The SuperStarr Chronicles
Disclaimer: "NUN! AAAAAAAGH!" - Father Jack Hackett, Father Ted
Chapter 21: The Bear Necessities, Part 4!
Somewhere in Honolulu, Hawaii
Much like any other major American city, the city of Honolulu had to deal with the issue of superhuman crime. However, the Big Apricot did have protectors of its own, the veteran heroine and former First Line member known as Firefall, as well as her sidekick, Star Sign. The young woman got different powers based on the signs of the Zodiac of those around her. The two had recently apprehended the superhuman thrill-seeking mercenary known as Joystick. But unknown to the two, a new threat was preparing to rise.
Sparks flew from the flames of the acetylene torch as it welded together two pieces of metal. The owner of the torch turned the tool off and pushed up the protective visor. It belonged to a blue-eyed brown-haired man. He smiled at his work.
"...beautiful." He whispered in awe. He put his torch on a special rack near the tanks and looked over the object he was welding: A golden futuristic gauntlet with what looked like a large cannon mounted on it. The smiling man ran a hand on the gauntlet. His blue eyes shone with a touch of insanity.
My greatest creation. Jonathan Darque thought. Those bastards brought me to ruin. They destroyed my life. I had to use the last of my fortune to make this. But it will all be worth it. He looked up at another object: A small painting of the Hawaiian volcano goddess known as Pele. Angela was Hawaiian. Darque remembered, his memories recalling his now-deceased wife. She would tell me tales of the myths of her people. Pele was the one who stuck with me the most. Her fury could destroy, but she was also a creator. Her lava would burn away the old to make way for the new. Darque smirked. And I intend to do the same to everyone who pushed me to this. Burn them away. Use the fury of Pele to cleanse the Earth of them. The power of magma...
Bayville High
Several members of the Brotherhood looked at the destroyed track field.
"Oh my gosh!" Paul put his hand over his mouth in shock.
"The hell happened here?" Lance wondered.
"Looks like an angry Godzilla went though here." Lila noted.
"I heard it was some kind of...big bear." Fred remembered.
"That makes as much sense as anything else around here." Pietro shrugged. The young mutants then heard a ringing. "Who-?"
"That's mine." Paul pulled out his phone. It was contained in a futuristic-looking purple and black case. He pressed the "accept" button on the phone's touchscreen. "Hello?"
"Who is it?" Lila asked, the British-Indian girl's voice a whisper.
"It's Clara." Paul said. "It's okay, Clara. We're all fine. I don't think any of us were there."
"I did consider trying out for the track team, but I found basketball more fun." Pietro admitted. "Besides, have to pretend I run slow is such a pain."
"Don't you already do that when you play basketball?" Paul asked. Pietro just glared at the Los Angelan.
"...shut up." He muttered.
Thwap!
"OW!" Pietro yelped as he rubbed the spot on the back of his head he got smacked upside. He whirled and glared at a smirking Lila.
"Watch yer surroundings, Mr. Ambiguous." Lila teased, a big grin on her face.
"I hate you." The silver-haired speedster muttered. He noticed Lila walking away. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to go check on the farmboy. Make sure he's alright." Lila said.
"Hope he is!" Paul called out.
Pietro snorted. "Why would she be mooning for the X-Geek? I mean, I'm right here."
WHAP!
"OW!" Pietro screamed, feeling a hand smack him upside the head again. "Who did that?!"
"Man, that felt good!" Lance grinned.
"So, a large bear that shot energy beams out of its mouth like Godzilla?" The police officer repeated, wanting to be sure that he heard this properly.
"Yes." Principal Kelly sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Heh. You'd expect this kind of thing to happen in New York City, not here." The officer chuckled. "I mean, with all the superheroes around there. If you ask me, they tend to attract the weirdness."
"Yeah, no kidding." Kelly agreed. He looked at the remains of the track field. He watched the police tape it off as best they could with their yellow-and-black striped crime scene tape and interviewing students. "That's the second sports field wrecked in as many days."
"Ah, right." The officer nodded. "The soccer field got damaged in that fire."
"Yeah. The fire." Kelly confirmed. God, what Xavier did to those kids' minds. That was creepy.
"You also said that one of the students drove it away?"
"Lured it away." The brunet man nodded. "Kid had a ton of brass."
"And you just...let a student do this?" The cop asked in disbelief.
"The kid just leapt into action. I couldn't stop him." Kelly said.
The cop nodded. "Yeah, I can see that." He wrote down Kelly's testimony in a notepad. "All those superheroes sometimes get kids thinking they can be them, too."
