JOURNEY OF A KNIGHT
CHAPTER V. EXPANSION PART II
(DISCLAIMER: The Age of Apocalypse, The X-Men, Charles Xavier, and all related characters are copyrights of Marvel Comics. The Knight Eagle, in all his various iterations, as well as his teammates, is my own personal creations)
1969
Jason crouched atop the battlements of the aged redbrick warehouse. One of his informants had told him that the Fuselis were attempting to run another shipment of high tech weapons from the States. He had trailed one of their lead "runners" to this location. Rumor had it that Santino Fuseli, Georgio Fuseli's oldest son, would be here tonight. The American FBI, Interpol, and Scotland Yard all had Santino under investigation in relation to a number of killings both in England and abroad. If he could be concretely connected to this weapons shipment, then the Fuseli family would be dealt a major blow that might make them seriously reconsider trying to expand operations into Britain. The only thing confusing him at the moment was the lack of security on the roof. They had to know by now that was how he had entered before. He had spent the past several days trying to figure out how to vary his approach and catch them off guard, but this was too easy.
He unzipped one of the small pouches on his right glove and removed the small microphone from its protective casing. "Mic on." The murmured command activated the small device, which he pointed toward the skylight.
"I'm telling you, Sunny, this is not a good idea." Sunny. Obviously Santino, then, and someone who felt comfortable addressing him as such.
"Please shut up, you idiot. Everything is going to work perfectly to plan, and we can get out of here and go home." That was Santino then. The "idiot" comment made the other one a crony, if a high ranking one.
"Uneasy, Fuseli?" A new voice, very arrogant.
"You certainly took long enough. Let's get this over with." Santino again.
"And the other problem?"
"That's being dealt with as we speak."
The microphone suddenly emitted a high-pitched squeal and Jason slapped a hand down on his wrist, cutting off the sound manually, without even thinking about using the voice control. What the hell was that? He had checked the equipment before going out tonight, so something had to have caused it.
"Surprise!" He heard the shout from behind him and could not turn fast enough to stop the boot that flew in his direction. It caught him clean in the back of the head and sent him sprawling across the rooftop. Had the angle been even slightly different, he would have been sent hurtling into the open air beyond the wall. He rolled backwards and sprang to his feet as his assailant rushed at him, he narrowly avoided the fists coming at him in rapid succession.
"Who are you?" Jason launched himself backward in a flip, trying to gain some distance between himself and his inhumanly fast attacker.
"That's for me to know and you to wonder about from the grave. Suffice it to say that the Fuselis wanted you out of their hair and I'm here to see to that." He reached behind him and removed two wrist blades from sheathes that must have been concealed on his dark blue jumpsuit. He lunged, the blades very narrowly missing Jason's torso and face. Spinning to the side, Jason reached into one of the compartments on his belt and removed what appeared, at first glance, to be a small can, about three- quarters the size of a soda can. He held it out in front of him, and let a little of his power seep into the can. Inside, the air molecules accelerated, heating up and causing the layers of metal within to shoot outward, expanding the can to a length of seven feet; a battle staff.
"A nice toy, that. I'll have to add it to my collection when I've killed you."
"Are you going to talk about it or do it?"
"If you are so eager, then so be it."
Very shortly after the death of his father, Jason had begun to discover one of the uses of his X-Factor. He had a power over motion. He could absorb what seemed to be limitless amounts of kinetic energy, and redirect it as he chose. He also had the ability to endow objects with that energy, imbuing them with extra strength and speed. A purplish glow ran up the length of the metal staff as Jason released a greater amount of his power into its surface and whirled it in the direction of his attacker. The man had not been expecting this, and the first blow very nearly took him clean in the head. Had he been a normal man, it would have, but the inhuman reflexes he had allowed him to just barely bring up one of his blades in time to stop the staff. The blade, being a thinner metal, bent backwards with the force of the blow, but by that time, the man had shifted his head to avoid the staff.
"Well, well. This will be an unexpected treat. Nothing I'd seen indicated you were anything more than a normal person with a penchant for putting his nose where it doesn't belong, but this… a challenge… I will enjoy killing you."
"I've heard it."
Jason attacked in earnest now, his staff flying at the man, who was now on the defensive, raising his one remaining blade and the other gauntleted fist to meet blow after blow, ever retreating. The whole time, Jason could not help but feel that there was something strangely familiar about the man's style. He realized, suddenly, that, at the rate this was going, the Fuselis would be long gone by the time this duel had finished. He had no time. He switched the staff to one hand and, in a sudden, fluid motion dropped to one knee and put a hand to the ground, resting it on the piece of roofing that his attacker was standing on. The metal lurched as a purplish glow enveloped it, hurling his attacker into the air. Jason launched himself upward and found himself dodging a streak of black and gold that appeared, seemingly from nowhere and crashed into the assailant. The black and gold figure, which revealed itself to be a man, wrapped its arms around the waist of the attacker and whipped it over his head in a move that looked to be straight out of a wrestling textbook, causing his head to collide with the sheet metal of the warehouse roof. The figure did not move.
