Well, here it is, some snippets of my next comic project. I have yet to find an appropriate title for Osborn's second part of the Dark Reign, his moment of victory...but I'll think of one. There were so many things I wanted to see happen, wrong or not. How far would the Sentry go in the world if he hadn't died there in Asgard? I would love to see him become an influence on the world, slowly destroy it like an insidious plague of hopelessness. Plus, it's a chance to mess around with fun villainous characters like Taskmaster, Ant-Man (O'Grady, not Pym), Ghost, and the Dark Avengers. Plus Osborn. He cracked, but he's winning....If Asgard was not the other shoe dropping, what will be?
Not a serious AU, not on the level of "Marvel What If"s (though some of those are, ugh). But it's fun to write. So, some of it:
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When you were standing in the wake of devastation
When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
With the cataclysm raining down, insides crying save me now
You were there impossibly alone.
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation
You build up hope, but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go, let it go.
And in the burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of temper grace falling into empty space
No one there to catch you in their arms
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation
You build up hope, but failure's all you've known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go, let it go.
01
Robert Reynolds awoke in a crater. He stood in the center of the immense gouge in the Earth's surface, dust and debris whistling idly past him. His hair and blue cape blew gently in the wind. He lifted his face to the sky, but could see nothing but unnatural, dusky clouds sweeping by. Everything was silent.
What happened?
Robert's boyish face was wrought with agony. He turned around slowly, but saw nothing but empty destruction for miles.
Oh God . . .
What happened?
The answer seemed breathed by the wind in a whisper, and Robert's eyes went wide.
'Everyone died.'
“No,” the man breathed.
'Like before
Everyone died'
“No, no!” Robert cried into nowhere. “That wasn't me!”
'It was
It is
You are'
“NO!”
'You are the Void'
Robert fell to his knees. “No! No . . . ”
Yet as he stared at his hands, he knew. He knew that these hands . . . had slain gods.
These hands had torn down a city.
These hands had murdered a nation.
'Everyone
Everyone Died'
“Everyone,” Robert murmured, staring at his hands. He could still feel the stones crumbling in his palms, the blood flying against his skin. He could still see the red and black power that had glowed from his entire body, oozing destruction into the world. He could hear the screams.
He could feel the death.
Robert's blue eyes lifted from his hands.
It felt . . .
It felt good.
It felt
like being born
again
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Lester pulled himself out of the rubble, grunting in pain. He was uncertain that anything existed outside of pain anymore. He staggered to his feet, desperately gasping for air. He felt that he had not breathed in ages, and the rush of clear oxygen made him faint. He fell to his knees, panting on the ground.
What had happened?
I was leaving . . .
Lester blinked, rubbing his light eyes clear. Blood smeared his hand, and he held a gloved hand to his gashed forehead. He sat back amidst the chaos, surveying the silent, decimated battlefield in a daze.
I was leaving.
Then Daken came . . .
Lester ran his tongue over his lips, frowned.
We kissed.
He was talking some BS. I told him . . . something, that made him blush . . . He was angry, but sad, I think. He looked lost . . .
Then.
Lester rubbed his head, pulling off the Hawkeye mask. His brain pounded in his skull, and it took him a moment to resume thinking. He realized the silence, and felt fear creeping into him.
I didn't leave.
I stayed. I stayed, and it all came down. Osborn--
[“Bring it down, Bob! Bring it all down!”]
He ordered the Sentry . . .
And Asgard fell.
Lester looked around, breaking into a cold sweat. This was Asgard! This was . . . all that was left of the realm of the Norse gods, just this hole of rubble in the middle of Oklahoma. The Sentry had brought it down, all right, down to hell . . . down to nothing . . .
[“He's actually doing it.”]
I don't remember who said it. Our side, their side, both? Someone. We all knew it.
Osborn was winning.
The battlefield changed, got more personal. Heroes and villains started trying to protect what was important to them, just trying to survive, rats leaving a ship, all of us.
Karla tried to grab me, but.
Daken . . .
I saw Wolverine head for him. I saw them fighting. I went to them, and then?
Lester frowned, getting to his feet slowly. He looked all around, not daring to call out, fearing no one would answer. He kicked rocks aside, tried to figure out what direction to go in. The sky was dusted over with thick plumes of smoke and the dust of the battle. He could not even see the sun.
Wolverine was . . . hurting him. I saw him screaming.
Heh. I love to see him screaming . . .
It was around here. I was almost there, but then . . . the Sentry . . .
Lester drew a breath, eyes scanning the rubble sharply. He could not stand the silent emptiness anymore. “Daken?”