"Tell me about it." Kelly sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Whoa-ho-hoooooo!" A voice whooped. Kelly and the police officer turned and saw Roger Gruenwald walk up to them, holding a notepad and pen of his own. Amusingly, the kid somehow got his paws on a khaki trenchcoat and brown fedora. Sticking out of the hat's dark brown headband was a white card on it with "Press" written on it. "Man, it looks like an animal rampaged through here, heh heh."
Kelly sighed. "What do you want, Gruenwald?"
"The school's been talking about some monster causing havoc out at the track." He peeked out at the scene. "And it looks like that wasn't completely unfounded."
"Heh." The officer chuckled. "Reminds me of my cousin Eddie."
"Mr. Gruenwald, don't you have a class to go to?" Kelly said.
"Well, I was in class." Roger said. "But I heard about this, and I just had to check it out."
"It was a giant bear!" One student yelled out. "It was like a bearzilla!"
"Really?" Roger noted, writing this down. "Sounds like something the Fantastic Four would face off...or something the Hulk would brawl with..." He thought out loud. "Principal Kelly, can you confirm this?"
"Mr. Gruenwald, please." Principal Kelly sighed.
"There you are!" The voice of Taryn Fujioka called out. Said girl marched up to Roger. "What are you doing?"
"There's a story here, girl!" Roger grinned.
Taryn rolled her eyes. "Roger, I think the cops have better things to do than just..." She blinked at the reporter's outfit. "...where did you get that coat and hat?"
"My uncle Stan gave them to me." Roger explained. The Japanese-American girl shook her head.
"Come on, Roger. Let's go." Taryn dragged the teenage reporter away, despite his protests.
"Taryn, come on!" Roger complained as Taryn pulled him away. "This is a big story here!" Kelly and the police officer watched the two walk off.
"Heh." The policeman chuckled in amusement. "You work with some interesting kids."
"Tell me about it." Kelly groaned. Unnoticed by anyone, a certain woman was hiding in the shadows.
"Hmmm..." Jillian Woods frowned underneath her scarf as she picked up some animal hair. She was clad in her old Shadowoman costume: a dark purple longcoat with matching pants. Her feet were covered by black boots and gloves. Her head was topped by a purple wide-brimmed fedora with a black hatband. The black scarf over her mouth helped conceal her identity. She also wore a pair of dark purple goggles with red-tinted lenses over her eyes. Completing the costume was a bright purple wig. She turned the hair over in her black-gloved hand. "Darren, you getting this?" She kept her voice in a whisper.
Back in Woods Manor, Darren Drinkwater was watching this on a large monitor in her Shadowcave underneath the manor.
"Indeed I am, Miss Wo-I mean, Shadowoman." Darren nodded.
"The goggles' scanners confirm the DNA is ursine. Yup, it was definitely a bear."
"Lines up with the chaos we've been hearing about downtown." Darren agreed. "Reports of a...'bearzilla' on the rampage downtown."
"This DNA is recognizably ursine, but it's been...altered." Jillian said. "What the hell happened to this bear?"
"If you take that fur sample to the cave, we can work on something to fix this."
"Indeed. I'm on my way." A circular shadow appeared under Jillian, and she sank down into it. The shadow then vanished. It was like she was never even there. Back at the manor, a circular shadow appeared on the ground next to Darren. Shadowoman rose from the ebony portal, and then it contracted and vanished under her feet. She held up the bear fur.
"I hope we can find something." Jillian pulled off her hat and goggles, and pushed her scarf down, revealing her face. "Considering what the police band has been saying...we may need some help on this one."
Darren realized who she met. "Ah, the Professor."
"Mm." Jillian nodded. "He and I did work together in the past. And he helped me out when I first got my powers."
Darren nodded in understanding. "Indeed, he did. You think he will help you here?"
"Oh, I think so." Jillian said, grabbing her phone and dialing the Xavier Institute. A smile formed on her face. "He always was an adventurer at heart..."
The woods outside of Bayville
"I'm going to go find Scott." Jean told the others.
"Be careful, Red." Logan warned. "The bear is out there and still angry."
"I will." The redheaded mentalist assured with a nod. Using her telekinesis, she took to the air and flew off.
"So, now what?" Evan asked. Logan frowned in thought. This was...one of the more unusual situations he had found himself in. Well, at the least the ones he could remember. Clara Creed's revelations had left the Canadian mutant wondering how long he had been truly around...and what had he seen in all those years? However, the mutant warrior's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bear's roar.
"That way!" Logan ordered, running into the forest. The X-Men followed.
