“The Heirs”

Part Three

By Gary Halpin

The animated corpse of what was once the mutant hero called Siryn floated in the air, taunting those it intended to kill. The way that her head was hanging barely connected to her body showed there was no way she could have survived the injuries that had killed her, but her lips moved to speak nonetheless, releasing the sound of a man’s voice.

The voice of a madman who had almost destroyed the universe.

The voice of Infinitus.

The voice of Jamie Braddock.

“Isn’t someone going to give Daddy a hug?”

“No!” Sean Cassidy screamed, looking up at his daughter. “Teresa!”

“She’s gone, Cassidy!” Magma shouted at him, as she unleashed molten lava at the entity that had just murdered one of his children in front of the Knights of Avalon. “Don’t hold back, or we’ll die with her!”

Cassidy lunged at Magma to stop her in a misguided attempt to protect his daughter and would have been burned to death if Kelsey Leigh had not held him back. “She’s gone, Sean,” Kelsey told him, the tears streaming down her face obvious despite the full mask she wore as part of her Captain Avalon uniform. “Terry’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…”

“Dummies dummies dummies dummies…. I’m surrounded by dummies,” Braddock told them, as he used an augmented version of Siryn’s shriek to dissipate the flames before they could reach him.

Elektra, the former assassin who was all too familiar with death, watched with calmness as her teammates were shocked into panic. “The Heirs,” she told Luke Cage, her some times lover, “We must protect the Heirs.”

“Where are you going?” Cage yelled after her, as she moved away.

“We need reinforcements.”

With almost super human stealth, she disappeared into the shadows, leaving Cage to realise what needed to be done. He pushed the strange bald dark skinned nun called Sister Sunday towards her half brother, Ryan O’Connor, and stood between them and the Braddock possessed Siryn.

“Where the hell is Whitman?” he muttered. “We are seriously out classed.”

“I tried to tell them. But they don’t listen. No one ever listens,” the precognitive Sister Sunday told the half-brother who had only just learned of her existence. O’Connor could not believe what was happening. A short time previously he had been dancing in a nightclub. Now he had discovered two siblings that he disliked in time for one of them to be killed in front of him by something claiming to be their father, possessing the clearly dead body of an alcoholic super hero.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are, Babies,” Braddock told them all. “Or Daddy will smack.”

“My daughter…” Cassidy whispered. “You killed my daughter!”

“You’ll get over it. I’ve had to kill half of my own darlings. Children can be so disappointing.”

“Monster!” Cassidy shrieked, and unleashed the full strength of his sonic scream at the creature desecrating as his daughter. The rest of the Knights of Avalon were forced to cover their ears and in some cases wipe blood away while they ducked to avoid rubble as Braddock/Siryn was blown through the ceiling and through four levels of the Muir Island Complex. The last time Cassidy had shouted with such power he had almost burt out his vocal cords, but he did not care. He carried on.

“Sean!” Kelsey tried to call to him to stop, but the overlap of his scream was drowning out all sound, forcing her to physically shake him to make him cease. “Sean, stop it!”

Sean reluctantly stopped screaming and staggered backwards. “Kelsey? Teresa… She’s…”

“I know,” Kelsey told him, taking him into her arms despite the fact that an hour previously she had despised him. She was in shock too. Teresa had been her only friend, and she would not have wished the pain of losing a child on any one, even Cassidy.

Numb, Cassidy allowed Kelsey to attempt to offer him comfort, before violently and suddenly pushing her away from him.

“This is your fault!” he shouted at her. “You were supposed to be looking out for each other, yet you come back without a scratch and Teresa is dead!”

“Sean, I –“

“Shut up! Shut the hell up, you evil bitch! Did you plan this? You blamed me for your kids being dead despite them being killed years before I ever met you! Is this your revenge? Answer me! Answer me!!!”

He felt a strong hand on his shoulder, and turned around to see Cage standing behind him. “Sean… I’m so sorry, man, but this is not the time. You owe it to your little girl to be strong until these kids are safe. She died trying to protect them.”

