Knights of Avalon

Issue Two

“The Heirs”

Part One

By Gary Halpin

Captain Wings, a member of the government sponsored team known as the New Crusaders, flew above the city of London with just one thought in his mind.

“Our leader is a total bitch.”

His slightly older teammate, who had been given the code name Tommy Lightning, started laughing but he secretly had to agree with the young winged hero.

“I’m serious, Tom!” Wing insisted. The eighteen-year-old Scotsman, who had been an army recruit before being selected by his superiors to don the identity of a hero from World War II, was furious. His mother’s fortieth birthday party was going to be held in Glasgow in a few hours, and he was going to be seriously lately. “Who the hell does Thunderfist think she is? Just because she’s been doing this a couple of months longer than us and is an ally of the Pendragons, she thinks she’s Ms. Superhero!”

“Well,” Lightning told him, as Wings landed on top of a terminal in Heathrow Airport where they were both going to get planes back to their respective families for a rare weekend off. “She was appointed team leader, and she did almost die fighting alongside the Pendragons during the Adam Crowne wedding.”

“Oh, cry me a river!” Wings told him, as he started to take off his costume and change into his regular clothes. “I told her I needed to leave early to get a flight home, but she practically chewed my head off. It cost me a hundred and fifty quid to buy a ticket for a later flight home, and I’m going to miss the big surprise party. I’ll be lucky if any one is even remotely sober by the time I get there now!”

Tom Scott did not reply, but stood watching as his teammate removed his shirt and revealed the lean, muscled form beneath it. Alex Lindsey had no idea that his teammate had a secret crush on him, being very oblivious to any thing of that nature.

He would never find out.

Before Tom could react, thousands of volts of electricity burned through his body, incinerating him from the inside. By the time the still twitching body of the man who wanted to be a national hero fell to the ground, dental records were required to identify his body as that of Captain Wings.

Kelsey Leigh, the newly renamed Captain Avalon, unpacked her meagre possessions in the quarters assigned to her. She had only arrived in Muir Island a few hours previously, but there was no reason to think she would not be residing there for the foreseeable future. The scientific research island had a new purpose as the headquarters of the Knights of Avalon, and she had nowhere else to go. In truth, there was not much to unpack. She had effectively been in a magical coma in another realm since the deaths of her husband and two children years ago, and it had been only been months since she had been awoken by Dane Whitman for the purpose of joining the Knights. Siryn, the team mate who was the closest thing Kelsey now had to a friend, had bought her a basic wardrobe that Kelsey saw no reason to upgrade. Clothes had never been of interest to her, although she vaguely remembered trying to make herself as attractive as possible to her husband before she had realised there was no point in attempting to keep his interest. As far as she was now concerned, she would be perfectly content to wear her Captain Avalon uniform for the rest of her life. That identity was the only thing she had in her life now, apart from her hatred of the goddess Roma who she blamed for the deaths of her family.

There was only one item in her possession that in any way indicated her former life as an average housewife. Siryn had found it for her. It was a photograph of Kelsey and her children that Siryn had downloaded from the Internet that had been included in an article about the accident that killed them. It was the only reminder Kelsey now had of her children, as all of her personal items had been discarded or re-distributed by well-meaning distant relatives and neighbours after her apparent death. Kelsey had placed the photograph in an ornate golden frame beside her bed, but her quarters otherwise were stark and impersonal enough to reflect the warrior she had become.

“Kelsey, you inside?”

“Come in,” Kelsey told her friend, recognising her voice.

“How’s the moving in going?” Siryn asked. In contrast to Kelsey who was still wearing her uniform, the red-haired Irish woman was wearing a Scissor Sisters t-shirt and blue denim hot pants that Kelsey would never have the nerve to wear. She was also hiding something behind her back.

“All done,” Kelsey wearily replied. She found it very difficult to get excited about any thing now. In truth, the only thing she now felt any excitement towards was the thought of going into battle as Captain Avalon.

“Great!” Siryn told her, revealing three large bottles of Jameson’s Whiskey. “Well then, I think it’s about time you and I did something fun for once. Let’s get blotted!”

