Part of the Fifty States Initiative!

StormFront

Issue #1 written by D. Golightly

"Storm of the Century – Part One"

THURSDAY, 3:16pm

Large chunks of ice slammed into the snow covered ground like economy-sized balls of hail. Jagged frozen boulders that once floated harmlessly in the waters around the Alaskan coast now threatened to not only destroy the small town of Eek, Alaska, but also decapitate the gathered heroes who were charged with the state's defense.

"Blonsky, don't let him get by you!" the masked leader of the group, Blue Shield, yelled over the raging onslaught. Blue Shield's encapsulating force field kept him safe, but his role as leader forced him to be concerned with the mission first and his personal safety second. "Stay on your mark!"

"Relax, blue boy," Blonsky, a grotesque mountain of a scaled beast, replied. His Russian accent was thick, cutting through the noise of the conflict easily. "I am well rehearsed in matters like this. Reserve your orders for those who want them."

Another boulder of ice rocketed through the air, heading straight for Emil Blonsky. If he were any of his comrades, he might have cause to worry as the rushing miniature iceberg was twice his own massive size. Standing nearly eight feet tall, Blonsky neither hesitated nor stalled when he raised his lumbering green arms and simply caught the ice chunk. The pulsating muscles of the gamma-powered Abomination were more than a match for the threat, as Blonsky was ready to show their quarry.

Shifting his stance, the Abomination hefted the frozen boulder and hurled it across the landscape where it landed directly in front of the group's adversary. The bearded man jumped back in surprise, letting loose a string of profanities that deemed him as the sailor he was.

"Quit fooling around," a harsh, feminine voice said from behind the Abomination. "We need to put this to bed before innocent people get hurt."

Blonsky angled his thick neck around to look at the woman and tell her something ungentlemanly, but one glance at her features put even the Abomination into quiet submission. Colleen Wing casually twirled her samurai sword around between her fingers a few times to loosen any tension still in her arm, tension that could mean the difference between swift justice or an even faster death.

Colleen ran passed the brutish Abomination and raised her glistening sword high over her head. One of the giant ice boulders was in between her and her target, but instead of taking the time to jut around the obstacle, Colleen pounced up into the air and placed her hand on top of it, using it like an Olympic pummel horse. Landing on the other side, she hit the ground running, swinging her sword back and forth in front of her as if to clear a path through the snowfall.

"Don't worry about her, Emil," another female voice said from above the Abomination, this time cheerfully optimistic. "I think you did a great job! You should throw another one."

An innocent looking girl gently floated down beside the towering monster, a widespread smile covering the lower portion of her face. Her skin was pale and her hair soft, and the growing wind caused her tiny cape to flap wildly behind her. The Abomination had only met the young lady a little while ago, and he hadn't yet come to terms with her general appearance. Aside from being a mildly attractive teenager, Ghost Girl was rarely fully attuned with their dimension, resulting in an eerie presence from which she took her name.

The young woman who appeared to be a spirit of the netherworld rubbed her hands together eagerly. "Isn't this exciting?" she exclaimed. "Alpha Flight never let me get this close to the action!"

Another large chunk of ice suddenly fell straight through Ghost Girl's apparition, slamming into Abomination's face. The strange visual of the young lady had distracted him enough for him to let his guard down, and even though he was unhurt from the icy boulder, his pride was still wounded.

"Oh, no!" Ghost Girl yelled as she outstretched an arm toward her fallen teammate. "I am so sorry, Emil! I forget that I can get in the way sometimes."

Ghost Girl swirled in midair, facing their fleeing foe from across the battlefield. Her soft and friendly demeanor quickly changed to one of annoyance and anger, similar to how a child might look if the school bully had just knocked down her best friend. "That stupid man! This is all his fault."

The stupid man in question poked his head out from behind the boulder the Abomination had thrown to block him, ignorant of Ghost Girl's irritation. He was far more concerned with the bouts of flame that were proceeding to melt through the boulder he was hiding behind. A third female hovered a dozen yards away from him, her hair a bright shade of red to match her tight, orange bodysuit.

"I don't know who you are," the woman said, "but this is my state, and I'll be damned if I don't keep you from doing whatever it is you're trying to do!"

Their enemy raised his arm over the scaled down boulder, his purple armor glistening from the strafing shots of burning fire. A wisp of smoke curled up into his nose, horrifying him when he realized that his impressive beard had been singed. His one good eye zeroed in on the fiery woman assaulting him as he channeled energy into the palm of his hand. A long spear suddenly burst forth, forming in his grasp with its crackling energy.

