++++++++++++++++++++++ ///||| ******* ||| ||| + ACADEMY OF + /// ||| **** **** ||| ||| + + /// ||| *** * ||| ||| + SUPER-HEROES + /// ||| *** ||| ||| + + ///||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| + # 3 + /// ||| *** ||| ||| + + /// ||| * *** ||| ||| ++++++++++++++++++++++ /// ||| **** **** ||| ||| /// ||| ******* ||| ||| COHERENT COMICS UNINC. "Monsters Under The Bed" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1994 by David Van Domelen Permission given for archival at the Eyrie site, all others ask first ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [cover shows the members of ASH being sucked into a vortex bounded by an elaborate doorframe as the New Knights Templar look on and sneer. Cover copy is: "The Dark Gate Swings Open!"] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE STORY SO FAR: While setting up shop in Mexico City, Contact (Aaron Zander) and Gawain (Sal Napier) encountered the mysterious Cross, leader of the New Knights Templar (and only 14 years old). He sought aid in freeing his family from the grip of some sort of "Souleater" monster, which when described turned out to be remarkably like a member of the alien Pranir race. The Academy of Super-Heroes then assembled and heard the tale of Cross's people, a lost colony of people who fled the riots of 2001 because they wished to have Supernatural children. The adults and older children were all killed in 2010 by eating the poisonous flesh of a mutated beast, leaving only an old priest (who ate no meat) to raise the small children. The priest, called the Elder, then died soon after studying the mysteries of the Dark Gate left behind in the "pagan fortress" the colony had inherited. ASH took off for the Amazon Basin to try to help Cross's people, or at least to determine if the Dark Gate was a danger. On arrival, however, they found that Cross's people thought him a madman. And that the Elder was still alive.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A slight sussurating sound was all that could be heard from outside the dome of whirling wind Peregryn had erected. Helmets and masks covered faces so that if any of the people outside read lips it wouldn't reveal anything. Perhaps it was rude, but it was necessary, because.... "I definitely don't trust that Elder," began Aaron when the dome was in place. "I may not be a MetaPsych-trained expert, but I've had enough experience to know delusional states, and Cross is sane." "Medically, maybe," Sal interjected. "But if he *is* seeing into other realities as the result of exposure to a dimensional gate, he'd be sane but still disconnected from our reality. If you could go inside his head and see what he sees, we might confirm or deny the Elder's story, but...." "But that's way too risky," finished JakZak. "If we can't find any holes in the story while we're here, we'll have to take Cross stateside and get Paul or another expert to look at him." "What if we can't convince them to let him come with us?" asked Scorch, who wasn't all that eager to fry kids if he could avoid it. "More importantly, what if he won't come?" added George, accustomed to filling out any ideas his friend had. Behind his alien helmet, JakZak frowned. "Personally, I don't think they can stop us. If nothing else, Sarah can grab Cross and escape while we run interference. But if he wants to stay...well, he fought Sal to a standstill, I don't relish trying to keep hold of him. And we can't just stun him, Essay, he'll have to wake up eventually," he added as Essay started to hold up a complicated looking array. "Solar Max, I think we should set this aside for the moment," interrupted Peregryn, a.k.a. Howard Henderson Jr. "I think we all agree we don't plan to just grab him and go right now. We need to get more information, particularly on this Dark Gate, before making a decision. If the Gate is indeed capable of warping perceptions, I may be able to tell." JakZak nodded. "Aaron, do you think you can establish some kind of link to Cross? I want warning if his story's right and something attacks his mind." "A very tenuous one, I won't be able to tell exactly what happens to him, though. It'll snap at any serious change." "Do it." Aaron started to concentrate on Cross, who was standing just outside the dome, apart from the people who he once considered his family. ++Cross, don't react/move. Aaron here. Want link/contact with your mind/ soul/spirit, tell if attacked/altered/devoured. Do you trust me?++ Faintly, the thought came back, --Yes...have linked before. Will you help me avenge?-- Aaron winced. It's very hard to lie over a mental link, mainly because few people have a lot of practice with it, and don't know what to hide. He settled on waffling. ++If needed/possible.