“I’ve never really been much of a drinker,” Kelsey tried to protest, but Siryn was having none of it. Kelsey had never really understood the allure of alcohol, but she did not want to offend the friend who had been so good to her, even though Kelsey suspected that Siryn had already started the party without her.

“This will be exactly what we both need. And one of the few perks of being a Knight of Avalon, along with increased strength and endurance, is that it takes a lot more alcohol to get drunk than it would have before, and you can shrug off the hangovers no problem.” She sat down on Kelsey’s bed beside her, and poured two large glasses of whiskey. “Bottoms up!”

Luke Cage lay in his bed, naked, and watched as his teammate got dressed.

“So… we ever going to talk about this?”

His companion was silent for a moment as she put on her t-shirt, before finally asking, “What is there to talk about?”

“Well…” Luke Cage had never had a problem with members of the female sex, but his latest lover, if he was even allowed to refer to her like that, was far different from any one he had ever slept with. He genuinely had no idea how to deal with her, and that was a first for him. “I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong, but this is the sixth time you’ve come to my room and banged my brains out and then left without a word.”

“Is it not pleasurable for you?”

“Best thing in my life at the moment,” Luke admitted. “And that’s a screwed up thing to say.”

“Then enjoy it, without complications,” Elektra told him. “It is what it is. Don’t over think it.”

“I know. Normally not a problem for me, believe me. It’s just…”

Elektra did not look at him, but remained sitting on the bed, allowing him to finish. This was the longest she had ever stayed with him after finishing.

“Look, don’t worry about it. I’m just turning into an old woman here. Call by any time.”

Elektra did not move for a moment, but then sat up from the bed, finished getting dressed, and walked to the door. She put her hand on the doorknob to open it, but paused before turning it. Although her face remained as expressionless as ever, it was clear to Luke that she wanted to ask something, but was not sure if she should.

Luke watched her stand there, confused. “Elektra?”

“The Barrier…” she finally asked.

“Yeah?” he encouraged, strangely moved by the effort whatever she was going to ask required.

“When the Barrier was erected… Who did you lose?”

Luke suddenly felt as though he had been slapped, as the only thing Elektra had ever asked him involved the one thing that had hurt him most in his entire life.

Magma played with the fires of creation and let loose her inner demons.

Engulfed in burning flames, she twisted her arm and the rocks on the shore of Muir Island were shaped by her whims. She created monsters. Large, inanimate sculptures straight from a Stephen King novel. As soon as they were created, she destroyed them and started again. She repeated this over and over, each time creating monuments more gruesome than the next.

“That’s a scary imagination you have there, lass,” Sean Cassidy told her.

She turned quickly, allowing the statues to collapse back to the earth as she did. “Banshee. I don’t remember asking for an audience!”

“I wasn’t following you,” Cassidy explained, pulling the collar of his jacket up around his neck to protect from the winds that constantly assaulted the island. “I was just taking a walk to clear my head when I saw your flames from the distance and took a walk down to see what was happening.”

“So you decided to invade my privacy?”

“This is my island, remember?” Cassidy reminded her. “Or at least, it’s in my care while Moira and Rahne are at a government scientific retreat studying the Barrier. If you wanted complete privacy, you could have stayed in your quarters. I just thought I’d wander down and say hello. You realise that you’re probably the most powerful member of the Knights with your flame and earth powers? I have experience teaching mutants. I’d be happy to help you get more control if you like.”

“Like you did your little New Mutant wannabes? No thanks! I’m doing just fine all by myself.”

Cassidy shrugged. He had come to expect nothing but hostility from Magma in the few months since Whitman had recruited her. “Fair enough. Sorry for intruding, Amara.”

“Alison!” Magma corrected him, her vaguely Italian accent more pronounced by her anger. “I’ve told you before. My name is Alison Crestmere. Amara was a fiction from the mind of an evil bitch who stole my life and took me away from my parents when I was an infant.”

“That might be true, but I quite liked Amara. She was a nice girl.”

“She was an idiot!”

“Well, I’m sorry,” apologised Cassidy. “I forgot. I’m just used to thinking of you as a girl from an ancient Roman colony. It’s easy to forget that you were actually born in London twenty something years ago.”

