|
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us." — H.G. Wells
Space.
The final frontier.
1961.
Inky, black, and nothingness for as long as one can imagine. A lone spacecraft, rudimentary to so many races that grace the stars of our galaxy, limps back home, akin to a child whose overprotective parents will not them far from the yard. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics weak scanning skills cannot even detect the sleek Kree ship that looms in the distance, following her, hunting her like a cat.
1962. San Francisco, California.
Three men in charcoal suits tear down a midtown Manhattan sidewalk, tailing a young man in a corduroy jacket and hat. Eventually they split apart, cornering him in an alleyway.
"No! No!" the young man exclaims. Cut to the three men in suits who hold their guns out towards him. There is no escape. Even as his body is pumped full of lead, he changes into something grotesque…something inhuman. The men come to stand around the body and one, speaks into some sort of handheld device.
"Commander, this is Ard'ran. Please inform King Dorrek the VII that we have eliminated the threat."
Down at the feet of the "man" in the charcoal suit, the body has transformed into some sort of blue skinned being with what looks like a breathing apparatus over the mouth.
1963. January.
"Will that be all, sir?"
"Yes, thank you," replies President Kennedy in his well known New Englander accent. Once the doors to the Oval Office close, he opens a side door into a small office. There, inside, a blue skinned man in a cloak peers at him and the President closes the door behind himself.
Bobby Kennedy, with a look of disgust, encounters Robert McNamara in the hall just outside the President's meeting quarters."
"He's not going to make the deal, is he?" asks the Secretary of Defense.
"What choice does he have?" the President's brother replies. "This is the best chance we have at ensuring the survival of the United States."
"And the world."
1963. Now. Manhattan.
Four protesters who look to be of Asian descent, and who wear white masks that you might see upon a surgeon, are running through an apartment building that hangs perilously above Times Square.
Out in front of them, running as fast as he can, is a policeman with a look upon his face that is unfitting of any sort of man of the badge. He is afraid and fleeing like a coward.
When he gets to the end of the hallway, he bursts through the doorway, only to find more of them coming up from below. He decides to go up a floor and double back; he figures it is the only way for survival.
TIMES SQUARE
Peace, man.
That's what the guy with the curly hair and the round glasses is talking about up at the podium. The riots all over the city have hit the liberals hard, and they're bouncing back the only way they know how: the peaceful protest.
It's all filled with the best of intentions. Mutants and humans alike, standing against the untenable shift in public opinion from prejudice to rioting.
There are a ton of speakers: the President of New York University's student body, a young political operative named Bernard Sanders who flew in from the University of Chicago last night when riots gripped his hometown, several civil rights leaders from the movement in the south, and even Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who has made the trip from his exile in India, is scheduled to speak.
Steve Rogers is eating a pretzel. His girlfriend, Jack Pace, had wanted to come to the rally but had to go home to Rhode Island at the last minute for a sickness in the family that she needed to assist her mother with this weekend.
So while the cat is away, the mouse shall play, or whatever. Steve is eating unhealthy and attending peace rallies. It's the 1960s, man. Anything can happen.
"
*
Free speech really isn't a thing back in Wakanda, and T'Challa has always been curious about its representation here in America. She has a break in her research and study schedule at ESU, so she is here, in the crowd. With the number of civil rights speakers, there are plenty of black men and women, so she doesn't stand out much. Except that there's this aura about her, that aura of regal poise, grace, command. It jangles the nerves if one just pays the slightest attention. And it draws the eye, sometimes. For now, she stands and she listens, and spends as much time observing the crowd around her as those on the stage or at the podium. Could Wakanda benefit from free speech? She wonders.
*
This isn't Domino's sort of gig. Peace tends to put her out of a job. But, these days she also happens to have a stake in mutants as a whole. With all of the talk about ending the riots, sure. She's curious enough to linger. The only difficult part is watching and listening while also keeping herself from becoming an inviting target, because normal-looking she really isn't. There's no sense in giving a large group of people an easy shot, regardless if they're currently mellow or not. She'll believe the riots are over when she sees the change in everyone else. If this means that for the moment she has to camp out by a window or on a fire escape somewhere then so be it.
