X-Calibur

Issue #36 – New Beginnings – Part Two

Braddock Manor

"You are so going to love them," Betsy said as she hugged Kitty Pride and squeezed Cat's shoulder.

"It's good to see such positive change in Betsy," Kitty said as Rachel nodded, her thoughts still with her comatose son.

"I really don't see why we need new costumes. The one I had worked just fine," Piotra Wisdom said with a grunt.

"Because if this new team is going to work we need a more uniformed look," Psylocke replied as she gave a wink to her brother and motioned for everyone to come inside after her.

"You really think this is all necessary?" Shiro Yoshida asked as Brian Braddock stepped up next to him.

"You know my sister. When she sets her mind to something, plus I've never seen her this happy in a long time and I'll support anything that does that," Brian said as he found himself surprisingly comfortable in sharing leadership with his sister.

"Oh, as do I. I can be hot headed and stubborn but that sister of yours, no contest, wins every time," Sunfire said with a smile.

"You do realize this whole new costume thing is all Brian's fault," Kurt Wagner said as he teleported next to the two.

"How's that?" Captain Britain asked.

"The minute you told your sister that you were really a mutant who's powers were no longer suppressed and didn't need to rely on an enchanted costume she went from you needing a new look to the whole team needing a new look," Nightcrawler teased.

"I see Cerise left," Sunfire observed the one girl unaccounted for.

"Yeah, she left sometime last night. She said she was going but I thought she would at least say goodbye," Nightcrawler said trying to hide his sadness.

"Pete didn't say goodbye either," Sunfire added.

"I honestly think that it's no loss and I can already see the difference in the tension between Rachel and Kitty," Brian said.

"In all fairness, he does plan on doing what he can to help Rachel and their son," Nightcrawler said.

"I'm sure between his connections and Rachel's determination she will find a way to wake Pete from his psychic coma," Captain Britain said.

"Is that why she is refusing to join the team?" Sunfire asked knowing his Betsy was hoping for her abilities in the field.

"She needs to be here with her son. Same with Meggan, she won't be going in the field. She's going to stay here and keep an eye on little Drake and along with Rachel train him with his powers and protect the home front while we are out on missions," Brian said feeling relief sense it seemed nothing but bad things happened to his wife when they were out in the field.

"I want you to know that I have in no way influenced Betsy's decision to allow you and Meggan to raise Drake," Sunfire began to say.

"Shiro, I know you have great pride and honor and will do anything to protect my sister and her grandson. No matter who raises him. Plus, with Jamesy venturing to America she won't fall victim to the empty nest syndrome," Brian said with a chuckle.

"When is he leaving?" Nightcrawler asked.

"He leaves in the morning," Brian said as he tried not to let too much emotion show about his son traveling so far away.

"Are you sure it's wise to let him venture so far in a place he doesn't know?" Nightcrawler asked.

"Why is he going there in the first place?" Sunfire asked more out of conversation than true interest.

"After watching the limited footage of the Avengers on the television he is very obsessed with traveling over there and seeing the legends of his time in person. We both didn't think it was wise but I know that kind of passion so I have to let him go. Luckily, Widget sensed our return and visited and has agreed to go and look after him," Brian said as he secretly knew that his son was chasing after a possible notion that his missing boyfriend might be in America and he needed to seek him out on his own.

"So, these new costumes, is it true that Betsy designed these with the help of Widget?" Nightcrawler asked as he and the guys walked into the room to see everyone assembled except for his daughter who was standing off in the corner by herself watching.

"Yes, it's based on his gateway abilities. Upon our will, out street clothes teleport away while our uniforms take their place. Don't tell Betsy I told you but she did get a lot of help from a couple of local fashion designers she had met," Sunfire said as they took their place with everyone.

"From what I heard your daughter even pitched in," Brian added as Nightcrawler looked at him in surprised interest.

"She did? She's been pretty isolated sense we arrived here," Nightcrawler said.

"She placed am enchantment on the belt buckles so that when we are in costume people won't recognize or connect us to our civilian identities, unless we tell them or have already granted permission for them to know our real names," Brian said as Nightcrawler smiled with some pride while Sunfire nodded to his fiancé that they were all here and ready for her to begin.