Cassidy looked at O’Connor and Sister Sunday, both of whom were in imminent danger. Magma was standing beside them, powered down and hugging herself. She was taking no pleasure from what was happening despite being a young woman who loved to give the appearance that she thrived on other’s misery. When Sean looked at her, he could see how young she was. Just like Teresa. Just like the innocents Teresa had tried to save.

“Magma, stay with them. You’re the most powerful of us. Cage, Kelsey, we need to –“

“Die,” Braddock told them as he attacked once more, directing the late Siryn’s scream at Kelsey, “You all need to die, die, die!”

A short distance away in a different section of Muir Island, the man known as Tom Scott woke to find one of the world’s most deadly assassins holding a metal sai against his neck.

“If you move in any way, I will kill you,” Elektra told him coldly. “Do you believe me?”

For a moment, Scott wondered if he was allowed to even speak, but as he stared at her he realised that he would be dead unless he did exactly what she wanted. “Yes.”

“You are known as Tom Lightning. You murdered your teammate, and then apparently murdered my teammate when she tried to stop you from killing another innocent. Do you remember that?”

Images assaulted Scott’s brain as chaotic memories of being possessed by a monster returned. Like in a dream, he remembered seeing the man he had never expressed feelings for dying at his own hands. He remembered being a prisoner in his own body as he was driven towards Manchester to kill the man known as Ryan O’Connor, and then was forced to kill Siryn only to be abandoned by the entity when it realised Siryn’s body would serve it better. “Oh God…”

“If you lie to me, I will kill you before you can kill me. I promise you that. Were you in control of your actions?”

“No,” Scott sobbed.

“Do you want revenge?”

“I… yes. Yes, I do.”

Elektra stared into his eyes, and then moved the sai away from his neck.

“Then get up.”

Kelsey swung the Sword of Might bestowed to her by Roma as though it was an extension of her own body. Moving and swerving in ways that shocked even her by their grace, she managed to avoid most of the cries coming from her friend’s dead body while her Sword absorbed those that would have made contact. For the first time, she began to realise the full power of the weapon she now wielded, but she would have happily given up that knowledge if she could undo the price she had to pay to gain it.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Cage shouted to Cassidy as he jumped into the air to try and tackle Braddock only to be painfully sent crashing to the ground by one of Braddock’s cries.

“What do you mean?” Cassidy asked, as he took to the air to try and use his powers against what was once his daughter despite the fact it was breaking his heart.

“Braddock used to be called Infinitus, right?” Cage asked, ignoring the pain in his body as he picked himself up to rejoin the battle. “He was a big cosmic bad guy that could have wiped out the entire universe. He had Doc Strange level mojo, but all he’s using are amped up levels of Teresa’s powers. He’s kicking our butts, but shouldn’t he be able to wipe us out with a flick of his finger?”

“It is nice to see I am not the only one in this team capable of using my brains,” Elektra answered his question, as Tom Lightning fired streams of energy at Braddock that would have incinerated any of the Knights had it made contact.

“What the hell have you done?” Cage demanded, watching Lightning.

“He was as much a pawn as Siryn is. He was not responsible for his actions, but his power can help us.”

“Fry, you bastard!” Lightning shouted, as he continued to use his powers against the thing that had made him the very thing he had sworn to fight He had thought that the powers were in the suit the Crusaders program had selected him to wear for the British Government, but now he knew that it had always been in him. The suit had been a key that opened a lock, but Braddock had blown the lock away forever. “That thing isn’t a man. It’s some sort of virus, with one mission! It wants to eliminate the threat of Jamie Braddock for ever!”

“Who could have created such a thing?” Magma asked, directing Magma at Siryn’s body in the hope that Kelsey was distracting it while Braddock’s children stayed behind her.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dane Whitman, the Lord of the Lake told her, appearing in the midst of the Knights in a flash of light. “It was your father… Jamie Braddock.”

“This is insane…” Ryan O’Connor told the young woman beside him.

“No,” the precognitive Sister Sunday told him as the meanings of visions that had plagued her became clear to her for the first time “It is destiny”

“My father is dead!” Magma cried out, as the battle temporarily stopped as all parties paused to stare at the newcomer, humbled by the power he possessed. Even Braddock.

