"Harris Moore?" The slim, dark woman stood in the alley, the man on the ground beneath her. He stank of wine and dissolution. "My name is Gwen," she said. "Your world has need of you again."
He looked up, and scratched at the beard stubble on his chin. "Go away."
She frowned. "I'd heard better of you. Is there nothing left of what you were?"
"It's not me you're looking for, is it ... it's the Comet. Well, you're out of luck. He doesn't exist anymore. I haven't had my powers for years."
She knelt down beside him. "Doctor Archer, Doctor Zadar, the Master ... it wasn't just your powers which took them down ... it was the man inside. It's the man we need."
"I'm not that man anymore. I've lost everything."
"If you've lost everything, what have you left to lose?" She rose to her feet gracefully, and extended a hand.
He stared at the proffered hand for close to a minute, before gripping it in his own. With surprising strength she lifted him to his feet, where he stood unsteadily for a moment. "So where are we going? You got a ride to go meet this mysterious 'we' you're talking about?"
"Actually," she said, "they're going to come to us." The air filled with a low and familiar hum, and Harris witnessed a sight which left any human fearful: the arrival of a Skrull Imperial Courser, representative of those who had ruled the planet since the late 1950's.
Harris struggled. "I can't believe after all of that you're going to hand me over to the Skrulls!"
Gwen sighed, "Calm yourself, please. We're allies here. This is bigger than our personal rebellions." With a powerful grip she led him into the Courser. Inside amongst the alien technology he saw a grouping of colorfully garbed individuals, their names and faces unfamiliar but the styles of their uniforms unmistakable. In the forefront was a Skrull, garbed in a tricolored armor which was unlike any Harris had seen before.
A man dressed in khaki muttered to the others aside him, "I told you I ought to have made the initial contact."
The Skrull stood forward. "Harris Moore, I am Kl'rt, my title is Skrull Lord: Colony UK7. Allow me to explain to you why we've brought you here." He tapped out a series of commands on a control keyboard, and a series of moving images appeared. Harris recognised some of them from his younger years.
"This assemblage of human talents," Kl'rt continued, "had become known as the Monster Hunters. This one," he pointed to the man in red, "was not human at all ... or rather, not human as you think of it. His name was Makkari, and he was a member of an extinct sub-race of humanity called the Eternals. He became aware that resting at the Earth's core was an immense and powerful alien, a Celestial, named Exitar. Exitar's task was the destruction of the Earth. The Monster Hunters traveled to the Earth's core to destroy him; they did not return."
The images continued to shift and change. "Makkari had left word of their assignment with a human who had apparently been raised by another set of Eternals who had settled on the planet Uranus; he and his allies comprised the resistance group known as the O-Men." Harris frowned; he'd worked with the team on occasion, and had even been invited to join with them, though had preferred to continue as a solo operative. "They were next in the attempt to defeat Exitar. They too failed."
The next set of images began to arrive. "In our investigations into the O-Men's activities, one of our own number became aware of the situation. He was known to humans as Captain Skrullos, and ... "
"Captain Skrullos?" Harris interrupted. "I remember him from the 60's. He was part of the youth rebellion of the time, he even stood alongside humans against the occupiers ... "
"Reportedly as a youth he had fled a security detail who were securing what you humans called a 'peace march,' when he had run his hovercycle into the ground near the area you call Darkmoor, to be met by the visages of ancient magicians from Skrull folklore. They gave him the name 'Captain Skrullos,' in reference to our original homeworld, his mission to free Earth and to return the Skrull Empire to the peaceful civilisation it had once been." Kl'rt gave a very human shrug. "Those days are long past. He gathered together yet another group of human talents."
"We're the planet's last hope," Gwen interrupted quietly. "We have to figure out what the other teams did wrong."
"Why now? And why me? I told you that I lost my powers."
"We're running out of time," Kl'rt said. "Our calculations estimate that Exitar's final judgment is to take place in the year 2012 by your calendar. As for the rest ... " his arms seemed to stretch and elongate, reaching for a piece of equipment which he detached from an interior wall. Retrieving it and bearing it rifle-like against his shoulder, he aimed the muzzled end at Harris.
Harris' eyes widened with alarm. "No ... NO!" he shouted, breaking free of Gwen and running towards the door.
