The Authority: Stormfront #2

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The Authority: Stormfront #2
King of Cities

Written by Tony Peterson (Starfall)
Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

Previously:

An old Stormwatch operative, Rose Tattoo, has begun to kill her old teammates. Jenny Sparks was able to gather computer files from one of Rose’s victims, detailing those operative who are still alive. She has begun to track them down convince them to join with her against Rose. The first she has approached is Jack Hawksmoor.

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Tibet

Being a pacifist is a lot harder than it sounds. It’s not about peace and love, or anything else Americans would call a tree-hugger or a hippy.

It’s about overcoming basic human nature.

Humans are inherently social beings; they need to be around others of their kind to survive. The inevitable always occurs when too many are together: violence, fighting, even all out war. Just as the need to be social is inborn within humanity, so are the powers of good and evil. Each human must decide for him or herself whether to encourage the innate good or bad to grow.

She had chosen goodness. It was not easy.

Her years in Stormwatch had changed her. When she’d been living in the monastery, the monks had taught her compassion, the sanctity of life, and her destiny to bring harmony to the world. It had been an unforeseeable shock when the head of her order had sent her out into the world to join a team known for their not always peaceful ways. But she had gone, had followed her leader’s edicts as she always did.

Bit by bit, the calm and peaceful, almost happy-go-lucky girl was sheered away by her exposure to the outside world. Soon a hardened, ready to kill warrior-woman had taken her place. She did not feel guilt about killing, not exactly. Those she had killed had left her no choice. Either herself, or an innocent, or a teammate had been in imminent danger and she had neutralized the threat. Maybe there had been other options, but it hadn’t been about other options. It had been about the best option.

Dead is dead. No escape, no parole, no bail. Whatever threat that villain may have posed would be forever ended, however many lives he or she had taken had been avenged. So it was not guilt she felt when she took a life, but disappointment. Disappointment that the tenets of the beliefs she lived by had simply not held up outside of monastic life. The real world was different outside of holy walls, and her moral code had become different as well.

Killing was not the only thing the monastery had taught her to abstain from. Oh no. Sex had also been prohibited, though, honestly, she never felt an even passing attraction to any of the monks in her order. Jenny Sparks had changed that, though.

Like so many of the changes in her life, Jenny had been the catalyst for her sexual awakening as well. It was Jenny who had shown her the pleasure a woman could bring another woman, and it was Jenny’s simple acceptance of this aspect of herself that had convinced her to become the Century Born’s lover.

But their relationship had imploded when Jenny took Bendix down. The Spirit of the Twentieth Century had but a few short years to live, and she hadn’t wanted to go any further than they had. It would be too painful, Jenny had said, if she had something to live for.

And so, here she was now. Back in her home, relearning to center her thoughts and banish the facets of her personality she didn’t wish to bring to light. Yet, every so often, she felt the need for action.

Unbeknownst, she hoped, to the brethren she spread her wings and easily slipped away from the monastery compound. She was the fastest winged mammal on the planet, and she could travel anywhere she wished fast enough to do some good.

But she no longer killed. This newly reaffirmed tenet she would not again forsake so easily. Oh, she bloodied whatever punk criminal in the worst way, but they would always live to tell about it.

Besides, it was better that way. They didn’t learn if they were dead. Couldn’t pass on the word that rapists and murders had a higher authority to contend with now.

For that is what she had become, a winged avenger circling in the sky. Waiting for that telltale cry of pain or anguish. Waiting for a chance to strike.

~*~

[Spider-Man Beyond]

If Jack Hawksmoor had ever expected to see Jenny Sparks again, he would not have imagined such circumstances. Here he was, the tattered remains of his white shirt and black slacks covered in blood and dirt, and here she was… still alive. That thought hit him like a ton of bricks. It shouldn’t be possible, but that cocky grin, tight ponytail, icy eyes. All classic Jenny.

He’d said he wasn’t glad to see her before it had really sunk in he shouldn’t be seeing her at all. Jack felt a tiny bit of guilt at that, but brushed it away.

“You want me? Finally giving in for undying lust for me?” he quipped because he didn’t know what else to do.

Her grin didn’t waver, though. If anything, it got brighter. “Now, Jack, you and I both know that—while I do enjoy the extra-membered sex—you’re much too tall for my tastes.”

She finally dropped the hand she’d held out in that ridiculous parody of Uncle Sam, and her face grew more serious.

“Jack, Rose is back.” His flinch at her name was only slight, but Jenny caught it. “She’s been knocking off old Stormwatch operatives, took out the last Weathermen just hours ago.”

Jenny stepped closer, her face tight in genuine concern. “You’re in danger, Jack. We all are.”

Confusion muddied the hatred that had flashed through his mind at the mention of Rose’s name. “That doesn’t make any sense, Jenny. She’s had years to get her revenge, why start now?”

