A2: Chapter 2: Shadow
by Jeremy Schwennen
The places she had been, the things she had done. It was so
hard to believe that it was all happening to her. She had been
dead, that she clearly remembered. She had been swallowed by an
inconceivable darkness, and then, she felt the soft beating
sensation, the throbbing that had always been there, within her,
whenever her safety was threatened. And this time, when it sang
out to her, with all of it’s power and promise, this time
she accepted it, embracing the pulsing tide of energies, and
allowing her mind to soar into the distance of the dark spaces
she knew were not the place of her birth, but a home to her none
the less.
And while she soared those dark places in forms and roles that
were not her own, doing deeds that felt so right to her nature,
yet screamed against her morality, the throbbing power within her
healed and mended her body, correcting it’s unfortunate
state of being, it’s death, while her soul soared through
places unimaginable in a borrowed shell of flesh and sinew.
She longed to feel that again.
---
"Wow... there is no way my Dad would have been able to
afford something like this..." David Bank, the youthful
member of A2 who bore the hand-me-down nickname of Marvel Boy,
looked in awe at the spacious grounds of the boarding school that
the A2 project was using to handle the conventional education of
it’s young charges. The Mapshill School was a new, terribly
expensive, addition to the Manhattan school system, and it had
earned a reputation rapidly as being the premier source of
progressive education in the area.
Tom Jones, the nineteen year old mutant known as Alchemy, looked
around, nervously, as he and the rest of A2 exited the van which
Dane Whitman, their primary instructor, was piloting. "We
really have to do this? I feel so... exposed..."
"Well, apparently we don’t HAVE to go here... they let
that creepy Primefire guy stay back at the mansion. I hate this
idea, this school thing." Cassie Lang refused to exit the
van, the grim determination in her eyes showing her inner
ferocity. "I am not going to go sit in a fifth grade
classroom and be laughed at. I’m sixteen!"
Brian slammed the door shut, and looked back in the window, a
rather dreary look upon his face as well. "Well I wouldn’t
tell Vance that. He’s a New Warrior... he’d probably
try to crucify you just for being different..."
Dane spun round to see Brian’s swift movement towards the
school. "We have got to figure out what his problem with
Vance is..." he muttered, under his breath. "OK,
everyone, inside. That means you too, Miss Lang. I don’t
want to sound all stodgy and authoritarian, but we will contact
your father if need be."
David looked hastily at Cassie, a flash of panic playing across
his face.
Almost eagerly, the young heroine whose title of Yellowjacket
served as tribute to the man who had given both herself and her
father their powers, Hank Pym, exited the vehicle and walked
towards the school, one arm wrapped around David, the other
around Hallie, who had said nothing all morning.
"What was that all about? Are you hiding something Cassie,
because I don’t want to get in trouble for something you
did, it’s bad enough that I got scolded for shorting out
your armor in the gym yesterday and.." Hallie unleashed the
rapid fire volley of words that was becoming her signature flaw,
and Cassie placed a single finger upon her lips.
"Remember what we talked about this morning... slow down.
Take a breath. Good girl."
---
"What do you mean you have to go back to space? Xavier wants
you to... but Angel, please... last time was almost more than I
could bear... Yes, OK. We’ll talk about it when I get home.
Yeah.. love you too..." Vance Astrovik hung up the phone,
and placed his head upon his desk. Just a few months ago, his
wife had taken an extended ‘vacation’ into deep space
to help out the New Warriors in a galaxy spanning conflict
between the Shi’Ar and the Xandarians. After weeks of being
gone, she finally returned to him, and now she wanted to go back!
He wanted more than anything to be at home, trying to dissuade
her form this course of action, but he knew he would have a hard
time of it, what with Angelica’s boundless gratitude to
Professor Xavier for curing her radiation poisoning. He felt so
helpless. Not entirely unlike the way things were going with the
A2 project.
"You know, we do have pillows for that sort of thing."
Dane entered the office and sat in to chair opposite Vance. He
wore jeans and a white T-shirt, the business attire of yesterday
returned to his closet where it would reside for as long as Dane
could keep it there. The long time Avenger was not fond of formal
dress.
