Marvel Superhero Island
Disclaimer: Same as before, the character of Mr. Hyde is the intellectual property of Robert Lewis Stevenson, G.I. Joe isn't my creation, neither are the Misfits or any other crossover folks I have neglected to mention. BTW the X-men of this island are from the X-men movies.
RFKC - Samantha and Bryce are going back to the Misfitverse where they originally come from.
---
"So you were wrong about Ansem, Bryce." Samantha began, as she put down the report, "DiZ is actually Ansem..."
"Congratulations to you, Samantha Grayson..." came a voice. DiZ appeared before them.
"You!" Bryce snapped, "You created these things..."
"Don't be so judgmental, Bryce." DiZ replied.
"Judgmental my ass." Bryce replied, "You created the Heartless and then caused them to wreak havoc..."
"Bryce, calm down!" Samantha shouted, "Ansem did create the Heartless, but when he saw what he was doing was wrong he tried to make amends...his former assistants are responsible..."
"He was still the root of the problem." Bryce countered.
"Go ahead and shoot me, Bryce." DiZ replied, "If you think a bullet can equal the effect of the Great Darkness."
"Great Darkness?" Samantha asked.
"Are you familiar with the Yin and the Yang?" DiZ replied.
"The light and the darkness." Bryce replied, "Any first year student of philosophy knows of it."
"Darkness exists wherever there is light, Bryce." DiZ replied.
"Yes, your experiments, as your reports indicate, show that." Bryce snapped back, "You knew it, yet you chose to try and bring it out in people."
"I am trying to atone for it, Bryce." DiZ said with a dangerous tone, "And do not forget I hold the key to getting you out of here. Do not forget that darkness lurks in you as well..."
DiZ gestured towards Bryce.
Karbala, Iraq, 2004: Bryce didn't care that he had been up for the past forty hours, with maybe a few stolen moments sleep in between. The fact that Kilo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Division had clearly been in battle was written on the faces of its soldiers.
Bryce's M4 Carbine hung from its tactical sling, tucked under his arm as he walked about the building
Kilo Company now occupied.
The eyes of a young soldier glassy and sunken from very little sleep peered out from beneath his helmet, regarded the soldier's commander. A cigarette, lit and half burnt hung from his mouth as he carried his
M294 SAW in both hands.
"We kicked their ass today, Franklin, don't forget it." Bryce said, "You saved your buddies today..."
The soldier barely regarded his leader, with scarcely a nod as he lumbered off to get some sleep. Franklin sat with his back against the brick wall, simply undoing his load bearing vest and Interceptor flak vest
before collapsing into a stupor like sleep.
Bryce walked down towards the aid station, where he knew some men from First Platoon, who had been ambushed shortly after a roadside IED had taken down one of their trucks. He walked in amongst the medics who were treating the wounded.
Some of the worst were the burn victims. The ones whose clothing clung grotesquely to what remained of their skin. The ones whose skin came off in clumps. The medics were assisting the battalion surgeon and his staff. The stench of charred meat invaded his nostrils as Bryce surveyed the half dozen beds that held six of his men. Two of them were barely eighteen, barely out of high school.
God, let me kill the bastards responsible for all this. Bryce thought.
Two weeks later: The insurgent's eyes were pain filled, the fact that five or six 5.56mm rounds were imbedded in his vitals at various places having something to do with that. Bryce stood over the man, who was muttering something in Arabic through a haze of pain. As he took a squad through the building to try and fight their way to a patrol under fire, the man had popped out with an AK-47. Bryce fired his M4 Carbine several times, and the insurgent fell dead.
Bryce stood over the man. It would be so easy to do. Raise his weapon, level it on the forehead, squeeze off a single round...That's murder...That's right, fucker, I'm judge, jury and executioner...You killed or maimed several of my guys, I'll kill you in revenge...no no, hell no. I'll leave you for the fucking rats.
"Bryce?" Samantha began, noticing Bryce's faroff look.
"It was so easy...all I had to do was flick up my wrist..." Bryce began.
"Bryce, quit spacin' out..." Hyde began.