“Easy for you,” Magma sneered. “You’re not the one who lived an entire life as a lie. That’s the reason I never joined your precious X-Men like a lot of my classmates. You all see what you want to see when you look at me.”

“All I see is a hurt young woman consumed by anger,” Cassidy told her, sitting down on a large rock near her, the excess heat having been absorbed back by Magma when he had approached her. “It’s not healthy, girl. Regardless of the reasons you have to be angry.”

“You’re telling me about healthy behaviour?” Magma laughed, allowing the flames to die away to reveal the beautiful woman with shoulder length curly blonde hair wearing a black polo neck, black leather trousers and black leather boots beneath. “You’re joking, right?”

“I never said I had all the answers. I’m old enough to know I’m still figuring out the questions. I just know what someone in pain looks like.”

“You must get on great with your daughter then,” Magma snapped back, not wanting any one’s sympathy or understanding. “That’s if you can spend more than five minutes in a room with her without her reaching for a bottle of whiskey!”

Cassidy glared at her, and then looked away. When he answered, he sounded like he was far older than his late forties. “That was uncalled for, Alison. I don’t need you to tell me my only child is an alcoholic.”

“When was the first time you got drunk?” Siryn asked her new friend, throwing away the first emptied whiskey bottle and topping up Kelsey’s glass from the second.

“My wedding night,” Kelsey answered, looking warily at the full glass as drops spilt over her bed. “I’d never drank much before that, but he kept buying me Bacardi and cokes. I ended up throwing up for most of the night in the bathroom of the bed and breakfast we were staying in.”

Siryn started laughing so hard that Kelsey had to reach over to her to stop her falling off the bed they were both sitting on. “I was thirteen. Boarding school. My Uncle Tom wanted me out of the way while he focused on what he did best in case I found out what he did best wasn’t very nice. He sent me to a nice convent school run by the crankiest bunch of nuns you could ever imagine. God, they were frustrated witches. My friend Joan and I broke into the cupboard where they kept the wine for the masses. We totally got busted the next morning when we fell into assembly so green we resembled the Hulk, but it was totally worth it.”

Kelsey started to smile at the mental image despite herself. “It sounds like you were both the types of kids I always wanted to hang around with but never had the nerve to. So who’s this Uncle Tom? Where was your Dad?”

“Never knew I existed,” Siryn told her, knocking back a glass in one mouthful. “He went away for a year on an Interpol assignment before my mother knew she was pregnant. She died during a terrorist attack on a shopping spree to Belfast. His cousin Tom hid the fact I was Sean’s daughter when he came back, and raised me on his own. Well, he tried to. He loved me, but I pretty much raised myself when I wasn’t at school or drinking with him after various capers.”

“That’s terrible!” Kelsey told her, her parental feelings rising to the surface despite her intense dislike of Sean Cassidy. “I can’t stand the man, but to have your child stolen…”

“Yeah, well. I can’t hate Tom too much. I tried to, for a long time, but at the end of the day he was all I had and he did try his best to be a parent. He just screwed it up most of the time.”

“So how did Cassidy find you?”

“Tom had an attack of a conscience one day after he was arrested and it looked like I was going to be sent down with him for aiding and abetting. He took full responsibility, and wrote a letter to Sean explaining every thing. We were all ready then for a full Hollywood reunion except things never do work out the way they were planned. I do love him, but I guess I still think of Tom as my Dad truth be told. Sean and I end up annoying each other if we spend too much time together. I think, to be honest, I never quite lived up to his idea of what a daughter is meant to be.”

“That’s so sad,” Kelsey told her, feeling more than a little drunk at this stage. “I’m sure he loves you though, even I would give him that. I’d give anything to have my kids in my life.”

“Oh he loves me. We just start getting on each other’s nerves after a while. He did try though, particularly after that bitch Magma’s friend slashed my throat out.”

“Magma’s… what?”

“I had a girl,” Luke finally told Elektra, as he looked for the right words to answer her question. He had never been one taken to talking about his emotions. He was not unintelligent. Any one who had ever spent any significant length of time with him would quickly have agreed with that. However, he was not an educated man, and speaking about emotions and matters of the heart was something far removed from his upbringing and the life had had led.

