Dragon's Claws #32

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
- Sir Winston Churchill

"You never let me down," Jessica whispered, drawing in close to Pen Dragon, an undeniable sexual tension between the two of them.

"Never," he replied as their lips touched and both of them surrendered to the kiss. Then they broke it off.

“What the hell was that?” Jessica demanded.

“Hey, I was lips, you were tongue,” said Pen, certainly not being demonised for what had just happened. It was a mutual thing they’d just done. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Is this… part of the soul thing you were talking about, or something else.”

“I have no idea,” said Pen, as stunned as she was by it. “That was not supposed to happen.” He took a step back and shook his head. “I don’t think of you like that. Well, yes, I do, but… oh, bloody hell.”

“Yeah,” Jessica said, as the two of them stood there, looking at each other. Her pulse was racing and she knew it wasn’t just a kiss. There was a part of her that wanted him, something she’d not experienced around him before, and by his own admission he was attracted to her, if not totally interested and… “What the hell am I thinking?” she whispered in annoyance.

“I need a cigarette,” Dragon said. “How about we just steer clear of each other for a bit, see if it cools us down?” Jessica nodded as she bit her lip. She was going to head for her room, grab a cold shower, and see if she could get him out of her head. Where had this come from? “I’m going to make some calls,” he said. “See what I can find out about Sam, Eto and Bobby.”

“Ok,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.” He nodded and they both moved off down the corridor and as they were about to leave, they looked back at each other, their eyes meeting. She looked at him, he looked at her.

“Oh, the hell with it,” said Pen softly and the two off them ran towards each other, almost pouncing each other, kissing and pulling each closer in. They took a breather for air. “You’re sure about this?” he said.

“Shut up,” she said and pushed him back in to the wall as she kissed him again, not giving him the opportunity to say a word in reply, letting their natural desires do the talking.

“What is this between us?” Jessica asked the next day, as her naked body lay against that of Pen, the two of them with their arms around each other.

“How d’you mean?” he asked, looking at her.

“I mean, are we going to do this regularly, assuming we survive, or is it just a one off thing, getting it out of our system?”

His fingers ran lightly through her hair. “I don’t know what this is between us,” Pen admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d like it if it was a regular thing,” to which she smile, “but I don’t love you. I like you a lot, but it’s not love. No promises, Jess. Whatever happens, happens.” She let go of him and got out of bed. “Not what you wanted to hear?”

“I don’t know what I wanted to hear,” she said as she retrieved her panties from the floor and started to get dressed. “I just… Just be there for me.”

“That I can do,” he said. “Plus you’ve probably the right idea. We’ve still got work to do.” She threw him his pants and he got out and pulled them on. “No regrets.”

“No regrets,” she agreed. “Let’s go to our thing.”

The cocky grin crept across his face. “Well, technically, we’ve just been doing that…”

“Our other thing,” said Jess, shaking her head. “I’ll contact the others, you get hold of Nathan, and then we’ll meet Reed and Forge and find out how close we are to completion.” He nodded and he watched her saunter towards the door. She had a bit of a swagger to her walk. “We’ll talk about this later.” Then she was gone.

“Yeah,” he said, putting on his shirt. “Later.”

“And you think I owe you a favour?” said Cable in amazement. “Aside from you trying to blow me up, using me as bait for SHIELD and treating me like a pawn in your little game to expose Jones?”

“Yeah,” Dragon said, “because you didn’t set up my people, have them sent to the Arena and tried to steal the Arsenal so we could rescue your wife and child. Oh, wait…”

“Point taken,” Cable said in annoyance.

Pen looked at him. “I saved your neck, remember that, now you get to make up for it by helping to save the world. Askani’Son.” Nathan bristled, his fist clenched, but he knew Pen Dragon was right. Expecting him to help was another matter.

“I’ll do it,” Cable said firmly, “but because it needs doing, and when we’re done, you and I are going to have a long talk.”

“I’ll see if I can fit you in,” Dragon answered. “I’m a busy man, my time’s not my own.” Then the complex was rocked by an explosion and the two men looked at each other. “VISION!” said Dragon, slamming his hand on the communications console. “What the hell was that?”

“We are under attack by five Martian tripods,” the Vision responded. “Emergency teams are fighting back.”

“Five!?” said Pen, with incredulity. “That’s too excessive to be coincidence.”