Betsy brought up a basic picture of the new costumes on an overhead while she presented them to the group. The costumes were very uniformed. Everyone's pants, boots and leather-like jacket tops were all black. The jacket tops were made of a material that would help protect them against physical attacks. Everyone also had a belt buckle that was a silver Excalibur sword piercing a silver "X". The buckle was made of the technology from Widget to give them their costume transformations and acted as their communicators as well. No one would be wearing face masks but Psylocke explained about Nightmagik's spell. Each of them, except a few, had gloves but like the pattern on their jackets, would be individually personalized as part of their new uniforms. Everyone grabbed a buckle and donned their new costume. Even those not on the active roster were given a new costume, including an excited little Drake.

Captain Britain had red, blue and white gloves with the same Britain color pattern spread across his leather jacket. Psylocke wore purple gloves and a purple pattern across her jacket that looked like her energy knives. Sunfire, still getting used to not wearing a mask, wore red, yellow and orange gloves and had a flaming pattern across his jacket. Nightcrawler did not wear gloves but had a pattern across his jacket that looked like the brimstone smoke that appeared after he teleported. Shadowcat wore blue gloves and had a pattern that looked like a shadowy figure that was phasing out of view while her daughter wore pinkish-purple gloves with a purple pattern across her jacket that looked like cat scratches. Kurt's daughter, Nightmagik, despite her protests, gave in and wore a costume with red and black gloves with red magical symbols all over her jacket. These seven were announced as the main core team while the others would be on reserve status.

Geo, even though he was going to America with Widget, got a costume with green gloves and green plant patterns across his jacket. Meggan did not wear gloves and had an Earth pattern across her jacket. Little Drake, now calling himself Icey, had white-blue gloves with icicle patterns across his little jacket. Lockheed, being a small dragon wasn't forced to wear a uniform, but he did get to wear a matching belt buckle. Marvel Girl had red gloves and despite not being called or having the power anymore, had a fiery phoenix across her jacket. Betsy had insisted that she would always be Phoenix to her and Kitty and Kurt agreed. Overall, everyone liked the new look and thought it made them all look professional and very cool.

"It's going to be weird going into the field with such a small team for once," Kitty commented as the seven core members went into a meeting room.

"Guess the new magic number is seven," Kurt added with a smirk.

"Actually, I agree with my brother that even with Roma and our mystical guardians no longer with us that we should keep the mystical bond by having ten warriors," Psylocke announced to everyone as they all looked at each other and then back to her and Brian.

"Yes, and our three new members are already here," Brian said as three figures walked into the room each wearing their own X-Calibur uniform.

Psylocke introduced Shuriken, otherwise known as Yukio. Not only had she been a dear friend of Wolverine but had also remained close friends with Betsy over the last year and due to her friendship with Silver Samurai had gotten to know Sunfire as well. With her adopted daughter, Amiko off studying with the Shosei she had decided to try an honest career as a hero. Her gloves were as black as her costume and had silver hira-shuriken patterns across her jacket. Brian was a little leery of having this former thief and companion of Wolverine on the team but she had become his sister's best friend and he would give her a chance for his sister's sake. It also helped that Kitty seemed okay with her as well. They all then focused on the second figure.

He was a large, muscular bald Russian who looked to be in his forties or early fifties but in very great shape. His name was Mikhail Uriokovitch Ursus and had once been a member of the Super Soviets and the Winter Guard as Ursa Major. Since most of his old comrades have been killed or retired and all the members of the Winter Guard were new versions of old code names, he decided he didn't want to be a part of that organization anymore. As he defected, they had already produced a new Ursa Major. Upon talking to Sunfire, he had been asked to join X-Calibur for a fresh start. Taking the new name of Grizzly he did not wear gloves and he had a brown growling bear pattern on his jacket. His acceptance on the team was easy since most knew him and respected him as a hero of the Soviet Union. The last figure had many puzzled as they had never seen this man before.