The name was soft, only a timid whisper on the dirty breeze. Lester cleared his throat, and called out more boldly this time, “Yo! Daken! Come on, you stupid punk! I know you made it. You're too much of a stubborn bastard to die here.
“Daken?! C'mon! You can't cheat me of killing you, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Something rustled some distance ahead. Lester sped his pace, falling silent. It could be anyone in the debris, friend or foe-- It could even be the Sentry.
Lester's skin crawled at the thought of the man. The last he had seen, he had been a yellow and blue streak across the sky-- right before the sky had come down on them all.
But a strangled cry let Lester know it was not the Sentry. He frowned deeply. It had sounded like Daken, but so small and pained that he doubted it could be him. He tripped and climbed over the remains of Asgard's buildings and palaces.
“Daken? That you? Da-- ken.”
Lester stopped, frozen with shock. It was Daken, but it looked . . .
“ . . . Daken?”
He looked small and miserable on the ground. Blood soaked his skin, the tattered remains of his Wolverine costume, trickled out of his mouth. The deep, angry claw marks, in sets of three, were unmistakable; Wolverine had savaged his son.
Daken was half curled up, his eyes staring in shock at his wrists, tiny, strangled sounds escaping his lips. Lester came around in front of him, knelt down. Up close, he could see that Daken's arms were slashed straight up the center of each arm, cut open entirely to the bone. And that was all there was: bone. The Muramasa blades were gone.
Lester took one of his arms into his hand, studying the damage. The knuckles were also torn apart, and there were tiny splinters of bone where his claws had been. He saw that Daken's body was shaking violently.
“Well.” Lester looked at Daken's eyes guardedly. “Daddy really did spank you, huh?”
Daken shook harder, and he gave a terrible, inhuman cry. Lester released his arm, backing up a few inches from him. Daken only crumbled, however, burying his face in his bleeding arms and sobbing furiously.
Lester winced as he screamed again. There was such anguish in it that even he felt a twinge of sympathy. After all, didn't he know what this felt like?
Daken writhed on the ground, screaming, crying. What could he do with his rage? Nothing. He could do absolutely nothing, and it drove him mad. He had lost, really lost, in the only way that mattered.
Lester put a hand on the man's shoulder. “Daken.”
Daken stilled, but said nothing.
“Listen, I-”
“You WHAT?!”
Daken shoved Lester away from himself. He crawled into a sitting position, having to hold his nearly eviscerated body together. His eyes went wide with pain, but the rest of his face was a mask of fury.
“You must love this,” Daken growled. “Or maybe you feel sorry for me now? Now?! That I'm as much a bitch as you were!”
He lunged at Lester, hands wrapping around his throat. Lester fell back, but it was of his own choice; Daken had little strength left to fight with.
“I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU! I--”
Pain rippled through the man, cooling his anger. He crumbled over his ripped apart chest, stomach, head bowed. “Nghh. I'll kill you, I . . . I--”
His voice broke, and he fell into tears again. Lester sat up, prying the man's hands off his throat. They fell to his shoulders, and he felt Daken squeeze his shirt in his hands.
“I couldn't . . . I wasn't . . . I . . . ” Daken frowned in dazed confusion at Lester. “I lost.”
Lester smiled grimly. It was both satisfying and disappointing to see his nemesis so broken. Despite himself, he pulled the man into his arms.
“I lost.”
“How the mighty have fallen,” Lester remarked. He glanced uncomfortably down at the mutant in his arms. “ . . . Everyone loses sometime. You're older 'n me, and you didn't know that?”
Daken remained staring at his arms in sorrowful bafflement.
“Heh. You really are arrogant.”
Daken looked up at him, and Lester drew him into a kiss. The poignancy of it was so familiar that it broke through Karla's hypnosis, and the memory of their night together came rushing into Lester's mind. He let his tongue taste the remembered mouth, rolling across Daken's sharp white teeth, his lips closing on the mutant's bloodied ones. The taste of blood filled his mouth, and he licked it in, savoring the flavor. Daken's arms encircled him, and he felt tender in Lester's arms.
“Damn you,” Lester breathed as he pulled away just barely an inch. He studied Daken's brawny, youthful face, those eyes staring at him for the first time without suspicion or scheming, derision or arrogance. Lester ran a hand down Daken's cheek, his neck. “Damn you. Damn you. You're fucking--”
He kissed Daken again. Daken was shattered by the grudgingly caring intimacy, unable to comprehend it. But he wanted it. He wanted this comfort or whatever it is, wanted it so desperately that it hurt.
“You're so fucking . . . beautiful.”