“They almost destroyed the base during the battle in Antarctica,” Nathan replied. “If it hadn’t been for the feedback from the destruction of the mothership, we’d have been taken out.”

“Find Reed and Forge,” he said. “Don’t get distracted, you’re the one shot we have at making this happen.”

Cable nodded. “What about you?”

Pen lit a cigarette. “I’m going to kill me some Martians.”

Jessica was on a conference call with Sam and Eto, bringing them all up to speed on what had happened and what was happening. Sam was back with her family, co-ordinating the efforts of the family in repelling the Martians. Her father was missing, but the family was otherwise intact, and since Adam Destine was invulnerable they weren’t too worried about him being missing. Eto’s news was a bit more disturbing.

He had been working with the Pendragons defending Great Britain, but the team wasn’t quite what they had been. The main team had been lost in time and then taken to Otherworld, where they had won but also lost as well, and while they were missing, the Pendragons had been quite overwhelmed at times. They lacked leadership with their natural leaders gone, and they lacked guidance as well, the higher powers seemingly gone. The Green was adapting to the new order and Adam Crown had not left Darkmoor since the fall of the Barrier. There were rumours that he was not the man he had once been, that he was paranoid and afraid of everyone and everything, but nobody had been allowed entry in or out of Darkmoor to confirm or deny it.

Jessica’s heart had sunk at hearing this, not because of the situation but because, in her heart, she knew it would be down to her to resolve this. She would have to be the one to restore the Pendragons, and to deal with Adam Crown. She didn’t want to fight him, but it seemed as if conflict between them was inevitable. Would they listen to her though? She was British by birth, but she was Americanised. How could she unite Great Britain? She had told them of the adventure with Pen, how they had rescued Rick Jones and Wynter, defeated the Martians in time and prevented them from sending any reinforcements, as well as letting them know they still intended to carry out the plan to empower every human on the planet with the Destiny Force and fight the Martians off once and for all.

Then the explosion hit and the communication was lost.

“We’re under attack!” said Jack Monroe, quickly entering. It was still a surprise to Jessica to see him dressed as Captain America, but if there was one thing that the man had done, it was pay his dues.

“No kidding,” Jessica replied, as the complex rocked. “How many?”

“Five tripods,” came the answer. “They’ve heard you’re back.”

“I preferred it when they thought we were dead,” Jessica muttered. “How close are we to completion?”

“Reed needs more time, the machine then needs calibrating to Cable’s psi-signature,” Jack said as they hurried. “We have to fend them off.”

“Never easy, is it?” said Dragon as they met up. “Though this is somewhat familiar.”

“Isn’t it?” Monroe said with a grin, failing to notice that his companions weren’t making eye contact. “Wish Magnus were here, but he’s making preparations for his EM burst.”

“Then we do this the old fashioned way,” Pen said, as they made their way to the surface. “Anything new we need to know, Jack?”

“Yeah,” he said as he flung his shield, which hurtled towards an oncoming Martian, slammed against it and returned to his hand. “I’m getting better with the shield.”

“Sweet,” said Dragon as Jessica’s venom blasts caught a couple of aliens; however, there were three tripods concentrating their fire on the Resistance Headquarters, with the fourth and fifth covering them.

“We’ve got to take them out,” said Monroe.

“My bio blasts are good on organics, not as much on their machinery,” Jessica started. “Pen, any chance of that soul flare thing?”

“Only if I really, really need to,” said Pen. “It’s a last resort kind of thing, because once I do it, I’m out of the fight.” He looked at one of the tripods. “That said…” He knew this was going to hurt. “Cover me!!” He ran forward, hot knives firing at one of the tripods. They impacted on it, but did nothing more that irritate it with minor damage. Jessica kept the aliens off him as best she could, knowing there were other SHIELD agents about doing the same and Cap followed Pen’s lead running after him. The Tripod ceased firing at the Resistance bunker and turned it’s weapon on Pen and fired, bathing him in the heat ray as the blast engulfed him, forcing Jack to hold back, and raise the shield for protection from the tripod’s death ray. The blast stopped, waiting for the weapon to recharge so it could resume it’s attack on the Resistance, thinking Dragon was dead, but Jessica and Jack knew better. They’d seen this stunt before, and were still awed as Pen Dragon dragged himself from out of the crater, his clothing in tatters but an almost tanned look to him, and heat rose from him. His cells were fully charged with energy and he needed to release it and he fired his hot knives in a massive bombardment and the command module of Tripod exploded, the legs collapsing to the floor below.