A metallically distorted voice came from within the black and gold mask.
"He's done. I injected him with a tranquilizer. The Fuselis are still to be dealt with."
"I suppose I should say 'thank you'."
"It is customary."
"Thank you. You going home?"
"Hadn't planned on it."
"Then follow me."
Jason ran across the rooftop, leaving the unconscious attacker behind him, and launched himself into the air, giving himself a slight boost with the staff. He looked behind him just as he leapt and saw the golden-clad man following, rising off the ground and whizzing overhead. Jason's trajectory was carefully plotted, and he rapidly descended toward the glass skylight of the warehouse. Clasping staff with both hands, he crashed through the glass, hit the floor rolling and came up, swinging the staff in a broad arc that caught Santino Fuseli's henchman in its path, sending him flying across the room.
"Good evening. Party's over."
"But… but…" Santino stammered.
"He's laying out cold. Better ask for a refund, Sunny."
"Raze might be an incompetent fool, but if you think I'm not prepared for this, you're wrong. Dead wrong."
"Oh, please, Fuseli, spare me the…" Jason looked around him and heard the tell-tale click of automatic weapons being cocked.
"See you in hell, Night Eagle."
"Not just yet!" Came a bellow from above. The roar of airjets accompanied the gold and black shape of the man who had helped Jason on the roof. The thugs looked up for a moment, a long enough time for Jason to launch himself at the nearest steel pillar and dodge behind it as machine gun fire ripped through the air.
The main floor of the warehouse was chaos. Men fired at the golden man, only to have their fire scattered in every conceivable direction. Some tried to rush him, but were met with the stiff resistance of the Night Eagle's staff. I mere moments, dozens of thugs lay scattered about the floor, and Santino Fuseli and the two vigilantes were the only men left standing.
"What'll it be Sunny?"
Fusei reached into his pocket and pulled a snub-nosed revolver out. It flew from his hand and into the hand of the man in the gold and black suit. Simultaneously, a bird shaped dart flew from its place on Jason's gauntlet and hit Santino firmly in the forehead, knocking him unconscious.
Looking around them, the two heroes grinned beneath their masks.
"Well. That worked out rather well." The gold clad man said.
"I'd say so. Did you plan on telling me who you are?"
"Well, I'd thought of calling myself GoldenBlade. I'll assume you are the 'Night Eagle' that I've read so much about in the papers."
"You'd be correct. And thank you for your help on the roof."
"You appeared to have things well in hand, I just thought I'd expedite the process a bit."
"You're welcome to expedite the process any time you feel. I think we should secure these boys and call in the authorities."
"You're the experienced super-hero."
The two men made quick work of the thugs and watched from the rooftop as London PD and Scotland Yard quickly descended on the scene. The man that Fuseli had called Raze had vanished when they returned to the roof.
"Apparently the tranquilizer wasn't as strong as I thought it was."
"I wouldn't worry over it. I'm fairly certain that very little about my sparring partner was normal."
"I see. Well, I suppose I'm off. It was a pleasure working with you." GoldenBlade turned and walked toward the edge of the rooftop.
"And you. I'll be in touch." Jason said with a smile.
"How did you plan to do that?" There was no response. The Night Eagle had vanished.
THE NEXT DAY
Richard rubbed at his eyes as he sipped a cup of coffee. These long nights had taken their toll on him. He was glad that Fuseli was done with. But there HAD been a certain thrill in dealing with those thugs by hand. He hadn't had that much fun since boxing at prep school. He keyed in the code to his office door, which opened with a swish. He nearly dropped the cup of coffee when his desk chair swiveled around to reveal a grinning Jason McElros, well groomed and alert.
"Good morning, Doctor."
Richard tried to school his face, though he knew that McElros must know something.
"Good morning, Mr. McElros. To what do I owe the pleasure."
"I just thought I'd check up on you doctor." McElros was tapping his fingers on the desktop, coming dangerously close to touching the panel that would open the secret compartment. "I heard that you'd been working late hours the last few days."
"Well… um… with you taking over, I thought I'd ah… better get the department in order."
"I see. Well. That was really all I wanted to see you about. See that you take care of yourself doctor. I wouldn't want to lose a valuable member of my team here. An valuable ally, so to speak." He stood and walked toward the door, patting Richard on the back. "I'll be in touch."
The door swished shut behind him. Richard heaved a sigh of relief, then thought of what McElros had said.
" 'I'll be in touch'?" His eyes widened and he rushed out the door to follow McElros, but the young man had vanished. "Well I'll be damned."