He called himself the Emerald Dragon. His father had been Sir Benedict. A hero from Otherworld that had been a member and ally of an earlier version of Excalibur. Sir Benedict had returned to Otherworld and had fallen in love and bore a child. Some mystical happenings had gone on and time progressed faster there than on Earth's time. At the time Otherworld was sealed away and Roma had died, Sir Benedict had been killed but had sent his only son to Earth-116X before the veil was sealed. Young Benedict, in his early twenties, traveled across Europe until he found out where to locate his father's former teammates. By Avalon's luck, Brian and his team had appeared a day after his arrival to Braddock manor and Betsy had introduced him to her brother shortly after their reunion. In honor of his father, they invited him to stay with the team and he accepted with the determination to live up to his father's name. He wore a costume with green gloves without fingers and had a green dragon pattern across his jacket.

"Nice hair," Cat mumbled under her breath at the guy with bright green spiked hair with matching eyebrows.

"Thanks," Benedict said with a smile and a wink that surprised and left Cat speechless.

"Greetings everyone and welcome to X-Calibur," Psylocke said as Brian rolled his eyes and chuckled at his sister wile they began their first official meeting of the new team.

New Avengers

Thunderbolts Disassembled – Part Five

The Battle of Ultron

Georgia

"I don't believe what I am seeing," Mach-V said as their aircraft came into view of the battleground.

Standing in the middle of a burning building was the twenty foot high robotic figure of Ultron. Local law enforcement was firing their guns with no effect. Songbird was doing her best to protect them and encourage them all to evacuate the area. In front of the evil robot were the rest of her Thunderbolts minus two. Mach-V quickly looked and saw Atlas off to the side, very worse for wear kneeling and crying over the very still form of Joystick. Mach-V gave the signal as he and his Thunderbolts ejected from the craft and joined the rest of the team facing Ultron. Mach-V flew next to Songbird.

"About time you got here," Songbird said with a mix of humor and anger.

"What happened?" Mach-V asked.

"It was a setup. Zemo somehow planted Joystick on the team and used her to track a devise here. The bikers were a distraction while Joystick ran inside to obtain the item. I walked in on her communicating with Zemo and one other and startled her and something went wrong. I think Zemo wanted to obtain the Ultron program and instead released him back upon the world in a grand explosion," Atlas said standing up and looked from Joystick's badly burned and lifeless body to his teammates with tears running down his face. It was clear the despite being a traitor, he had loved her and mourned her death.

"We had been so careful. Darn that Zemo," Mach-V swore.

"Who do you think the other is?" Songbird asked as she glanced at the remaining Thunderbolts battling the giant robot.

"I don't know but we'll deal with that after we take down Ultron," Mach-V said as he began to give orders.

Atlas, ignoring everyone, pushed his limits and became a few feet taller than Ultron and charged him. Not wanting to be shown up, Photon flew in to join the assault. As Atlas swung his fist, Ultron caught it with both hands and caused Erik to scream as it seemed the very energy was being drained from him. Photon flew amongst the energy show and called on his energy manipulation powers and tried to help Atlas. Ultron whipped out one of his hands and grabbed Photon and began to glow as he was now connected to both Thunderbolts. Ultron's eyes flared as suddenly a huge energy explosion went off. Songbird screamed as she saw Photon explode into a million energy pieces and Atlas shrink down to normal size and fly through the air away from Ultron who had shrunk down a few feet, shrugged off the blast and continued to move towards them.

"Photon, is he?" Whipshock asked in horror.

"Yes, he is either dead, turned into pure energy and scattered into a million pieces or both," Radioactive Man answered.

"What about Atlas?" Songbird asked as Speed Demon ran at fast speed to check on his fallen teammate.

"He's still breathing," Speed Demon said as he debated what his next move should be.

Mach-V took in a deep breath. His friend was still alive but they had already lost two. He and Songbird gave their commands and lead the Thunderbolts into final battle with Ultron. The battle was brutal and ended as quickly as it started. Unfortunately, it didn't go the way Mach-V had hoped. It started with Speed Demon turning tail and running away clinching Mach-V's assumption he was the final traitor on the team. Unfortunately, before Speed Demon had gotten too far, Ultron sent off a power laser beam from both his eyes that hit Speed Demon in the legs and severing them off at the knee caps. Speed Demon went down screaming in shear agony and swearing Zemo's name. Thankfully the beams were hot enough that they had cauterized the wound along with removing his legs.