++ He felt the faint spark of contact grow stronger, until he could relax completely without it fading entirely. "Done." "Okay, Howar...Peregryn. Drop the dome," JakZak ordered. Peregryn made a slight gesture as if waving smoke away, and the faint whispering sound was replaced by the normal noises of the jungle, as well as the small noises made by the impatient people outside the dome. JakZak stepped forward. "Have you decided which of us lies?" asked the Elder with a faint smile on his face. Condescending, even. "No. We *have* decided we need to know more before we can make that decision, though. Especially about the Dark Gate." "Ah, I was hoping you would want to inspect that, sirs. Before he ran from us, our wayward Cross did something to the Gate, and now it shudders and shimmers like a disturbed pond." For his part, Cross simply kept quiet. He didn't know if he was mad or not, or if he could really trust his memories. This *was* the Elder, he knew that. But he also knew the Elder was long dead. Yet...the others felt more and more familiar to him as time passed. Was this madness fading, or madness growing? Rather than look the fool, he simply kept his own counsel. "James, Mary...we may be occupied until the dinner hour," noted the Elder as he looked at the pair. "See if the forest will surrender a few extra meals, eh?" he grinned. The two nodded and melted silently into the undergrowth. "Now, to the Gate, yes?" * * * * The doorway had just screamed "Secret Bunker" to a history buff like George. In fact, it looked disquietingly familiar from his studies of the wars of the mid 20th Century. Dim emergency lighting lined the first stretch of passageway, probably powered by solar panels or a thermal tap hidden somewhere out of sight. The light was enough to see by, but not enough to make out the defaced images and insignia on the walls. The lighting improved later on, however, as they reached a section of the old "pagan base" that had been intended for general use. Apparently the exit they came in by was not the main one. Here, light-pipes brought in sunlight from overhead. Not much, of course, since the jungle canopy did its level best to intercept everything, but enough to light the corridors to normal indoor lighting standards. Here the images were more efficiently defaced, since they could be seen better by the defacers. But the outlines were again disturbingly familiar. There, an eagle atop a standard. Over there, some kind of lightning bolt. Up ahead the Elder engaged in small talk with JakZak, but by his tone it was obviously nothing important, so George ignored it. Then he saw an area where a steel-engraved plate had been covered with plaster when destroying it had apparently proved impractical. George concentrated on it as he approached, turning thermal energy contained in the plaster into one-directional kinetic energy. A bit of plaster shed from the steel as he passed, and he took a quick look before any of his "hosts" could tell he was expressing an interest. At first it didn't look like much. A pair of L's. But then George extended the legs of the L's in his mind and found the branches connected. Now he knew why all of this looked so familiar...that was a swastika. Symbol of the National Socialist Party, better known as Nazis. It was long rumored that high ranking Nazis who escaped after the Second World War fled to South America. And with the Asgardians well-represented in the Godmarket, a bunch of old SS men might well have been able to build this kind of place, and construct something like the "Dark Gate." Weighing his options, George decided to stay quiet until the next "private session," figuring that if these people went to such lengths to hide the Nazi symbols, they didn't want it brought up. Then he saw something that made him shut up quick. The Dark Gate itself. It was like a stormy sea upended and made into a doorway, but a sea of blood-black water. Even a video of it would cause a sense of unease, but something about its immediate presence multiplied that feeling a hundredfold. It was like the old quote, "Look too long into the abyss, and the abyss looks back." This abyss was looking back, and didn't seem pleased. Before George could even frame his next thought, everything went black as the abyss reached out and did more than look. Was that a smirk on the Elder's face...? * * * * "Oh, man...what happened? And at the risk of sounding cliche, where are we?" "Judging by the appearance of the carvings on the cave walls, Gawain, I would say this is a pocket reality designed to resemble part of the Asgardian Nine Worlds. Svartalfheim perhaps. Which would imply that the original residents of the complex were...." George interrupted Peregryn, spitting the word, "Nazis." "Actually, I would have said Teutonic mystics, but that does seem likely." "More than likely. I uncovered a swastika in one of the hallways, but didn't get the chance to tell you guys." "I hate..." started Scorch. "If you say 'Illinois Nazis,' Scorch, I'll be forced to hurt you," cautioned Sarah. Meanwhile, Essay was picking some of her gear out of a crack between rocks, muttering words like "maldito" and "pendejo" under her breath. "In any case, the passage was not exactly smooth, nor was it the way the makers intended it to be, I'd guess," Peregryn finished. "You don't say," quipped JakZak, who was obviously smirking as he said it, despite a full helmet. "Aaron, you still have contact with Cross?" Aaron paused, like someone listening for that annoying knock in their engine that always goes away when the repairman's around. "Barely, but yes. This may not even be a pocket dimension, just a buried room accessible only by a teleportal." Peregryn shook his head. "No, this is definitely a different reality, if only slightly. The spirit in the stones is different." Sal stood up, having moved aside one of the rocks blocking Essay's gear. "The way it looks to me, we have two possibilities. One," he