"Harris, wait!" Gwen shouted, and turned to Kl'rt. "He just doesn't understand ... "
Her words were silenced as Kl'rt bombarded Harris Moore with an intense beam of directed x-rays. The room became filled with a blinding light as Harris rocketed into the sky like a blazing comet. The man in khaki shielded his eyes to watch the spectacle. "Extraordinary," he whispered, "I'd forgotten ... "
Two of the assembled humans - a young blonde girl in green and a man in a trenchcoat who faded to translucency - rose into the air to follow him. Neither could match his speed, at least not in a linear fashion, so they waited for him to return to them.
Harris arced around, and hovered, glowing, confronting the other two. "All right," he said quietly. "I believe you. What are we going to do next?"
The translucent man smiled. "Introductions are in order. My name was Kent Blake, though these folks have taken to just calling me The Ghost. This young lass," who at this point gave a mid-air curtsey, "calls herself Namorita."
"Namorita?" Harris raised an eyebrow. "As in ... Namora?"
The girl nodded. "She was my mother."
"I know she disappeared some time ago. I'm sorry."
She sighed, and extended her hands to take his. "I know you've suffered your own losses, Mr. Moore. Although I think we can help with some of them. Won't you come down and join us?"
"Help?" He looked puzzled, but finally conceded. "Okay." His aura blazed for a briefly moment, then he plummeted back to earth, followed by the other two.
He hovered over the entry to the Courser, hesitating, but when the other two rejoined him, he allowed himself to be led back inside. "Let me introduce you to the others," Kl'rt said as if no break in the conversation had occurred. "Gwen, whom you've met, has identified herself to me as Leopard Girl." As he spoke, Gwen pulled a stylised cowl over her features. Indicating in turn a white man in blue-and-yellow garb of a vaguely Western style, and a black man in red and green tights, "These are Nomad and Triathlon, and this gentleman," he turned to the man in khaki who hung back from the crowd, "calls himself Crimebuster."
"That's not the only name you'd know me by," Crimebuster said. He paused, waiting for Harris' querulous look. "I took on the name Crimebuster to follow your example. I'd thought you'd been assassinated. I wouldn't expect you to recognise me. My name's Frank Moore."
Harris blinked. "Frank ... Frankie? I'd ... I thought you were killed in the house explosion with Thelma and your brother ... my God ... all this time ... I'd never have abandoned you if I'd known ... "
"I know. I realised that, eventually, once Kl'rt explained to me you were still alive."
Namorita's attention was distracted from the reunion by the distant expression on Nomad's face. "Hey," she whispered quietly. "What's the matter? I think it's touching."
"I'm just remembering my own mentor." He confessed dourly. "The Skrulls brainwashed him into being this continent's Grand Director, you know that. That's why I became Nomad. I don't think I'm going to get a reunion like Frank had."
"Don't you worry, Jack," she said quietly, wary of the Skrull Lord's enhanced hearing, "When we survive this mission, we're going to take care of that little problem. We're going to take care of a lot of little problems."
Kl'rt eyed the scanners, tracking their proximity to the cavern in which Exitar resided. Harris looked out the window of the Skrull 'Earthworm,' a fantastic vehicle with sonic drills at each end, created for moving through the underworld like water. The hum and rumble as it traversed the underworld was barely detectable, and the window revealed the slight red glow of the rocks as they passed by the side, fading almost immediately to black.
"We're in," Kent Blake said. "Now it's my turn. I will scout out the cavern, and hope that the alien can't detect pure ectoplasm." He passed through the side of the vehicle and disappeared.
The others waited uneasily. They knew that aside from Namorita and despite the Comet's awesome presence, they were vastly underpowered by the standards of the other teams who had failed in this mission. They knew that if they failed, there was nobody to follow after them; the Skrull Empire would simply evacuate the planet rather than risk going down in force to confront the Celestial.
After an hour, he returned. "Kent," Leopard Girl said softly, "judging from your expression, had you been alive, you would be pale as a ghost. What did you see?"
"The ... the level of technology is beyond ... anything I can even describe. I can't even imagine what most of it is for. I don't know what's a weapons system or a wardrobe or a ... a larder. But I found something else. I found the others."
Namorita gasped. "The others? The other teams? Is my mother there? Is she still alive?"
"I don't know. They're all ... encased in these translucent spheres. I don't know what they're being held for. Are they jail cells? Museum exhibits? Souvenirs? Maybe it's feeding off of them. Sorry Nita."