Particularly Braddock.

“The man you have been told was your birth father is dead,” Whitman told her, “but that was a role he played without knowing that your mother had deceived him. Your father was Jamie Braddock, which is why you were born with the mutation to twist the reality of the Earth to your wishes.”

“You’re lying!” Magma shouted, not willing to accept yet another lie about her past. “You have to be!”

“No, he is not, sister,” Sister Sunday told her, as she took O’Connor’s hand despite him being as surprised as Magma. “We… are family. And that is not our father. It is his dying wish.”

“Avalon…” the thing claiming to be Braddock whispered, as it bathed in the power of the Green coming from Whitman. For the first time since revealing itself to the Knights, it seemed almost… vulnerable.

“Jamie Braddock regained his sanity in the moments before his death,” Whitman told the Knights while staring at what was possessing Siryn. “He was visited by the Lady of the Lake, my predecessor, and felt the power and beauty of Avalon. He chose to allow himself be killed, rather than risk losing his mind again and destroying something so beautiful and right. He chose to protect Avalon from himself… and his legacy.”

“That’s why he’s killing his children…” Kelsey whispered, unable to comprehend how someone could wish harm to their own offspring, regardless of the supposed nobility of any motivation.

“Not consciously,” Whitman replied. “Jamie Braddock is dead, but his power was so great that his wishes took a life of it’s own. That power lay dormant until the transfer of power from the Lady of the Lake to myself, at which point a spell she cast to hide Braddock’s children from any who would do them harm was broken.”

“This is your fault?” Cassidy whispered, looking at the remains of his daughter which stood motionless, unsure of how to act.

“No, Sean,” Whitman answered, glad that the Knights were unaware exactly how he had gained the power of the Lord of the Lake. “This… whim given form would have hunted the children forever, but the… circumstances… under which the power transfer occurred were less than ideal. I had no way of knowing that the Heirs to Avalon had previously been protected by Avalon, or that the thing hunting them was actually seeking to protect Avalon in it’s own way. I was looking for anything that wished Avalon ill, so it remained outside my attention.”

“Avalon…” the Braddock creation whispered using Siryn’s corpse. All of it’s instincts were telling it to strike out at the Heirs and those that would protect them, but it was humbled by the power of Avalon that Dane Whitman currently embodied.

“This is crazy,” Magma shouted at no one in particular. “This is all absolutely bloody crazy.”

“People always use the word crazy for things they can not understand, but that does not make them untrue,” Sister Sunday told her half-sister, still holding the hand of their half-brother but holding out her other hand to her new-found sister. “But blood is not crazy. Family is not crazy. Take my hand.”

Magma stared at her in confusion, before reluctantly powering down and accepting Sister Sunday’s hand despite all her instincts telling her not to do so.

The moment that the three Braddock children were all physically linked, under the watch of the Lord of the Lake, the Braddock creation realised that they posed no threat to Avalon. Without a word, it departed Siryn’s body, which collapsed to the ground.

As a numb Sean Cassidy slowly took the remains of his daughter into his hands, Magma turned to her siblings and wondered out loud where it was gone.

“To find our final Sibling,” Sister Sunday told her.

“Is that true?” Magma demanded of Braddock, remembering that he had mentioned another child of Jamie Braddock that was outside his vision but no longer trusting a word he said.

“Yes,” Whitman sadly confirmed, staring at the devastated Sean Cassidy before fading from their view. “But I doubt it will find him or her when even I can not.”

“So we just wait to see if it comes back for us again?” Ryan O’Connor demanded, still half convinced he was in a dream.

“If this final creation of Jamie Braddock returns,” the voice of Whitman could be heard after his physical form faded from view, “then it will not be for any one in this room.”

Later that night, Sean Cassidy sat in the quarters he had once shared with Moira MacTaggart and stared at an unopened bottle of whiskey He had not drank a drop of alcohol in over two years, but right now he could not think of a single reason to stay sober.

He was a failure.

He had failed as a husband to his dead wife and as a lover to Moira MacTaggart, his former partner.