"Oh, sorry Dane, I was just... this isn’t going to
work, is it?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Yesterday! I mean, what the hell happened? One minute the
gym is running fine, then all of the sudden, we get knocked out,
and the gym loads an attack program from god-knows-where and
tries to kill the kids! And that Primefire character, do you know
who he is? That yellow android skin of his is Primus, the Mad
Thinker’s pet robot!" Vance returned his head to it’s
position on the desk.
"Well, we had some setbacks. It’s customary. The kids
pulled together and beat that Lockdown character, and Vision has
been up to his minimal density eyebrows in computer logs trying
to figure out who, or what, downloaded Lockdown into our
computers. We’ll have answers soon, and the most important
thing is we have the kids at school now, and if I didn’t
know any better, I’d swear they are starting to get
along." Dane stood and absently paced to the window, where
Primefire could be seen, in all of his yellow-featureless glory,
examining the lawns behind the mansion. "Right now, I think
we need to figure out what to do about that thing..."
---
Shadows clotted together, coagulating and swirling, in the
recesses of Scott Lang’s Long Island home. While he had long
ago abandoned he mantle of Ant Man, it would seem that Cassie’s
father was a far cry from free of the perilous life of a
super-hero.
From the knotted mass of twisting darkness stepped a disturbingly
slender figure. Wrapped in a costume of dull black fabric, and
with a swirling cape billowing out behind her, melding and
merging with the shadow vortex which served as her entrance, the
figure’s eyes shone with an otherworldly light.
"The one who ruined it all.. she is no longer here. And... I
can not sense her. But the other... I can use the other as...
bait." Just as the first mass of tangled blackness faded
away, a new portal opened before the dark figure, and as she
stepped into it’s gloomy maelstrom, her eyes ceased to cast
their malevolent luminescence. "Dusk will pay her back. In
full...."
---
"David... they’re coming. Have you decided how much you
want to tell them?" The soft voice of Primus echoed in David
Dramn’s head, like it always did. Together, as Primefire,
the pair had done so much in their short time away from David’s
uncle’s laboratory. They had learned much, from television,
and radio, much of what David had lost. He remembered the day his
innate power to generate solar heat had manifested. The day he
burst into unquenchable flames that consumed his mother, his
home, his life. His uncle, whom men called Thinker, and some
thought Mad, his uncle had saved him, but his rescue was really
little more than imprisonment. Imprisonment in a stasis pod,
while his body continued to grow, his mind was held in check, and
he missed so much.
His powers manifested at the age of five. David was now sixteen.
And he wanted, more than anything, to belong. To have friends. To
learn, alongside his dearest friend and savior Primus, what it
was to be human.
"I tell them everything they want to know. Except the part
about Lockdown."
Primus seemed to grow distant for a brief moment, and David knew
that he was once again interfering with the Vision’s
investigation. "I can’t delay him forever David. You
are going to have to tell them the whole truth eventually."
As Vance and Dane approached, the powerful form of Primefire
seemed to melt away, the yellow body of Primus pulling back until
it was nothing but a clear, micron-thick shell surrounding the
body of a sixteen year old boy. The only discernible connection
between this form and that of Primefire’s massive frame were
a pair of Frisbee sized yellow disks positioned, one on each hip.
"Well, Primus... try harder. I’m not giving up this
chance."
---
Mr. O’Neil, the instructor charged with teaching mathematics
at Mapshill, looked down at Brian, shaking his head. "Brian,
I know that you know the answer. Go with your gut. If you’re
wrong, you’re wrong. No big deal. Just do it!"
Brian Johnson could level small houses with enough concentration,
using his electrical powers as Bolt, but for some reason, he
couldn’t bring himself to concentrate on the math problems
at hand. He just sat there, eyes locked on the book, unable to
look at Mr. O’Neil. Thoughts rammed about in his head,
foremost among them a massive discomfort with this situation.
"Fine. Mr. Bank?" As the teacher walked away, and David
answered his question, Hallie leaned over to whisper in Brian’s
ear.
"Brian, you’re good at math, I know it. What’s
going on?"
Turning away, he replied in a short, clipped tone. "It’s
Vance. Yeah... it has to be Vance..."