“Jessica. Her name was Jessica. She was one hell of a messed up girl. A sick bastard did things to her head once – things that no one should have to go through. She survived it though. In her own way, she’s as tough than both of us put together. She certainly didn’t put up with any crap from me, I can tell you that for nothing. She had my number from almost the moment she met me. She took me exactly as I was, and never tried to change me. I can tell you for a fact that’s rare. Most people say they accept you and want you for what you are, and then try to change every thing about you. Jessica never did that. She took me exactly as I was, but at the same time busted my chain the moment I stepped out of line in any way. Like I said, she was tough, but we understood each other. It’s rare to have that. She’s one hell of a girl.”

Elektra did not reply or interrupt, but sat down beside Luke. Her continued presence in the room was an invitation to continue, and Luke took it as such.

“Long and the short of it is that she got pregnant. I don’t need to explain the birds and the bees to you. We were drunk. We weren’t careful. It happens. But turns out neither of us regretted it for a moment. As soon as we both heard, we realised that it was something we both wanted deep down. She gave up smoking and never touched another drop of alcohol. We quit playing games with each other. She moved into my place. We started getting ready to be parents. We were happy.”

He fell silent again, and Elektra left him do so. She did not encourage him to continue, or take his hand. But she remained there. Waiting.

“She was almost five months along when it happened. It was just a normal day – she was nagging me to go get a crib, and I left her do it because, well, nagging at each other was a game that we both enjoyed. Doctor said there was nothing any one could have done. Some babies make it. Some don’t. It just happens. There was no one to blame. No one to hit. The baby was just… gone. It was a boy. I think Jessica was as surprised by that as much as she was by him dying. She had been convinced she was carrying a little girl.”

He stood up and wandered around his quarters. He walked to the sink and threw some water on his face, and eventually continued.

“I think it would have been easier if she had cried. If she had wailed and screamed and threw things – I could have dealt with that. I could have helped her. But she didn’t. She shut down inside. She was still walking around, doing the things every one does every day, but it was like she was dead inside. I couldn’t get through to her. Nothing got through to her. Except Danny…”

He took a deep sigh. “Danny’s my best buddy. We’ve been partners for years. Closer than brothers. I’d trust him with my life, and that of my family. No question. No hesitation. We’re that tight. Jessica got to know him from me. They clicked immediately. Two more different people you couldn’t meet, but they got on. First time I ever introduced them was one of the happiest days of my life. I thought they would take one look at each other and it would be instant hate, but I couldn’t have been wrong. That’s probably why I shouldn’t have been surprised at what happened.”

“They became lovers,” Elektra stated emotionlessly.

“No. No! God, no. You crazy? They would never do that to me – either of them. We were family. The three of us. And baby would have made four. They would never… Jeez! No… But in a way, it was just as bad. I had a job, looking after someone who only needed looking after from his own vanity. I got off early one day, and walked home to see Jessica and Danny on the couch. She was crying. Crying her eyes out. She was telling him every thing – every thing she was going through, every feeling she had, every thing that had gone through her head. Every thing. I listened for a while, and then left without them knowing what I had been there. I came back a few hours later, and she was exactly the way I had left her. If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes I’d have thought she was still keeping every thing locked up, but she wasn’t. She was just keeping it locked up from me. Two weeks later I took the job in Europe and got stuck behind the Barrier. I spent months trying to get out before I realised it was hopeless. Then word got out about the Invasion on the other side. She’s stuck there, if she’s even still alive after all this time, and I’m not there to protect her. And all because I was too vain to accept the fact that she turned to someone who’s a better man than I’ll ever be rather than turn to me. That’s why I signed up when Whitman came to me. We worked together before in Heroes For Hire and he remembered me. I’ve already lost every thing that was important to me due to my own damn pride. That’s something I’ve got to live with every day. Being here is the only way I have to try to do something good out of this whole mess, and the best chance I have of ever finding a way back home, even if there’s nothing back there to get home too.”

He went silent, strangely exhausted after talking about the guilty secrets he had been carrying alone for almost a year to a woman who was both his lover and an enigma.