He had failed as a spy and as an X-Man.

He had failed as a man.

Worst of all, he had failed as a father.

He had been useless to Teresa when she was alive, and now he would never again have the chance to make it up to her.

He could not think of a single reason to even continue living.

He picked up the bottle of whiskey, and then threw it in a small rubbish bin beside the bedside cabinet. He opened the top drawer of the cabinet, and picked up the small handgun inside. As he felt the cool handle in his hand, he contemplated how easy it would be to simply put it in his mouth and pull the trigger. He had seen enough men die to know there would be no pain. It would be an end to all pain.

He was disturbed from his contemplations by a knock on his door. He hurriedly hid the gun before opening the door to see Kelsey standing outside, having obviously been crying. For a moment, his anger at her returned before he saw the grief on her own face. No matter how much he wanted to, he could not really blame her. He had been on too many missions in the last thirty years where not everybody returned home to really believe it was her fault.

“My child is dead,” he surprised himself by saying.

“I know…” Kelsey told him, one parent without children to another. “So are mine…”

On the shores of Muir Island, Magma tried to push thoughts of Siryn out of her head as she stood at the place where she had seduced her fallen teammate’s father barely twenty four hours previously.  She would go to see him later, she had decided. She had surprised herself by the fact that last night had meant more to her than she had expected. She would offer him comfort, and try to forget the fact she had created a rift between him and the daughter he would soon have to bury.

Instead she thought about her new family. When she had travelled to London before the Barrier went up in search of the Crestmere family, she had found only an embittered aunt who wanted nothing to do with her. Was this because she had known that Alison was not her brother’s child, as the woman he had married had cheated on him with an international race driver, presumably seduced by his charm and glamour?

Whitman told her that he had sensed her power and heritage and that was one of the reasons he had recruited her to join his Knights before the prophesy of the Heirs became known to him. Was that true? Did she really have any reason to believe him?

Whitman had offered to take Alison and her siblings to reside in Avalon, but Sister Sunday had told him that the destinies of all three were tied into the Knights of Avalon, and that all three were to remain in Muir Island. Alison was reluctant to follow the advice of someone who seemed mildly deranged, but right now she trusted her more than she did Whitman. After all, she surprised herself by thinking, they were family.

For the first time in her life, Alison had siblings, and that was worth investigating. Ryan seemed okay if slightly camp, but more interesting was the fact that she had another sibling powerful enough to hide from both Whitman and the power of her father. She also could not help wonder what greater abilities she might develop herself if their birth father had earned himself the name Infinitus.

It was an interesting thought. A very interesting thought indeed…

Epilogue  

Two weeks after the burial of Siryn, Tom Scott was finally allowed to walk around Muir Island unescorted. Although they had been suspicious of him, most of the Knights now accepted that he had been a pawn of the Braddock creature, and therefore could not be held in any way responsible for his actions. Sean Cassidy would not look him in the eyes, but the others acknowledged him as a novice hero.

He no longer believed that the work he had done with the Crusaders was important. Photo opportunities and government rallies paled in significance to threats that had forced him to kill someone he had been developing feelings for. He had not needed time to think about it when Whitman approached him with an offer. He was no longer Tommy Lightning, professional superhero for the government. That man had died alongside his teammate.

He was now simply Lightning, a member of the Knights of Avalon.

God help him.

“How are you doing, man?” Cage asked him, meeting him in the corridor. Out of all of the Knights, Cage had welcomed him to the team the most, although that statement was in itself damning with faint praise. Cage had told him that he had seen other people get their minds messed with on more than one occasion, and he was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was the most he had any right to ask for, considering the other Knights had buried Siryn the previous week.

“I’m okay,” Lightning answered, trying to hide his nerves at his first official meeting with the Knights. “I’m just wondering who calls the shots here? What’s the chain of command?”

“There isn’t really one,” Cage shrugged. “Whitman directs us as his personal strike force when he thinks we’re needed, although some of us are feeling a little uncomfortable following his orders, but the team itself doesn’t have a direct leader. We’re all equal, except…”

He stopped speaking as what seemed to be a powerful earthquake caused all of Muir Island to shake.