held up a massive finger, "Elder's telling the truth, and the presence of so many Supernaturals just happened to trigger the Nazis' root cellar. Two," he ticked off another finger, "he's lying like a rug, and wanted us to take point against whatever's still in here." "And in either case, we *are* in a Nazi root cellar," Scorch noted. "And you don't keep extra kegs of Weissbrau in another dimension, so there's probably something nasty in here." "Not as yet, but if we don't get paid soon, we'll turn pretty nasty," came a voice from the very walls. At that moment, hundreds of small figures squirmed out from between stones or in some cases simply passed through the rock itself. "So, has Loki finally sent someone to pay the bill?" "Svartalfen," hissed Peregryn. "Literally, dark elves...but more like dwarves or gnomes than elves." "Ah, so the youth aren't totally uneducated, I see. I'd begun to fear for the mortals of Midgard last time we were on the surface. I'm Snorri Stuvegsen, and I've been waiting in this hole for quite some time now. We want payment...." "And nachos!" shouted someone from the back. "Shut up, Oleg! I should never have let the lads see that television contraption. As I was saying, we want payment now, or we'll take it out of your hides and head back to Svartalfheim." "I'm afraid you can't go home. The reason Loki hasn't paid you is that Midgard has been sealed off. He can't get in, you can't get out," JakZak replied. Peregryn hissed a warning, but too late. "I...see," the dwarf pondered. "Well, I guess we'll just have to kill you all and take over Midgard, yes?" He leaped back into the walls, as did the other dwarves. Everyone stood at alert, ready for any possible attack. They weren't ready for the absurd yet lethal contraption that rose out of the floor. It had eight heads that spouted flames and was almost as tall as the cavern's ceiling. And it was a goat. * * * * Being anywhere near the Dark Gate had always made Cross edgy...that is, if he could trust his own memories. But the way it tossed and heaved now filled him with a sense of dread that even managed to overcome the dull ache in his heart. For a moment, it let him forget that his beloved wife and close friends had been replaced by doppelgangers. But only a moment. His mistrust almost served him well, for he saw Deacon reach for the hidden panel a fraction of a second before it was depressed. Cross leaped to stop his former brother, but he was too late. Like a kettle boiling over, the Gate's surface exploded outward and enveloped his new allies. It almost captured him as well, but the others had apprently been expecting him to try to stop Deacon, and Martha had her hand around his ankle before he'd reached mid-leap. He felt himself spun around to slam into a wall, but his reflexes couldn't be dulled any more by self-doubt than they were by poison air. He twisted and gained his freedom in time to rebound lightly off the wall, but it did him little good. He was surrounded by enemies wearing the faces of family, and his only allies had just been devoured by the Dark Gate, perhaps killed. The Elder. Somehow the Elder was behind this, he suddenly knew. Perhaps it was a subtle shift in the impostor's soul that let Cross see through to the darkness behind. Perhaps it was simply wild paranoia. But Cross knew he had to kill this false father before he could hope to restore the Family. And if restoration was impossible, revenge would be exacted by killing the fiend. He feinted at the doorway, as if planning escape. The slower-witted of the doppelgangers moved in that direction, leaving only Martha and Rose directly between him and the Elder. Or rather, the monsters in their bodies. Leaping up, he rebounded off the ceiling and over the intervening defenders, and in a flash his hands were around the Elder's neck, twisting savagely enough to snap a tree bole. He froze in shock as the Elder's neck flowed like mud through his hands, the smile never leaving that damned face! Before he could act again, he felt a sting at his own neck. Grasping at a small dart imbedded in his flesh, he slowly turned to see Rose holding a dartgun on him. Then everything went red...then brown...then black. * * * * The members of ASH scattered to avoid being roasted by the first gouts of flame from the mechanical goat. Even George dived to the side, despite his ability to convert energy. "Rule Number One," George whispered to himself as he drew heat from the stones to fire off a blinding flashburst at one of the heads poking out of the goat. "Never Assume." Just because it looked like fire didn't mean he could convert it...it could be magical fire of some sort, and he already knew from training with Howie that he couldn't convert raw magic. Waste heat from where magical flames struck something, yes. But a bolt of magical energy that happened to look like fire could fry him like a side of bacon. He cursed as the dwarves all pulled on dark goggles, and one of the reserve pilots replaced the one he'd blinded. There were a number of ways they could take down this goat, but most of them were messy and lethal...and until and unless it came down to a definite kill-or-be-killed situation, ASH was supposed to at least *try* to keep casualties down. George saw Scorch and Essay directing energy beams against the goat's flank to no real success, and