"Aye, you would think me a fool!" he screamed. "Know that no mere woman can stop the mighty Ahab when he has a task to complete!"

"You've got to be kidding me," she replied. "Ahab? You've got to be joking. I mean, who the hell—HEY!"

Ahab ignored her words as he threw his energy harpoon at her with all of his enhanced strength. The sizzling projectile rocketed into her arm, stabbing into her flesh and firing all of her pain receptors. She dipped down in the air slightly, but maintained her altitude. Her arm hung limply at her side, now paralyzed with pain and useless. The pain was almost unbearable, yet she managed to stay conscious. The boiling blood pumping through her veins made sure of that.

"Big mistake, jackass," she said between gritted teeth. "And for the record, I'm no mere woman. The name's Bonfire, and I'm going to kick your ass up and down the Alaskan coast, you washed up freak!"

TUESDAY, 8:27am

"Deputy Director Hill, I just don't think it's a wise decision," Blue Shield said, trying his best to match the woman's stare on the display screen. "He'll be a loose cannon if I ever saw one."

"Unfortunately, Joseph," Maria Hill, the current Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., replied sternly, "your opinion in the matter is moot. Executive Director Stark appointed the Abomination to your post specifically. He'll be coming in this afternoon, so get used to it. Emil Blonsky may have gone toe to toe with the Hulk and survived to tell the tale, but he's also actively taking part in our Supervillain Correctional Program."

The monitor room within the relatively small building was decorated just as the rest of the interior: white walls, bland furniture, stainless steel tables…all the trimmings of a dentist's waiting room. Blue Shield sat at the communications console, accessing the secure channel that linked the base directly with S.H.I.E.L.D. The equipment was top-notch, seconded only by what the Avengers were used to. Stark had gone all out, at least in terms of technology.

Their headquarters was only three stories tall, however, lacking in presence what it made up for in character. An old textile factory in the heart of Alaska, the building had been purchased by the government and retrofitted with all the essentials that a budding superhero team would need. It wasn't exactly cozy, but it would more than suffice.

"I've never met Blonsky, but I've seen news reports that covered his destruction. Do you know he killed seventy-three people during a rampage a few years ago?"

"I'm aware and so is the Executive Director." Hill's eyes blinked a few times as her lips curled to one side. It was a rare moment for her to actually show concern for a situation. "Just do what you can, Joe. We appointed you to the position because we have faith in you. Your work with Pegasus—"

"Yeah, right," Blue Shield said, cutting her off. "I'll send my daily report after he gets here. FSI: 49 out."

He leaned forward and flipped the switch to disconnect the transmission, removing Hill's face from the screen. With a heavy sigh, Joseph Cartelli tried to imagine what it would be like working with a supposedly reformed supervillain, especially one that could probably break through his protective force field. It was already bad enough that he was working with a couple of naïve rookies and that the only other respectable hero, the samurai Colleen Wing, resented being there.

Hill's mention of Project: Pegasus, once a secret research operation put in place by the government, had brought back some bad memories. Blue Shield had been the security director for the project before the superhuman Civil War, before things went downhill for anyone wearing a mask. Deputy Director Hill herself had approached Joe, asking him to take part in Stark's Initiative program. At first he thought it was a blessing, being asked to personally lead a team thanks to his experience in an authoritative position. Hindsight, however, always seems to be twenty-twenty.

Standing up, Blue Shield checked the time and began to head for the training facility. The Abomination was the last member appointed to the 49th sector of the Fifty States Initiative, and he hoped that he would catch the other members before they started their daily training session. He knew Colleen would be skeptical, but he didn't know Bonfire and Ghost Girl well enough to estimate their reactions.

In his experience, teamwork was crucial in the field. With the almost reckless swiftness that Stark had pursued when launching the Initiative, Blue Shield hoped that his roster hadn't been cobbled together from the other FSI teams' leftovers.

WEDNESDAY, 1:05pm

"What did you say our name was?" Bonfire asked.

"Since Alaska was the 49th territory admitted into the United States," Blue Shield answered, making sure to speak loud enough for the entire team to hear him, "our designated number is FSI: 49."

"Yeah, but we're not going by that, right?" the dark woman asked eagerly. With her flames currently dosed, Bonfire leaned back against the wall inside the training facility without worry of singing the tiles. Her shoulder length hair rested casually, swinging back and forth gently as she spoke. "I mean, what kind of name is that for a superhero team?"