“Ow,” he said as Jack came over. “Forgot how much that hurt.” The other two Tripods stopped attacking the Resistance and focused their weapons on Pen. “Run,” he said to Jack, but the new Captain America didn’t move.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said.

“I can take this,” Pen said. “Trust me.” Jack paused and then retreated as the Tripods fired and this time Pen was engulfed in two energy beams, a third one hitting him as one of the others joined in. A three pronged attack and Pen knew this was trouble. His body couldn’t take this kind of influx of energy and if ever there was a time for the soul flare this was it. He just hoped that the energy he expended doing this would be made up by the energy that was bombarding him.

“He needs our help!” Jessica said to Jack and he nodded and mentally crossed his fingers as he threw the shield once more, hoping for a true and accurate aim. It hurtled through the air and embedded itself in the Tripod’s canon, blocking a good third of the energy being released and sending it back on itself. The Tripod couldn’t take the energy of it’s own weapon being reflected back on itself and overloaded, the resultant release of energy totally eradicating the machine. Then came Pen’s final attack and he released everything he had in one burst of power, the combined force of his spiritual energy and the energy he was absorbing creating a staggering beam of power that shot out and sliced in to the Tripods, destroying them as easily as he had the first. The beam penetrated one and then bent back around and smashed in to the other, but instead of exploding, they stood there, an empty circle standing in the heart of them, leaving them as motionless statues. Jessica ran over to Pen, as Jack marshalled the agents to take down the last tripod. He lay on the ground, his skin blistered and sore, the stench of burning skin coming from his charred body.

“Hi,” he croaked.

“Hi,” she said. “I’ll get you to the infirmary.” He shook his head.

“Go get the aliens. There’s something not right here, I think this was a diversion.”

“From what?”

“Stopping Reed,” he replied and he closed his eyes. “I’ll just rest here a little while.” Jessica watched as he lay back down, his breathing shallow and looked about the battlefield. What has he seen that made him think of that? She had a piece of his soul in her, what did it say? She willed it forward, coaxing it out of her, wanting to think as he did. It wasn’t what she noticed; it was more what she felt that this had been too showy. Why not use all the Tripods at once? She was thinking like he was and it didn’t make sense as she headed back inside, following the instincts of Pen Dragon. He’d said they couldn’t consciously access the piece of each other, but she had and she wondered why? Had their lovemaking had a secondary effect? She gave an involuntary shiver at the though, but knew she would find out after this was over.

“JACK!” she shouted and the Captain turned to see her. He didn’t know where she was going, but he made the decision to go with her. She’d called him for a reason.

“What’s wrong?” he said as he caught her up.

“I think we’ve been had,” she said. “We’ve got to get to Reed and the others. I think they’re in terrible danger.” Jack didn’t question her, he accepted what she said. He wasn’t sure why but if she had a feeling then that was good enough for him. He knew that she was more than she’d been when they’d met all those months ago, just before the formation of the team, and there was a bond between them all.

“Pen?” he started.

“Told me to leave him and sort this.” She hoped he could take care of himself out there. They hurried and got to the Workshop, the place where Reed did all his experiments and worked on creating a defence against the aliens. There had been rumours that he had created a toxin, a lethal bacterium that would take them out, but nobody had been able to convince themselves that a biological war was a good idea. Certainly, they would win, but what would the true cost be? However, rumours were all they were and nothing public had ever been seen. The door was closed and Jessica nodded to Jack and, as one, they kicked at the door, sending it flying. It struck two Martians full on, taking them out. There was a gap in the roof that the Martian shock-troopers had obviously descended from there and now they were in the room.

Forge was lying on the floor, his bionics ruined, and blood seeping through his uniform. The Martians were working on Richards, while Cable was trapped in the machine, unable to do anything. Reed was in trouble, his elasticity being taxed by the shots he was taking and some parts of him were almost transparent. He was torn between saving himself and protecting the last chance of humanity. They turned on the two heroes and started attacking them, the force of their weapons almost ripping the shield from Jack’s hand, and Jessica had to move quickly to avoid being harmed.

“The weapons draw on ambient cosmic energy,” Reed called out. “That’s why they could affect me like that.” One on the aliens smashed the gun across his face, Reed’s fluidity taking care of the brunt of it, but he felt his jaw break, his tired body stretched to limits he never knew he had. Jessica threw her bio-blasts at them and she struck them dead on, but this time they had no more effect than pushing the aliens back.

