ALPHA FLIGHT 135

THE ALPHA FLIGHT GATEFOLD

The Story Up Till Now ... As Alpha settled into their new home on the Sarcee Reservation, the shocking announcement came about the MAGNUS ACCORD, a treaty between the Canadian government and Alpha Flight.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

GUARDIAN - James MacDonald Hudson; Mac was the founder of ALPHA and has been de-aged by Dept. H back to 19 years old under mysterious circumstances

VINDICATOR - Heather Hudson; estranged wife of Mac and sometime leader of ALPHA who's seen her husband die and return to life; has doubts about Mac's authenticity

SHAMAN - Michael Twoyoungmen; Shaman of Sarcee Tribe and accomplished surgeon who has at different times abandoned science for magic and magic for science

PUCK - Eugene Milton Judd; a long time adventurer who is considered the soul of ALPHA; has loved Heather from afar for years; Puck is a dwarf

SASQUATCH - Dr. Walter Langkowski; accomplished scientist and athlete, Walt can transform himself into a sasquatch and back with just a thought

AURORA - Jeanne-Marie Beaubier; suffers from a split personality between the reserved Jeanne-Marie and the outgoing Aurora, twin sister of Northstar

BOX - Madison Jeffries; transmutor of metal, glass and plastic, has become BOX armor after the death of it's inventor and friend, Roger Bochs, wife of Diamond Lil - reserve

DIAMOND LIL - Lillian Crowley; one-time member of criminal Omega Flight who later joined ALPHA, wife of Madison Jeffries - reserve

Shelly Holmes - Langkowski's research assistant who has tagged along on the adventure, has demonstrated "ice" powers but the full extent is not known - trainee

AQUANEA - possibly the daughter of Marrina who was being used to breed more Plodex by Apocalypse - trainee

JACQUES CLOUVERE - the new head of Department H and political outcast of the Canadian Premier; desperate to regain his political power

MAGNUS ACCORD - Treaty between the Canadian government and Magneto. In exchange for protecting Canada, Magneto has been given control of the newly named Magneto Territories, where he can create a haven for non-criminal mutants to live under his control.

NORTHERN BEAR PRODUCTIONS

"This is obscene! A disgrace to everything that we hold dear in these chambers!"

"Canada has gone too far! They will rue this day! A treaty with Magneto is a treaty with Hitler himself!"

"Well said, Ambassador! Russia would like to join in agreement with the Ambassadors from the United States and China! Canada has gone too far this day! The Magnus Accord is tantamount to an invitation to war! What does the Maple Leaf have to say for itself?"

All the eyes of the world focused in on a short, rounded woman who was the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations. With no trace of emotion on her face, she leaned in to her microphone and gave the world it's answer, "You are all a bunch of hypocrites. For decades, the nations of the world have watched as the United States and the Soviet Union played their pissing contest across our borders, involving us in your disputes whether we wanted to help or not. How many times did both nations come close to plunging the rest of the world into war with their petty games? How many times were small nations overrun by overzealous, paranoid political advisors?

"And what of the people of Genosha? You deem them beneath your interests so you let those citizens rot in their hell. The kind of Hell you have interfered with before. You are all hypocrites.

"You stand here cloaked in the same overbearing ignorance that you have always stood here with and today Canada will brook this no more. Today, Canada has taken a step to insure it's safety against your petty squabbles. We have taken a step that will insure that you listen to what we have to say. We have reached out our hands to the mutants of the world who do not dream of world conquest, but rather who want the same freedoms, the same joys, the same simple life the rest of the world can enjoy - unless, of course, that joy isn't in your plans.

"Do not attempt to stand here with your puffed out chests and blow my country down.

"You seem to have no problems with superpowers when it is you who sit at the top of the hill.

"The Magnus Accord was signed with one reason in mind: safety. The safety of mutants and the safety of Canada.

"If you have a problem with that, well, shame on you. May God have mercy on your souls."

And as the Ambassadors of the world yelled and screamed at the Canadian Ambassador, there was but one question in their minds, "What was Magneto thinking?" Quite a few were convinced that the entire world had gone crazy.

"Oh, shut up, Puck," Guardian retorted. Alpha Flight - Guardian, Puck, Vindicator, Walter Langkowski and Shelly Holmes - sat around a television system that Madison Jeffries had transmuted from spare parts only minutes before. The members of Alpha Flight all looked at the Magnus Accord with varying degress of apprehension and fear and they said little as they watched all the newsfeeds come into the small cabin that served as Michael Twoyoungmen's medical office.

"Hey, you may not like it Guardian, but it's pretty clear we've been replaced," Walter Langkowski mentioned, sipping on a cup of hot coffee. "Clouvere and Department H give us the boot and not twelve hours later they announce both the Magnus Accord and a new Omega Flight."*

"I wonder who the members of Omega Flight will be?" Shelly Holmes asked, toweling off after her morning swim in the frigid waters of a small pond. "Think this is what they had in mind for Radius, Flex and Murmur?"

"Could very well be," Heather Hudson thought seriously. "But that makes little sense. Why replace a group of veterans like us with a group of newcomers like those three?"