Besides, she likes her vantage points.
*
Hank has exchanged the lab coat for a light sport jacket in a pale brown with dark brown elbow patches worn over a peat green turtle neck. His dark brown corduroy slacks match smartly with the patches on his elbows. If he arrived with any of his pals to watch the speeches they've since separated and the bespeckled young man wanders sort of aimlessly through the crowd with a genial expression.
*
Jo isn't much for rallies and protests. She is, however, big on knowing what's going on — when and where. One of her contacts tipped her off to the guest list, however, and being on hand to see the Dalai Lama seemed a good idea. The brown-haired irishwoman moves toward one of the food vendors, an ear on the proceedings and an eye on the crowd. Like others, her expression and body language is relaxed, though she disguises alertness with curiosity.
*
Akihiro decided he would show up to the protest. Why not. He straps a demonic looking lower face mask to his head and tugs the hood of his black hoodie up. He cuts through the crowd, eventually coming to a stop somewhere near the middle. "Wonder how long we have until they turn the dogs on us." He tucks his hands into the hoodie's central pocket, starting to move once more.
*
"You know, Katya," Piotr rumbles quietly, ducking his head so Kitty can hear him. "We could do something less political with our time off. Yesterday was stressful, no?"
A lost cause, to be sure. He just feels he has to make the point. Kitty, tucked safely into the curve of Piotr's arm for the moment, has held forth on these very topics often enough at home. So much so that her boyfriend worries a little bit about her. A little bit? A great deal.
Piotr sighs deeply when Kitty gives him that look from the shadows of the hood she's wearing to make herself less recognizable. Yes, that look. The one that says he's going to lose this argument before it even starts — it is easy to never argue when you both know the outcome from the first sentence. No, Piotr does not want to go home on his own, the point is that they're spending time together. Piotr concedes the point.
"I suppose, after the other day, it is comforting to hear from people who would rather have peace," he allows. No shaved heads and jackboots in sight. Not a single Humanis First badge. Perhaps, if he hears all these peaceful sentiments enough times, they will begin to seem less futile.
*
Upstairs, the runner is cutting back against the grain, hoping his ruse will buy him some time. And just as he's about to get to the original staircase he ran up. By going back down he can hit the streets and disappear amongst the masses of peaceful protesters. As he loses his police hat, he can feel that he's actually going to get away.
Only one of the "masked" protesters emerges from one of the apartments with a silver gun-like in her hand.
The policeman freezes with wide eyes. And against all rational, he reaches out to the doorway of the apartment next to him, opens the door, and runs in, just as a yellow bolt of energy nearly misses him!
…
The Dalai Lama nods to Scarlett as he takes the flower, even going as far as to give her a slight bow. He then turns his attention to the stage.
"We live in a country unbridled with patriotism, but thick with resentment towards their neighbor," says the young Brooklyner, Sanders, at the podium. He begins his rousing speech and cheering is heard intermittently as he lambasts bigotry in all forms, against blacks, Jews, women, and mutants. He speaks for a great while about coalition building and how working together will be the only way to change the hearts and minds of those in New York, and those in Washington.
Meanwhile, Steve finishes his pretzel and puts the wrapper in a garbage can nearby just as an odd sound, one he's never heard before, rings out high above the crowd. It sounds like, some sort of energy.
…
Up in the apartment, the protester follows the policeman right past an old woman toward the back of the dwelling. The man turns to look at his follower and is about to say something, but it comes out in a language unintelligible to the protester, the screaming old woman, or the follower.
Clearly the young woman doesn't care. She lifts her gun and fires again, this time hitting the policeman in the chest.