"What's going on?" Samantha asked and then turned to DiZ, "What are you doing to him...?"
"Merely letting him see that darkness exists in all...perhaps he won't be so judgemental then." DiZ replied and gestured again.
Bryce found himself looking at a very concerned Samantha. "Bryce, what happened?"
"Just a few memories I'd rather not bring up." Bryce replied. I didn't kill that man. I just left him for the rats...so I didn't murder him...
Samantha didn't want to press the issue, but she could feel that whatever memory that DiZ made Bryce relive was certainly unpleasant.
"We'd better get going." Bryce began, hefting his AK and leading the other two towards the boat, towards
the next island.
---
He heard and smelled the intruders long before he heard them coming. There were three of them, human, two male one female. There certainly were a large number of strange people (if he could imagine the gray contortionist monsters were people) turning up. He had tangled with more than his fair share of them. He
moved down the coastline, now he could see them. One brutally over muscled male, a hulking fellow wearing the tattered remnants of an English gentleman's suit and a top hat. The other was some sort of Native American, by the cinnabar tone of his skin and his dark hair, wielding an AK-47. The third was a
young woman, auburn haired, attractive in her white blouse and short, hip hugging black skirt and pumps.
The gunman was clearly the most dangerous of the three. The big brute he could deal with. Compared to his battles with Sabertooth, fights with so called 'big tough guys' tended to be like beating up on kindergarten teachers.
He had to find out who the hell they were. "Wolverine..." came the voice over his earpiece. Damn Cyclops and your timing...
"What's your position?" Cyclops asked.
"Trailing the trespassers now..." Wolverine said.
"Remember, just observe and..." Cyclops began.
Ah stow it...Wolverine thought. A field interrogation always produces decent results.
Already Wolverine was planning who he would spring upon. The gunman first.
---
Bryce saw the strange being at around the same time that the being leapt from behind the brush. He brought his AK to bear at closer range, managing to squeeze off three lucky shots. Two of them actually landed. The man in the black suit leapt upon him like a panther as they traded punches.
"I don't know who you are, bub, but we don't take kindly to intruders around here!" Wolverine replied.
"What, no yellow spandex." Bryce quipped as he dodged a right hook and swung an uppercut into Logan's midsection.
"Bugger off mate!" Hyde began as he tackled Wolverine.
Wolverine swung an adamantium backed fist into Hyde's midsection, causing the big brute to double over. Before Wolverine could do anything else, however, Hyde charged forward, in a low stance, grabbing Wolverine around the legs and pulling him to the ground.
Samantha reared back as she watched Hyde grapple with the strange, wild haired man in a black suit. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a canister of pepper spray. Since the spate of sexual assaults on campus the year before she graduated, her boyfriend Tyler had always insisted she carry it. She leveled it
towards the combatants and let loose a stream.
"YEAAGGHH!!" Hyde bellowed as the spray struck him as well as Wolverine, who also began to roll about on the ground, feeling like his face was on fire. It was only temporary, however. His healing factor already had meant that the pepper spray had no effect. The hulking muscleman that was wrestling, however, was really suffering the worst of the spray's effect. He was rolling about on the ground, tearing at his face.
Bryce took advantage of the situation to throw himself at Logan. He wasn't about to let him harm Samantha and...
"Wolverine! Enough!" came a shout.
Wolverine stepped away from the Native American as a slim, brown haired fellow wearing a strange looking visor on his eyes and clad in the same black jumpsuit as Bryce's attacker. Beside him was a red haired, attractive woman also clad in a black jumpsuit.
"Bloody 'ell! Wot wos t'at!?" Hyde shouted, still rolling around on the ground.
"That's called pepper spray." Bryce replied, and unable to resist he said, "They use it to fend off creeps."
"And who are..." Samantha began, "Wait a second I recognize you guys. You're the X-men...just a bit older."
Scott Summers froze in his tracks just then.
"Yes we are the X-men, and what do you mean older?" Scott replied.
Bryce stood up shakily, smarting from the fight with Logan, "As in being thirty-something as opposed to twenty-one."
"Logan," Jean replied cattily, "Just how hard did you hit our friend with the gun..."