Elektra did not try to make him feel better through meaningless rhetoric, something for which he was grateful for, but eventually he felt her fingers brush his left hand before she left his room without a word. He was immediately struck by the realization that, despite all of the things they had done with and to each other, it was the most intimate contact the strange bedfellows had ever shared.

“You know she’s an alcoholic?” Alison Crestmere asked Siryn’s father, surprised.

“I know the signs,” Cassidy told her. “I’ve looked at them in the mirror long enough. I just tried to ignore them in her.”

“How…?”

“I realised she had a drink problem shortly after meeting her, but I was too delighted at finding her to confront her about it. She never drank every day, but when she did drink, she would go on binges and wouldn’t stop for days. I was able to rationalise it as having an Irish attitude for life, and I know how lame that sounds. But I didn’t want to arrive into her life and start telling her what she should or shouldn’t do. I didn’t think I had the right. When she joined X-Force, the drinking got out of hand. She almost got herself killed a few times, but she managed to get things under control eventually with the help of some good friends. Then X-Force ran into a bunch of bastards called the Hellions, and a mutant called Feral clawed her throat out.”

Alison felt a chill for the first time since getting her powers. “Cassidy… I was one of those Hellions.”

“You what?” Cassidy yelled, pulling away from her.

“It was after I discovered the truth about myself! I tried to distance myself from every thing Amara represented. I fell in with some mercenaries. Feral was one of them. I never wanted to hurt Siryn. Things got out of hand. I helped X-Force stop them after she got hurt, but that’s why Siryn and I keep our distance from each other.”

“I noticed, but I never knew that you…” Cassidy shouted at her, and then felt the anger fade away. For the first time since Magma had joined the team, he could see something of the girl he had known at Xaviers. He could not stay angry with her. “I’ve run with people I shouldn’t have at times. If you say you had nothing to do with Teresa getting hurt, I believe you. Any way… I went to her as soon as I heard, but she chose to recuperate with a distant relative on her mother’s side that I didn’t even know about instead. But she stayed off the bottle. I thought that was it, until most of her team mates got wiped out by a squad of Sinister’s Marauders.”

“I heard,” Alison told him, putting her arms around herself.

“Of course you did,” Sean realised. “They were your friends too…”

He put his arm around her, and was surprised when she did not pull away. “She started drinking big time after that. Eventually, I persuaded her to come back to Cassidy’s Keep in Ireland. I told her it would be good for her to get away for a while. Her plane was flying over the Atlantic when the Barrier went up. She managed to make contact, let me know she was okay… and that was the last I heard from her until Whitman told me he had recruited her for the Knights. I was overjoyed. I took it as a sign that she had got things under control again. Now I know she hasn’t.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I guess I’ll try talking to her. Tomorrow. I’m going to try to convince her to get help. And if she doesn’t, I’ll make Whitman drop her from the team for her own safety.”

“She’ll hate you if you do that.”

“Being a parent isn’t a popularity contest. I’ll do what I have to do. I’d rather she hated me and was safe than live with the consequences if something happens to her when she was drunk.”

Alison allowed herself to snuggle closer to Cassidy. “You’re a good man.”

“Far from it, child. Far from it.”

Alison was silent for a moment, and then kissed him before he even realised what she was doing. “Cassidy… I’m not a child.”

Sean pulled away, shocked. “Alison… What are you… I have a daughter that’s older than you!”

“I’m twenty two, Cassidy,” Alison smiled, enjoying his discomfort. “The fact that you’re older doesn’t make me a child.”

“But I’m completely unsuitable for you! I – I’d be taking advantage.”

“Ssh… It’s been a long time since I was innocent little Amara” she told him, kissing him again. “No one takes advantage of me. And unsuitable men are exactly Alison Crestmere’s type…”

“And that’s why I can’t stand the cow,” Siryn finished telling Kelsey about the attack that had robbed her of her voice. “All of X-Force used to say poor Amara this and poor Amara that, but there comes a point when you’ve got to say, get over it! Grow up and take some responsibility! Are we out of drink?”

“Looks that way,” Kelsey told her, trying to stand up but needing to lean against the bed for support. “I think I’m a little drunk.”