…
"Hey!" someone screams. "Someone is gonna jump!" Steve turns around to see a man in a police suit, falling 8 stories out a window! In unison, hundreds of people begin yelling and the young Bernie Sanders stops his speech.
*
From Dom's experiences, talk is cheap. Maybe they'll put on a good show today. Maybe it'll even inspire some people to adjust their own course in life. Given the state things are in these days she's half expecting one of the speakers to get gunned down before the day is through. It just seems like the sort of thing that would happen here.
What comes as a surprise is that the first one to go is some cop flinging himself out of the eighth story of an apartment building. "There it is," she mutters solely to herself. "Because it isn't a proper protest until at least one person gets killed." She's strictly an observer today. With a crowd -this- big the only direction she's planning on going is far, far away from them all. Once it's time to move on, anyway.
*
One minute he was walking around minding his own business listening to Sanders- and the next?
Hank leapt into action at the first cries of panic, quite literally, looking up at the falling body his eyes flash a feral yellow and he launched himself in the direction of the victim. His skin starts to bristle when he landed, standing in his stooped simian posture as his shoulders started to expand. Patches of blue blossom on his skin and the crowd members close to him lean away in horror. The Beast is mid-change but he snarls viciously as he tried to close the gap, "Make room."
*
The blast's first sound above draws T'Challa's attention just as it should others. She, at least, has seen energy weapons fired recently, even if she isn't fully sure how they achieved the necessary cohesion of the energy field. But hooray for ESU physics. Still, it is not nearly soon enough for her to have moved to make a difference to the police officer now plummeting from that window. Instead she bounds over to snatch up someone who manages to fall before getting clear of the impact zone. It's just instinct; she doesn't even process the thought that none of this really involves her or her people. She doesn't know why this man died, but at least she can keep others from dying in the doing. The rest, she's just not sure about, but the young Queen of Wakanda stands stock still, staring up at the open window above, hoping to spot a clue as to who has done this.
What a waste.
*
The panic is palpable in the crowd. Jo turns to look skyward as the very first whine of energy sounds in the building above. The man in the cop uniform plummets — presumably from a window, with the requisite scattering shards of glass — and the crowd moves in reaction. For her part, she finds herself retreating back toward the building, her back instinctive pressing against the wall and her mind running through an automatic inventory of what she's carrying and what the environment offers as a means of defense. Because, yeah. Things are likely about to get ugly. She looks back up the side of the building, towards the spot from which the man fell, assessing her options.
*
"How can you not be impressed by him? This is history, Pete." Kitty's chin lifts to catch Piotr's gaze as she motions towards the stage. As her neck moves, the hood she's wearing falls, exposing a very curly ponytail. "We can't — " but the scream is enough. In a second, Kitty is incorporeal to literally run through the crowd to see if there's something to be done. Or, in if need be, someone to kick for doing it.
*
"Showtime." Akihiro mutters, cutting his way through the crowd towards a couple of familiar scents. "Excuse me," he shoulders through one group, "pardon me," another, "oops, sorry about that." At least he isn't being rude yet.
"Excuse me." he says, popping up behind Piotr and a speedy Kitty. "Mind giving me a toss over the crowd?" Because everyone loves a fastball special.
*
Akihiro. Piotr pauses before taking off after his girlfriend. "Behave yourself," he admonishes, before getting clear enough to let Akihiro take a run at him. And there he goes. Akihiro weighs almost nothing compared to other people Piotr works with — he makes a nice arc up over the crowd.
So much for peace. And improving the world. Piotr takes off after Kitty and Aki, using bus benches, barricades, cars, even city trash cans as leaping-off points to quickly traverse the crowd. Parkour isn't yet a sport but Piotr has a headstart on it. The vantage point allows him to see Hank on the move as well. The beast, whoever he is, may get there first, but then who is going to look out for him?
*
Throngs of heads look upwards toward the falling man, but in Steve's line of sight appears something that strikes him just as odd. A short humanoid figure with an incredibly bald head is standing straight across from him. The First Avenger was sure he wasn't there a moment ago.