"No, no, it's okay." She waved her hand dismissively. "We have to go get them." She looked over at the Skrull Lord, expectantly.
Kl'rt stood still and thoughtful for long moments. "Kent Blake, can you retrieve them undetected?"
"I don't know. It depends on what the spheres are made of, I suppose. There's not much I can do to effect physical objects ... "
"I'll go with you," the Harris said. "I know it's a risk, that my energy signature may be like waving a red flag at the alien, but if you didn't want the Comet in action you wouldn't have reactivated him."
Kl'rt nodded. "Make it so." He opened the hatchway and the pair of them flew out.
Delroy Garrett watched Namorita pacing restlessly back and forth, and felt his own guts clench in anxiety. When the Triune has given him the glasses which transformed him into Triathlon, he had been told they'd belonged to the original 3-D Man. If that was so, did that mean the original had never accompanied the O-Men into the depths, as they'd all been led to believe? Or did it mean he'd been lied to?
Jack Monroe felt himself unable to repress his feelings of jealousy. He and his mentor had battled alongside the O-Men in times past, almost been members of their team, but they'd had a parting of the ways in later years. Had that not been so, he might have accompanied them down here, and his mentor would still be with him, possibly still sound in mind.
"I see them ... I can't believe it ... " Gwen said, looking out the portal. She opened the hatchway and Harris crashed to the floor, spheres tumbling in behind him in the wake of his comet's tail.
Namorita ran among them, searching, finding the face she recognised. "Oh goddess, Mother, she's still here, she looks so young ... Kl'rt are they still alive? Can we help them?"
The Skrull Lord detached a portable scanner from the ship's control board and approached the spheres, moving from one to another. "They're in ... some sort of temporal distortion. I have no technology that could disrupt such a thing."
"The Ryl-bat," Gwen said.
"Of course!" Kent Blake snapped his fingers noiselessly.
"Ryle Bat? What is this gibberish?" Kl'rt asked.
"The Ryle-bat was Roy Risk's ship," Gwen continued. "They used to call him 'the pilot of the future' because of the advanced technology he used in his airships. He told me he had experimented with time travel several times. Roy Risk is here along with his co-pilot Rigby; his team must have traveled aboard the Ryle-bat, or one of his other vehicles, somehow."
"A human develop technology the Skrull Empire's finest scientists could not? Impossible."
Nomad grinned wildly. "We humans are just full of surprises, aren't we?"
The team disembarked the 'Earthworm,' exploring the circumference of the cavern. Namorita located it, a craft looking like an ebony creature of the night, nestled at the base of what appeared to be a vast tunnel. She explored it, briefly, nothing that parts of it appeared to have been carved out by hand, before discerning that it had long been caved in and sealed. Quickly then, she gathered the others.
Kl'rt was nonplussed as he boarded. "This is not entirely human technology."
Gwen smirked. "Roy got around a lot. So do you see anything that looks like it may be useful?"
"I ... don't know." Kl'rt looked nonplussed, an expression none of the others had ever seen on the face of one of the ruling Skrulls. For all the humans' myriad and unusual experiences, none of them were among the science-based vigilantes which had arisen.
"Who built this ship? Half of it is primitive, half of it is nearly equal to Skrull technology," Kl'rt hissed. He pulled out a panel marked with an hourglass, "This is the human symbol for time, is it not?" Carefully, he detached the designated equipment, and morphed into what appeared to be an alien pack animal. He led the others back to the Skrull ship, where he returned to his normal form.
"If it's a time machine, can't we just travel back in time ourselves, in this ship?," Delroy Garrett asked, "Maybe stop the others from coming down here, picking them up when they're still ... well ... "
Frank Moore shook his head. "None of us have any experience with time travel. That might just cause some kind of paradox, and who knows what would happen then?"
Kl'rt worked for hours, and finally spoke. "I think I may have something. We need a guinea pig. Someone disposable." He looked at the spheres, and attached a pair of wires to the one containing Rigby.
"Are you sure that's wise, Kl'rt?" Nomad asked. "He may be the one who operated the machine, for all we know."
Kl'rt glanced over at him. "Nothing in his profile indicates that would be the case. And who would you have me choose?" Faced with Jack Munroe's silence, he sent a burst of energy pulsing through the machine.