“What the hell is that?” Cage demanded, as people and places that were never meant to exist in this reality appeared and disappeared around them while a screeching noise unimaginable to the human ear was heard through out two universes.

He never received an answer, as two universes collided and were merged into one new reality, from the dawn of time to the end of both universes.

Cage shuddered as though something strange had happened, but told himself he was being silly as he continued walking to the others.

“How are you doing?” Cage asked Lightning, meeting him in the corridor. Out of all of the Knights, Cage had welcomed him to the team the most, although that statement was damning with faint praise. Cage had told him that he had seen other people get their minds messed with on more than one occasion, and he was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“I’m okay,” Lightning answered, trying to hide his nerves at his first official meeting with the Knights. “I’m just wondering who calls the shots here? What’s the chain of command?”

“Val’s the boss lady,” Cage told him, opening the door of the meeting room. “She’s tough as nails, one of the few people I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of and one of the first people I’d want watching my back if I was in trouble.”

Lightning followed him in and saw Cage sit down at a round table with the other Knights: Magma, Captain Avalon, Elektra, Cassidy, and Cassidy’s wife, a blonde Russian woman wearing a green jumpsuit whose skin was covered in bandages. She was Negative Woman, formerly of the Doom Patrol, and the very first person to be recruited by Whitman to join the Knights of Avalon.

“Welcome, Lightning,” Valentia Vostok Cassidy told him in a thick Russian accent. “Welcome to the Knights of Avalon. Welcome to our ranks.”

Author’s notes:

Those of you familiar with the recently concluded DC Collision event in Pendragons #71-74 will recognise what happened in our final scenes, but for those that don’t, here’s the deal. The DC and Marvel Universes have been merged retroactively in a new reality. You don’t need to know how or why for next issue, but you are missing a good story if you don’t check those issues out. All you need to know is that the DC characters have co-existed with the Marvel characters forever as far as they are concerned, and next issue will show you how that affected the Knights.

On a personal note, I think this has to be up there with issue #1 out of the issues so far I’ve been most dissatisfied with. I don’t know if every thing came as well together as I had hoped. Let me know what you think.

Some comments on #3. The first is from Tony Thornley on the Heroes list…

 Today I got to read Knights of Avalon at Pendragons.

>http://www.aric-dacia.com/pendragons/knights.html 

And I'm glad you did. Thanks.

> Gary requested this review, and it got my wheels turning.  Barry's

> been trying to entice me to Pendragons for a long time, even before my LDS mission nearly three years ago.  I steered clear of it though,

> mostly based upon the fact that I didn't have a smegging clue about

> Marvel UK characters.  How I regret that.  Knights of Avalon seems to

> be intended as a Pendragons light, made up entirely of American

> originated characters, but only one of whom actually is American. 

> Coming into this series, the only character I was completely

> unfamiliar with was Magma.

> Having written Banshee a long time back at MX's Generation X and

> writing Siryn currently at MRev, I have to say the Cassidys are my

> favorite British Marvels, and Gary does a good job with them here.

Thanks man. Some times when you read other people's portrayals of characters you've written yourself they can come across as "off" to you as you feel you know them so well, so it's high praise indeed that my portrayal of the Cassidys worked for you. They're characters that I always kind of liked but was not overly interested in, but they seemed perfect for this book and I've grown to love them - despite the evidence to the contrary in the first four issues of KOA. :)

I'm glad it was accessible to you. I deliberately tried to make #1 understandable for people unfamiliar with the Pendragons universe.

> The first issue was a good issue focusing in on

> Captain Avalon.  Saying much more than she's recruited

> into the Lord of Lake's new defenders would give it

> away, and though there is little action, this is far

> from a talking heads issue.  Great start to the

> series.

Cheers. The entire series originated from the idea of doing

something with Kelsey Leigh that would make her a valid character.

No one was more  surprised than me when I ended up with the first

issue of an ongoing title. The scenes with her and Siryn in the gay

club in #3 are one of my personal favs to date, and the first time I

felt I had nailed her character. She's a cross between Xena and one

of the Desperate Housewives.