Ghost Girl suddenly spun in the air to address Blue Shield directly. She looked ecstatic, as usual, even though her face was slightly distorted from being partially out of sync with their reality. "How about we call ourselves—"

Colleen Wing slipped her sword back into its sheath as a way of silencing the young ethereal girl. "If you say The Happy Fun Squad, I swear to God…"

"No," Ghost Girl shot back defensively, "I'm not that immature."

The five heroes were gathered inside their headquarters, having been called for a special practice session by their leader. Blue Shield thought it would be wise for them to go over a few details before officially training together as a team for the first time. Some of them had no real field experience, outside of what they had undergone through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s academy. So far, none of their personalities had really clashed and Joe had his hopes raised. Unfortunately, things never stayed perfect in life.

The Abomination had arrived the previous afternoon, insulting all four of his teammates upon entering the compound. Apparently the type of resentment a superhero might house when forced to work with a known criminal went double when reversed. Blonsky was not happy.

"Do we even have assignments?" the Abomination asked. "Or should we sit on our asses all day?"

"We need to be called something cool," Bonfire said, ignoring the Abomination's comments. "Something that will let the bad guys know that we'll mess them up if they come around."

"Tennessee's been dubbed the Leathernecks," Colleen said. "It's all over the internet."

"See!" Bonfire said, pointing at Colleen but never taking her eyes off of Blue Shield. "That's what I'm talking about. A name like that makes you think of getting your junk bitten off if you so much as jaywalk."

Blue Shield raised his hands slightly in a motion to retain control of the floor. "Deputy Director Hill faxed over all of our government licenses this morning," he said. "With Blonsky's arrival we are officially activated within the Fifty States Initiative. Aside from our designated number, we're being referred to in Washington as StormFront."

"Is that like some kind of pun?" Bonfire asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I like it!" Ghost Girl chimed in.

The Abomination huffed briskly, crossing his massive arms over his boundless chest. "Of course you like it, little one. You like everything."

"All the i's have been dotted and all the t's have been crossed," Blue Shield said. "Welcome to democracy, Stark style. Now, we're supposed to cover all these protocols, but I think coordinating field tactics would be more beneficial, especially since Blonsky looks like he wants to rip something in half. Get ready to go through the ringer, kids. The session commences in five minutes."

Blue Shield turned to head into the training room's control booth to prep the scenario he wanted to run the team through. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder before exiting, and saw Ghost Girl returning Colleen's apathetic stare with a gleeful smile.

From his experience in working with opposing personalities, he found that people tended to work best when there was a small amount of friction within the group. A little rough edges made you handle the package more carefully. He thought that they would go through the motions and maybe even define themselves into a workable team. Whether or not the fledgling StormFront would actually see any real action was unlikely, but at the very least Blue Shield was determined to give it his best shot.

THURSDAY, 3:20pm

"Take down the Mole Man and forget the Moloids!" Blue Shield ordered over the roar of the fight. "If we take him out then all his little monsters will be directionless! Colleen—"

"Already on it," she hollered back. "Keep them off of me and I'll knock the little creep on his ass."

Blue Shield nodded and rushed in front of Colleen Wing. Barely twenty-four hours after their first group training session and they were already fighting for their lives, as well as the lives of a town full of people. Not only were they under attack from one supervillain, but a second had joined the fray for some reason, and they were no where near ready to handle something of this magnitude.

Ahab, a treacherous mutant hunter from the future, had appeared suddenly near the outskirts of the small town of Eek, instantly alerting StormFront's sensors. His unique energy readings were off their scales, and his intentions were unknown. The team had arrived to find him casually walking through the town, tossing his energy harpoons into several people, killing them brutally. It looked as though he were searching for something, but he had yet to reveal his intentions.

Shortly after their arrival, StormFront was faced with a second threat in the form of the Mole Man and his Moloid minions. A veritable army of mindless, loyal, subterranean creatures, the Moloids had blasted up from under the snow-covered ground from their freshly dug tunnels. The Mole Mole hid behind his army, ordering them to kill whoever dared to cross their path. He also had yet to claim a reason for appearing.

Blue Shield activated his powers, no longer dependent on the stasis field belt he once wore, and charged up a cobalt blue force field to surround himself. The Moloids had been holding StormFront at bay by ripping free large chunks of ice and hurling them haphazardly through the air. Hundreds of icy boulders were falling from the sky, impacting into the ground with enough force to crack a man's skull open. As random as it all seemed, the Mole Man appeared to be ordering his creatures to distract the heroes while Ahab continued his search.

