Rise of the Living Monolith

Two

Eric Savin, the cyborg known as Coldblood 7, leaned carefully on the railing of the ferry as he watched the port at Hammer Bay grow in front of him. The city had been gutted by the Sentinels, but now the people of Genosha were rebuilding it.

Eric's brown hair fell in front of his cybernetic right eye, and he raised his artificial right arm to brush the hair away. He had lost much of the right side of his body to a land mine, and a lot of what was left of him was gutted in the rebuilding process. Much of his memory was recorded on his internal computers rather than his brain, and his past was full of holes.

'Much like the Bay,' Eric noted thoughtfully.

There were great swaths of destruction were Sentinel energy blasts had gouged the ground, and the buildings were gutted and burnt. Hammer Bay had born the worse of the attack, and despite being the main entry way to Genosha it was still mostly ruin and rubble. Still,someone had rebuilt a basic looking dock, and what looked like a decent road stretched inland.

Around him men and women milled about on the boat, many of them on the run from the superhuman Civil War. People who's only sin had been to put on costumes and help people, now on the run from their government and hunted by their supposed comrades. None of them were in costume, but it wasn't hard to recognize the sort of looks your average hero or villain developed.

Casually checking them out her recognized the former villain Firebrand, as well as Leila Davis, the second Beetle. Free Spirit was off on her own, the young woman looking haunted. Her friend Jack Flag had been arrested recently by the Thunderbolts, he figured that wasn't sitting well with her. A heavily, heavily muscled man over to the far end of the boat made Eric think of a soldier, but who he was remained a mystery.

The boat bumped up against the dock and a sailor threw a rope to tie up with. A ramp was extended to the wooden dock, and the passengers hurried to the wooden planks, even as a figure waited to greet them.

"My name is Sister Joy," the woman in a nun's habit nodded to them respectfully, "please, follow me. We have transport waiting to the encampment."

"Sister," Eric nodded as he and the others followed her to the truck. As he watched her he realized there was something off about the woman, not coiunting her blue skin. She moved jerkilly, and there was a odd sheen to her eyes, almost a metal like quality.

"I apologize for the rough transport," Joy said as they sat in the improvised benches along the back of the freight truck, "but we still have limited resources."

"I guess there's still a embargo," the soldier asked, putting his pack in his lap.

"There is, Mr. McIntyre," Joy addressed him politely, "of it you would prefer, I can call you my your codename, Protocide."

The man flinched slightly, "Just call me Clinton, please."

Eric recognized him once he heard the name, and studied the man intently. The man had been given a experimental version of Captain America's super soldier serum, but apparently 'died' of a heart attack. Put in cryogenic storage he was revived by Advanced Idea Mechanics, who convinced him to fight Captain America. He eventually came to his senses and disappeared.

'Guess he's been underground,' Eric decided.

The truck went inland, the road a bit bumpy but not as bad as they had expected. The ruins around them were bad, but there was also signs of ongoing salvage and repair. At one time Genosha had been one of the most advanced nations on Earth, and even in ruins there was a lot of tech to recover from the rubble.

"I understand that Genosha is offering sanctuary for people fleeing the Registration Act," Free Spirit asked, "but what do you want in return?"

"Simply that you contribute to our country," Joy answered simply, smiling. "You can help rebuild, gather salvage, build shelters or any number of jobs we need people to do."

"Or become soldiers," Eric noted cynically.

"Only if you chose to," Joy insisted, looking at him. "We are salvaging computer systems daily, I'm certain your abilities would be useful in repairing them."

Eric nodded slightly as he conceded, "Okay, true."

They rattled to a stop near a professionally set up tent city, built on a plane not fat from where the proposed new capital was going to be. There were men and women bustling about, as well as what looked like kitchen tents and well constructed sanitary facilities.

"What, no buildings?" Leila Davis sniffed, the brown haired woman looking displeased.

Clinton gave her a look. "We're refugees from our own government," he told her calmly, "be happy they're putting us up at all."

Leila pouted and looked away.

Joy hid a smile, then said, "I am sorry for the accomidations. We are building barracks soon, and hope to have residences available soon."

"It's fine," Free Spirit said, the young woman trotting over to the field kitchen.

As the rest of the men and women were met by attendants and were lead off to various tents, Eric moved over to Sister Joy. "Sister?" he asked.

Joy turned, much of her face still hidden by the cloth of her robes. "Yes?" she asked politely.

Eric wasn't sure how to politely bring up what his internal scanners were detecting, so he decided to be blunt. "You're not quite human, are you?" he asked.