---
The beaches here in California were unbelievable, and Suzie took
every available opportunity to explore them. She always felt at
home, here on the sand, with the blazing sun beating down upon
her. Perhaps it had something to do with her alien physiology,
perhaps it was something else. As Ultra Girl, she was a
promising, up and coming hero. Time for the beach was limited,
and to be cherished.
"Suzie... we need to talk." A voice, soft, somewhat
lisping, seemed to drift on the breeze, floating into range of
Suzie’s enhanced auditory senses.
"I’m busy. I have, like, no time for signing any
autographs, so just go gape at me, or whatever..."
A cold, firm hand clamped down on her shoulder, vapor rising from
it’s black-clad form. "But you have time for me, don’t
you? Time for Dusk?"
Suzie screamed, her alien-hybrid lungs belting out more decibels
than any human could generate, but it was a sound quickly
swallowed by the riptide of shadow and mist that engulfed the
pair of young women. Almost as quickly as it had enveloped them,
the churning mass vanished, pulling inwards, leaving nothing to
mark it’s presence save for a faint slurping sound, drifting
on the warm ocean breeze.
---
The advanced chemistry class at Mapshill was populated by exactly
five people. One of them was Thomas Jones, who’s
transmutational powers as Alchemy made a study of chemistry a
must, and one of them was the phenomenally beautiful instructor.
Tom had a hard time keeping his eyes off of Ms. Mapshill, the
head of the science department and, it seemed, the founder of the
school.
"Well, today we will be doing some minor experiments, but
first, I want to introduce you all to our newest student, Tom.
Tom is from England, and he’s had quite a bit of formal
science education. Tom, I hope you enjoy our class. And, please..
call me Presti. I hate to be called Ms. Mapshill... it makes me
sound so old."
Tom smiled, greeted the rest of he class, and they began their
projects. He was quite involved in the first experiment, and
talking good-naturedly with a fellow classmate, when, unbeknownst
to him, the small indicator light on his telepathic shielding
device flashed briefly, indicating an attempted psionic probe.
---
"I can’t find her! She must pay for what she did. You
helped her, I know you did. Now, help me find her!" Dusk
screamed, as she and Suzie floated in the formless void that
served as her method of transportation.
"Why can’t you just find her the way you found
me?" Suzie had been having nightmares about her times with
Dusk, but she couldn’t remember any of them clearly. She did
know that she had the means to contact Cassie if she needed too,
but she couldn’t remember meeting Cassie. But this place,
amid the swirling darkness, this place she remembered.
"I’ve been trying, but something near her is blocking
my telepathic probing. I can’t find the traitorous cow, and
I know that you can..."
Streaks of shadow leapt from Dusk’s hand, climbing their way
down Suzie’s throat, filling her with the malignant essence
of her captor.
"And you will do it. You don’t have much choice,
really..."
---
Cassie sat in the administration office, waiting patiently while
the counselor reviewed her files. Absently, she toyed with the
small locket she wore around her neck.
"So, what does your father think? It’s a difficult
situation here, I’d like his input. You haven’t
received formal education between the age of ten and your current
age, but you pass the placement tests for a sophomore in high
school. It’s.. most curious, in light of what your file says
about those missing years."
"Dad doesn’t know what to do, really. And mam, I don’t
know why I would place so well on those tests... I...um... died
in that car crash, eight months ago. I was ten. I woke up, and I
was sixteen. I didn’t DO anything in those eight months, or
six years, or whatever it was... so why would I have gotten
smarter?"
Taking off her glasses and downing a pair of aspirin, the
counselor looked at Cassie, trace amounts of disbelief in her
eyes. "You know, if you hadn’t come here on request
from the Avengers, I’d ship you off for mental evaluation.
But because your admittance papers are signed by the Wasp, I have
to take what you say at face value. I... don’t know if this
school is ready for people like you. I don’t know if this
world is ready for people like you."
---
As Vance and Dane approached the sub-level garage of the Mansion,
they discussed their recent interview with Primefire, or David
Dramn, as he preferred to be called.
"I guess it won’t hurt to keep him on for a while. He’s
actually a pretty decent kid. But I don’t trust Primus. If
there was some way to seperate them..." Vance opened the
driver’s side door to the van, and Dane climbed in the
passengers side.
