Lisa Knight's Blog, page 12

MUSIC BLOG: DIG THE NEW BREED – SATURDAY 11TH JUNE 2015

Girli – So You Think You Can Fuck With Me Do Ya

Childbirth – Nasty Grrls

The Cambodian Space Project – It’s Not Easy Rock’n’Roll

And finally, a band I’m going to see on Tuesday…

Bones – Pretty Waste

POETRY: DRUNKER THAN THOU BY PAUL TRISTRAM

Slurring half coherent sentences

as my poetry crawls away in shame.

I cannot talk in a straight line.

I cannot walk in a straight line.

I cannot piss in a straight line.

I cannot think in a straight line.

All I need is a fucking line.

A line of something white and powdery.

Something to thin out the fog.

Something to raise up the chin.

Something to let at least a little bit

of intelligence back in.

Is this the hour of my glory?

Am I now drunker than the rest?

Have I out done my father?

Is my bed empty and waiting?

And is my family far, far away?

I need another drink, right now!

I’ve just lost the last one

and the three before, oh no!

Let me alone awhile to daydream.

Let me alone awhile to drunkenly fidget.

Let me alone awhile to cry pathetically.

Just please, please don’t let me sober up.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

POETRY: AND THE TEETH CIRCLED ME BY PAUL TRISTRAM

Like Jägermeister tears

and I shook, twice

as Neptune ceased to exist.

The bottle became

another ex-lover.

I shook my way out of the fight

after realizing

that there are no winners.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

POETRY: MY GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS TO YOU? (WELL THEN, HERE’S SOME MORE!) BY PAUL TRISTRAM

So, let me get this right here.

All I have to do to ruin your life,

stop you eating and sleeping properly,

flush all your energy down the toilet.

Make you seethe with self destroying anger

and basically beat you completely, hands down.

Is to be happy, healthy and successful?

Ok Cock, I’m on it and whistling while I work.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

POETRY: MY AUTOMATIC RESPONSE TO YOUR ANEURYSM’S BY PAUL TRISTRAM

Fucking Hell Man!

He Just Fucking Blew Up.

No, I’m Serious,

He Just Blew Up.

Veins Popping All Over The Place

And Trust Me To Be Wearing Velvet.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

FAN FICTION: EXILES DX #1 VALOUR: THE BETTER PART BY ADRIAN J. WATTS

Quebec City, Canada // February 24th, 2008 // Shortly after midnight

The blue and violet figure streaked over the city skyline with such apparent determination that no-one could doubt that she was on a mission. Her momentum increased with each passing moment, and it was not long before what started as a clearly identifiable human female became nothing more than a brightly-coloured blur.

My pendant…!

Unseen by those on the ground, the woman reached down to grasp a small, purple and blue oval-shaped pendant that hung around her neck. It had started to glow almost as soon as she took to the sky, and it was glowing more and more brightly as she headed across the city. She knew that it was leading her somewhere, to something, but she had no idea what.

Knowing my luck, she thought to herself, it will be another run-in with Airwave. I’m still smarting from our last bout!

She continued to rocket north and allowed her mind to wander back over the events that had led to that moment. Her name – for she did indeed have one, and it was not ‘Purple Blur’, ‘Blue Streak’ or any of the others the people walking the streets surmised as she flew by – was Valerie Tapeis, although, for the previous three months, she had gone by the name ‘Valour’.

Once, Valerie had operated a jewellery store in Montreal, which carried stock ranging from the finest productions coming out of Europe to the most simple costume jewellery, much of which she made herself. It was in that capacity, where she scoured weekend markets and garage sales for simple baubles she could attach to string in order to produce her wares, that she found the pendant.

It had been sitting in a small cardboard box surrounded by plush toys and a handful of plastic figurines. It was roughly cut and, in its existing state, not at all suitable for any sort of jewellery, and it was certainly out of place in the middle of a toy box. Still, Valerie could not help but pick it up and examine it more closely.