The sphere shimmered gold, and then popped, sounding for all the world like an immense soap bubble. Rigby blinked, looking around. "Roy? Who are ... " He never finished as he seemed to age centuries in seconds, collapsing into foul-smelling dust.
Namorita screamed. The others cursed, or expressed their alarm similarly.
Kl'rt looked down impassively. "I need more insight," he said. He scooped up the wires and attached them to another of the spheres.
Harris grabbed him by the shoulder. "Are you insane? You're just going to kill them all, one by one?"
Kl'rt batted his hand away. "This one, Makkari, is an Eternal. They can be slain ... I know, as we Skrulls disposed of our own millennia ago ... but they do not age with time. He is the most likely to survive ... he is also likely to be familiar with the tech here." Another burst of energy, and the sphere vanished.
Makkari stood before them, his eyes widening. "A Skrull, here?" His further words were cut off as his body began to coruscate with energy. He fell to his knees before the humans' widening eyes, choking and gasping for breath. Finally, he calmed. "What by Zuras' beard was that?"
The Comet knelt down beside him. "Hurricane, yes? Do you remember me? The Comet? You're among friends ... even the Skrull, more or less. We're here to help you stop Exitar, but we need your help, first."
Kl'rt explained the rest, and Makkari went from sphere to sphere, examining them. "Ah, my old friends. And the O-Men too, they followed us I see. And all these others... I know this one, Gaath, part of his ancestry is from the Eternals of Titan ... let me see the mechanism you told me about, and I will see what I can do."
Some of the new arrivals bristled with anticipation, seeing old friends or family revived, others watches the proceedings with awe as living legends walked once more through their midst. They experimented with Bloodstone first, hoping that the gem which granted his immortality would counterbalance any potential hyper-aging effect. It was only when he awoke with no ill effects that they continued on with the rest.
Jack Munroe looked on, besieged by guilt for feeling jealous as Namora was awakened. "Mother?" Namorita asked, not bothering to conceal the tremble in her voice. Namora looked up at her. "Sorry, you must have me confused with ... oh by Poseidon's beard, Nita, is that you?" She touched the younger girl's face gingerly. "You look so old ... what happened? How long have I been asleep?"
Namorita kissed her mother's hand and began to cry. "I thought you were dead." She broke down, wrapping her arms around her mother's shoulders as Namora stroked her hair, "Oh my baby girl ... "
Among the awakened heroes, Miracleman was almost equally astonished to see Doctor Druid amongst them. "Guntag Borghelm?" he enquired, using the astral-physician's real name. "I'd come down to avenge your death, and I see you standing before me. I am grateful, but I obviously failed."
Doctor Druid placed his hand on the other's shoulder. "My son, I had gifted you with the key harmonic of the universe so that you could carry on after me. But a Celestial is far more than either of could have anticipated. Feel no shame. We are both here, now, and we shall make things right."
Captain Skrullos was the last to be revived. He immediately assessed the state of his team, noting Rigby's absence. He looked shocked by Skrull Lord: Colony UK7's presence. "It didn't take Remlin long to replace me," he mused. He noted with dismay the military bearing Kl'rt carried, as well as the more severe design of his uniform in comparison to Captain Skrullos' own, looser garment. "You're still lording it over the humans, man?"
"We are still asserting our rightful place as upholders of the standard of the Empire on a conquered planet, if that's what you mean," Kl'rt replied.
"What a bummer," Captain Skrullos replied. "Just means I got work to do, now that I'm back. Obviously this planet needs to get its groove back on."
Jimmy Woo blinked, baffled by Captain Skrullos' terminology. "I've been assessing our resources, and the information that Makkari and Marvel Boy provided. I have a plan, though it'll require use of the Ryl-Bat and ... someone with sheer destructive capability who will almost certainly sacrifice himself."
"That describes most of us," Zawadi noted. "I see none afraid of death in this gallery of heroes."
The Human Robot stepped forward. "We've been discussing it," Marvel Boy said. "I think the Robot is the best suited for what we have in mind, and he's given his assent."
Android Andy approached the other, slapping him on the chest with a metallic clang. "No fear, brother," he said, his artificial voice plainly full of pride.
"Thanks for putting your little plan of yours all up for a vote, Jimmy," Gorilla Man grunted. "And what are the rest of us supposed to do, sit in the cave and twiddle our prehensile thumbs?"
Jimmy Woo shook his head. "No, I have plans for all of us. "Someone is going to have to be a distraction."