“We were ready for you,” said one of them. “We are the prototypes.”

“Then we do this the old-fashioned way,” she said and charged in to them.

Pen lay there as the battle raged around him, thinking thoughts. Why hadn’t the Martians attacked the Resistance like this before? Was this what it had been like when they first attacked? They had done so much damage, before the weapons of the Arsenal had been turned on them. He knew the original history, that the deaths of Nomad and Jessica had been a turning point. They’d not gained access to the Arsenal, denying the Resistance the weapons and equipment, and then SHIELD had been destroyed under the assault. Without the Arsenal, the Martians had finished their technology in Genosha to neutralise meta-human abilities, and Magneto’s kingdom had fallen quickly, Magnus fighting in vain to the last. With two of the vanguards gone, the war had fallen away from the heroes and there ended up with them being too few in number to prevail

Then there was the Arena. The Arena was brilliantly designed, and at first heroes had tried to escape and failed. Then, with all of them being forced to fight and kill each other those inside had become demoralised. It wasn’t that they couldn’t break out, if they’d wanted to, it was more they lost the will. More people came in to replace those who were killed, more escapes were planned, more escapes failed and those inside had been broken in a way that they’d never contemplated. For all their great power, they couldn’t save each other. Friends killed friends, lovers killed lovers, parents killed children, and those who refused were killed as well. He’d changed all that. He’d come back to change the timeline, to ensure the Arsenal’s supplies were gained, to stop the meta-human neutraliser from being stopped. It was weird though, for if he hadn’t been dead, they’d never have been able to do anything about the Arena, planning it from Otherworld with Eto Kaine, and, more than that, the aliens would have taken the Arsenal. If he hadn’t been gone, the traitor in SHIELD would have gotten away with it all. If he hadn’t been dead… It was strange how it all seemed to work out. Was it luck or was it design? Was he just a pawn in a greater game? He hated it when he was like this, he had time to think things through and he never liked doing that.

“Pen Dragon,” said a voice and he opened his eyes. A Martian general was standing over him, a weapon in his hand, ready to take out the helpless human. “Your death will make me famous…” Pen tried to summon his hot knives, but he couldn’t, he was still drained of all his energy after the attack. He couldn’t move, he could barely speak, but he had enough for a couple of words.

“Oh, shit.”

The battle in the Workshop was raging, four aliens against the heroes, with two more recovering from being hit by the door.

There was no room for Jack to throw the shield without damaging the equipment, but he had more tricks than that. He used it as a weapon, cudgelling the enemy with blunt force, the durability of the shield’s metallic structure being propelled by his super-soldier strength. Jessica was also taking a more hands on approach, using the proportionate strength of a spider to her advantage. These aliens were tough, and she realised how used to just shooting them she’d become. They took a great amount of punishment to take down, and they were not weaklings themselves. No wonder they had wanted to breed with humanity, for if they could take advantage of the x-factor within the genetic structure of humanity…

Whether it was on or off didn’t matter, as she understood it, it was what allowed the durability of the human genome and allowed them to gain powers, and ultimately the Destiny Force. They all had the potential to be mutants, and people had been mutated through means other than natural selection. With that addition to the genome, the aliens would be a great force in the universe, but they couldn’t be allowed to live to see the plan to fruition.

As the battle raged, nobody noticed Forge slowly making his way across the floor, leaving a bloody smear as he moved over to the machine. Reed was in no state to continue the fight, but Forge was almost forgotten about. The machine was charging with Cable’s psionic energy, nearly ready. It was a design based on Cerebro, with touches from both Forge and Reed to make it work not just on mutants, but also on the rest of humanity. It was untested, but they had no real choice. They needed to do this now or never and he managed to hoist himself up and press the button to start. Powerful psionic waves radiated out from the machine, covering the globe, but with an unseen side effect, causing all humanity wherever they were to stop what they were doing if only for a moment. It was a distraction the Resistance combatants could have done without. Their pause, allowed those they were fighting to gain an upper hand. Jack was sent sprawling by a powerful blow, the shield bouncing backwards, still trapped on his arm and Jack’s forearm snapped and he called out in pain. Jessica was dropped to the floor and the Martian dropped with her, pinning her down and putting his hands around her throat, strangling the life from her.