The moment she came in contact with the stone it seemed to call to her. Not literally, of course – she did not hear voices in her head, or experience compulsive urges. It just seemed as though it wanted to be with her, to be very close to her, and Valerie enjoyed the feeling. She bought the stone for only a few cents and, when she arrived home, smoothed its edges and attached it to a thin silver chain to form a pendant she could always wear.

In the days that followed, Valerie experienced a number of unusual occurrences. The first was discovering the apparent ability to transport herself enormous distances almost instantly – one morning, she stepped out of bed and found herself on a rooftop in the US city of Seattle. After her initial shock, and a long bout of panic, Valerie found out that with concentration she could will herself back to her original location.

With practice, the process became easier, and she learned how to adapt the ability to simulate flight, and even how to take large objects with her. But that was not the only change she discovered in her life – suddenly, people were remarking on strange ideas they were having, and senses of deja vu, which almost always echoed what Valerie was thinking at the time. Despite her best efforts, that was one ability she found she had no control over.

Although her initial panic had faded quite quickly, Valerie often found herself wondering where her strange new abilities had come from; much to her dismay, it was weeks before she realised their source was the purple and blue pendant that she never – could never – remove.

She tried to use her powers again and found, as she teleported, that the pendant always began to glow blue and shimmer, excreting a pale blue mist for a second before she disappeared, and there was always a moment’s wait after she materialised at her new destination for the pendant – often still glowing – to appear around her neck.

Valerie also discovered that the pendant would glow whenever she experienced strong or difficult emotions and thoughts, and that the periods during which the stone would shine perfectly matched up with the times that those around her seemed to share her thoughts.

She tried many times to remove the pendant but was never successful. With each attempt came the sense that if she did remove it, something extraordinarily awful would happen. She could never tell exactly what, but she knew it would be something she would never want on her conscience.

It eventually occurred to Valerie that it would not be entirely out of the question to make a debut as what the global press were calling a ‘superhero’. Several had emerged within the previous few years, from the Australian ‘Southern Cross’ – whom she was more than willing to admit was someone she had more than a small crush on – to the French ‘Wonder Wizard’. She could do without the extra attention but, she told herself; she had an obligation to use the strange abilities lent to her by the pendant to do what was right.

And so, several pieces of stitched-together blue and purple spandex later, Valour was born.

It was on her first patrol (which basically consisted of teleporting from one high-risk location to the next and keeping an eye out for trouble) that Valour encountered Airwave. Like anyone who watched the news, Valour had already heard of the villain – how he had allegedly used his own superhuman powers to board a plane, rob its passengers, and blow it up in mid-air.

Apparently, he had also decided to try robbing banks.

As Valour reconstituted her body on the roof of a Montreal bank, the red-and-grey clad form of Airwave struck her in the right arm and spun her around, the force of the impact so great that she almost blacked out. Airwave zoomed past, then curved, seeming to be aiming for another hit, but instead, he landed beside her and looked her up-and-down.

“Nice costume,” he said in what Valour thought was a British accent. She felt, however, that it was a little off somehow. “You here to stop me?”

“N-no,” Valour stammered. “I – ” She paused. While she had not specifically been seeking Airwave out, her goal was to stop any sort of villainous misdeed that she encountered. Admittedly, she had been expecting the odd purse-snatcher and not one of the world’s most wanted men, but still…

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Valour closely scrutinised the man who she had just declared her foe. When he had first struck her, he had been moving too quickly for her to see what she was up against. He wore a dark grey, almost black, bodysuit that hugged his body much more tightly than her own. Most of his face was covered by a similarly coloured mask and a red, metal, fin-tipped helmet, but what Valour could see of his face identified him as dark-skinned, but not black – Spanish? Latino? – and about the same age as herself.

Airwave’s hands, shoulders and feet were adorned with large, flared red gloves, padding and boots, and around his waist and right thigh were belt straps with red buckles that firmly anchored a small pouch to his leg, which Valour assumed contained the tools of his trade – lockpicks, perhaps a small weapon or two.