Joy stiffened, then relaxed as she sighed softly. Her cassock was pulled back, revealing blue skin, and near her neck and chin it had a odd metallic sheen. "I suppose you would notice," she sighed. "I'm a nanotechnological life form, more or less," she said.

"How...?" Eric had to ask.

"I was created to fight the X-Men some years ago, then destroyed," Joy shrugged, "some time later magneto found traces of me and successfully reactivated me. I've been living on Genosha ever since."

"Must be tough," Eric offered lamely.

"No more than any others' burdens," Joy answered calmly. She bowed her head and said calmly, "I have to go." And with that she was off, moving with a serenity that Eric almost envied.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Osirus was meditating in his solar chamber when he felt the faint rumble. Rising smoothly he slung on a robe as he hurried down the hall, reaching the balcony overlooking the new city. There was a crackle and a wave of air as the second group teleported in, the armored figures spreading out to attack.

"Magistrates," Osirus growled softly even as he ran towards them.

The Magistrates were once the enforcers for Genosha, when humans used mutant slaves to live a life of ease. When a rebellion forced the government out the hard-core Magistrates fled with their equipment and technology, determined to restore human rule once more.

Osirus slowed as he neared them, dressed just in his loincloth and robes, then surprisingly he bowed slightly. "Welcome, Magistrates, have you decided to return peacefully to your former lands?" he asked politely.

One of the soldiers scoffed, all the men wearing heavy armor and carrying massive guns, presumably designed to deal with mutants. "Never, mutie," he said flatly, "we're here to take back what is ours!"

"You're the leader aren't you?" a blond haired woman growled. "We hold you, we can force the gene scum to give us what we want."

"That would be a very bad idea," Osirus told them even as he saw the cover to a sewer access bump up slightly. "Are you sure you won't try things peacefully?" he urged, knowing what was coming for them.

"Get off our land," the leading Magistrate ordered him coldly, "that's the only way this is ending peacefully."

"So be it," Osirus said as the manhole cover suddenly errupted upward, seemingly filled with green tentacles.

"What the hell?" the woman yelped as her weapon was yanked away from her, her gun hitting the ground as another tentacle wrapped around her throat.

As the Magistrates scattered away from the writhing mass Osirus attacked, firing off a bolt of energy and disarming another. As they turned to him he willed his body into stone form, then calmly ripped the armor off another soldier.

Callisto emerged from the tunnel, the tentacles extending from her soldiers from where the mad mutant Masque had reshaped her. The black haired woman snarled as she whipped another soldier back and disarmed a third man.

"Well done, Cal," Osirus grinned as he blasted another sopldier even as the rest cowered, afraid of what he or Callisto might do with them.

"I should have responded faster," Callisto said flatly, frowning as she studied their captives. "A security team is coming, though I wonder what they were doing here."

"Too small a group for a serious raid," Osirus agreed as they looked over the ten troopers, "and they would have attacked me immediately if it was a assassination attempt."

The security team, mostly volunteers or ex-miners with enhanced strength, rounded up the Magistrates as the two watched. "So what was it...?" Callisto mused just as a explosion rang out.

"Distraction!" Osirus cursed as he and Callisto hurried towards the direction of the blast, the camp for the newcomers. They ran as fast as they could, knowing they probably wouldn't make it in time. They rushed up the hill between the city and the camp, then blinked in surprise to see a group of defeated Magistrates and medics rushing around to treat the wounded.

"Well, that was anticlimatic," Callisto noted as they slowed to a trot, walking down into the somewhat chaotic camp.

"Lord Orirus," Sister Joy nodded slightly, the blue skinned woman tending to the burns along a tall, powerfully build man's arm.

"What happened?" Osirus asked, though he rather thought he could guess.

"The Magistrates attempted to attack the camp, but Clinton here and Eric were able to stop them quite effectively," Joy said, nodding towards a cyborg who was looming threateningly over the now badly cowed attackers.

"How did you get hurt?" Callisto asked Clinton curiously.

The former soldier looked rueful as Clinton admitted, "I forgot I didn't have my shield when I charged 'em, took a few extra hits."

"We'll see what we can rig up for you," Callisto offered, impressed.

'Well, it looks like my decision to offer refuge may have been a wise one after all,' Osirus thought, liking the look of both warriors. He felt confident they'd defend their new home, anyway.

To be continued...

Notes: Protocide was a minor Captain America villain, created to be a 'evil Cap' more or less. He was later revealed to be misunderstood, and hasn't been used since as far as I know. Coldblood Seven was introduced in Marvel Comics Present back in the day, and became a minor marvel character, showing up in other series.