“That’s the whole point,” Siryn laughed. “I’ve got another bottle in my room. Let me go get it.”

“No!” Kelsey insisted, laughing for the first time since she had been woken from her magical coma. “No more! I’ve had fun… something I didn’t know I was capable of any more… but I need to sleep.”

“Fair enough,” Siryn told her, a little disappointed. “Sure, we can do this again some time.”

“Maybe,” Kelsey smiled. “I’ve always been more partial to talking over a cup of tea though. Let me ask you one thing though. With every thing you and your father went through, with Amara’s background, whatever secrets Cage and Elektra have…”

“Yeah?”

“Do you not think it’s a bit strange that every one Whitman selected to join his Knights of Avalon have all been… well… none of us exactly have much else in our lives apart from this. Do you not think that’s odd?”

Siryn stumbled and fell against the doorway. She stood against the door, and addressed her friend. “Personally, Kelsey, honey… I think it’s deliberate. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s deliberately assembled his own little Pendragons Suicide Squad. Night, girl.”

“Good night, Teresa,” Kelsey answered, before allowing herself to fall on top of her bed to sleep. She tried to think about what it might mean if Siryn was correct, but within minutes she had passed out.

Nine hours later, a slightly queasy Kelsey stood in the main conference hall, watching the body language between Cage and Elektra as they waited for the others to arrive. There was something strange going on between them. They were not even looking at each other – Elektra never seemed to look at any one – but she could sense… something. Something was going on.

“I hope you feel as dodgy as I do,” Siryn told Kelsey, walking into the room wearing the same clothes as last night. “You’re a bad influence, Kelsey Leigh.”

“A warrior does not go into battle inebriated,” Elektra surprised them all by saying. “I can smell the stench from here.”

“I’m not inebriated,” Siryn protested. “Just a little bit delicate…”

“Then maybe you should step out of whatever Whitman is assembling us for,” her father told him, walking into the conference room with an expression of disappointment on his face when he saw his only child.

“What is this? Pick on Teresa day? Can every one just mind their own business please? Thank you!”

“Good morning every one,” Alison walked into the conference room, wearing Cassidy’s jumper from the previous day. To the amazement of every one, including Cassidy, she walked straight over to him and kissed him in front of the other Knights before turning to look at Siryn. “I hope every one got as little sleep last night as I did!”

“You little whore,” Siryn told her in disgust.

“Temper, temper,” Alison smiled.

“Teresa, I can explain,” Cassidy told his daughter, pushing Alison away.

“Don’t even bother! She’s younger than I am! God, you’re pathetic.”

“This is not the time or the place for this conversation,” Dane Whitman told them, as he used his abilities as Lord of the Lake to appear in the middle of the Knights.

“I’m never going to get used to that…” Cage muttered to no one in particular.

“You can sort out whatever problems you have later. The Knights of Avalon are needed,” Whitman chided them, as he caused an image of the murdered Captain Wings appear in front of them. “This is Alexander Lindsey, an eighteen year old soldier who had recently been recruited for the new Crusaders, a team of super heroes assembled by the British government. He was brutally murdered this morning at Heathrow Airport.”

With a twist of his hand, the image was replaced by that of a fifteen-year-old girl dressed as a punk with bright pink hair. “This is Julianne Barlow. She was a member of a rich family that made their money in Formula One racing. She was found slaughtered in an illegal rave while her mother thought she was asleep this morning in Bristol.”

Her image was replaced by that of a young girl with blonde ringlets and braces. “This is Patsy Turner, a seven year old child whose body was ripped to shreds in a private birthday party in Knightsbridge yesterday.”

“What’s the connection?” Cassidy asked, as the image of the seven year old haunted all of the Knights.

“They were all connected in a way that no one was ever meant to know, including them. They were among the Heirs, and someone or something is hunting them down. Now the Knights must protect the others.”

“The Heirs?” Kelsey asked, realising that none of her teammates knew what Whitman was referring to either.