"Easier to control," Puck pointed out. "Raw recruits are always easier to bring into the fold than veterans. Especially," he looked around at the assembled heroes and smiled, "when those veterans have a history of not exactly staying the company line."

"And when those veterans have reason to distrust the government," Heather added.

"We've found them to not exactly have our best interests at heart." Heather walked to pour herself a cup of coffee. "Good thing we had Madison with us. I don't think I could live without tv and coffee. If we're going to run Alpha Flight from the reservation, as Shaman seems to want us to, then we'll need to bring in a few more modern amenities."

"The government wants us as soldiers, not heroes," Puck explained to Shelly. "They want us to protect the parts of Canada that they want us to."

"And we see ourselves more as heroes," Walter continued. "Put it this way, if Dr. Doom was tearing up Alaska, who does it make more sense to be the one to stop him? Us or one of the New York teams? Us, of course, but the Canadian government probably wouldn't be too keen on the idea."

The entire time Walt, Heather, Puck and Shelly were going on with their conversation, Guardian stood by, ignoring them and watching the television. If the Canadian government was putting together a strike force to act as Canada's last line of defense, he should be a part of it. So much inside him seemed jumbled, like his wires were crossed. He felt that he was born to lead Alpha Flight, but he also had an extreme loyalty to the Canadian government for saving his life and regressing him back to his current 19 year old form.*

What was he going to do? Which side did he want to be on, now that it was clear there was two separate sides? But as he stood there, apart from Alpha Flight he couldn't help but wonder, "Just what was Magneto thinking?"

Maverick stood at a pay phone, a long overcoat hiding his uniform, and dialed a number.

But as Maverick exited the phone booth into the pouring night rain, heading west to find Guardian, he couldn't help but wonder, "What the hell is Magneto's angle?" He looked to the sky and shook his head. Was he being offered salvation … or the damnation of false hope?

Aurora lay in bed, the rich, satin sheets barely covering her body. She slept soundly and though the clock on the wall read 10:30, she showed no sign of waking.

Hagani Tsu stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at her lush body, wondering just what it was he was going to do with her. He had never met a woman like Aurora and he doubted that few people had. She was so full of life while performing her drunken revelry downstairs in the main lounge* and then when he had charmed her into another room, she withdrew into herself like a frightened child.

From what little he had read about her in the files that he had … acquired from Department H before the merc Maverick had stolen them from him,* he knew her to be a classic paranoid. One side of her identified with Aurora, the outgoing member of Alpha Flight while the other half of her was Jeanne-Marie, the uptight, conservative creation of the Sisters at the private school she attended in her youth.

He thought long and hard as the day rolled on and Aurora slept away in peaceful slumber.

She was quite insane, Hagani thought. He did not have her out of the main lounge and into his chambers here for more than ten seconds when she demanded that she get a hair cut. He had tried to disuade her, he did so love long, flowing hair, but she would have none of it. "It needs to be cut now!" she insisted and one phone call and a five-thousand dollar pay-off later, Montreal's finest hair dresser had a sack placed over his head and was delivered to Hagani's chamber at the Club D'enfer. He didn't ask why he had to have his head covered on the way over or where he was or why Aurora was in Hagani's chamber. His only questions were to Aurora about how she wanted her hair cut.

Hagani was not one to grow impatient when challenged with a beautiful woman and though he was barely out of his teens, he had learned how to handle women.

At least, he thought he had. After the hair dresser had left, he knew the time to make his move had arrived. He had suavely and commandingly walked across the room, stalking his prize. He knew enough from the files on Alpha Flight to know that Aurora did not like the dark, and submitting her to darkness ran the risk of Jeanne-Marie taking control of the body that Hagani so depserately wanted.

"You … desire the one called Aurora, oui?" Aurora had asked, her hands running through her now shortened hair as she posed sexily on the other side of the bed. Hagani had only smiled, she was right there for the taking. He walked back around the foot of the bed. The chamber was lit by expensive light fixtures on the walls, to light the room from the side instead of from directly overhead. There were also two larger lamps by the head of the bed and Hagani had planned to use those to keep Aurora in the forefront. He knew that playing it safe would require him to keep all the lights on, but Hagani had never been one to play things safe.

He doused the lights and momentarily plunged the room into total darkness. He heard Aurora climb into bed and he came around to turn on the bed lights.

He hadn't gotten halfway through his seduction line when the lights came on enough to see Aurora curled up in a tight ball, whimpering like a lost child. "I am so sorry, sisters … I am so sorry, sisters … I am so sorry, sisters …"

"Aurora? That harlot is here?" Jeanne-Marie asked fiercely, all whimpering gone in an instant. "You desire the one called Aurora, yes? Yes, you do, I can see it in your eyes. You disgust me, you and all men like you. Be gone from my chamber. I must sleep."

Hagani looked at her dumbfounded, the first time he had looked at a woman that way since he was sixteen. He literally did not know what to do next. Mumbling quietly to himself, he bowed low and left the room, leaving Jeanne-Marie and Aurora to herself.