"Does anyone have an actual plan here?" Rogue noted.
"How do you plan for this?!" Evan countered.
"Indeed." Ororo agreed. "I doubt even Professor Xavier has encountered anything like this before." Back in the Institute, the bald telepath found himself shuddering for some reason. His phone then rang. He wheeled over to his desk and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" He smiled when he heard the voice on the other end. "Ah, Miss Woods. How are you? How has retirement treated you?" Back in the forest, the X-Men had encountered the bear.
"AGH!" Kurt screamed as he dodged a laser blast from the roaring bear.
"Storm! Get some fog around the thing!" Logan ordered. Storm flew up into the sky, and created a mass of fog around the bear. The large ursine roared and looked around in confusion. A growl escaped the creature's lips.
KRAKOOM!
The bear roared in rage as a lightning bolt hit him in the side. It then got blasted by another. And another. And another. It fired energy blasts in the direction the blasts of lightning came from, but Ororo Munroe proved herself to be far too nimble for the bear to hit.
Bamf!
"Guten tag, Herr Bär." Kurt greeted as he landed on the bear's head. "What has gotten you angry today? Goldilocks ate your porridge?" The bear roared and swiped at the German mutant. Kurt managed to teleport away in time, causing the bear to hit itself in the head. The bear shook his head and growled in frustration. He teleported around the bear.
"Yoo-hoo!" Kurt waved. "Herr Bär!" The bear angrily swatted at the blue-furred teenager, but the German mutant saw it coming. He teleported behind the bear, and eyed a long stick. With a grin, he grabbed the stick.
It's not a sword, but it will do. He thought. The young X-Man found himself wanting to reminisce about his childhood. How he once saw Errol Flynn wield a sword in the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood as a boy, and since then, he wanted to be a swashbuckling swordsman. However, this was not a time to be nostalgic. The bear turned around and swiped at Kurt again...only to hit the ground. Kurt's teleportation had saved him again. He teleported into the air, and swatted the bear in the face with the stick, like he was trying to slash the bear in the face with a sword. He then teleported back down to the ground, behind the bear.
"En garde, Herr Bär!" The blue-furred mutant whooped.
The Xavier Institute
"I'm surprised to see you back in costume, Miss Woods." Xavier noted. Standing across from him was Jillian Woods, clad in her Shadowoman costume. Her wig, hat, and goggles were in her hand, and her scarf was down, showing her full face and black hair. "I thought you had found satisfaction in retirement."
"I did." Jillian nodded. She noticed a nearby chair. "May I?"
"Of course. I insist." Xavier gestured to the chair with a smile. Jillian took a seat.
"Thing is, I've been hearing in the news lately about these new superheroes popping up over the last couple years."
"And you wanted to, shall we say, get back in the saddle."
"In a way." Jillian nodded. "I also had been investigating the whole bear rampage."
"I wish I could help with that, but I am just as baffled as you are as to how a bear ended up...in that state." Xavier said.
"Maybe you can." Jillian said. She held up a small clear baggie with some hair in it.
"What is it?"
"A sample of the bear's fur." Jillian explained. "My goggles indicated that this bear's DNA was somehow altered."
"Altered, you say?" Xavier took the baggie and looked at it.
"Yeah." Jillian nodded. "I'm not sure how. And I don't have a sample of the bear's unaltered DNA. I'm a lot of things, but I am not a magician."
"Didn't you know one in college?" Xavier recalled.
"Yes, but he was a weirdo." Jillian rolled her eyes. "But that's besides the point. We need to find out what happened to this bear."
"I think I may know a man who can help us with that." Xavier nodded. He picked up the phone. "He was someone I reached out to once when he was young. We've stayed in contact since then."
The woods outside Bayville
"ROOOOOOOOOAR!" The bear fired a laser from its mouth.
BOOM!
"GAH!" Evan, Rogue, and Logan yelped as they dodged the bear's laser breath. The beam hit the ground, kicking up dirt and sending the three mutants scattering.
"Damn it all!" Evan grumbled. He sprouted some spikes from his arm and slung them at the bear. The ursine angrily swatted them away and fired another breath beam at the three mutants. They managed to dodge that one.
"What the hell is this thing made of?!" Rogue exclaimed.
"Rogue!" Wolverine called out. "Touch me!"
"Right!" The Mississippian girl ran to him and removed one of her gloves. She quickly tapped Logan's bare arm. She grunted as some of Logan's memories rushed into her head...and Logan's powers became part of her. She felt something odd in her hands and lower arms.
Shlock!
"Huh?!" Rogue blinked at the bone claws popping out of her hands. The Canadian feral glanced at her.