With eyes as vacant as starlight and a small mouth, he looks like no human or mutant Steve has ever come across. He wears what looks like a toga with cape that would be far too cool for the weather this early evening.
It almost locks eyes with Steve, but seems to focus past him as he watches. He watches because that is what his people do at events like this.
…
A group of heroes all attempt to save the jumper, a policeman.
Rogue and Johnny Storm both take flight, but their original vantage point leaves them too far to get there in time. It is a terrible and helpless feeling, seeing someone fall and knowing if you were just a bit faster you'd have gotten there in time.
Much the same feeling that Hank and Piotr get as they attempt to reach and catch the faller with their impressive strength. Too many people going in every direction slow them up just enough to make their efforts in vain.
In the window a young woman of Asian descent is seen with a white surgical mask over her face, and several people begin to take pictures of her and her ominous visage. After staying there for far too long, she disappears from the window and heads back into the apartment.
Inside, the young woman peers emotionless at the old woman. A moment later, "she" reappears as a blue humanoid with some sort of mask over its face. It presses a button on its belt, then, a moment later, the old woman seems to be looking at herself.
The "new" old woman, takes the other's walker and leaves the apartment.
Back on the street, a group of people turn to inspect the fallen policeman, especially the four heroes who attempted to save him. Steve Rogers pushes through the pileup in order to get a better look and see if he can administer first aid.
But once he gets through the crowd, Steve is horrified as to what appears before him. The policeman is lying back to the pavement with a large burn hole in its chest. In death, however, it is clear that this does not seem to be a policeman at all. His skin is a deep and haunting green with a heavy brow and beady eyes. In its mouth are gigantic fangs and large pointy ears adorn either side of its head. Out of its mouth and through the burn wound, green blood oozes, which will burn the nostrils lightly of anyone who is within smelling distance.
"It's an alien!" someone screams out.
*
Having managed to get a few people to safety, T'Challa eyes everyone crowded around the fallen, and then leaps up onto something to see over them, catching sight of the alien. Then she looks up again at the window, and takes off, sprinting fast enough to take the gold as she heads for one of the building's entrances with intent. Why would she care? She didn't even manage to ask herself that. She's just gone.
*
Well, picking out the 'heroes' from the rest of the mass of people is easy enough. An attentive stare catches many of the details, made all the more easy because Domino hasn't moved an inch since things started to go sideways. The fallen officer, however, is impossible to make out with all of the people huddling around the area. There's someone else standing in the window of the apartment building, there then gone.
It just seems so simple, so straightforward. Someone planned the hit to stir up trouble and cause a panic, putting an end to the protests and rekindling the fear that's been gripping this city by the throat for far too long. She's just starting to turn away from it all when those three screamed words reach her ears.
"-Alien?-"
*
A gutteral snarl of frustration rings out above the din of human panic. Seconds before the policeman hit pavement it dawns on Hank that he isn't going to make it in time… Instead Beast decides on launching himself in another arc through the air so he can perch upon the awning of a nearby building.
Beast stares down at the Alien, curious but keeping above the immediate panic and away from those gathering around the 'alien' as he increasingly grew bigger and more blue with each passing second. The features of his face slowly contort but don't look any less thoughtful… concerned.
*
Okay. Seriously. Aliens? C'mon. There are enough crazy things on Earth all by itself without involving the rest of the cosmos. And Jo doesn't consider herself much of a hero — not when there are people flying and mutants running and… well, yeah. It's a real picture of chaos.
Still.
The source of the problem seems to actually be inside the building…
Taking a deep breath, then, her mouth pulling into a thin I'm-so-going-to-regret-this-later grimace, she darts into the nearest building entrance as well, heading for the stairs.
*
The word alien doesn't quite sink in as Kitty directs her attention upstairs.