He seemed quite athletic, and Valour thought that under different circumstances, she might have been inclined to make some sort of romantic overture – but being perched on a rooftop and having just declared her animosity towards him probably wasn’t the best way to set things up.

Airwave smirked. “Do you like what you see?”

“W-what…?” Valour asked.

“You’ve been staring at me for five minutes,” Airwave told her. “Are we going to do this, or what?”

Valour nodded slowly. “Sorry, I’m new to this.”

“Don’t worry,” Airwave smiled. “I’ll go easy on you. What’s your name?”

“Valour,” Valour answered. “I already know you. You’re Airwave.”

“Do you know how I got that name?”

He raised his hands and without warning, Valour could hear the wind whipping around her. The noise was so great that she could not concentrate, and without the ability to focus on her destination, the risk of teleporting was simply too great.

“Boom.”

Valour heard the sonic boom long before she felt the waves of concussive force strike her body with enough force to hurl her not just off the rooftop, but across the street. The pressure on her body was enormous, but it did not hurt; and the further she sailed away from the bank, the less intense the pressure became, until she was able to control her descent and teleport safely to the ground.

She considered going back to try fighting Airwave a second time but decided, as the proverb says, that discretion was certainly the better part of Valour. She returned home, picked up the phone and urged the police to check out the bank.

And for months, she did not don her Valour costume again.

Until tonight.

She had covered a lot of ground since she had first arrived in Quebec City and wondered, if she had taken the time to learn the lay of the land a bit more thoroughly, if she could have reached whatever destination the pendant had selected for her a bit more quickly by teleporting there directly. Instead, she was stuck guessing at the meaning of the pendant’s brief bursts of light, which had already led her approximately four hundred and fifty kilometres across the province of Quebec.

If it is Airwave, she thought, I guess I don’t have much to lose… Just my life.

Elsewhere in Quebec City a man stood outside of a dark pizza restaurant with keys in hand. He had just locked up for the night, a little later than usual, and had paused first to peer through the front window towards the store he had just left, then to spend a moment looking at his own reflection in the glass.

He was Michael Hunter and, he was proud to say, ‘Marco’s Pizzeria’ was all his… and that was a fact that made him very proud. Michael was young, having just turned twenty-five years old, and although he had lived in Quebec City for a little less than half his life, he was originally from the United States and about as American as they come.

Michael knew next to nothing about other ethnicities and cultures, least of all French or Italian, but that had never affected his dream to run his own pizza store. That dream was his and it was a success – thanks to a little ‘authenticity’ lent by his half-Italian brother and south-west European-looking fiance.

It was to his fiance that he was about to go, but not before checking out his tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired reflection in the mirror.

“Yeah, I’m hot,” he muttered to himself.

He began his long walk home, taking the same route that he had followed every night for the five weeks since the store opened. The journey was so familiar that Michael often felt he could navigate it with his eyes closed… except for the construction site a block-and-a-half away from the start of his trip.

Every night there were new signs suggesting the best detour or diversion to follow to avoid the rubble strewn across the street by the construction crews. More often than not, Michael knew, the detours led customers away from his store. He knew it was nothing deliberate on the part of the construction workers, but it did make him feel as though he had more of a right than most to cut through the construction site on his way home.

It was a feeling that filled him with warm and happiness… until he tripped and fell into a hole that turned out to be a little deeper than he was. In fact, it was a lot deeper than Michael was tall.

Great, he thought to himself, as he began to grip at the loose dirt and try to pull himself free. The soil slid away as he grasped at it; he was not going to be able to climb out but, he realised, the soil would eventually fill the hole and he could simply climb over it.

Unless it’s looser than it seems. Then I’ll just be buried alive.

On the other side of the construction site a tall figure, half-hidden in shadow, rummaged through broken pipes and shattered concrete. It was searching for something, but having no luck finding it. Angry, it kicked a metal barrel that was resting nearby, sending it rolling, loudly, across the site.

“Hold it.”