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“Ooohhh my funghing . . . ohhh my heeaad . . . ”
Taskmaster crawled weakly out from the pocket in the debris he had been fortunate enough to fall in. He twisted his broken leg out from under his smashed, smoking Goblin Glider, yelling a string of profanity as he did.
The man coughed, pounding himself on the chest, and tore off his mask. His brown hair was on end, and blood was smeared across his mouth. He had a black eye, and one cheek was swelling.
“What . . . happened?”
For a moment, fear struck through him, so ice cold that it dulled the pain. He did not know where he was, or why he was there. He did not know . . . who he was. Everything was a blank. As he felt over the injuries on his face, he realized that he did not know what his face looked like.
“Oh G- Oh God.”
God?
Gods . . .
Taskmaster broke into a nervous laughter as his memories came tumbling back. “Oh, this is Asgard!” he told himself, motioning around with an arm. He blinked, and turned his face this way and that urgently. “ . . . Was Asgard,” he corrected himself in dismay.
Taskmaster sobered, rubbing his temple. I'm not sure I want to remember any of it, to tell the truth, he thought. Thunderbolts and Osborn, the good/bad Avengers, the gods, the Sentry . . . Shoulda kept flyin' without lookin' back.
Taskmaster dreaded having to move in any capacity, but he knew he could not just stay there. He lifted his broken leg and straightened it out before him, grunting and grimacing as he did. “Ngghh-- Agh! That hurts like a mother.”
He broke off a rod of metal to use as a splint, and began tearing strips of his cloak. He realigned the bones, and began tying the rod along the length of his leg. He realized that he had a nasty gash in his thigh, and tied a strip of cloth around it to stop the profuse bleeding. He threw his head back and growled at the pain. “Rrrrgghhh . . . shit!”
“Taskmaster?”
Taskmaster looked up in alarm, spooked by the lonely, empty battlefield. “Huh? Who's there?”
“It's me.”
Taskmaster was relieved as Constrictor, Frank Schlichting, came ambling through the debris. He seemed generally uninjured, though his mouth was a grave, thin line.
“Man, I'm glad to see you,” Taskmaster said earnestly, relieved that someone was alive. “Hey, give me a hand, would ya?”
Frank knelt beside him and silently began helping him with the splint. Taskmaster was about to start rambling about the surreality of the Siege of Asgard, but then he noticed a diamond-shaped white throwing knife in Frank's hand.
“Frank, listen, I'm sorry.”
Frank followed his gaze, clutched the 'diamond' in his hand. “Rachel . . . I lost her, man. She's gone.”
“I figured as much.”
“Yeah?” Frank sat back, pulling back his mask. “You figure why she's gone, too?”
Taskmaster shook his head. I shouldn't have said anything.
“She went over to the Captain America's side when it all came down,” Frank explained. “When she saw them losing, she said she had to help 'Steve'. She tried to get me to go with them, can you believe it? When they were getting desperate, disabling rogues on sight-- She wanted me to go to him.”
“Frank--”
“She'd be alive if she had stayed with me!” Frank yelled, his voice hoarse. “I woulda protected her! I . . . I could have. The damned Cap couldn't even protect her! He just used her in the fight, like-like cannon fodder! And now they're both dead!”
Not knowing what to say to that, Taskmaster gave the man's shoulder a supportive squeeze. He then went back to his injuries. Once his leg was in its splint, Frank helped him to his feet.
“So now what?”
He's askin' me?!
“That depends,” Taskmaster replied worriedly. He looked down at his mask in his hand, turning it over and over.
“On what?”
Taskmaster put his mask on again. “On who won the damn thing.”
“Could anyone have won anything in this?” Frank asked, gazing around incredulously.
A third voice joined them, seemingly from out of nowhere, “Does it matter?!”
Something tiny bounced off of Constrictor's shoulder, and then grew until it was revealed to be the Thunderbolts' Ant-Man, Eric O'Grady.
“We run for our freaking lives, that's what we do!” he exclaimed, yanking off his helmet. His red hair was plastered with sweat, but he also appeared unharmed. “While we still can!”
“Can we?” Taskmaster argued. “Calm down, O'Grady! Think about it!”
“I am thinking about it!” the young man insisted excitedly. “And I think this is the opportunity we've all been waiting for! Let's get the hell outta dodge, whatever that means! Let's split! Let's just go!”
“We can't go,” Taskmaster said firmly. “Look around you! You think no one tried to run out of this?”
Eric exhaled exhaustedly, falling to his knees.
“You okay?” Taskmaster asked.