Rather than stop with the crowd to gawk at the alien, Kitty has already phased her way into the apartment building in an effort to catch up with the figure that had been at the window. She pumps her arms at her sides as she finds the stairs. A sprint carries her two steps at a time UP UP UP.
Increasingly Kitty is thankful she didn't skip leg day.
And as she moves up the stairs, someone running downwards enters her gaze. Her eyebrows draw together as the stops midway on the staircase to peek at frail elderly man coming down the stairs. His balding head, accented with tufts of white hair, is punctuated with worry lines across his forehead.
Kitty's eyebrows lift as she spies him, "Are you alright?!" the urgency in her voice is evident. "Something — you need to get out of here," she reaches out a hand to him, "I can get you down faster…"
*
Aliens? Akihiro looks down at the corpse as he passes over it, eyebrows furrowing. "What in th-" his words stop suddenly as he smashes into the wall next to Beast. The teen crumples and falls down to the pavement, out of commission for the moment.
*
Kitty is on her way in and up. Alien? Piotr isn't about to stop. Let others — those with labs and expertise — take a look at the thing. He's after Kitty. Not that he doesn't think she can take care of herself but aliens? They might be able to affect Kitty even when she phases. Piotr is through the doors and hot on her heels.
*
T'Challa gets to the entrance and all is quiet inside, but outside the police and ambulance sirens are already ringing out. She sees a small lobby, four elevators, and a stairwell. Jo arrives just after the Black Panther, and takes to the stairwell. The Mechanic finds it quiet and the emergency service sounds are muffled behind the concrete. Abruptly, however, Jo can hear a conversation going on one floor above her, as a young woman (Kitty Pryde) seems to be having a conversation with someone. Piot arrives just after them in hopes of catching up with Piotr.
Crystal looks over the body as she arrives. Immediately she will recognize the being, not as one of the race of her fears, the Kree, but rather their arch enemy! The policeman is a Skrull!!!
As Rogue breathes in the odor of the blood she will feel her nose start to burn lightly, as if she's been pepper sprayed by the police. There will be no long term effects, but it casts some doubt as to whether this being is a mutant or an alien. The feeling amongst the crowd seems to be the latter, although they could be wrong.
Steve gives a shake of the head to Johnny Storm, as if to say he's never seen anything like it. The sheer amount of cameras going off is shocking to him. The clicking rings in his ears as the implications give him a proverbial kick to the gut. What in the world is happening?
Kitty reaches out to touch the elderly gentleman that she finds 'through' the stairwell. Immediately it shorts out the shapeshifting technology, revealing a blue skinned humanoid with a mask over his mouth. The Kree attempts to fire an energy blast at Kitty straight away, which can be heard down below by Jo and T'Challa.
*
Hank punches his way through a window and into the building where the others have already gone… it will probably take him a few minutes to catch up with Kitty and Piotr but he is interested in finding other members of his group.
*
Hearing the blast, T'Challa sprints for the stairwell and heads up in leaps and bounds with her augmented physiology and profound athletic skill; the concrete jungle is not so different from the one of trees and vines in Africa, and there's a danger above. So a dark-skinned, almost-bald African woman comes charging and leaping and vaulting up the stairs towards Kitty and the creature that fired upon her. Whether she can get there in time to help take him out, she will be trying. Enough death!
*
The action has all moved on inside of that building, well outside of what Domino is able to see. It's not a matter for immediate concern, she's seen and heard enough and there's already a whole mess of powered people swarming the joint like flies to a sugar cube. Either that cop was another mutant in hiding or there's flippin' aliens now on top of everything -else- this city's been dealing with of late.
This time she really is leaving, idly contemplating the idea of flinging a vampire or a demon at the first alien she sees just to see who comes out on top. What's next, time travel?
"That's it, I'm moving to the west coast."
*
Jo pushes back against a wall as an influx of true heroes bounds up and past her. She's a woman better suited to covert ops than open heroics. And with the superpowered crowds now rushing past… well… This sure got crowded fast.