> The second and third issues were the initial parts of

> an arc focusing on the illegitimate children of Jaime

> Braddock.  While #2 is mostly talking heads, #3

> contains some great action and a shocker of an ending

> resulting in a death among the Knights.

#2 and #3 are the first parts of a three part story, but the last

line of #3 was the inspiration for the whole storyline.

> The Good:  Gary has a very good sense of pacing here.

> He fleshed out his characters over two issues before

> jumping into the action, which very few writers do.

> Great job in doing so, creating a very good read.

> Theresa's alcohol abuse was a highlight as was Cage's

> pain from his losses.

Thanks.

> The Bad: Although his inclusion feels better in #2, I

> do have to agree with what Brent Lambert said about

> him: Cage feels forced.  Although Luke is a cool

> character and Gary writes him well, his being with

> this group feels off.  I certainly hope he can prove

> us wrong in further issues. 

Cage is definitely the most unpopular member of the cast. I'll have

to see what I can do about that...

> Also, the sudden jolt of the death at the end of #3, although obviously not,

> felt like shock story-telling, which I vehemenently

> (sp?) oppose.  A little foreshadowing of what had

> happened in the previous scene involving the now

> deceased character would have helped some, but the

> story will conclude well.

The death was actually planned from the moment the character in question was included in the team. While the exact details of the death were only revealed in #4, I wanted it to be shocking and unexpected, as I wanted the readers to only realise what had happened at the exact time that the surviving characters did. I'm going for a Suicide Squad feel for the title. There will be a high turnover of characters, as the Knights are a Black Ops version of the Pendragons with nothing to lose. The character who died in #3 is only the first. One of the reasons the team exists is to make the ultimate sacrifice when necessary, even if all them might not be aware of it.

> Overall:  A good read, especially for someone new to

> Pendragons.  It piqued my curiosity, and got me

> reading Pendragons material (perhaps even on-board the

> group for a mini).

Well, that's the ultimate compliment.

> Rating: Three and a half punches thrown.  Looking

> forward to more.

Cheers, Tony.

From Bob Gansler:

Another great read.  We get to see the team in action, but the lack
of action previously really wasn't a drawback.  tHe characterization
is that good.

I'm intrigued by the appearance of the villain and wonder what this
might mean for this team, as well as some other related parties.

Looking forward to the next issue.

Finally, some comments from House Braddock writer, Robert Rock…

First off, Gary is really clicking on all cylinders
with this story. It's very evident that the plot is
well researched, well planned, and paced.

The Good

Pretty much everything about this issue falls in the
good category for me here.
Fantastic character insights, and sharp dialogue.
The Magma/Electra scene though short spoke volumns
about both characters.
Makes total sense that Cage and Sean would fall into
an easy working arrangement given their past types of
work.
Siryn is really well thought out, I loved the way that
Gary writes her.
Shocking ending.

The Bad

Ok, I'm going to nit pick here. No personal slight
intended.
Not crazy about the prohesy at the begining of the
issue. If anyone's read HoB #12 you'll know why. I'd
like to keep Brian Jr. around.

I'm a bit confused with the Tommy Lightning situation.
Was he possessed by Jamie, if so when did it happen
would be interesting to know. If not, why'd he turn
bad? Again I'd love to know more of the back story.

 

Final nit pick. Very mixed feelings on the return of
Jamie Braddock. He had such a noble send off by Barry,

I would have liked to see him stay dead.

That said, if Gary gives a good payoff on how and why
he's returned I'll easily get over it.

Overall

Everyone should be reading this title. It is excellent
work from a talented writer.

Rob

Thanks Rob. Hopefully things are a lot clearer now that issue #4 is over, and you’re happy with how things worked out. Jamie Braddock is still dead, but there’s a new threat out there that might go hunting for your own Brian Jr., hint, hint.

As for the prophesy – prophesies have a tendency to be vague in when and how they happen, if they do, so the pay-off should take some time to develop. All I will say, is that Jamie’s kids are in this title to stay…