The figure heard the woman’s voice and stepped fully into the moonlight in order to see her. The figure belonged to that of a man and the voice to that of a purple-and-blue-garbed woman: Valour. His pendant was glowing brightly and, the figure guessed, would have provided enough light with which to see her even if the moon were hidden.

Valour was standing on a small pile of lumber and staring down at the man, whose own appearance astonished her. From the neck down he was wearing a form-fitting costume but, she realised, it was not made of spandex or lycra or any other material she might have expected to see – instead, it seemed to be made of some sort of metal.

It was almost entirely jet black, the only exception being very thin red lines that repeated in regular patterns around what she supposed would be most accurately called ‘armour’. His head was covered by a similarly coloured helmet, only rather than the fixed shape of a motorcycle helmet – or, for that matter, a knights’ – the man’s helmet seemed to match the contours of his face and even his hair, as though the metal from which it was constructed was clinging to the individual cells and fibers.

His eyes and mouth were the same red as the lines on the rest of the suit, his nose was marked by thin, horizontal red slits, and where his ears would have been sat two red slightly-raised rectangular boxes.

“Who are you?” Valour asked.

The man smiled, and Valour could see the expression even through his helmet.

“That pendant…” he whispered. He took a step forward, his hand outstretched. “Give it to me.”

Valour touched the pendant briefly, focused, and willed her body to fade as the blue mist flowed from it and through her body. She disappeared and rematerialized several feet behind the man; he did not seem surprised, and simply turned to face her again.

“You have the potential to control both ansuz and raido, and that is all that you do with your power?” he shook his head. “Give it to me.”

“No,” Valour replied. “Besides, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It seems to have developed an attachment to me.”

“I could remove it for you…” the man suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Valour told him. “The pendant led me here for a reason, and I don’t think it was you.”

As Valour finished speaking, the pendant began to glow again, and both Valour and the man quickly glanced around, trying to find what was triggering its activity. They both saw the man staggering toward them at once, holding a short red staff in one hand.

“Fehu!” the armoured man cried. He began to run toward the new arrival. His movement was so sudden that even Valour, with her instantaneous transportation, could not arrive before him. She knew that he had been expecting it, or something similar, and there was nothing that she could have done to respond to him.

The armoured man wrapped his hand around the other man’s wrist and held on tight. He pulled him forward and twisted him around, in order to clearly see his face.

“Michael…?” he whispered, but he did not let go.

I never expected this… the man thought to himself. I could have… I should have known this would happen. That Michael would be here. But it does not matter…

“Michael Hunter,” the man said. “I need you to give that to me.”

“What…?” Michael asked. “Man, you need to let go of me. Now.”

The armoured man tightened his grip.

“Give it to me,” he repeated.

“Don’t do it,” Valour said. “Whatever you’ve got, if he wanted it for something good – ”

“Yeah, you know what?” Michael turned his head to face Valour, then told her. “I’m the one with the pain shooting into my shoulder right now, okay? You need to shut up.”

The armoured man grinned then pulled hard on Michael’s arm. He heard the slurping, tearing sound of the joints in Michael’s shoulder being torn apart and the soft muscle fibre ripping apart. Michael lost all control of his arm and as it fell to his side the other man yanked the red staff from his hand and shoved him toward Valour.

“Fehu!” he said again. “With this I can more easily find black.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Valour asked. She had placed herself between the armoured man and Michael. The young man’s pain was too severe for him to flee, which meant she had to defend him.

“Do you really not understand the power you wield?” the man asked.

“I guess not,” Valour told him, “but I am starting to think it might be worth holding onto… and I might take that staff, too, while I’m at it.”

She reached forward, and the man immediately took a step back. He raised the staff in front of him reflexively, almost instinctively, and muttered something under his breath. A moment later a jagged beam of energy emerged from the tip of the staff and struck the woman as she approached.