"Who are you guys?" Scott asked.
"We're just passing through." Bryce replied.
"Like those gray contortionist monsters that have been appearing all over the place? Are they passing through, bub?" Wolverine asked.
"The Nobodies are no friends of ours either." Samantha replied.
"Look, this is going to take a while to explain..." Bryce began
"Then let's go somewhere where you can explain all of this." Scott replied.
----
Xavier Institute: "So let me get this straight. You two," Scott began, pointing at Samantha and Bryce, "Are from a world where Jean and I are barely in our twenties...Jean's studying in New York while I'm leading the X-men out of Bayville and we have to deal with a group of former followers of Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants called the Misfits..."
"In a nutshell." Bryce remarked.
"And incidentally these 'Misfits' come over just about every day, consume massive quantities of our food, tie up our phone lines and run up enormous phone bills and rack up the insurance rates," Scott continued as Bryce nodded to confirm each item, "Not to mention that they also cause massive damage to the surrounding area, continual plummeting of property values in an ever expanding radius, and frequent disruption of our students' daily lives?"
"Correct." Bryce replied.
"Yeah, the Xavier Institute in our world is a place of..." Samantha began, trying to be diplomatic, "Unique occurances."
"Unique?" Bryce replied, "I really wouldn't call it unique. Insane. Bizarre. And..."
Scott was glaring at Bryce like he wanted to blast a hole through him. "Believe me, mate, I know how you feel..." Hyde began.
"I was talking about the Xavier Institute from our world. It sounds like some things never change...you know the government file on you says that you have a 'perpetual stick up your...'." Bryce began.
"Bryce, there are children here." Samantha chided. Hyde guffawed.
"Mr. Lightfoot, Miss Grayson, Mr. Hyde..." Charles Xavier began, "What do these Heartless and Nobodies want with our world?"
"The Heartless, as far as we can tell, are seeking hearts of both worlds and of people." Bryce replied, "And there's the matter of the Nobodies. They're controlled by this group called Organization XIII..."
"And you're here to stop them?" Jean asked.
"No such luck." Bryce replied, "We're here to find out information about them. The word has it they're after our world next."
"But we'll help you." Samantha began, despite Bryce's annoyed state.
"What the hell are you thinking?" Bryce asked.
"Bryce, don't you see, every time we've helped people on the islands we visit, we find what we're looking for..." Samantha replied.
Bryce nodded, "Professor Xavier, are there others on your island, like yourselves, ones who'll help against the Organization..."
"There are other, I hesitate to use the term, superheroes on this island...but there are also villains as well. Villains who won't hesitate to align themselves with this Organization if they thought it would help their cause."
---
"And what is in it for us?" William Stryker asked of the three members of the Organization.
"Why everything that you desire," Zexion began.
"What's the catch?" Dr. Octopus said.
"No catch." Zexion said. Except your hearts and the heart of your world...
"And what are you willing to give us?" Stryker asked.
"For starters, thousands of unquestioning and loyal followers who will follow your every order." Zexion said. With a wave of his hand several Heartless and Nobodies appeared in the room, "These Shadows and Dusks are but a fraction of the power the Organization wields."
Electro laughed, "Those contortionists and dwarves are what you send to help us fight Spiderman, the X-men, and the Hulk? We have spent years fighting against them, with far greater powers and failed..."
"This will push things invariably in your favor." Zexion replied.
"I'll believe it when I see it." Electro replied.
"At the very least, they will come in handy for stealing the Anti-Gravity Cannon..." Dr. Octopus replied.
"What of Spiderman?" Hydroman remarked.
"The contortionists and dwarves, as Electro so delicately put it, will keep him distracted." Dr. Octopus replied.
"And the Hulk and the X-men?" Stryker added.
"They will be dealt with. If nothing else, the Heartless and Nobodies will be useful as cannon fodder." Octopus replied.
---
"So that's who was behind these strange monsters. This Organization XIII?" Spiderman replied. A few hours ago, via Cerebro, Xavier had sent out a message to all the superheroes living on the island.
"Exactly." Bryce replied. Any second now...Bryce thought.