“The Heirs to Avalon. The children of a madman who almost destroyed a universe… The Knights of Avalon must protect the children of Jamie Braddock, or all of Avalon will be doomed…”

To Be Continued…

Authors’ Notes:

Hey folks! Thanks for all the positive feedback on the first issue. It seems to have gone down well, but this first issue is what should give an indication of what I want this title to be. Hopefully you’ll like it. Here’s some mail…

From Joseph Connell:

Well, that was...unexpected.

Very, very unexpected. 

Hopefully that was a good thing!

Line-up:
-"Captain Avalon": well, seeing Kelsey back 'in uniform' wasn't
that big a surprise (particularly given the chatter on the list of late). What was done to get her there...ouch. Ouch again. Tripple ouch. I daresay a certain someone/someones are in for some future pain for it. 

The whole story did arise from ideas I had for Kelsey coinciding with what was being discussed on the mailing list. If you had told
me this time last week that I would have an ongoing series featuring
this cast out of it I would have laughed at you, but it just grew
organically to a point where I realised I had more stories to tell,
and that I *had* to tell them.

-"Banshee": nice to see Sean back in action and given some greater
depth. I've long suspected he had a ruthless streak that was rarely
exercised; this just proves it. It'll be interesting to see if Kelsey can keep her head around him in the field.
-"Siryn": where her da goes, I'm not surprised to see her
following. She provides a good rock for Kelsey, certainly, and a bit of a buffer between her and Sean. I'm anxious to see if her character is developed here as she was in "X-Force", particularly her problem with alcohol. 

Well, this issue should have answered that question.

-"Magma": absolutely the last mutant hero I'd expected to see on
this team. We'll see what develops here. 

She's a character I always wanted to use but never had the right
place to do so before. I think she fits in perfectly here. After all, she is a British mutant called Alison Crestmere, whose entire life was
revealed to be a lie... What do you think after this issue?

-"Elektra": ditto to the above.
-"Luke Cage": and here I was expecting Hawkeye or Polaris to be
filling the "American" spot on the team. Cage has a lot going for him as a character, with all sorts of little quirks (for example: the one thing sure to set him > off is somebody taking his TV remote from him while he's sleeping) that give him more depth than most. I'll be interested to learn (a) how he's dealing with life under the Barrier and (b) how concerned he is about Iron Fist. 

Well, you’ve now seen how he's dealing with it... and who he's
dealing with it with.

That all said, I'm especially looking forward to seeing how the
Knights deal not just with The Pendragons, but the V-Battalion, the Emissaries, and especially the Captain Britain Corps and House Braddock. Its one thing that Kelsey received her power from Roma, which I suppose gives her a bit of 'official' status within the Corps. Its quite another that she unilaterally re-names herself (could there be another "Capt. Avalon" within the Corps somewhere?) and (b) agrees to lead a team formed by Dane Whitman. 

The rest of the Pendragons universe doesn't know they exist at the moment, and that's the way Whitman and the Knights like it. But as you saw, there is a very big link to the House Braddock in this very storyline, along with appearances of the New Crusaders. Poor Captain Wings…

I'm also a little concerned about the reasons the team was formed
in the first place. I can't help but remember that in chess, Knights
sometimes began as Pawns. In other words: what the hell is Whitman playing at? 

You've hit the nail on the head there, and it will be a subplot
that will continue to bubble underneath the surface. Unlike the
Pendragons, all of these characters have (or will have) nothing to
lose. That might be one of the reasons why Dane picked them.

Guess we'll find out eventually, eh? 

Hope you stick around for the ride!

Next is from Bob Gansler:

A great story! I can't wait to see what threats Dane has foreseen
for his Knights to face. 

Thanks Bob. Hope this issue worked for you as well!

The final mail is from Robert Rock:

Have to jump on the bandwagon here. I really liked the
first issue and can't wait to see where this title is
going and how it's going to interact with the rest of
the universe. Tight characterization, believable
dialogue, excellent character motivation. Wrap that up
with an interesting story and you've got the whole
package.

Rob

Thanks Rob. Really appreciate it. Am happy with how it turned out.
This issue focused on the rest of the team, all of whom are clearly
damaged in one way or another, and as the start of a storyline that ties into one of Barry's best Pendragons storylines... The madness of Jamie Braddock.