It first hit the small pendant, which was glowing more furiously than ever before, causing razor-sharp blue pieces to hit her own body and to permeate his own armour. He grimaced as they scratched his legs, arm and chest. Valour’s bleeding body began to be surrounded by the familiar blue mist that accompanied all of her attempts at teleportation, and she slowly faded from view.

The armoured man smiled, but it was visible only for an instant as he realised the same effect was happening to his body. His armour started to feel loose about his body and his leggings and gauntlets faded away, surrounded by the mist, and then his own half-naked form began to disappear.

“No!” he shouted. “I was so close…!”

Events had taken place so quickly that, as the armoured man completely disappeared, he did not see the final target of his crimson strike. It continued past where Valour had been standing, carrying with it the shattered remains of the purple portion of the pendant. Michael Hunter raised a hand to shield himself but even as the red, lightning-like energy caused his heart to stop beating the thin, purple shards embedded themselves in his skin.

They tore at his dead flesh, leaving tiny droplets of red and purple blood beneath him but the dripping soon stopped as his heart no longer pumped blood around his body. Yet Michael Hunter did not fall – he simply turned away and began to walk, his limp, broken arm dangling at his side.

NEXT: The Worldwalkers!

AND SOON, IN EXILES: Serenity!

Written by Adrian J. Watt’s of SoftPixels

POETRY: I REMEMBER YOU, YOU’RE NOTHING BY PAUL TRISTRAM

Jealous temper tantrums are your trade

but self-pity is the ace up you sleeve

whenever your vileness shocks and upsets

the Decent Folk whom you are deceitfully

and slyly persuading to Pawn for you

in another ruinous Game Of Chess

where the Stakes are never actually yours

but someone else’s Sound Reputation.

Written by Paul Tristram

Available to buy via Lulu

FAN FICTION: EXILES #10 – SANCTUARY PT1 (DIVIDED PT 3) BY ADRIAN J.WATTS

“He’s gone! And so is Firefly!”

Aleta, panicked, almost flew headlong into Joseph. Finally, after days of being pulled from one timeline to the next, the Exiles had had a chance to relax; and Aleta and Joseph had decided to use the downtime to interrogate their new tag-a-long, Nachtgleiskette, who had claimed to know of a way to resurrect the team’s fallen member, Daywalker.

Only… Nachtgleiskette had disappeared along with, Aleta realised, their youngest member: Firefly.

More than anything else, Aleta worried for their safety. The Exiles were, for all intents and purposes, prisoners in Castle Symkaria – the seat of power for Prime Minister Sakrova and the headquarters of the Wild Pack. They were being treated well, but Sakrova was determined to find out how the Exiles had managed to penetrate a massive energy dome surrounding the eastern European nation and had demanded that the Exiles remain in the castle until their secret was discovered.

If Nachtgleiskette had hurt Firefly, she would hurt him. She knew that. But if, for some reason, they had left the castle together – then she could not help but worry about what might happen if the Wild Pack found out.

“Scamp is gone, too,” Joseph told her. “Only Ph-Eros remains in his quarters.”

“We need to find them, Joseph, before the Wild Pack do. Stand close.”

Joseph stood beside Aleta, so close that their bodies were almost touching. As Aleta closed her eyes and visualised a disc of solid light appearing beneath their feet, he guessed what she had planned and put his arms around her waist. She continued to concentrate and, a moment later, the two Exiles were entirely invisible and floating on the light disc.

They floated past dozens of guards as they searched for an exit from the castle, thankful that the Wild Pack seemed to have retired for the night. They knew from experience that Aleta’s ability to refract light in order to simulate invisibility meant nothing to the Wild Pack*, and they simultaneously sighed in relief as they finally left the castle unmolested.

[ * – see issue eight – All-seeing Adrian ]

“Where should we begin to look?” Joseph whispered.

Aleta shivered. In her entire life, only three men had been as close to her as Joseph was then and each had, in some way, betrayed her. The first was her husband Stakar, who Aleta thought for a long time had allowed their three children to be killed. She learned years later that Stakar had done everything reasonably within his power to save them, but the resentment and sense of betrayal had remained and, Aleta suspected, always would.