As if Jenny hadn’t asked herself those same questions. Feeling frustrated and helpless, she shrugged.

“I don’t know, I just don’t know. That’s why I’m here. All of us old hands need to stick together. She’ll be coming after us one by one. The only chance we have is to head her off—”

“By grouping all together in one place and handing our lives to her on a platter?” The cynicism of Jack’s voice was thick enough to frost a cake.

“I know it’s not the best plan,” sighed Jenny, “but it’s all we’ve got. Together, we stand a chance. True, we might die anyway, but alone… we’re just dead.”

Jack turned away from her to think about it, one hand straying absently to run through his short, dark hair.

“There are so many things wrong with this plan,” Jack said, his back still turned. “How are we all going to fit together? What sort of thing are we going to use for a base?”

He turned back around, his red-pupil eyes locking onto Jenny’s blue pair. “I can’t survive outside of city for long, Jenny. Our Stormwatch Carrier was so big, with so many operatives and personnel, that it was like a city.”

“I know, Jack,” Jenny replied, “but you can still transport yourself between cities, right?”

The big man nodded. “Yes, but I never know how long it will take.”

Jenny was quiet for a few minutes as she thought this over.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “You still have your radiotelepathy transmitter in your head, yeah?”

Jack nodded.

“Good. I can use my powers to reactivate and protect it from Rose by rewiring it.” Jenny began to pace as the plan became clearer to her. “Then we can make our way to different cities on our own, but still keeping in contact with each other.”

“Theoretically, let’s say I agree to this little Stormwatch throw-back,” Jack said, “where would we go next?”

Jenny stepped forward, placing her hands on Jack’s chest—as that was all she could reach—and sending her powers into his brain.

“England.”

~*~

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Somewhere…

They had been safe in their new city for a while, hidden away in the mass of people. Most would think that one should go into the wilds to disappear, or into a small place with few people. But these two knew better, having been in hiding most of their lives. Big cities were a better way to go, more places to hide, more people to get lost in the shuffle.

This new city had seemed like the perfect place. It was big, dirty, and littered with crime. No one would notice two more outcasts making whatever home they could for themselves in the slums and dark places. If the crime rates lessened slightly, the local government would take it as a sign its policies were working and use it to get reelected.

Of course, the mayor and his cronies would never have the strength to do what needed doing.

The first crime these new strangers had stopped had been unnoticed, a gas station robbery interrupted before it even began. The thugs, whose courage had been bolstered by alcohol and a sawed off shotgun, never even saw it coming before they died in screams and fire.

Several other bits of vigilantism passed in such a manner. Justice came brutal and swift from somewhere the criminals never saw. Too fast for witnesses, too devastating for survivors.

They grew careless, confident in their ability to avoid attention, complacent with their place in this new city. And so, one night, they stopped a crime that struck a chord, got too close, let the boy they’d saved see them.

He’d been walking, home presumably, from a nightclub that catered to his tastes. They were the kind of tastes that street scum and tough guys of every city seem to detest.

His “saviors” had been so angry their rage had taken over. They got right down in the middle of it, ripping, shredding, and burning with a wild fury.

In the aftermath, the boy had spread stories of an angel and a demon that had saved his life.

Now they had to leave, couldn’t stay now that they’d been spotted. There were people who would not dismiss the boy’s vision as flights of fancy, or stressed induced hysteria, people who know how to interpret rumors of a fiery angel and his dark companion.

But even as they prepared to leave, and it didn’t take long for they had little, they knew it could not last forever. Someday, they would be found. It was only a matter of when and where.

~*~

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Most professors walk into their classroom wiping sweat or sleep out of their eyes. Angela Spica, however, swept her face with a handkerchief that was soon covered in blood. The nanobot technology that gave the so-called “superpowers” at her disposal was already returning to her blood stream. The thieves she’d been foiling had all been alive when she left, but the one in the car hadn’t looked so good. She didn’t really feel that bad about it, they were armed criminals after all.

Angela, also called the Engineer, was a petite woman, sporting long dark hair and lightly tanned skin that spoke of something other than Caucasian giving just a hint of flavor to her blood. Blood that held the special technology that had earned her place in Stormwatch. Nanobots. Liquid metal capable of doing most anything she put her mind to.

It was the nanobots that alerted her first, tingling in her veins as the metal reacted to the electricity. Even as the energy erupted in the room she was spinning around to face it, the liquid silver-green technology spreading over her skin like living water. Or blood.

She had formed the metal into advanced fusion weapons before she noticed the shape appearing inside the storm of electricity coming from every outlet and appliance in the classroom. But she couldn’t believe her eyes.

As Angela’s dark eyes swept over the figure at the center, she felt a pang she hadn’t in a long time. The thrill of battle, the unmistakable rush of the fight coming to her.

The nanobots retreated from her skin as she straightened up out of her fighting stance.

