
John gritted his teeth.
Dom shrugged, stood upright. “Seeing is believing.”
John snarled, “Then what did I see? Back at your grave? Your former resting place?”
“What we wanted you to see.” This voice was too familiar.
“Dukes?” John tried to crane his neck over his shoulder, but he could just barely, at the corner of his eye, see the voluminous mass of the Blob. Looking over his other shoulder, he saw a striking blonde who he didn’t at first recognize, but he soon remembered the pictures of Lady Mastermind. They were sitting behind him, at a simple kitchen table, upon chairs much like the one John was bound to.
Dukes laughed a hearty guffaw. “Yep. I missed you, Allerdyce. You never called. You never wrote.”
John shrugged. “You know the funny thing about you, Dukes? Your ass was too fat to fit into a coffin, so we just threw you into the ground, ripe for the maggots.”
The Blob’s fist slammed on thin wood. “Feel lucky we’re in a forgiving mood, Outback Jack.”
“Forgiving?” John looked back at Dom. “The only thing I want to be forgiven for is coming to piece-o-shite island in the first place. What’s that they say about Cretans? That all Cretan mothers are whores?”
Dom laughed at that, loud and hard, which caused Mastermind and the Blob squinted at each other.
“No.” Dom said. “That’s not what they say about Cretans.” He wagged a finger at Pyro, “You know that.” He looked past John’s shoulder toward his two compatriots. “Would you give us some time alone?”
The Blob and Mastermind looked at each other again, before wearily rising from their seats. As the Blob left the cabin, his footsteps shook the very foundation. Lady Mastermind’s steps were silent after him, but she looked back before exiting. “You’ve got five minutes to convince him.”
John looked back at Dom. “Convince me?”
Dom nodded, and sighed, but waited to hear the wooden door to the cabin close after him. Then he raised his head toward John.
With a wave of his hand, there was a cigarette in his fingers. Dom brought it to his mouth, and his lighter reappeared.
John grimaced, wondering what Dom was getting at.
Dom flicked the lighter, and ignited his cigarette.
The flame sailed across the room in a smooth arc, almost slashing at the binds that kept Pyro to the chair under him. The ropes were scorched to nothing almost instantly. Pyro didn’t bother wasting time. He was up on his feet and running out of the kitchen, hopefully to find a back door out—
“John, wait! Stop!”
And Pyro did wait. He turned around, but his heart was racing. He pointed at Dom. “You think I’m just going to wait and let you kill me? You think you can change my mind? After all this time?”
Dom held out his hands in some sort of invisible offering of peace. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it….Aristotle.”
Pyro snorted. “Right. And we’re gonna quote all the great Greek philosophers now, are we? Like ancient dead blokes are gonna give any legitimacy to what you did to me out there today? What you’ve done in the past? Like it’s gonna help you change my mind?”
“Then listen because I’m your friend.” Dom said.
“You were my friend.”
“That’s not what you said out there today. That’s not what you said when you were drunk and…visiting my grave.” Dom breathed in the cigarette as he was done talking.
“Yeah?” Pyro scoffed. “I don’t usually remember things when I’m drunk. A massive illusion, followed by a kidnapping and a binding usually is enough to sober me up.”
“You want a sobering experience?” Dom was an example of controlled fury. “Die, for a cause that you were never fully sold upon in the first place. Then, come back to life, and see that absolutely nothing was changed in the meantime.”
Pyro still looked ready to run out of the cabin at any second. “You’ve got three minutes to convince me of something, and you start out by a giving me a sob story? Persuasion was never your strong point, Dom. Life is a fleeting thing, and yet it came back to you. Instead of whining about what should’ve happened, why don’t you scream and shout about what should happen? Why don’t you take your new life into your own hands?”