CHAPTER V. EXPANSION PART II
(DISCLAIMER: The Age of Apocalypse, The X-Men, Charles Xavier, and all related characters are copyrights of Marvel Comics. The Knight Eagle, in all his various iterations, as well as his teammates, is my own personal creations)
1969
Jason crouched atop the battlements of the aged redbrick warehouse. One of his informants had told him that the Fuselis were attempting to run another shipment of high tech weapons from the States. He had trailed one of their lead "runners" to this location. Rumor had it that Santino Fuseli, Georgio Fuseli's oldest son, would be here tonight. The American FBI, Interpol, and Scotland Yard all had Santino under investigation in relation to a number of killings both in England and abroad. If he could be concretely connected to this weapons shipment, then the Fuseli family would be dealt a major blow that might make them seriously reconsider trying to expand operations into Britain. The only thing confusing him at the moment was the lack of security on the roof. They had to know by now that was how he had entered before. He had spent the past several days trying to figure out how to vary his approach and catch them off guard, but this was too easy.
He unzipped one of the small pouches on his right glove and removed the small microphone from its protective casing. "Mic on." The murmured command activated the small device, which he pointed toward the skylight.
"I'm telling you, Sunny, this is not a good idea." Sunny. Obviously Santino, then, and someone who felt comfortable addressing him as such.
"Please shut up, you idiot. Everything is going to work perfectly to plan, and we can get out of here and go home." That was Santino then. The "idiot" comment made the other one a crony, if a high ranking one.
"Uneasy, Fuseli?" A new voice, very arrogant.
"You certainly took long enough. Let's get this over with." Santino again.
"And the other problem?"
"That's being dealt with as we speak."
The microphone suddenly emitted a high-pitched squeal and Jason slapped a hand down on his wrist, cutting off the sound manually, without even thinking about using the voice control. What the hell was that? He had checked the equipment before going out tonight, so something had to have caused it.
"Surprise!" He heard the shout from behind him and could not turn fast enough to stop the boot that flew in his direction. It caught him clean in the back of the head and sent him sprawling across the rooftop. Had the angle been even slightly different, he would have been sent hurtling into the open air beyond the wall. He rolled backwards and sprang to his feet as his assailant rushed at him, he narrowly avoided the fists coming at him in rapid succession.
"Who are you?" Jason launched himself backward in a flip, trying to gain some distance between himself and his inhumanly fast attacker.
"That's for me to know and you to wonder about from the grave. Suffice it to say that the Fuselis wanted you out of their hair and I'm here to see to that." He reached behind him and removed two wrist blades from sheathes that must have been concealed on his dark blue jumpsuit. He lunged, the blades very narrowly missing Jason's torso and face. Spinning to the side, Jason reached into one of the compartments on his belt and removed what appeared, at first glance, to be a small can, about three- quarters the size of a soda can. He held it out in front of him, and let a little of his power seep into the can. Inside, the air molecules accelerated, heating up and causing the layers of metal within to shoot outward, expanding the can to a length of seven feet; a battle staff.
"A nice toy, that. I'll have to add it to my collection when I've killed you."
"Are you going to talk about it or do it?"
"If you are so eager, then so be it."
Very shortly after the death of his father, Jason had begun to discover one of the uses of his X-Factor. He had a power over motion. He could absorb what seemed to be limitless amounts of kinetic energy, and redirect it as he chose. He also had the ability to endow objects with that energy, imbuing them with extra strength and speed. A purplish glow ran up the length of the metal staff as Jason released a greater amount of his power into its surface and whirled it in the direction of his attacker. The man had not been expecting this, and the first blow very nearly took him clean in the head. Had he been a normal man, it would have, but the inhuman reflexes he had allowed him to just barely bring up one of his blades in time to stop the staff. The blade, being a thinner metal, bent backwards with the force of the blow, but by that time, the man had shifted his head to avoid the staff.
"Well, well. This will be an unexpected treat. Nothing I'd seen indicated you were anything more than a normal person with a penchant for putting his nose where it doesn't belong, but this… a challenge… I will enjoy killing you."
"I've heard it."
Jason attacked in earnest now, his staff flying at the man, who was now on the defensive, raising his one remaining blade and the other gauntleted fist to meet blow after blow, ever retreating. The whole time, Jason could not help but feel that there was something strangely familiar about the man's style. He realized, suddenly, that, at the rate this was going, the Fuselis would be long gone by the time this duel had finished. He had no time. He switched the staff to one hand and, in a sudden, fluid motion dropped to one knee and put a hand to the ground, resting it on the piece of roofing that his attacker was standing on. The metal lurched as a purplish glow enveloped it, hurling his attacker into the air. Jason launched himself upward and found himself dodging a streak of black and gold that appeared, seemingly from nowhere and crashed into the assailant. The black and gold figure, which revealed itself to be a man, wrapped its arms around the waist of the attacker and whipped it over his head in a move that looked to be straight out of a wrestling textbook, causing his head to collide with the sheet metal of the warehouse roof. The figure did not move.