"Ready?" Blue Shield asked Colleen over his shoulder.

"Just freakin' go already!" the female samurai screamed back.

The former security chief and newly appointed team leader smirked at her response, disregarding the misconduct. Redoubling the strength of his force field and extended it forward, he ran straight into the center of the Moloid army. The brownish, scaled creatures swarmed around him, but his force field acted like a battering ram as he plowed through their numbers. Colleen Wing slashed left and right with her sword as she ran behind Blue Shield, taking full advantage of the path he was clearing.

There were hundreds of the slobbering creatures, if not thousands. Their fists pounded against Blue Shield's force field and he shoved his way through, but thankfully his energy aura held strong. They were witnessing a full scale subterranean invasion as the creatures relentlessly assaulted them at the Mole Man's command.

Across the battlefield, Ahab traded ranged attacks with the enraptured Bonfire. Energy harpoons lanced over the sky only to be shot down by bouts of flame. Even with a defunct arm, the Alaskan native heroine was still able to defend herself. Pressing any type of offense, however, was something beyond her current abilities. It was all she could do to keep the purple-armored villain at bay, let alone stop him entirely.

"Fall, damn you!" Ahab roared as he launched another energy harpoon. He ground his teeth in frustration, seemingly distracted by something. Bonfire realized that he was preoccupied with whatever he had been searching for, which meant she might be able to gain the advantage.

"What's the matter, Captain Long Beard?" she taunted while countering his spear with a concentrated blast of pure fire. "You have someplace you'd rather be? My feelings are hurt!"

Ahab readied another harpoon along with a verbal retaliation, but his attention was caught by something large falling through the air. At first thinking it was a randomly chucked chunk of ice, Ahab aimed his harpoon toward the heavens, meaning to smash it to pieces before it could reach him. His eyes opened wide as he realized that the massive object about to fall on top of him wasn't an inanimate object.

The lumbering shadow of the Abomination covered Ahab as he piledrived his own body into the villain. The jade giant forced all of his momentum into the impact, smashing Ahab's body down into the cold and frozen ground. Puffs of flaky snow expelled from the crash, coating the Abomination's green skin with a soft blanket of snowflakes.

"Now his feelings are hurt," the Abomination said. He eyed up Bonfire and grimaced menacingly, showing no reluctance to stare at her supple curves.

"Um…yeah, that's one way to win a fight," Bonfire said. "I mean if you like, weigh a metric ton or something."

She massaged her pained shoulder, trying to rub feeling back into it. She slowly touched down back on terra firma, allowing her flames to dissipate. Holding Ahab's harpoons off had seriously depleted her, and even though she didn't want the rest of the team to know, she was about done. All she wanted now was a nice, hot bath to soak in for about a week.

"C'mon!" she heard Ghost Girl yell from above her. The see-through form of the young heroine floated over both of them toward the other side of the field where Blue Shield and Colleen were still fighting their way through the Moloids. "They need our help. StormFront assemble!"

Bonfire watched Ghost Girl as she swooped down toward the fray. She shook her head slightly and said, "If they don't kill her, I just might."

"Do not concern yourself," the Abomination said as he stepped out of the crater he had forced Ahab into. "We will prevail and then we won't—"

Blinding energy suddenly erupted all around both Bonfire and the Abomination. Two of Ahab's signature harpoons slowly ebbed their way into the heroes' backs, threatening to knock both of them unconscious. The purple armor of the mutant hunter was dented and scuffed, but Ahab still lived.

"Never turn your back on a hunter," Ahab warned them as he charged another set of harpoons. "You won't live to regret it!"

Ghost Girl swooped through the air, reaching the halfway point between both sets of heroes. She glanced back, wondering where Blonsky and Bonfire were. She was horrified to see that the villain thought defeated was now anything but. She shot another look at Blue Shield and the samurai, noticing that they were also having trouble. The Moloids had totally surrounded them and were pressing their advance. Before long Blue Shield's force field would give out and they would be at the mercy of the creatures.

She bunched up her thin fingers into fists and shook them gently, unsure of which pair to help first. They all needed her, but who needed her the most?

"What's a Ghost Girl to do?" she exclaimed.

NEXT ISSUE: What is a Ghost Girl to do? Find out as "Storm of the Century" continues! Plus, discover the origins of Bonfire, learn Colleen's true intentions for joining the team, and find out how their first training session went (here's a clue – not well!). All that and more as Alaska's first superhero team fights for its collective life!