"Well, Vance... the way they explained it, Primus has to
stay encasing David in order to use that ‘neonuetralizer’
technology to regulate the kid’s powers. And he didn’t
seem that bad to me..."
"Primus and the Warriors go way back." Vance pulled
onto the elevator that would raise the van up to street level,
and Dane put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
"That’s another thing Vance. I... don’t think you
should bring up the Warriors if you can help it. I haven’t
gotten it all figured out yet, but Brian’s problem with
you... I think it’s far more of a problem with your old
teammates."
"I’ve been meaning to ask you Dane... where did you get
the file information for Brian. I heard him talking to Tom this
morning about being in witness relocation with his family in
Florida..."
Dane fidgeted a bit, a nervous bearing coming over him. "I’d
really... rather not say right now."
---
The bell rang, announcing the end of the day, and the end of Tom’s
second chemistry class. The teacher, once again, was Ms.
Mapshill, and as he packed up his materials from the lab, she
approached him.
"Thomas, you seemed put out about this last experiment. What
is it?"
Hesitantly, Alchemy broached the subject with the gorgeous
brunette. "Well, I just.. I’m quite sure that when you
mix these two compounds with magnesium there’s a more...
profound reaction."
"We did the test three times, no reaction during any of
them. Maybe you’re mistaken?"
Tom grabbed the two compounds and poured them into a small
beaker, and he pulled a small paperclip out of his notebook.
"No... I don’t make mistakes. Watch."
Positioning the paperclip above the beaker, Tom concentrated, and
whispered, "Magnesium." The slightest burst of light
signaled the transformation, and Tom let the clip drop into the
beaker. A brilliant flare of light and sharp odor resulted.
"Wow.. that.. was amazing Thomas. I wasn’t aware you
were quite so... special..."
Blushing, Tom hastily gathered his books. "Well, mam, I need
to go, my ride’s probably here. I just.. I don’t think
it was pure magnesium we were using for our experiment. Maybe you
should look into that.. maybe?" Tom made all haste for the
door as Presti smiled, and dropped the canister of magnesium she
had given to the class into the waste basket.
"Amazing."
---
The five students who made up the first ever A2 team sat on the
steps of Mapshill, waiting for their instructors from the mansion
to pick them up, and discussing the myriad events of their day.
"So Cassie, how did it go on the placement tests?"
David sat close to Cassie, as he customarily did. No matter how
mad he had gotten at her yesterday, or the numerous times before
he gym incident, he always seemed to forgive her. There was
something about Cassie that genuinely intrigued him.
"They still don’t know what to do with me. I think,
personally, they should let me sit at home and stare at trees. If
it’s good enough for tall, yellow and faceless, it’s
good enough for me."
Hallie smiled as she moved closer to Cassie, leaving Tom and
Brian to discuss various aspects of chemistry. Apparently Brian
had enjoyed his introductory chem class quite a bit, and had
questions for Tom which were of absolutely no interest to Hallie.
"Oh Cassie, you should see our Algebra teacher, Mr. O’Neil.
He is soooo cute, I don’t know what I would do if he asked
me a question in class, probably freeze up like Brian did today,
because I would be so afraid of letting someone that good-looking
down..." Cassie smiled. Finally, it seemed, Jolt was not
getting on her nerves.
"So Presti has you all interested in chemistry now, hmm? It’s
about bloody time one of you got a hobby I could relate to!"
Tom gently elbowed Brian, who laughed a tense, short laugh.
"Well, I was sitting there, and she was going through this
description of bio-chemistry, and I thought to myself, ‘Now
Chris, there’s something you need to learn’..."
Brian let out a small cough, and absently scratched at his side.
"Um... not to pry or anything.. but why call yourself Chris?
I mean.. when I talk to myself.. I usually use my own
name..." Cassie smirked at Brian, while Tom and David
glanced at him, curious as to his answer.
"What? Um.. I don’t know. Just.. I dunno. Brain fart, I
guess."
Tom placed his head in his hands, sighing. "Brain fart? And
here I thought we were making progress."
Cassie turned her attention back to the only other female
present, Hallie. "So.. when are you going to ask gorgeous
Mr. Math out on a date?"