Sal trying to pick the thing up. Unfortunately, it was so large that it could brace against the ceiling and become relatively unmovable. Peregryn wasn't doing anything visibly, but was probably looking for some way to cancel the magic that drove the goat. Sarah wasn't to be seen, she was probably doing a fast recon of the rest of the tunnels to see if she could find the man behind the curtain, if any. And her husband...George winced slightly despite himself. Was he *still* carrying that torch for Sarah? Damn, great time for something like that to pop back up. Anyway, JakZak was keeping the heads busy, his armor apparently able to resist the heat. Time to act. If JakZak's armor was stopping the flames, they had to be actual fire. In fact, it was starting to smell like burning oil in the cramped cavern. Dwarves must not like to use more magic than they have to. "JakZak! A lift!" he shouted. The team leader paused as if to ask "You sure you know what you're doing?" then nodded and George felt himself rise into the air. Into the direct path of the flames. He didn't need to be hit by them to channel them, but he got the best results when he did. The first blast of flame hit him square in the chest and he winced. A little magic in it after all. But not enough, he mused, as he turned the flames into a concentrated burst of sound. Lasers would bounce off the polished metal of the goat, and electricity would ground out through the surface. But his thunderclap was like ringing a gong inside the goat. It staggered as the sound reverberated through the metal sheeting of its sides and controllers let go of levers and gears in order to cover their ears. Down below, Aaron seemed to be shouting something, but couldn't be heard over the din. So he stopped trying to shout. ++Link gone! Cross taken/killed/compromised!++ Time to get serious. A quick hand gesture and JakZak tossed him onto one of the heads, one that was still hanging limply as its controller reeled. Holding on with both hands, George started to channel all the thermal energy in the outer skin of the goat into sound. It cooled down as if dipped in liquid Nitrogen, and at the same time rang like a bell. Following his lead, Sal and Aaron struck the sides as hard as they could, and the brittle metal shattered like glass, revealing the complicated clockwork mechanisms inside. Now knowing exactly what was being faced, Peregryn took the opportunity to unleash his power at the gears and pulleys. Master of elemental magic yet also student of modern science, he knew that rust is no more than very slow fire. And so he forced fire into the metal of the mechanisms, which turned from shining steel and gold into corroded brown and black in seconds, seizing up almost instantly. In the meantime, Essay had determined what fuel they were using, and now fired a chemical agent into the exposed fuel tank which rendered it non-flammable. Their most powerful weapon destroyed, the dwarves scattered into the stones. "Can we keep them from coming back?" asked JakZak as Sarah returned from her scouting. "They have a link to the very stones, Solar Max. But if we were to seal the walls with something not stone, or somehow change the character of the stone itself, we could prevent surreptitious entry," Peregryn speculated. "I got just the thing, guys," said Essay from inside the goat. "I can make a plastic resin out of these hydrocarbons and coat the walls pretty quick." "Good. You do that while Peregryn and I try to figure out this door. We need to get back fast, Cross may be dead or worse." * * * * As darkness had descended, Cross held onto the spark of his link to Aaron as if it were a lifeline. Which, he supposed now, it might have been. Or a deathline. Everything looked strange to him at first. Gone was the room, the feel of air in his lungs, all physical sensation. But he still saw the others, and the Dark Gate. Then he realized he was seeing with his gift, his tracking sense, which Aaron had said was telepathic. With the familiar faces removed, it was far easier to see that these were not his friends. More like crudely-drawn caricatures of them, monstrous scrawls. As he looked, they did seem to slowly become more real, as if the artist were learning how better to hold the brush, and the caricatures became more like portraits. The Elder was a bare, simple picture, a child's memory of the man, really. And the Dark Gate had never seemed more deserving of its name. It had a malevolent spirit all its own, a hungry and inhuman one. The others moved now, to some point right behind him. He could sense in all directions, of course, but he still 'turned' to focus on the subject of their attention. It was a dark hole, a nothingness where a spirit should have been. He had sensed such many times before...fourteen times, in fact. It was his own body, now inhabited by some evil presence, devoid of true spirit and lacking even the masks now worn by the earlier victims. He realized that he must be dead. His spirit was no longer in his body. But at least he had been spared the fate of the others, having their very souls devoured, damned to some eternal torment in the guts of those monsters. He quietly thanked Aaron for at least helping him die cleanly. Now to make his peace and go to be Judged. James. Joseph. Martha. Deacon. Peter. Mary. Rebeccah. Simon. Paul. Eve. Ruth. Thomas. Esther. He