Dom chuckled. “You think that I’m running with the Blob and Mastermind because I’ve got no control over my life? People like us have never had full control over our lives, John! It’s why we’ve been always been pushed toward terrorist factions, or fascist governments! It’s still the same cycle of birth, strife, and death.” Dom pulled his cigarette pack out again and threw it at John.
John caught it, looked at it like it was a strange thing, but then pulled his own cigarette. In another gesture of good faith, Dom threw the lighter to him. Pyro lit his cigarette.
“Alright.” Dom said, “You’ve seen the other side of the coin, right? You’ve been running with Xavier’s lot. Do you really feel like you’ve made any more of a difference than you did when we ran with Mystique? Any difference at all? If it were up to you and your X-Men, you would’ve put a stop to the Lazarus Contract! You were content to leave your own kind dead. Aren’t you glad you were wrong?”
John only glared at him, puffing on the cigarette. Then he said, “And so what if I haven’t made a difference? How’s reforming a half-assed Brotherhood going to help anything this time around? I’ve got a feeling you’re itching for the grave one more time, brother.”
Dom shook his head. “No, this time it’s going to be different. I promise you that.”
John gave a sharp short “Ha!” then he said, “Dukes? Wyngarde? Seems like the same old ‘We-shall-inherit-the-Earth’ mumbo-jumbo to me.”
“No!” Dom yelled. “It’s not! I’m not just going to die for nothing. Not again!” He threw his cigarette on the kitchen tile and stamped it out. “It’s not just Dukes, Wyngarde and me. There will be more. We’ve already raised an army. We’ve got Acolytes…Reavers…X-Men…”
“X-Men?” Pyro repeated. “Like who?”
Dom shook his head. “Nevermind. Point is, there are mutants searching for the reason to live—their reason to die—and they’re joining us.”
Pyro whispered. “I’m not searching for reason. I’ve got my reasons.”
Dom shook his head. “Trying to lie to me, John? What were you doing in the months before the Lazarus Contract? After X-Corp fizzled and popped like candy rocks? A movie career? A strip club? Please, John! I know you better than that! You lost yourself in your vices, waiting for the next cause to lose yourself in. The only reason you joined the X-Men in first place was out of some misbegotten sense of honor, after you were cured of the Legacy Virus!”
Pyro said nothing.
Dom walked over to him slowly. John did nothing to show defense. Wearily, Dom put his hands on his friend’s shoulders.
“I’ve defeated death, John. And you’ve defeated a death sentence. Together again, we can conquer life.”
Pyro brought the cigarette back up to his lips, sucked in. He said as he exhaled, “No.”
Dom dropped his hands, and sighed. “John…you realize the Blob and Mastermind won’t let you walk out of here if that’s your answer. Haven’t I said enough to convince you to give me a chance?”
Pyro shook his head. “I may not be a hero. I may not be an X-Man. I may not be a movie star. I may not be able to create fire. I may not even be a decent human being. But I’m not a follower anymore either.”
Dom frowned. “John…that’s not what this is.”
And Pyro surprisingly nodded. “I believe you, Dom. But it’s not me that you have to prove yourself to. It’s the rest of the world. And you know what? I think you’ve still got to convince yourself a little bit too.”
Finally, there was a look in Dom’s face that showed understanding. Pyro eased a little.
With a quick look at the front door, Dom said, “If I’m right…if we finally win, will you join us? There will always be a spot for you at my poker table.”
Pyro chuckled. “Sure, what the hell? But if you’re wrong, and you lose again…will you find me? And admit that you were wrong? Promise you won’t die again for nothing.”
Dom brought his hand forward. “That’s a promise, friend.”
Pyro grabbed the hand and shook it. But then he frowned. “Am I supposed to believe a Cretan? You know what they say about Cretans…”
Dom laughed. “Get out of here, St. John Allerdyce. You might as well keep a whiskey cold and dry for me.”
Pyro let go of Avalanche’s hand, and without saying another word, without taking another glance backward, was out the back door of the cabin.