Blushing, Hallie looked down. "I couldn’t! He’s
like, twenty-five! And my parents are always after me to settle
down with a nice Japanese boy anyways and.."
"You sound just like my friend Mickey." Vance settled
to he ground, silently, his telekinetic aura fading away as the
kids began to collect their bags. "Van’s around the
corner. And I have a surprise for you. We’re all going to
have diner at my house, so you can meet my wife. It’s a sort
of long drive though, so anyone who has to go to the bathroom
better get it over with now." Vance once more took to the
sky, heading for the van.
"Oh yes, Mr. Astrovik sir. Of course we are still tiny
children compared to your mightiness, so me OBVIOUSLY need to be
reminded to go the bathroom. My god..." Brian stormed off
towards the van, sparks trailing from his eyes as his temper
boiled.
"Does anyone else get the impression that he’s going to
get mad at EVERYTHING Vance says?" Cassie smirked again, and
turned to go back inside the school. "Anyone else gotta go,
or are you going to make me walk in the big scary building all
alone?"
David and Hallie turned to accompany Cassie, even as Tom headed
towards the car. Muttering to himself, the young British mutant
wondered if there was anything he could do to ease the tension
between Vance and Brian. He also wondered what Brian had meant,
yesterday in the gym, about people being glad they are able to
run. There seemed to be more meaning there than idle
conversation.
---
"There!" Dusk’s black costume and shadowy cape
were now wrapped around Suzie, her mind firmly in control of the
girl’s alien hybrid body. "Your ability to sense
mutants has somehow located her... but she is not a mutant... how
curious."
Shouting in the back of her own mind, Suzie wished that her
powers were more than just physical. Against Dusk, her mighty
strength and speed were almost useless. "Trade secret, you
body-snatching skank!"
A quick flicker of her shadowy presence allowed Dusk to skim the
thoughts and memories of her helpless host, and the answer to her
curiosity seemed to leap out at her. "Ah, the locket
contains some of your own skin cells. Clever. Too clever,
perhaps. The traitor is mine."
---
David sat on the floor outside the girls’ restroom. He had
finished his call of nature almost five minutes ago, and he was
trying to do the polite thing and wait for the girls. He was
having difficulty imagining what could possibly take someone this
long in the bathroom, but he chalked it up to one of the
mysteries of the female mind and continued his vigil.
---
Hallie peaked around the corner, and saw David sitting,
patiently, outside. "How long are we gonna keep him waiting
Cassie? Won’t he get mad about this, I mean, it isn’t
very nice, making him sit there just because you know he will.
Seems like taking advantage of him really, to me anyway..."
"I.. just have a bad feeling about something. I don’t
want to go anywhere until I figure out what it is..." Cassie
absently fidgeted with her locket, noticing that it was getting
slightly chill to the touch. Without warning, the lights in the
room flickered, and a whirling sheet of liquid shadow appeared,
as long, powerful, dark-clad hands reached out to pull Cassie
into the vortex.
Cassie screamed, fragments of memory pouring into her mind,
nightmare associations and fear-filled dreams telling her that
this portal was something of tremendous evil.
In a burst of electrical fury, Jolt was throwing herself upon the
tangled mass of the dark figure and Cassie, trying to unleash her
pent up charge on the unknown assailant, but unable to make
contact without also touching Cassie.
"I don’t care what’s going on in there, I KNOW I
heard a scream!" David burst into the restroom, and, seeing
the portal swiftly retracting, pulling both Hallie and Cassie
into it’s formless maw, he did the only reasonably heroic
thing he could think of. He leapt in after them.
---
They stood on a featureless plain, stretching endlessly in all
directions, strange shadow-clouds drifting through the sky, and a
luke-warm thickness floating in the air. David stood in front,
eyes and fists blazing with the nigh-omnipotent energy that was
his birthright, while Cassie and Hallie stood nearby behind him.
Several dozen yards distant, the super-imposed forms of Dusk and
Ultra Girl stood, menacingly.
"I have need of Cassie Lang. She betrayed me once, long ago,
and I will have my vengeance. Surrender her to me, and I will
send you home."
Bringing his hands together, behind him, David concentrated and
used his powers to teleport to him something that he had great
need of. Cassie’s Yellowjacket module. "There’s no
Cassie here. Just Yellowjacket. And YJ doesn’t have to go
anywhere she doesn’t want to." David handed he device
to Cassie, who activated the enlargement process, and soon stood
on the field in full armor.