passed to each's body in turn and bid them farewell, praying that their souls might escape as well and know rest. Then he moved to Rose. This would be the hardest farewell of them all...he had, in his youthful arrogance, thought they would live forever. That even should they die, their souls would be reunited in Heaven. Perhaps this was his punishment for such arrogance, for even Heaven would be Hell without her. Had he still had a heart, it would have caught in his chest as he saw another small spark. Rose was with child. The spark was no brighter than that of a bird or a fish, but it was there. His son...it felt like a son...would be born of a monster, perhaps have his own soul devoured when he had ripened to their liking. He reached out and gently "touched" his son. Cross would never see him be born, or grow up...so far as the monsters would let him. ..cross.. A feathery touch flitted across his mind. Aaron? No, it didn't seem to be that one's mental voice. It was faint, so faint that had he not been concentrating on his son's dim spark he might never have heard it. ..cross...help me.. He looked "up" at the soulmask now driving Rose's body. There! Inside, behind the mask, under layers of darkness, was a faint spark that called out to him! ++ROSE!++ he shouted, as he surged upwards, brushing aside the defenses as if they were cobwebs and smoke. Small, bowed but not broken, there was Rose's true spirit! It had not been devoured at all, merely buried. Trapped, so the monsters could strip it of everything, make the disguise more complete. The two spirits merged, a contact closer than they had ever felt physically, one more intimate than any but a handful of people have ever experienced. Very quickly they found to their dismay that even together they could not drive out the invading presence, or even make it notice them. ++We must free the others from their shackles. In numbers there is strength, perhaps we can together do what no one of us could do alone, and drive out the invaders,++ Cross said. --And failing that, do what we can to make sure the monsters never hurt another again,-- Rose added grimly. * * * * "I don't understand," mused the "Elder" to the empty air. "The RNA weapon should be rewriting his memories just as it did to the others, yet it's as if there's nothing to rewrite. A blank slate." He spoke as if the others didn't even hear him...which was true. At the moment they stood like statues, or better yet, like robots that had been turned off to conserve power. Their eyes stared blankly, their breath was even and shallow like that of sleepers. Had they been "on," they might have reported strange sensations. But they weren't, so they didn't. The churning of the Dark Gate increased suddenly, and the man posing as the Elder sent a quick mental command to his puppets, turning them back on. "Ah, the prodigals return. Be ready, my children, they may not have appreciated our actions in sending them through the Gate." The Gate burst open and spat out the gaudily-costumed superheroes it had devoured only minutes before. They looked far angrier for the experience. "What's happened to Cross?" Solar Max demanded, pointing at the young man's still form on the floor. "I'm afraid his mind has been lost," the Elder replied, a tinge of real regret in his voice. "I should not have brought him so near the source of his madness, he must have pushed it the rest of the way open as it drew the last of his sanity out. He became a raging beast, and we had to tranquilize him," the Elder added, nodding to the dartgun in Rose's hand. Trying to hide the dart mark would be unwise, he decided. Better to explain it away. Whether or not the heroes accepted his lie was very quickly rendered academic, as all eyes were on Rose. She started to look very drawn and pale, her body withering...yet her belly growing. "Peter, are you accelerating her pregnancy?" demanded the Elder of the Templar with minor time-warping powers. When Peter mutely shook his head, the Elder shouted, "Well, stop it! She's being killed, drained of her health to let the child grow!" Peter reached out and tried to slow the insanely fast gestation, but only slowed it slightly. Rose collapsed as her legs became too weak to support her. Sarah was at her side almost instantly, injecting her with a sprayhypo of concentrated nutrients and minerals she carried against the possibility of overextending herself. It seemed to help a little, and Sal was quickly at her side as well, being the only one with formal medical training. It proved unnecessary. Before anyone could prepare for a normal birth, the child emerged, ghostlike, from Rose's womb. Simon gave a start as he recognized his own power being used by the baby. It continued to grow, seemingly taking nourishment from the very air. He, for it was now a young man, drew a cloak of stars around his body to hide the nakedness. Below him, Rose fell into merciful sleep, looking like a victim of famine. <> came a voice from everywhere and nowhere. The young man's lips did not move, yet it was obvious to all that he was the speaker. <> He turned to the Elder. <> Then he turned to Aaron. <> And with that, the figure simply disappeared.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next Issue: Some attempt to figure out what happened this issue! And the start of a new arc!