“Jenny Sparks, as I live and breath.”

Jenny’s reformation from energy completed and she stumbled. Angela instantly started forward to help her old friend, but the blond waved her away.

“Angie,” she breathed heavily, “an Oxford professor. Bloody unbelievable.”

Nonchalantly, Angie flipped her hair. “Oh, ya know. Pays the bills.”

Finally, Jenny straightened, recovered from the teleportation.

“Get over here,” she said gruffly. Angie complied and the two women wrapped each other in a tight embrace.

It didn’t take long for Jenny to fill Angie in about Rose, the killings, and the need to band together.

“So,” Jenny asked, “can I count on you?”

There were a million things Angie would have to do; get leave, find a sub, get someone to keep her house. But surprisingly, when Angie opened her mouth, she found herself saying something different than she’d expected.

“Absolutely.”

Flipping on her computer, Angie sent an email to her boss saying she’d had a family emergency and needed to leave immediately. She was sorry for the short notice, but she had to leave England as soon as possible. She clicked send and turned back to Jenny.

“So when is Jack coming?”

Jenny shrugged. “I have no idea; he can never tell how long his little city-to-city expressway will take.”

So the two women sat down to catch up on old times, and await their male comrade.

~*~

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Holland

Jeroen Thornedike was about to be murdered. In the weeks following the bizarre visions he’d been experiencing, he’d thought about taking his own life. But now that he was faced with death he discovered he wanted nothing as badly as he wanted to live.

His night had started much the same as any night did. He left his apartment and went out to a local club to either drown his sorrows, get high, or both. Though he had not yet had a vision, he told himself he was acting proactively. He almost believed it.

Then he had seen her. The woman in his dreams that carried death in her soul. She had the same short hair, seductive face, and chocolate eyes. Jeroen hadn’t even needed to see the tattoos on her arms to know that he was marked for death.

She approached him casually, a sultry smile on her face and a drink in her hand. But as soon as he’d seen her, she had abandoned the pretense. She must have seen the terror that flashed across his face and realized he knew her.

Jeroen hadn’t stopped to think. He’d just pushed away from his booth and ran without looking back. She would kill him if she could, that was the only thing her appearance could mean. It also meant that he wasn’t crazy.

It was almost a relief, really, knowing that things he’d been seeing were real, that he wasn’t loosing his mind. But then it had set in that if his visions were real, there really was an older man trapped in a tube of fluid somewhere and he really was the latest in a long line of shamans destined to protect the planet.

A fat lot of good it did him now. The older shaman was still living; Jeroen didn’t have access to any of the magical powers until the previous Doctor—how had he known that term?—had died.

“Let’s not make this difficult, love.” The woman’s voice behind him almost made him wet himself. It didn’t even register that he understood what she was saying, though she wasn’t speaking Dutch.

He whirled around to face her.

She still wore the same come-hither grin she’d had in the club, as if killing just flat out did it for her.

“It’s just a little surge, little tingle. And then you’ll be dead, no big deal.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “People say death is just like falling asleep, but it’s not. It’s so… much… easier. You can fight off going to sleep, but death… All you can do is fall into the darkness.”

Unfortunately for Jeroen he hadn’t really been paying attention to where he was going, and now found himself pressed up against the wall. Somehow, he felt her tap her power. He saw her extend her hand, and terror gripped his whole being.

Help me! He had meant to scream it, but the blind panic had rendered his vocal chords useless and all the words could do was resound through his head. But miraculously he was heard. The voice of the Doctor sounded in his mind.

Quickly, lad, we’ve not much time. The second she touches you, picture my face. I’ll do the rest.

Jeroen could do that; he had seen the previous Doctor in his dreams after all. Just at that moment, the woman’s hand fell. He felt the rush of her murderous power fill him and he clenched his eyes tight and brought the Doctor’s face into his mind.

With a swirl of lights behind his eyes, he felt himself falling away and thought that he’d failed, that he hadn’t been fast enough. But then, from far away, he felt the Doctor die, and realized his eyes were open. The lights were real, and the falling sensation was the teleportation spell the Doctor had erected before his death. Before his thoughts faded away into nothing, Jeroen had to admire the selflessness of the Doctor for taking the woman’s power into himself. Such thoughts disappeared as his body was pulled into a thousand different directions, a thousand tiny particles speeding toward England.

~*~

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Jack had just appeared when the next lightshow began. He, Jenny, and Angie had just been discussing their next move when a rainbow of lights erupted in between them.

Angie had accessed her armor in the blink of an eye, Jenny fired up her own powers, and Jack had dropped into a fighting stance. They were a little surprised to see it was just a kid that appeared in their midst.

He was pretty skinny, with light brown hair. He smelled of smoke and sex and it was Angie who deduced he must have come from some kind of club. The kid was also curled into a ball and whispering frantically in…

“Dutch,” Jenny said instantly.