"You remember me, don’t you Cassie? You remember all
the times we spent together, all the things we’ve been
through... come back."
Cassie leveled her wrist-mounted sonic-disrupter at Dusk’s
chest. "I don’t know what you are talking about. I’ve
never seen you before in my life. Let the girl go." A short
hum preceded the burst of sonic energy, and when it struck Dusk,
she visibly shrank back, allowing Suzie’s body to collapse
to the ground, unconscious.
"Well, my little cow has found a bite, I see. Perhaps you
need to be re-educated as to who holds he power here. You are on
my turf now, Cassie. I’m sure you remember what happened
last time you defied me."
Blasting forward, moving at her most intense speeds, Jolt charged
towards Dusk, intent on unleashing all of her pent up
bio-electricity. She ended up streaking right through the shadowy
figure, as Dusk teleported, re-emerging behind David. "She
told you, she doesn’t know who you are! You’re making a
mistake!"
"The only mistake made today is your paltry
resistance." Dusk’s cape reached out at amazing speeds,
latching onto David, drawing him closer to her, where she could
inhabit his body.
"Duck David!" Cassie fired a long stream of blue-energy
pellets, which, as they began to gain speed, slowly spread out,
forming a strange energy web. David fell to the ground just in
time, as the netting flew over him and entrapped Dusk.
"Try again, traitor." Dusk vanished, the slurping sound
of her mysterious teleportation the only remaining trace of her
presence.
"Is she gone?" David looked around, nervously. He
touched the shoulder strap on his backpack, which the energy net
had just barely touched. It still smoked from the contact.
"No, but when she pops out, for a few seconds, she’ll
be disoriented from the cold. If you hit her with your energy
blast at that time Dave... I think that’ll drive her
off."
Hallie looked at Yellowjacket, curiosity rampant on her face.
"How do you know that?"
Cassie smiled. "Infrared sights pick up an intense cold from
that portal, and it clings to her when she shows up."
"Oh..."
A sudden drop in air temperature signaled that Dusk had
re-entered the area, and the three young heroes stood, back to
back to back, waiting for her arrival. When it came, they were
ready.
"Leave us alone!" David Bank, whose family had
possessed an immeasurable source of mutant power for generations,
turned the totality of that power into a blast of power the likes
of which he had not created since his confrontation with Vance
back in New Orleans. He wondered, as the golden energy flowed out
of him, why he found it so easy to use the power now, but was so
terrified of it yesterday, against Lockdown. Something about this
place perhaps. The energy seemed to be stronger here.
Dusk let out a powerful scream, her soft voice cutting through
the terrain, the air, rippling the whole place, causing the world
to spin beneath them, sending them back where she had gathered
them from.
"I won’t lose completely.. I never do.." Dusk
leapt across the rapidly fading landscape, scooping Ultra Girl up
in her impossibly frail arms, and in a slurp of sticky blackness,
she was gone.
---
The car ride to the Astrovik home was loud, and the questions
many, as Alchemy and Brian regretted their absence, and Dane and
Vance attempted to puzzle out this Dusk, and her involvement with
Cassie’s past.
They all seemed to be no worse for the wear, after their
harrowing experience, and Dane used his Avengers ID card to
contact Vision at the mansion and have him begin a search for the
girl Dusk had taken hostage. It seemed as though there was
nothing more that could be done, save for relax.
As the van pulled to a stop out front of the lake that covered a
large portion of the Astrovik residence, David thought of
something, and excused himself from the group.
Standing on the shore of the small lake, he pulled out the small
Avengers ID card he had been given, like the rest of the kids.
"Vision, yes, this is David... is Dr. Pym in? Can you patch
me through.. thanks... Dr. Pym? I wanted to apologize for
teleporting the Yellowjacket module away from you while you were
repairing it. I’m curious... what systems haven’t you
got back online yet?"
A dark cloud seemed to pass over David’s face. "OK sir.
Yeah, we’ll be fine. It’s just that one system? Yeah, I’m
sure Cassie won’t be needing those infrared sights anytime
soon..."