“Alright.” The Blob stretched his arms. “That’s been more than five minutes.”
Regan Wyngarde threw her cigarette into the rocky mud and didn’t bother stamping it out. “Yeah, we might as well get this over with. Who knows? Maybe Avalanche has already saved us the trouble of—”
At that instant, the cabin in front of her exploded into a nothing but a ball of flame and smoke. Wooden shards sprayed every which direction. The Blob was immovable, and merely braced himself against the shockwave, arms shielding his face from debris, but he wasn’t bothered by the heat. Mastermind however, was thrown back several dozen feet. The explosion echoed over the Greek countryside, rolling like thunder.
Regan scraped and rolled along the rocky soil before finally coming to a stop. She was seeing black spots, but she could still feel the intense heat in front of her. “What—?”
The Blob was over to her quickly. He pulled her up by her arm, and had to support her as she couldn’t yet support her legs.
“Fuckin’ gene-jokes!” the Blob said. “They tricked us! Both of ‘em! Buddies till the end, that’s them! I knew it! I worked with them for the longest time! I knew they’d pull some stunt like this! By now they’re probably—”
“Shut up, Dukes.”
The Blob spun around, taking Mastermind with him. Walking toward the two of them, from the fiery wreckage, was a bruised and burned Avalanche.
Avalanche looked weak. “I tried talking to him. But it was no use. He blindsided me with a second lighter we must have missed when we frisked him. He burned his ropes, and then blew up the place.”
“Dammit!” the Blob yelled. “Double-crossing X-Men! See, Dom? I told you your friend wasn’t gonna listen.”
Avalanche shrugged. “So the next time we see him, we kill him. Guy like Pyro…maybe it was my mistake to approach him.”
The Blob sighed. “Okay. Let’s just get back to Chania and catch the first boat off this island. The coming days are gonna be busy. We can’t afford to get distracted going after Pyro.”
Avalanche nodded and walked over to help brace Mastermind. As he did so, Regan Wyngarde judged him suspiciously.
She said, “Liars.”
“What?” Avalanche eyed her carefully.
Mastermind chuckled. “Isn’t that what they say about Cretans? All Cretans are liars. I believe it was said by Epimenides, himself a Cretan philosopher and poet.”
“What are you trying to say,
Mastermind?” Avalanche was harsh with the words.
Mastermind sneered, “I’m saying that when I frisked Pyro…there was
no fucking lighter anywhere on him.”
Both looked up at the Blob.
Dukes squinted at them both. But then, he gave his judgment. “Like I said, we can’t afford to be distracted by Pyro. This whole thing was obviously a mistake. And if there’s one thing we know, it’s that life is a bit too short for mistakes. Let’s get the hell off this island.”
The three, still braced in each other’s arms, stomped calmly down the rocky slope, away from the blazing inferno behind them.
“It is easy to go down into Hell,
but to climb back again,
to find the upper air…that is the task.”
-Virgil
THE END
Author’s Notes
-This issue was supposed to be written with the other half of the M2K X-Men braintrust, Cory Weigel. Cory was to examine the other points of the Lazarus Contract’s Southern California triangle…namely, Maggott and Diode. So yes, Pyro technically still resides with them in California. Hopefully, Cory’s upcoming issue with them will fill in the blanks that those characters have been residing in recently. (Of course, if you’ve read issue 43 of this very series, you know what eventually becomes of Maggott)
-I do find it funny though: most of the things examined in this issue are going to be picked up by Cory’s series. He’s just got such a great scheme going, that I had to get in on the action just a little bit. Plus, the consequences of Dino’s mini were just too good to not examine in closer quarters. I think there’s still much more that could be examined too. I’ve only touched upon a small fraction of what could be told.
-The Lazarus Contract heralded a new age for M2K’s X-branch, and I hope you stick around to see what I, Cory, Dino, Brent, Will, Mike, Brad…what all of us have in store for you!
Aloha!
-Bryan