“Yeah, just--” He was breathing heavily. “Just gotta . . . catch my breath. I ran like hell when I spotted Frank here. Thought I was going to die, just another insect crushed in all this shit. No one would . . . would ever find me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “You know how fucking scared I was?”
“We were all scared, kid,” Taskmaster said. “Hell, I still am. But we can't panic.”
“Yeah. Yeah, all right.” Eric sat back on the ground, looked up at the two men. He tried to remain quiet, but burst into another stream of babble, “I never signed up for this! This is freaking Asgard, and it's toast! I didn't want this! I just wanted to-to make some money, have some fun-- I never-- I--”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down!” Taskmaster told him, kneeling in front of him. “None of us wanted this!”
“Oh yeah? And who was it I saw taking on Thor and Captain America?”
Taskmaster smiled beneath his mask. “Well. You gotta take what you can, right?” He lifted his head, staring over O'Grady's ginger head. “Hell . . . I'm gonna be famous. Maybe I can even claim to have killed on of 'em, if they're dead. Who'd say different? Holy . . . ”
“Yeah, we have no time for me to just say how much my life sucks, but we have time for your self-worship,” grumbled Eric.
Frank sank to the ground with them. “How can you even think about fame?” he asked Taskmaster miserably. “Does it even matter who won? If Osborn is dead, we're going to jail. If he's alive, he'll probably kill us, anyway. Let's face it, none of us were exactly his loyal guard.”
“That's why we should run?” Eric suggested angrily.
“No!” Taskmaster stood. “Damn it, are you both retarded? If Osborn is alive, and Osborn still has the Sentry, where in hell are we going to run to?”
Frank and Eric shared a worried look.
“If Osborn won, he's untouchable. That's it. The country is his,” Taskmaster told them. “That is why we are going back to him.”
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Norman Osborn was terrified.
He stood gazing across the crater at his Golden Avenger, as he had been since the battle had ended. Even though it had been on his orders, even though it had been everything he had wanted . . . Norman remained in the same state of shocked awe of his recruits.
He felt their eyes on him, knew they were all watching. It was time to take his stand beside the Sentry. It was time to claim his victory.
Osborn licked his dry lips, forced himself to breathe. He had to go to him. He had to face the weapon he had unleashed upon the world. He had to reclaim Robert.
But how much of Robert was left? Was there anything left at all, after this?
If there were nothing of the man left . . . it would be up to Norman to deal with the Void. The weight of the entire world could rest on his shoulders in these moments.
He looked at the mask in his hands, and was comforted by it. No more hiding. No more denial. He knew who he was now-- who they were. And they had won.
He only had to reach out and take what was his.
Give me strength.
Norman clutched the mask in his fist, and started down the crater. Broken bodies crunched beneath his feet. He could see remnants of the heroes that had fallen here and there: a bloodstained tangle of blond hair, Ms. Marvel, spent bullets from Nick Fury's guns, the crumbled form of Spider-woman . . .
Captain America's shield.
Norman lifted his head. Victory. This was victory.
It was over.
“Robert.”
The Sentry did not respond. He was standing very still, staring nowhere. He seemed normal, but it was difficult to tell with his empty expression.
Osborn noticed that the man's lips were moving. He came closer around him.
“Everyone died,” the Sentry was murmuring to himself. “Everyone died . . . everyone . . . ”
Norman paused, having to collect his courage before attempting to talk the mentally fragile man back to peace. He needed to be as assuring and strong as he had been that evening when they had first me.
That night that feels like a million years ago.
Osborn lowered his eyes as guilt coursed through him. Robert was broken then . . . He's shattered now. My Sentry, my Golden Avenger . . .
What have I done to him?
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Osborn wondered why he felt so numb in his hour of ultimate victory. Was he worried about the Sentry? Robert was undergoing tests and resting in another location, heavily under guard. The last he had seen of him, the man had been upbeat, if exhausted . . . but why were his blue eyes rimmed with black even when there was no other sign of the Void?
The doorknob turned.
“I thought I told Hand to keep everyone--”
Osborn turned around and stopped in mid-sentence. Daken closed the door behind him, and stood staring across the dark room at him. For a moment, neither man spoke.
Daken came into the room, stopping several feet from Norman. Osborn eyed him coldly.
“I believe you promised me something?” he said. “An incentive, if I remember correctly?”
Daken bit back the anger that surged through him. He tried to force himself to make a cynical retort, to attack the man, anything--
I can't.
The realization stung like a slap on the face, and Daken's face fell. Though he remained sullen, he sank to hand and knee without a word.