"Cannon fodder is what you mean," Crimebuster said. "We've come this far, it's too important to turn back because we all don't get to be star players."
Roy Risk and Human Robot departed for the Ryl-Bat, and the rest awaited their signal. Finally, the pilot's voice came over the ship's communicator. "The old girl is ready to go," he said. "I'll give you three minutes."
The Comet, Doctor Druid, Marvel Boy, Miracleman, the two Atlanteans and the two Skrulls all became airborne, attacking Exitar with blasts of incredible force and diamond-hard fists. The Celestial barely seemed to notice them at first, until finally a horde of robots ascended from a panel along the outside of the cavern, to interfere with the intruders.
Jimmy Woo readied his gun. "We've got its attention now. Ground team, go!"
Makkari, 3-D Man and Triathlon led the charge, with Android Andy and Gaath close behind. As the second set of robot defenders came to meet them, Venus sobbed in frustration as her powers failed to have any effect. Her people had negotiated with the Celestials millennia ago, even agreeing to reduce their interference in the affairs of men, and she'd hoped never to see their like again.
3-D Man was distracted, unable to keep his eyes off the young man who had seemed to be modeled after him. It led to his undoing, as he was caught unsuspecting by one of the robots who discharged a powerful blast of energy through him. Delroy Garrett raced over, horrified, as his predecessor fell. The pair had barely had time to talk and he feared he would never now uncover the truth behind his own origin. Compulsively, he removed the intact glasses from the ruined corpse. A voice sounded in his mind, instructing him to put them on. He saw his uniform alter to resemble the others, before being guided once more into battle.
Jimmy Woo grunted at the sight of first blood, firing his gun at robot after robot. "Venus, Zawadi, Ghost, circle the perimeter, see whether there's any way to block more robots coming out." He gauged the time. "Makkari, time to take it airborne." He never finished his instructions as he too was struck down.
Makkari ran into the sky, joining the others. The Ryl-bat cruised out of the tunnel in which it had lay, and with Roy Risk at the helm, traversed the space between it and Exitar with such uncanny speed it almost seemed to be in both places simultaneously. The Human Robot rocketed out at the peak of the arc, embedding itself in the Celestial's brain.
Exitar became active at this point, and raised his arm, filling the cavern with blinding energy. Namorita saw its gunsights pointed towards the team of which Nomad was a part. "Oh no you don't," she said briskly, slamming her body into its wrist. The energy was diverted into Exitar's exoskeleton, charging through Namorita instead.
"Nita!" Namora screamed. Jack Munroe looked up. "Nita?"
Doctor Druid attempted to rescue the girl, spells casted desperately, but there was barely ash left from the cosmic radiation the alien had used. "I'm sorry, Namora," he said softly.
She screamed, plunging herself into Exitar's heart, to no avail. Miracleman joined her and the pair hammered away. Finally, the Celestial's skin turned black.
"What?" Miracleman looked over at Doctor Druid. "Did we do that?"
Gorilla Man looked up from the motionless robot he'd been battling, and grinned. "That's my boy!"
As the flyers descended to rejoin the others, Kl'rt looked at Marvel Boy suspiciously. "What did you modify your teammate to do in there?"
"I wasn't sure it would work," Makkari said. They watched as the Celestial's surface lightened, becoming metallic grey, and then as its faceplate refashioned itself into a simulacrum of the Human Robot's own.
"Groovy," Captain Skrullos said.
The immense Celestial Robot slowly looked down, perhaps acknowledging the others, and finally rose through the surface of the cavern, passing intangibly through the Earth. "I think the other Celestials are going to find a surprise from Earth among them," Makkari mused.
"What does it matter," Namora said wearily. "My daughter's dead ... I never even got to know her ... I missed so much ... "
"My own family will have missed me," Venus put her arm around the other woman and spoke softly to her. "Come join me for a time. I know Poseidon will welcome you."
The Ryl-bat landed, and Roy Risk descended from the hatch, looking around the reduced company solemnly. "I've never seen anything like it," he said. "Did we win? Did we save the world?"
Skrull Lord: Colony UK7 nodded. "It appears so. You humans did well."
Nomad looked at the Skrull venomously. We chased off Exitar, and now with all of us together we can chase off your Empire, he thought. The Celestials aren't the only invading aliens who are about to be surprised by the human race.