She hears the mutant's conversation and then the energy weapon fire.
Yep. Outside looks like the better choice.
Sliding down the nearest bannister, the mechanic darts outside once more, into the teeming mass of protestors. 'Cause, you know, that's just so much better.
"That's it," she mutters — probably simultaneously with the hidden albino — "I'm going home." To the workshop, that is. Where she can start tinkering with anti-alien ray-gun shielding or something. Maybe she should contact Stark Industries and see if young Tony's bodyguard wants to come over and share some secrets.
Or not.
Regardless, time to go. This shit is way above her pay grade.
*
"Woah! Or — " but Kitty's thought is interrupted abruptly. The bolt of energy that emits from the Kree's weapon, fortunately goes through Kitty Pryde, and burns a hole into the wall behind her. Muscle memory has Kitty phasing through the blue humanoid to deliver a solid kick to the back of its knee accompanied by a very solid elbow to the back of its ribs to try to push it down the stairs. " — you can have an even faster way down the stairs — "
*
Hank closes the distance between floors rather quickly, using auditory clues and trying to determine where everyone else was gathered from the sound of the blasts. It is sure to take him some time but he'll soon connect with Kitty, looking around at everyone else coming out of the woodwork, "What was that thing?" He'll ask, his voice far deeper in this blue and furry form but still unmistaken for his own, having passed the falling creature on his way up the stairs. Hank bounds around the stairwell launching himself off walls and railings on his way up.
*
"Alright." Akihiro peels himself from the pavement, spitting a few teeth out. "Let's try this again." He heads into the building, shooting for where all the X kids have ran off to. Gotta be something interesting happening up there.
*
Piotr is ready to catch the blue alien as Kitty goes through it and kicks it back in his direction — shifting into his metal form without missing a beat. He grasps for its throat with one hand, its weapon with the other. Someone has to collar it before it blasts anyone else, and Piotr is basically a walking, talking, set of nearly-unbreakable handcuffs, when he has to be. «Don't do that again,» he mutters in Russian.
*
Amid some gasps and cries, Johnny Storm picks up the body and begins to fly away! A mass of people begin yelling and Steve Rogers eyebrows almost shoot straight through the top of his head. Oh Johnny. Oh, Johnny, that wasn't the smartest move.
Meanwhile, up in the apartment building, T'Challa races upwards close enough to witness the melee between Kitty and the Kree alien. As the Black Panther attempts to enter the fray, the blue alien he falls right into Piotr's grasp. With wide eyes, the Kree presses a button upon his belt and tears away in a flash of blue, black, and light, leaving a dark stain upon Piotr's clothes and the stairwell and wall. Despite T'Challa's best efforts, there's at least one more death today.
Just afterwards, Hank and Akihiro arrive on scene. Whatever is left upon the stairwell may be worth analyzing.
But was it in vain? Is the secret intact? Or is the Cat out of the Bag?
…
THE BAXTER BUILDING
LATER
Men in black raid the Baxter Building with warrants about 10 minutes after Johnny arrives with the body of the Skrull. One of the men who seems to be in charge, demands to round up the Fantastic Four and to speak with them, especially Johnny Storm.
…
WASHINGTON DC
LATER
It's quiet in the Oval Office. The President has asked to be alone for 15 minutes with his wife and his brother as the gathered members of the Cabinet await his decision on how to proceed.
"What are you going to do? It was always my worry that this alliance with the Kree was going to come back to haunt us. I know it was the only way, but I don't see a way out of this, Jack.," Bobby says quietly as he holds his hand to his head. "Have you talked to them yet?"
John F. Kennedy, sitting at his desk, props his head with his hand, deep in thought. "No," he responds quietly.
"You could try telling them the truth," Jackie says from the window. The President's eyebrow raises and he looks to his brother.
"Tell the cabinet I'm going to address the nation through television and radio."
THE KREE-SKRULL WAR
PART ONE: A PROPER PROTEST
TO BE CONTINUED…