“Quite different circumstances that you come to me under this time,” Norman said quietly. He looked down at the man's prostrated form with a quiet satisfaction glistening in his eyes. “Look at you. Thoroughly defeated. Utterly abject.”
Daken gritted his teeth in rage, but his eyes were suddenly moist. Osborn was right, he was broken. Norman knelt down in front of him, and by the time he lifted Daken's face by the chin, the anger had melted away into misery.
“You are on hand on knee for me.” He ran his hand over the man's face, to his head, gripping his hair lightly. “Now beg.”
Daken swallowed. His mouth opened, but no words came.
“ . . . I won't hold you to it.”
Daken's eyes widened as Osborn stood. He managed a suspicious, “What?”
“So much as I enjoy bringing you down, treating you like a stubborn brat, you are not a child,” Norman said. He walked back to the window. “Neither are you a Wolverine.”
Daken's fists tightened, and he bowed his head.
“I did not mean that as an insult,” Norman said, surprisingly gentle. He rolled over one of the office chairs and sat down on it in front of where Daken knelt. “Daken, look at me.”
“ … ”
“Here.” Osborn reached down from the chair to lift the man's face upwards. “Look at me.”
Daken felt himself coming apart. The dominance and submission game was so bitingly familiar, and he felt so small since his defeat, so young again. If he closed his eyes, he could be back in Japan with Romulus.
Norman took one of his arms in his hands, turning it over and running a hand down the nearly-healed scars. He turned it over again and examined the knuckles. Daken felt the tears fall down his face, and he scowled in shame.
“Tell me.”
Daken refused to look at the man. “They'll grow back. The claws will-”
“That isn't what I meant.”
Daken shut his eyes. “Please.”
“Tell me.”
Daken sighed shakily. He ran his free arm over his eyes. “I, ah--I lost. To Wolverine.”
“So much is obvious,” sighed Osborn, getting impatient. “Tell me what happened.”
Daken glowered.
“I want to start over with you,” Norman told him. “With all my Avengers, all my soldiers. Daken, do you know what my mistake with you was?” Without waiting for an answer, he answered, “I should have put you in my Cabal.”
Daken could not hide his shock. “Really?”
Norman nodded. “Yes, really. I underestimated you-- Well, that is a mistake we both share, is it not?”
Daken got to his feet slowly. “Osborn, you--”
Norman looked up at him lazily. “Hm?”
“You weren't as strong as you are now. You know it.” Daken crossed his arms. “I didn't underestimate you. You grew, as a leader, as a man.” He narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”
“You're changing the subject. I want you in my next Cabal, but you'll have to trust me, and I will have to be able to trust you.” Norman stood before Daken, putting his hands on the mutant's shoulders. “Clean slate, but only if you come clean. Tell me what happened between you and Wolverine.”
“Tell me what you did to get stronger.”
“Daken, no more games,” Norman said sternly. “No more stalemates.”
Daken met his gaze evenly.
“I could give you the empire Romulus denied you,” Norman told him. “Do you understand what I am offering you? Not only a second chance, but the chance to have everything you've been fighting for your entire, miserable life! And you would still defy me? You would still cling to your arrogance like a shield? Even now?”
He pulled one of Daken's arms by the wrist, so the line of scar was visible between them. “Even when I am the very last chance you will have for a very long time, Daken?”
Daken turned his face.
“You need me. There is nothing wrong with that,” Norman said, oscillating back to his bizarrely gentle tone. “Everyone needs something, someone, to rely on.”
“Like the Green Goblin?” Daken sneered.
With a blur of motion, Osborn backhanded the man. Daken flew aside, hitting his shoulder into the floor hard. He clutched his face tightly, shocked at how much it hurt. So he did, he thought as he stared up at Norman. He did get stronger. It isn't the new costume he was wearing, it's him, his . . . body. What did he do?
“You want to know . . . what I did?” Norman asked, reading Daken's expression. “What I did was give everything, sacrifice everything, for victory. I gave everything I could give to win.”
Daken frowned. What does he mean, 'everything'?
Norman's face flickered between his sternness and something else-- regret? He turned from Daken, going back to the chair. He rubbed his temple before sitting down again.
“Was it worth it?”
Osborn looked over at Daken, who on his feet again. Daken gave his cheek one last rub before the bruise lightened and began to vanish. He stood before Osborn, shrugging his shoulders.
“Was it worth it?” he repeated. “Was the victory worth the price?”
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That's all for now. I'm pretty psyched, and it's a good diversion. Something continuous to write, since I have ideas that will fill up a few different stories, at least. What do you think? If....anyone in the world cares lol Which...I doubt anyone does. I type to hear myself talk, haha.
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