On the battlefield, Pen could see the weapon charging and there was nothing he could do to stop it and he closed his eyes, but nothing happened. He opened them again and he saw Eto Kaine standing there, along with Samantha Hasard

“Good job we’re not totally human,” she said, helping Pen up, as Eto used his claws to cut a new one through the general. “Didn’t affect us quite the same way.”

“How’d you get here?” asked Pen.

“Dark Angel,” said Kaine. “It’s useful knowing a member of the Pendragons. We figured you might need a hand.”

“Good call,” said Dragon. In his head, he could hear Cable making the announcement, that they were about to give humanity the power to fight the enemy, and retake the planet.

In their secure bunker, Rick Jones and his wife Marlo held hands. They activated the lockdown, in order to protect the Vision from what was to come. It was almost time.

High above the planet, Magneto descended in to the ionosphere, feeling the Earth’s EM field surrounding him the closer he got to the magnetosphere and he triggered a geomagnetic storm, disrupting the EM field of the planet and sending out a massive pulse, that took out power systems across the planet.

Nowhere was safe from the onslaught that Magnus created and deep within the darkness, the Bane laughed at the demise of technology. The last time Magnus had done this, there had been the ability to rebuild, but this time resources were scarce and magic was becoming the dominant force and in trying to save this world, they had practically given it to the Bane.

Then it was Rick’s turn. He focused his thoughts on the Black Diamond, willing the Destiny Force to life and he felt the song of the power within him rise. He didn’t even realise he was hovering in the air as he surrendered to the power of the Destiny Force and he reached out, touching every aspect of the power on the planet, charging it, awakening it inside humanity. He knew he could do this, he had done it before in the Destiny War, bringing Avengers from the past and future and giving them extra power to defeat the Time-Keepers, but this time he didn’t need to bring people to help. He had all humanity at his discretion and they were filled with power, granting strength, reflexes, energy blasts and for the first time humanity was united in the fight against the invaders, those who had killed the friends and family, destroyed their homes, and subjugated them for so long.

Their machines were crippled and they were on their own and a planet-wide war occurred between humanity and the aliens. Rick knew this wouldn’t last long, but it would last long enough for the aliens to be fought and driven back. In a sense, he was sad that so much blood would be spilt, but the collective thirst for vengeance couldn’t be denied. It had been long in coming.

“My God,” Pen whispered as he watched SHIELD go to work. He was restored to his prime, thanks to the Destiny Force coursing through him. “What have we done?”

“I’m sure I’ve seen this in a comic book,” Samantha said, in awe of what she was seeing. “We’re winning the war.”

“At what cost though?” Kaine said. “We just took out the science of the world, and with magic spreading across the planet, changing people, places, things… It’s made it a whole lot easier.”

“One threat at a time,” Pen said. “We’ve cleaning duty to do.”

Sam sighed. “I feel a bit redundant at the moment. Look at them all. An army of supermen. They don’t need us, let them have their moment.”

“You mean I’ve woken up for nothing?” said a voice and they turned to see Roberto hovering behind them.

“Welcome back,” said Pen and they shook hands before Roberto was embraced by Sam. Eto just nodded his respects to him.

“Where’s Jack and Jessica?” Bobby asked and Pen clicked his fingers and ran. The others looked at each other and then followed. “What about Elena?” Bobby called as they moved but Pen said nothing. He needed to find Jessica.

Cable screamed in agony as the mental amplifier was shut down by the EM pulse. Inwardly Reed cursed himself for not shielding the machine, for in their hurry he’d neglected it and he closed his eyes thinking he’d made such a rudimentary mistake again. They simply hadn’t foreseen the event that none of them would be able to get to Nathan and rescue him before it happened. Cable’s head lolled to the side, and the man seemed to be dead, but nobody could help him. Forge was almost gone, Reed had very little strength and the others were in trouble. Cap couldn’t fight three aliens with one arm and Jessica was being throttled

Jessica’s vision was blurring and she knew she didn’t have much left and then she felt it, a surge of power filling her and with a strength far greater than she had ever possessed she threw her attacker of her with a powerful burst. She expected to be coughing from lack of air but she seemed to be restored and she looked at the others. They were too, apart from Forge’s bionics but suddenly the aliens were faced with a more even fight in numbers, but greatly outmatched in raw power. Jack’s arm was healed and he threw the shield once more, the disc hurtling with such force it sliced through one alien, cutting him two just below the neck. Jessica’s venom-blasts may not have had the usual effect on the aliens but she fired energy beams from her eyes disintegrating the target. It was a slaughter and the enemy had no comeback for it.