Jack looked at her, eyebrow cocked. “How can you tell?”

Looking affronted, she replied, “Have you forgotten? All of us Century Babies can be understood in any bloody language yammered at us, and be understood in kind. This kid is speaking in Dutch.”

She crouched down and said, “Hey, kid, what’s your name?”

He looked up at her, and then began to wildly scramble across the floor away from her.

<“Who are you? What... what do you want?”> His eyes were wide, scared witless.

“Easy, kid,” Jenny said in a, she hoped, soothing tone. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to know what’s your name and what’s going on here.”

His name is Jeroen Thornedike. The not-quite-voice seemed to echo in their minds as much as it did around the room. The kid, Jeroen, dropped his head to his knees and made a kind of whimpering sound. A spectral figure began to form above them, sometimes green and sometimes purple, and it seemed to have the vague suggestion of flowers or plants behind it. It was only when it spoke again that Jenny realized who it was.

And he’s the new Doctor.

Continued...

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The Authority: Secret Files #2

As recovered by Jenny Sparks from the computer of Jackson King
The Origin of Jack Hawksmoor

Stories of alien abductions are known all around the world. People from all walks of life have claimed to have been beamed aboard a spaceship and subjected to various experimentations. Most who make such claims have never even been abducted once. Jack Hawksmoor was taken throughout his entire childhood.

Hawksmoor was abducted by an alien species we know only as the Weavers, a race of such power they could even peer through time. When they did, they saw the comet pass by Earth and the powers it would bestow upon humanity. They also saw the good, and the bad, this would bring to the world and knew they would need champions of their cause.

Why they selected Hawksmoor is not known, but what is known is this. He was surgically altered by the Weavers a little at a time during a period spanning over ten years. Advanced Weaver technology was implanted within Jack’s body, resulting in-among other things—his metallic ribbed feet and red, pupil-less eyes.

The end result was a mental-biological link to whatever large city he found himself in. Hawksmoor received many powers via his link to a city; the ability to pass through buildings and structures as easily as water, traversing any surface regardless of gravity, as well as transportation between cities he’d already visited.

These powers came with a drawback, however. Human anatomy is not as advanced as the Weavers’ and Jack was incapable of sustaining his implants’ powers on his own. His biology became dependent on the energy of a city to function. All the surgeries and implants had become far too ingrained within Hawksmoor to be removed, and he discovered he began to shutdown and die if he strayed too far out of city’s limits.

For years, Jack Hawksmoor survived by simply never leaving a city, but this was shattered by Rose Tattoo. Though he did not know who she was at the time, Rose disguised herself and seduced Hawksmoor. One night, Jack invited Rose home for dinner. When she arrived she attacked and subdued him. Rose tortured and raped Hawksmoor for hours; damaging him to such a degree that even his alien implants began to shut down.

Doubtless, Jack Hawksmoor would have died that night if not for the intervention of Henry Bendix.

Bendix had also been visited by the Weavers as a child and possessed a unique understanding of their technology. Bendix was not only able to repair Hawksmoor, but to enhance him. After the surgery preformed by Bendix, Hawksmoor was able to bind to cities quicker, survive outside of them longer, and travel between them faster. In addition to these upgrades, Jack also discovered he no longer had to be within an actual city to survive. Any large enough place with enough people and technological systems to qualify as city-sized would serve to keep his biology operating properly, such as a space station or Carrier class space ship.

To show gratitude for saving his life, Hawksmoor joined Bendix’s Stormwatch team. Ironically, Rose Tattoo was also on this team, but outside of her disguise Jack did not know her. Soon it was revealed that the threat in the future the Weavers were preparing against was Bendix himself.

Much like Jack, Bendix was implanted with Weaver technology. However, he did this to himself in order to better lead the Stormwatch organization. Unlike Hawksmoor’s implants, Bendix could not support themselves under any means and had begun to shutdown once the Weavers returned to their own time. All the dangerous situations Stormwatch had been preventing were actually set up by Bendix himself in order to keep himself alive.

It was Jack Hawksmoor’s teammate Jenny Sparks that revealed Rose was also in on the scam, and that it was she who had tortured him. During Jenny’s assault on Bendix, Jack was able to use his connection with the Carrier to convince the ship to allow the other operatives to get out. Bendix had wired himself through the entire Carrier and taken complete control of the ship, but Hawksmoor was able to convince the Carrier to rebel against Bendix. Due to Hawksmoor’s intervention, nearly all of the personnel made it out alive.

Jack Hawksmoor is also responsible for keeping open the last door that allowed Jenny Sparks to escape the dying Carrier.

Ever since the demise of Stormwatch, Hawksmoor has flitted around from city to city, fighting small time crimes in each of them before moving on. It appears he has not lost any of his enhanced powers since Bendix’s death.