"We have to stop them and..." Cyclops began.
Just then the sound of the Xavier Institute's perimeter alarms and automated defenses engaging could be heard.
Simultaneously the Mansion's television set turned on. "We interrupt your cheesy soap operas and sophomoric sitcoms to bring you news of true value." The image of a large man, with four metallic tentacles on his back, manipulating a strange looking gun with a glowing bore, could be seen, "We are taking the Statue of Liberty for a rather princely ransom..."
"We've got to stop them." Spiderman said.
"Agreed." The Hulk replied.
"We've got an equally big problem of several Heartless and Nobodies converging around this mansion." Bryce countered, as he spoke he checked both his AK and his Glock. He wasn't about to let those damned Heartless near the innocent children of this mansion.
"We have to keep the children safe." Ororo began.
It was then that the first of the Heartless and Nobodies smashed through the many windows and doors of the Mansion.
Bryce opened a hall closet and said to Samantha, "Stay here."
"Bryce..." Samantha protested.
"Don't argue." Bryce replied, closing the door.
Through the narrow slits of the closet door, Samantha could see Bryce turn towards the nearest window where a Shadow Heartless had just broken through. Bryce opened fire, hitting it with half a dozen rounds of 7.62 rounds.
Wolverine extended his claws, slashing at any nearby Heartless and Nobodies. His adamantium backed fists did just as much damage, shattering bones with great ease.
Cyclops blasted away at the Heartless with his optic blasts as more and more of the creatures flooded into the Mansion. A Soldier Heartless leapt onto Cyclops' back and began to claw at him.
"Bugger off!" Hyde shouted, grabbing the Heartless by both legs and bashing it against the nearest wall, smashing a hole through the drywall.
"I appreciate the help, but could you avoid destroying the surrounding area when you give someone a hand?" Cyclops replied.
"Bollocks you." Hyde replied as he body slammed another Heartless into a rather expensive Ming dynasty vase, smashing it into fragments.
"There you are." Bryce said.
"Where's Samantha?" Hyde asked.
"Stashed somewhere safe for now." Bryce replied, "We've got to get out of this place and find that report."
"Is that all you bloody care about, those stupid reports?" Hyde replied.
"If it gets us back to our worlds, yes." Bryce replied.
As the two men raced down the halls, superheroes were battling for their lives. The Beast wrestled a Large Body that had knocked Jean Grey down. Jean was struggling, shakily to her feet.
They ran towards the downstairs hall closet, where Bryce had left Samantha...
---
Samantha hated the fact that she was being kept hidden while Bryce and Hyde were risking their lives out there. But she knew she had to survive, had to write. I know the pen is mightier than the sword, but I wish I knew how to use something to be more useful...Samantha thought.
Samantha jumped backward as a sword from a Bandit Heartless smashed through the door. Almost immediately she heard a burst of gunfire that told her Bryce had to be in the area. The door was throw open and Samantha saw Bryce standing there, with Hyde right behind him.
"We're outta here." Bryce began.
Before Bryce could explain any further a shower of lights, bluish white orbs, appeared in front of them. Standing before them was a man in his early twenties, maybe a year older than Samantha. "Who the hell...?"
"No time to explain." the Whitelighter said, with a noticeably Australian accent.
"We're looking for the Ansem report." Samantha began, "We can't leave these people here..."
"Already taken care of, love." The Australian Whitelighter replied, waving the report.
"What about these people?" Bryce asked.
"They can take care of themselves." The Whitelighter said as he orbed himself and the three travelers back to where they had started.
---
"Alright, start talking." Bryce began, "Who are you and what was with pulling us off our mission early?"
"The name's Brumby." The Whitelighter replied.
"Unfortunately circumstances have accelerated our timetable." Cole said, as he nonchalantly walked into view.
"What about that world?" Samantha asked.
"What about it, indeed. If the hearts of its people are strong and do not fall to darkness, they'll throw the Heartless and Nobodies off eventually..." Cole replied.
"That looks like a big IF Cole." Bryce snapped back.
"It is of no consequence." Cole replied.
"It's a whole bloody world, mate!" Hyde replied.