A metallically distorted voice came from within the black and gold mask.
"He's done. I injected him with a tranquilizer. The Fuselis are still to be dealt with."
"I suppose I should say 'thank you'."
"It is customary."
"Thank you. You going home?"
"Hadn't planned on it."
"Then follow me."
Jason ran across the rooftop, leaving the unconscious attacker behind him, and launched himself into the air, giving himself a slight boost with the staff. He looked behind him just as he leapt and saw the golden-clad man following, rising off the ground and whizzing overhead. Jason's trajectory was carefully plotted, and he rapidly descended toward the glass skylight of the warehouse. Clasping staff with both hands, he crashed through the glass, hit the floor rolling and came up, swinging the staff in a broad arc that caught Santino Fuseli's henchman in its path, sending him flying across the room.
"Good evening. Party's over."
"But… but…" Santino stammered.
"He's laying out cold. Better ask for a refund, Sunny."
"Raze might be an incompetent fool, but if you think I'm not prepared for this, you're wrong. Dead wrong."
"Oh, please, Fuseli, spare me the…" Jason looked around him and heard the tell-tale click of automatic weapons being cocked.
"See you in hell, Night Eagle."
"Not just yet!" Came a bellow from above. The roar of airjets accompanied the gold and black shape of the man who had helped Jason on the roof. The thugs looked up for a moment, a long enough time for Jason to launch himself at the nearest steel pillar and dodge behind it as machine gun fire ripped through the air.
The main floor of the warehouse was chaos. Men fired at the golden man, only to have their fire scattered in every conceivable direction. Some tried to rush him, but were met with the stiff resistance of the Night Eagle's staff. I mere moments, dozens of thugs lay scattered about the floor, and Santino Fuseli and the two vigilantes were the only men left standing.
"What'll it be Sunny?"
Fusei reached into his pocket and pulled a snub-nosed revolver out. It flew from his hand and into the hand of the man in the gold and black suit. Simultaneously, a bird shaped dart flew from its place on Jason's gauntlet and hit Santino firmly in the forehead, knocking him unconscious.
Looking around them, the two heroes grinned beneath their masks.
"Well. That worked out rather well." The gold clad man said.
"I'd say so. Did you plan on telling me who you are?"
"Well, I'd thought of calling myself GoldenBlade. I'll assume you are the 'Night Eagle' that I've read so much about in the papers."
"You'd be correct. And thank you for your help on the roof."
"You appeared to have things well in hand, I just thought I'd expedite the process a bit."
"You're welcome to expedite the process any time you feel. I think we should secure these boys and call in the authorities."
"You're the experienced super-hero."
The two men made quick work of the thugs and watched from the rooftop as London PD and Scotland Yard quickly descended on the scene. The man that Fuseli had called Raze had vanished when they returned to the roof.
"Apparently the tranquilizer wasn't as strong as I thought it was."
"I wouldn't worry over it. I'm fairly certain that very little about my sparring partner was normal."
"I see. Well, I suppose I'm off. It was a pleasure working with you." GoldenBlade turned and walked toward the edge of the rooftop.
"And you. I'll be in touch." Jason said with a smile.
"How did you plan to do that?" There was no response. The Night Eagle had vanished.
THE NEXT DAY
Richard rubbed at his eyes as he sipped a cup of coffee. These long nights had taken their toll on him. He was glad that Fuseli was done with. But there HAD been a certain thrill in dealing with those thugs by hand. He hadn't had that much fun since boxing at prep school. He keyed in the code to his office door, which opened with a swish. He nearly dropped the cup of coffee when his desk chair swiveled around to reveal a grinning Jason McElros, well groomed and alert.
"Good morning, Doctor."
Richard tried to school his face, though he knew that McElros must know something.
"Good morning, Mr. McElros. To what do I owe the pleasure."
"I just thought I'd check up on you doctor." McElros was tapping his fingers on the desktop, coming dangerously close to touching the panel that would open the secret compartment. "I heard that you'd been working late hours the last few days."
"Well… um… with you taking over, I thought I'd ah… better get the department in order."
"I see. Well. That was really all I wanted to see you about. See that you take care of yourself doctor. I wouldn't want to lose a valuable member of my team here. An valuable ally, so to speak." He stood and walked toward the door, patting Richard on the back. "I'll be in touch."
The door swished shut behind him. Richard heaved a sigh of relief, then thought of what McElros had said.
" 'I'll be in touch'?" His eyes widened and he rushed out the door to follow McElros, but the young man had vanished. "Well I'll be damned."