While the Thunderbolts traded blasts back and forth with Ultron, Master Floro called on all his powers making all plant life around the robot to grow large and begin to bind Ultron. Ultron ripped easily free from his plant bondages and opened his mouth sending out an energy fire that consumed Master Floro and the ground all around him. Arcticblast used his powers to help put out the fire but by the time he did so, his teammate was burned to a crisp and crumbling to the ground. With a primal scream Arcticblast turned at the robot and poured al his powers at it and encasing it completely in ice. Songbird quickly put up a sound shield to protect them as ice shards flew everywhere as Ultron easily broke free from his icy prison.

Ultron turned on Arcticblast and sent a disc that hit him dead in the chest. Upon impact it exploded sending Arcticblast flying backwards a few feet. Mach-V passed overhead to see that his long time friend was lying very still on the ground. His suit was completely blown away leaving almost his whole body exposed and from what Mach-V could tell, his skin was a strange blue color and all the cuts on his body were seeping blood that had started to almost crystallize. Abe tried to hold back the tears as he knew there was no way his friend could still be alive in that condition. Before he could check further, another scream drew his attention. He turned to see Songbird go flying into a building with great force and Whipshock shooting out her chain whips at Ultron.

Ultron let out a scream as Whipshock did her best to electrocute the evil robot. Whipshock began to grow confident in winning until Ultron stopped making noise, adapted and sent a wave of electricity back at the woman with such force that it caused her chain whips to turn brown as they released the robot and fell with Whipshock to the ground in convulsions before they and their owner went still. Mach-V began shouting orders to the remaining Thunderbolts hoping Beatrix's body had been able to survive the electrical current sent back at her. As he and his remaining two teammates surrounded the robot the battle finally came to an end.

Radioactive Man pushed with his powers as he began to drain the energy from the giant robot causing Ultron to slowly shrink in power and size while Webtress sent out her hair of tentacles and webbing from her hands to bind and hold the robot. While they did that, Mach-V let loose every weapon he had at his disposal to try and blow the weakening robot to smithereens. Ultron popped out two large speaker like components that sent out a high piercing ring that caused Webtress to fall back and shriek in agony. As the sound got louder the symbiote around her body retracted and pulled itself back into Donna's body leaving her human body exposed. At that moment, Ultron fired off a metal spear that pierced Donna's body and staked her into the side of a building. Ultron then fired off a series of laser blasts at Mach-V immediately following his take down of Webrtress.

Mach-V dodged the blasts with ease and gloated only to realize he had fallen into a trap that was too late to maneuver out of. As he went up, Ultron brought both hands together and clapped them hard catching Mach-V in the middle. Abner screamed in pain as he felt more than his armor break. He grunted as he hit the ground hard knowing that the impact had just broken whatever was left that had not been crushed by Ultron. Abner lifted his head enough to watch Ultron shot a metal tube out of his chest and plunge it into Radioactive Man. Both glowed brightly as the tube exploded sending both flying backwards. Abner grunted in great pain as he saw Absorbing Man land near him, unmoving with his skin now the color of normal flesh.

Abner coughed up blood in a spasm as he now watched Ultron rebuild himself into the size of a normal man. He had been seriously weakened but alas, not defeated. Ultron took one last look at the disassembled Thunderbolts team and then make a vow that his father and his Avengers were next. Abner watched Ultron take flight and head north to New York right before succumbing to his injuries and blacking out.

Years into the Future but Not Quite the Present

Stane Manor

"Are you sure you can trust her?" Norbert asked Zemo.

"Yes, she is committed to helping us take over this world. When we are done then we can deal with her," Zemo said of their last recruit.