"You have the information needed, do you not?" Cole replied.
"If you're talking about the Ansem report, yes we have it." Bryce replied.
"Good then you have the necessary resourcefulness needed to get yourselves out of here." Cole replied.
"What?" Samantha asked.
"You said you'd get us out of here." Bryce replied.
"If you were resourceful enough to carry out your tasks, you're resourceful enough to find your ways out of here." Cole replied, "I suggest you hurry."
As Cole and Brumby disappeared, the three travelers could make out the glowing eyes of many Heartless converging near their position.
"Where do we go?" Samantha said.
"Anywhere but here." Bryce replied, shoving her behind him, "Go, I'll take care of them."
Bryce promptly dropped to one knee and fired short bursts from his AK-47 as Samantha and Hyde ran. As the rifle ran dry, Bryce pulled his Glock from its holster and kept up the withering fire, killing any Heartless that got too close before running to catch up with Samantha and Hyde. Bryce jammed another magazine into the AK as he ejected the spent magazine. He yanked the charging handle back, and then ducked behind a low stone wall, shooting at the pursuing Heartless.
"Bryce!" Samantha shouted.
"Go, I'll pile 'em up and then catch up with you guys." Bryce shouted back.
"'e's cer'ainly got courage..." Hyde remarked.
"It's not doing him any good if he gets himself killed..." Samantha remarked as she and Hyde ducked behind the walls of a ruined house. It was then that the shooting stopped.
"Oh no..." Samantha whimpered, certain that Bryce had just gotten himself killed.
---
The distant days spent in that beautiful paradise are an illusion to me now.
How long have I been here, banished to the realm of nothingness?
It is only by relying upon my anger and hatred that I have been able to retain my sense of self here, where all existence is nullified.
My heart is being overcome with hatred toward my apprentices, possessed by the darkness, and with the anger I feel for stupidly allowing myself to be betrayed.
Is this darkness, eating away at my heart?
I cannot continue to idle away my time here.
What are Xehanort and the others attempting to do?
I must unravel the mystery of these Ansem Reports, intercept my apprentices, and defeat them.
That is my mission…the only way to repay the world for my sins.
Those beings who lack hearts—the Heartless—must be the key.
The darkness of the heart, made flesh. Cursed shadows who not only lack hearts, but multiply by seizing hearts from any and all living things.
Where have they come from, and where are they going?
Three elements combine to create life: a heart, a soul, and a body.
But what of the soul and body left behind when the heart is lost?
When the soul leaves the body, its vessel, life gives way to death, but what about when the heart leaves?
A being does not perish when its heart leaves its body. The heart alone disappears into the darkness.
There is little time.
If I remain in this realm much longer, I will certainly learn these answers the hard way.
My heart is already a captive of the darkness.
---
"That was good of you to shorten our heroes' quest, Brumby." Nigel began, "But that was most unwise to get directly involved. The Elders don't know we're mixed up in this whole lot."
"Can't have those Elders learn that two of their Whitelighters are mixed up with a former demon..." Cole replied with a sardonic grin.
"That was still a load of bollocks to leave Samantha, Bryce, and Hyde out there." Brumby remarked.
"If they find the Chamber of the Traveler they'll be able to find their way home." Cole remarked.
"That's assuming they know how or where to find it." Brumby argued.
"I know that leaving people behind is a sore point for you, Brumby." Cole replied, "But you have to conceal your involvement from the Elders."
"It's more than a sore point, Cole." Brumby argued.
"Please forgive Brumby for acting so impulsively. He's barely begun to be a Whitelighter." Nigel replied.
"Nonetheless..." Cole began.
"I died to make sure that my mates got to the ships before the Japanese could get to them. That's why I hate leaving people behind." Brumby countered, "I'm not about to leave another group of people trapped."
Brumby orbed away as Nigel said, "Damn it..."
---
TBC (This fic still has one more chapter yet)
Just to inform you: Brumby isn't a red herring OC. I'll go into further detail as to who this mystery Whitelighter is in future fics...bit of a spoiler, he'll be the Guardian Angel of a certain Keyblade Wielder to be...