The next had been her fiance, Vance Astro. His betrayal was far less intentional – corrupted by a black costume of alien origin, Vance had yelled at Aleta at least twice and, eventually, the suit itself had attacked her before revealing itself as the long-lived ‘Venom’ symbiote**. Aleta did not blame Vance for any of that, but the fact that her becoming so close to her partner was what made her vulnerable made her reluctant to become close to him again.

[ ** – see GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Y4 ANNUAL, part of the ZODIAC RISING crossover event – Also Adrian ]

It was that longing for closeness that drove Aleta into the arms of Kristoff Vernard***, a young man from the 20th century who had managed, through various means, to effectively become the ruler of Earth in the 31st. Eventually, he betrayed her as well**** – more accurately, he betrayed the Guardians – but in betraying them he also turned them against her, which amounted to the same thing in her eyes.

[ *** – in GOTG #70; **** – in GOTG #72 – Also Adrian Again and Again ]

So what about Joseph? Aleta thought. I still love Vance. We are still engaged… I hope. I don’t know how he has taken my relationship with Kristoff… who I also still love. But Joseph… I may never… NO. I am not doing this. Not again. Not now.

“Aleta?”

Aleta felt the mutant’s breath on her neck and shivered again. “Th-the forest were we first arrived,” she answered, finally. “It seems as good a place as any.”

They rapidly passed over the green canopy of the forest, both keeping their eyes peeled for anything that may suggest the presence of their teammates. After almost an hour of searching, Joseph spotted, in a clearing, the red flash of fire temporarily lighting up the night sky.

“Aleta! Look!” he said.

“I see it!” Aleta began to descend and to gain speed as she did so. The wind whipped past them, and Aleta forgot for a moment that Joseph was not used to her means of flying. She felt him grip her more tightly, and despite her logical protestations, she knew that she did not dislike the sensation… not at all.

“You cannot see them,” Nachtgleiskette calmly told Firefly, “but Aleta and Joseph are approaching, hidden by Aleta’s light powers. They are too far away to see us but have undoubtedly been drawn here by your flaming assault on Namor and Doctor Savage*.

[ * – last issue – Still the same old Adrian ]

“You have a choice to make, Firefly. Will you reveal your attempts to kill your teammate, or allow them to continue to perceive you as the weak child you have presented yourself as thus far?”

“W-what…?” Firefly stammered. He looked to the skies but, as Nachtgleiskette had said, he could not see Aleta and Joseph. He turned to look behind him, and the Doc Savage, who – after Firefly’s exposure to the strange blue sphere given to the team by Spratt during their trip to 8162 A.D. – had reverted to his less-harmful Mysterious Stranger form and was last seen walking along the river which bisected the cleaning, could no longer be seen.

“Where did he go?!” he roared. “I wasn’t done! He killed Daywalker! He… he…”

Firefly found himself suddenly short of breath. And his muscles ached. And his head hurt. And his heart felt like it was going to explode from his chest. Panicked, he looked down at his body and saw his muscles – practically non-existent under normal circumstances – rapidly growing and bulging beneath his stretching skin.

He touched his face and found that his nose and lips had flattened to sit almost flush with the rest of his face and his ears had become fin-like. His brow began to push outward, his chin to lengthen – and, he realised as his skintight bodysuit tore apart, his skin had turned a rust-like red.

“Interesting,” Nachtgleiskette said.

“What’s happened to me?!” Firefly asked.

“I think that orb of yours has a sense of humour,” Nachtgleiskette grinned and stepped back into the shadows between two trees, his naturally jet-black body becoming entirely visible.

“Where are you goi – ”

“Stranger!” Aleta cried as she and Joseph settled on the ground and she dropped her refractive light field, making them visible again. “What are you doing with the orb?”

Firefly looked down and saw the orb still held firmly in his right hand. He did not know what to do; Aleta and Joseph thought he was Doc Savage. If he revealed the truth, there would be questions – about how he got the orb, what had happened to him, where the real Savage was… questions he was not prepared to answer. He already worried about Ph-Eros revealing his plan to the team!