It appeared that Mordo's daughter Astrid had been in Hell trying to find a way out of her prison. She had made a deal with Mephisto that gave her an item she needed. Just as she was casting a spell to escape, her spell synched with the energy surge of the Moonstones reforming and opened her portal to where they all had been standing. She passed through and entering Earth alive and free once again. Zemo had quickly explained their plan and she had decided that she would love the chance to bring down the Avengers and take over the Earth doing what her father had never been able to do. So she had accepted the role of the Scarlet Witch and joined Zemo's team. Fortunately for Zemo, another figure had escaped Hell as well before the portal had closed.

It had taken him a little bit but he had finally recognized the person that had followed Astrid out of Hell and been given a second chance at life. It was none other than Barbara Barton, the Avenger known as Mockingbird and the deceased wife of Hawkeye, former leader of the Thunderbolts and his enemy. How eventful this was having her handed right to him. While she was disoriented he had commanded his evil partners to subdue her. He had decided to use the same mind control devise on her as he had on Atlas to make her follow is bidding. With some stolen Pym Particle he would make her his Wasp. He laughed at the thought of pitting one of his enemies against his own thought dead wife and not even realizing it. His plan had come full circle and he was ready to bring down the Avengers. After shouting out some final orders he assembled his new team and prepared the downfall of the Avengers and the takeover of the world.

Epilogue

"Abner, I need your help. Erik went missing and from what I gather Zemo is involved," Melissa Gold said as she stared at the man she hadn't seen or heard from in almost a year.

"I just don't know," Abner sighed as he got up from his chair and slowly moved toward the kitchen with a small limp and hint of pain.

"Abner, it wasn't your fault what happened to us and the Thunderbolts. We were betrayed by two of our own with the help of Zemo. Even the Avengers were barely able to stop Ultron," Melissa said.

"But I am responsible for my team and I lead them to defeat and death," Abner said as he took his pain killers and downed them with a glass of water.

Melissa knew that Abner felt guilty for what had happened to everyone and the fact he had lived when others hadn't. Melissa had been the only one lucky to come out unscratched. When she had come too, the battle was over, Ultron was gone and her team lay in shambles across the battlefield. Abner had been seriously injured with internal bleeding amongst both legs and arms being broken in several different places. Luckily Abner had made it and lived but had a long road of recovery and Melissa was there for almost every step of it until about a year ago.

Abner had been released from the hospital and had finally been removed from his body cast. Aber that he still had to go through a lot of physical therapy for his legs and arms. Abner went, but the pain and guilt was too much for him and he had begun to take his anger out on Melissa, verbally only. After awhile, Melissa knew she had done what she could and walked away from the man she loved knowing when he was ready to love himself again then he would be able to love her and she him in return. So she left never to speak to him until recently when she discovered Erik's disappearance and found traces of Zemo all over it. So she swallowed her pride and returned to the man she had once loved for help to find their friend.

"Abe, part of being a strong leader is to pick up the pieces and move on no matter what and I have faith in you and in us," Melissa said as he looked over at her.

"I know, and I'm sorry about how I treated you. I know you were only trying to help. All this time alone has given me time to reflect and think," Abner said as he looked over at the beautiful woman in front of him. "If anything had happened to you."

"But it didn't and that's the risk we all take when we go out there. That's what it means to be a hero and that is what you are, what we all still are," Melissa said as she walked up to him and took his hand.

"Okay, we can go check it out and find out if Zemo is behind this and expose him and get our friend back," Abner said with a strained smile.

"Oh, but I can't have that," a man said stepping out of the shadows.

"Zemo!" Melissa shouted as she stood protectively in front of Abner.

"Shall I kill them?" A voice asked from behind them as a strong painful blow came across the back of each of their heads.

"No, I think they might prove useful alive, for now," Zemo said as Anastasia nodded and pushed a ring on her finger.

Abner tried to keep consciousness as he saw a bunch of villains walk into the room and suddenly take on the appearance of well known Avengers. He shook his head as Melissa went out cold and Anastasia took on the appearance of Henry Peter Gyrich. Abner finally grasped the severity of what Zemo was planning when he put on the mask of Captain America and commanded they bring the prisoners along. One last blow sent Abner into darkness as Zemo went to introduce his S.A.F.E. Avengers to the world.

Next: Issue #37 – New Beginnings – Part Three & New Avengers: End of the Avengers – Part One