"Yeah, these weren't always metal." Wolverine grunted, showing his own adamantium-lined claws. So that's likely what they looked like before Weapon X...
"Oh yeah, Clara told you about them." Rogue realized. Logan looked at her. She let out a wince at that. "Sorry. It's just, I got that memory."
"...Yeah. She did."
Rogue nodded. "You know, if it means anything, it's good that you two got to meet up and talk some stuff out."
"Thanks, Stripes." Logan said. "We'll talk later! We got a bear to take down!" The two charged the angry ursine, both of them roaring.
Meanwhile, Jean had been using her telekinesis to fly around, and she was using her telepathy ti try and find Scott.
Scott?! She reached out with her mind.
Jean! She heard a response. The redhead visibly brightened.
Are you alright?
I'm fine. The car...somewhat.
Tell me where you are. Jean "said". Scott gave her his coordinates, and she flew as fast as her power could take her.
Scott sighed as he looked at the car. It had taken a bit of a beating from his luring the bear out of town. That kid is going to kill me. I should have asked his name, so I can get this fixed up for him and get the bill paid. He heard Jean land nearby.
"Scott!" She ran up to the optic blaster and hugged him. "I'm glad to see you are okay."
"Yeah, I'm fine." Scott frowned at the car. "But I likely won't be when that kid I borrowed this car from finds out about this." Jean winced at the damage.
"Ah, I see." Jean gave Scott his uniform. "I got this for you."
"Nice, thanks." Scott smiled as he took the costume. "I'll have to change in the car." Jean nodded in understanding.
"Right. I'll turn around. Let me know when you're ready."
Scott nodded. "I'll try and be quick." The optic blaster got in the car. Jean turned around and waited. A rush of emotions ran through the young woman. Worry about her teammates and friends, fear that something terrible may have happened...and much to her alight annoyance, a bit of desire towards Scott right now.
Don't turn around. She chided herself. The redhead may have been a powerful superhuman, but she was still a teenager. And teenagers were known to have raging hormones. Don't turn around. Don't look. Don't turn around don't look don't turn around don't turn around...
"Jean?" The redhead opened her eyes She turned around...and she saw Scott standing there in his uniform.
"You...okay?" He asked.
"Oh, uhhhh yeah! Yeah, I'm fine! I'm just fine! Fine fine fine!" Jean tried to hide the reddening of her cheeks.
Scott nodded. "Okay, let's go. We got a mad bear to stop." Jean flew into the air, "grabbed" Scott with her telekinesis, and the two of them flew off towards the others. Jean hoped that Scott didn't notice how red her cheeks were.
Bayville High
"Well, this was another disaster." Principal Kelly sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's the second thing we need to get repaired in as many weeks." He was sitting in his office. I think I must have angered some gods in a past life. I must have. "I picked the wrong week to quit drinking." He pulled out a flask from his jacket and took a swig. He heard a knock on his door. "Come in."
Hank McCoy peeked in.
"Principal Kelly? Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I just..." He frowned at his flask. "I really picked the wrong week to quit drinking."
"Your secretary has been getting a lot of calls about the students." Hank pointed out. She peeked in.
"A lot of parents are worried."
Kelly nodded. "Okay. Tell them as far as we know, nobody was hurt, thank God. We'll send the students home for the day. The parents can come pick them up." The secretary nodded and went back to work. Hank also decided to take his leave. Besides, he needed to clean up his lab.
When he got there, he felt a vibration in his pocket. The teacher blinked as he pulled out his phone and noted the number on it. He pressed the green "accept" button on the screen.
"Hello?" He asked. "Professor Xavier! How have you been?! ...you want me to what?" He blinked. "...I see. That will be a challenge...alright, I'll see what I can do. But I will need some help."
"And she has arrived." Hank saw Shadowoman standing there. "You must be the help the Professor said I'll have."
"Yes." The costume woman nodded. "Professor Xavier is an old friend of mine." She formed a portal of shadows next to her. "Take a ride on the shadow portal express."
Jonathan Darque, aka Magma, first appeared in Marvel Team-Up #110 (October 1981), created by Herb Trimpe, David Michelinie, and Mike Esposito. This is setting up a future storyline I want to do. The Brotherhood Goes Hawaiian, ha ha!
Shadowoman's costume was inspired by more pulp-style figures, mainly the Shadow. Her first costume in the comics was basically a palette swap of Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman uniform, so I wanted to give her a look that was more unique.
Yeah, this chapter drove me bugnuts trying to write it. I'm not the proudest of it, but I wanted to push the story along.