Still, if he let them think he was Savage, and that he had somehow managed to take the orb from Prime Minister Sakrova… he didn’t know what would happen. So he simply raised the orb and threw it hard towards the river, still burning from his attack on Namor, and ran.

Both Aleta and Joseph took to the air in an effort to reach the orb, and both missed; it hit the burning liquid and sank, and with neither Exile possessing an immunity to fire, it seemed irrecoverable. They turned back to the clearing, where ‘the Stranger’ had been standing, but he was gone.

“We can’t look for him,” Aleta said. “Firefly and Scamp take priority. They are our teammates, and we need to make sure they’re safe.”

Joseph tightly hugged Aleta as she once again formed her light disc and began to refract the light around them. Only a few feet away, hidden in the trees, Firefly began to sob quietly… and in the darkness, he did not notice as his body returned to normal.

The Mysterious Stranger kept walking. Since his experiences in Daywalker’s home dimension*, he had lost all control of his mind and body. All he could do was what came instinctively to the Xin’garoth demon that was the true identity of his ‘Doc Savage’ manifestation. Minutes earlier, the Xin’garoth seemed to leave his body, leaving him able only to keep walking until he hit something.

[ * – specifically EXILES #6 – Fred, because Adrian has run out of asterisks. Seriously, who uses four at once? ]

And hit something he did – the strong energy barrier cutting Symkaria off from the rest of the world. He continued to press against it, unable to think clearly enough to conceive or to turn away. The first sensation was one of pressure but, with each new touch he felt searing, burning pain.

Suddenly, his mind cleared.

Where am I? he wondered. What is this… barrier?

He reached out with one hand and laid his palm against the energy barrier, which immediately vanished. He stepped past it and observed what lay beyond – a dense forest, much of it burned; air, thick with pollution; and dead animals – dead people – laying all around. It was nothing like the beautiful forest he had been able to see when looking out from within the confines of the energy dome, but what concerned him more was the realisation that he was naked.

“That won’t do,” he muttered. He waved his right hand over his body and thick, heavy, red and gold robes covered him from his neck down. He began to levitate, only a few feet when, suddenly, the chaos of his mind came flooding back. He dropped to the burnt, ashen ground and began to walk aimlessly once more.

Inside Castle Symkaria, the news of the barrier’s disappearance was met first with incredulity, and then with fear. Guards who had been posted at the barrier’s perimeter rushed back with news of the devastated landscape beyond Symkaria’s borders and fear for what that devastation may mean.

“Mobilise our reconnaissance forces,” Prime Minister Sakrova ordered, “von Doom was behind this, and he must be confronted.” She turned to Battlestar, the leader of her elite guard, known as the Wild Pack. “Release the ‘Exiles’, but encourage them to aid us in finding Doom. And someone – make sure the barrier cannot reappear!”

Battlestar rushed out of Sakrova’s throne room and hurried to the wing of the castle to which the Exiles had been confined. He moved from room to room but found them empty; all save one. He crossed the room, to the bed where Ph-Eros lay sleeping. He pulled on the naked Exile’s right arm and dragged him from the bed, then pressed him hard, face-first, against the cold stone wall.

“Where are your friends?” Battlestar shouted the question. “Do not lie to me!”

“I… don’t know,” Ph-Eros answered. “To be honest… if they aren’t here, I’ll be kinda peeved that they left without me! Although I could probably forgive them for thinking I loved your unique hospitality!”

Battlestar jerked his knee hard, sending it into the small of Ph-Eros’ back. Were he not being held upright, the Exile would have fallen to his knees from the pain. Instead, he momentarily lost conscious control of his powers, and exposed to Battlestar, something he had worked hard to keep hidden from the moment he and the Exiles were brought together; his back, arms, neck, face and chest were marred by raised scars; his lips, mouth and nose were twisted as if in a permanent, deliberate sneer. Ph-Eros concentrated, and the scars seemed to vanish instantly – prompting a surprised Battlestar to let him go.