“I can feel everyone around the world,” Cable said as they stood there, taking in what they had just done. “From England to Australia, across the US and China… the aliens are being taken apart. It’s not savagery; it’s a collective release by the world’s populace.”

“How will the world react though,” Reed mused, “when their powers are gone and they are all too human again?”

“We’ll deal with that another time,” Pen said as he and the rest of the Claws entered the room. “The war is being won, that’s what matters.” He found Jessica and she slipped her hand in to his. “Well, mostly what matters.”

EPILOGUE

It had been three days since the fall of the Martian Masters and a light rain was covering the Earth. There had been reunions, burials, mourning and more as humanity found a commonality with each other. They had lost the Destiny Force not long before the Martians were finally defeated, but it had been enough. The enemy had no comeback against such a war, and those Martians who were not dead, were being rounded up by heroes who had been drafted by SHIELD. What they would do with them was another matter, as was what would happen with collaborators and the Martian/Human hybrid children.

They had minimal communications and no legitimate governments. The world needed a lot of work to rebuild itself, but with luck there would be no internal conflicts between race, creed, colour. Money was of no interest now and, even if it didn’t last forever, there was a global unity that many had not considered possible.

Pen Dragon sat on a hill in the Yorkshire Dales, watching as the wreckage of ruined Martian war machines were taken away. He’d done what he’d come here to do and the Dragon’s Claws had been disbanded.

Jack Monroe was spear-heading the capture of the remaining enemies. He had taken the decision to drop the America part from his formal title. The uniform stayed the same, but he wasn’t for America. He was for the world, and Pen knew of nobody better to run SHIELD until things had some semblance of normality.

Roberto was in Genosha, working with Cable to try and find and reunite the X-Men. They had friends and family out there, scattered across the world and the X emblem marked them as family. It would be nice to try and find whoever was left. Once they did that, they could work with the hybrids and try and help them find their own identity. It was a worthwhile plan.

Sam was working with her family, helping as part of the relief effort in the UK. He was pretty sure that was her brother Walter carrying one of the ruined Tripods over his shoulder. She had her family back and that was what she wanted, what she had joined SHIELD to find. He wished her luck, and he knew they’d always be friends, and if he needed her help, she’d be there and vice versa.

If he closed his eyes, he could swear he heard Elena’s voice on the breeze.

“Hi,” said Jessica and he stood up.

“Hi,” he said. They hadn’t seen each other for a while, Eto having taken her to Otherworld. She needed to know what she was in for and that was the best place to start. Betsy and the others had filled her in on her destiny, her role within the Pendragons legacy and all of it. Pen hadn’t needed to be there and he wasn’t sure she needed him there anyway. “How’d it go?”

“It’s a lot to take in,” she said after a moment. “I thought it was a lot before, but now…”

“Oh brave new world, that has such people in’t.”

“Shakespeare?” she asked and he nodded. “The Tempest.”

“It was either that or Dylan.”

“Thomas?” She knew of the poet, if not his work and he gave a low chuckle.

“No, Bob. The times they are a’changing.” She smiled, that was more like him.

“Pen?”

“Yeah?” he looked at her.

“I’m changing. The world’s filled with magic, and it’s connected to me, and it’s making me in to someone else.” That was how she had been able to summon the piece of him within her. For a moment she’d thought she might have been pregnant, but that had been discounted.

“You scared?” he asked, not sure what the look on her face was, and she nodded. He put his arm around her. “Me too.”

“Why?”

“There’s a lot to do, Jess. I’m a focal point of it now, more than ever. Saving the world is one thing. Saving reality…”

“You did it before.” He shook his head.

“Almost blew it. Kate’s lost now, Limbo’s gone, collapsed on itself. I’m flying blind.”

“So am I,” she said and they kissed. It wasn’t a passion filled kiss, but one between two friends, who were more than friends, but not in love. They were special. He broke it off and smiled at her. “So what happens now?” she asked.

“You come with us,” said a voice and they looked to see they were surrounded by guards wearing the emblem of Darkmoor. “Pen Dragon, Jessica Drew. You’re under arrest for treason against the crown.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN PENDRAGONS #92