“What did you just do…?” Battlestar asked. He immediately threw himself again Ph-Eros again and held him back against the wall. “Actually, I do not care. Tell me where your friends are.” He tightened his grip on Ph-Eros’ arm and began to twist it slightly. “Now.”

“I told you… I don’t know!” Ph-Eros shouted. “And you really want to let go of me.”

“Do I? Why is that?”

Ph-Eros whispered, and Battlestar let go. The Wild Pack leader crossed the room and began to remove his red-and-black striped costume. When he was completely naked, he handed the costume to Ph-Eros, before finally running headlong into the wall and falling back, unconscious.

“That’s why,” Ph-Eros said as he slid into Battlestar’s costume, fully aware that he not only waited too long before making his clever remark, but that there was no-one there to hear it.

The costume, which had tightly hugged Battlestar’s slim but athletic body, was a little loose on Ph-Eros’ lanky frame; but they were roughly the same height, so he knew that he could “grow into it” if he really wished to. The boots and gloves fit perfectly, and he quickly located a small button inside the right glove that caused Battlestar’s rectangular shield to materialise and anchor itself to the same glove.

Awesome, he thought.

Ph-Eros appreciated his existing powers, but he was also completely cognizant of the fact that there were some foes he would simply never be able to fight in the same way as Aleta or Joseph. He had never had any intention of becoming a ‘superhero’, and certainly no intention of all but mugging Battlestar but, as with every other major event in his life, he was not going to pass up an opportunity to get what he wanted – regardless of how he had to go about doing it.

“Just like becoming an Exile.”

Ph-Eros was not sure if the voice in his head was his own; that certainly was not something he was likely to think. Becoming an Exile had not been the result of a spontaneous opportunity, and almost definitely not something he would have chosen to do. But the idea had entered his mind nonetheless – and the realisation that the thought may not have been his own terrified him.

The Wild Pack, unable to find their missing leader, had deployed themselves across the country in an effort to control the mass exodus of Symkarians, willing to subject themselves to the ravaged world beyond the fallen barrier rather than risk being trapped should it rise again. So focussed was the Wild Pack on their assigned task that they failed to notice the squadron of futuristic fighter jets crossing the city.

They could not help but notice the giant, armoured, floating head that appeared above Castle Symkaria, or the words that emerged from its holographic mouth:

“People of Symkaria, I am Victor von Doom, ruler of Latveria,” it said. “For months, your nation has been secured behind an impenetrable barrier of my own design, to create a sanctuary, immune from the suddenly-escalating dangers of the outside world – a world which, you can now see, has been ravaged by war.

“Yet you have met my kindness with distrust, and destroyed the barrier that protected you. Doom has no desire to safeguard a people who do not desire his protection. You have two hours to evacuate your country. At that time, the Latverian army will take charge of Symkaria – and any Symkarians remaining within your borders will swear allegiance to Doom… or perish.”

The image faded abruptly and the Wild Pack turned to one another for a reaction; but, met with a universal shrugging of shoulders, they simply began to redouble their efforts to assist the fleeing people of Symkaria. Prime Minister Sakrova would know what to do… they hoped.

NEXT ISSUE: Someone takes a Savage beating in the finale to ‘Divided’!

Written by Adrian J. Watt’s of SoftPixels

MUSIC BLOG: DIG THE NEW BREED – WEDNESDAY 24TH JUNE 2015

Bloods – Into My Arms

Leika – Silly Cow

Bueno – Assed Out

Soviet X-Ray Record Club – Good Things [I Only Think Of]

MUSIC BLOG: DIG THE NEW BREED – TUESDAY 23RD JUNE 2015

Scallops Hotel – Lavender Chunk (feat. Hemlock Ernst)

Lonely Boy – We Need The Dark (Original Mix)

You Are Number Six – Palimpsest

Steve Sobs – Ugh