He had reentered the chamber this morning - after spending a restless evening with one of the Club's prostitutes - to find Aurora/Jeanne-Marie sprawled out in his bed, naked as the day she was born. As if to tempt him, however, nothing of importance was revealed to his eyes. A leg stuck out her, an arm curled out there. He had watched her move, hoping the more and more that she would turn just right to give him a glimpse of what he wanted to see, but it didn't happen.

"You like the legs of Aurora, yes?" she asked suddenly, causing Hagani to pick his head up. "You have been staring at them for quite some time."

"I like them quite a bit, indeed," he tried to charm, but Aurora/Jeanna-Marie would have none of it.

"I see the morning has not made you any less disgusting," she scowled at him, pulling her body fully under the sheets. "Bring me my uniform," she demanded and Hagani saw that they had been put on the chair by the full length mirror. He picked them up and noticed that Aurora/Jeanne-Marie had cut the legs and arms off, turning her original black and white full body costume into something resembling her second, yellow and white uniform.

"Here you go, Aurora," he tossed them to her, knowing that it must be Aurora who was in control because Jeanne-Marie would never do something like this.

"Turn around," Aurora demanded, Hagani doing as he was told, "and do not look into the mirror. You do not deserve to look upon the body of Aurora more than you already have." Hagani shut his eyes, willing to play this game for a few moments longer, though he grew extremely tired with it. "There, all better. You may look at Aurora now."

Hagani opened his eyes just in time to see Aurora zooming out the window and into the Montreal morning.

The cold water felt better than anything in Aquanea's memory had ever felt. Since being rescued from her life as a breeding instrument for new Plodex,* she had taken up residence with Alpha Flight. First, they had put her inside a Plodex corpse to shield her from the Master's detection and then they had secreted her away in their Leafjet,* to keep the rouse going with new Dpartment H head Jacques Clouvere.**

Aquanea had been told, by a person she called the Master,* that Marrina was her mother, but she had no recollections of the former Alphan. She lived in fear, even here, squirrelled away inside the Sarcee Reservation, that her Master would come back for her and punish her for leaving. Punish her for not breeding more Plodex for him to use in his quest to subjugate the planet.

By the edge of the pond, Michael Twoyoungmen stood watching Aquanea, concern etched in his face. Marrina had always proved to be unstable - as unstable as Aurora in her own way - and with the coming horrors that Alpha Flight had to face,* he couldn't help but wonder, was Aquanea going to help them, or was she part of the coming problem? The Plodex could indeed present a problem large enough that Alpha would need to call on the Great Beasts as allies.

Or was the problem elsewhere? Perhaps the Magnus Accord was the great evil that Snowbird had alluded to? He shook his head as Aquanea burst through the surface of the water. 'There are too many unknowns,' he thought to himself. 'But it does make one wonder, just what does Magneto get out of all of this? Simply peace?'

Madison had used his transmutative powers to build he and his wife a small cabin out of the scraps of metal and glass that the Sarcee had lying around. They had slept comfortably with their decision to not stay on with Alpha Flight as full-time members, but as they awoke this morning and heard the news about Magneto, their minds had begun to second guess that call.

"I'm not saying we should stay, Lil," Madison said as he prepared a bowl of fruit for his pregnant wife. "I'm just saying that with Magneto now hanging around Canada that we might want to wait here a few more days and see what develops."

"And I'm saying No, Madison," Lil shot back, shaking her hair dry with a towel. "This is just the kind of situation we wanted to avoid. Damnit, we're trying to have a child. We decided before we ever did this that that meant that the superheroics got turned way down."

Madison sighed as he handed the bowl to Lil. "How am I supposed to argue with a gorgeous woman who never changes her mind?"

Lil smiled, "You're not." They kissed softly. "Kinda makes you wonder, though, just what it is Magneto is getting out of all this? And does the Canadian government really think they can control him better than us?"

"Dunno, babe," Madison shook his head. "Sometimes I think the whole world is going crazy."

Guardian wanted to be alone with his thoughts, so he had come to this small clearing in the woods a mile away from the center of the Reservation. His mind hurt, as it had for several weeks now. Ever since Alpha Flight had been disbanded by the Canadian government this latest time, he didn't know what to think or do or where he should go or anything.

The rest of Alpha had gotten on with their lives, or for those who weren't involved with his Alpha, had already done so.* Heather had moved back to the home she had bought in Toronto, Puck was off adventuring, Walter had taken another research assignment where he had met this Shelly Holmes person, Northstar was apparently in the Defenders now, Radius, Flex and Murmur were living together in an apartment, Madison and Lil were getting on with starting a family …

* See ALPHA FLIGHT 131 for details on most of the group and ALPHA 132 for Northstar's current whereabouts

He kicked the ground, frowning. It seemed he was the only one who didn't know what to do with their life if there was no Alpha Flight.

"Well, yeah," Shelly smiled. "How else do you think I could've found you all this way from where we're all hanging out?"

"You could have used your powers," Guardian said harshly, more harshly than he had intended. "Since none of us know what they are."

Shelly looked away and sighed, "Hell, I don't even know myself. I know I can make water do what I want, but I don't know what kind of limits I have. When I was with Walt up at the Arctic Circle, I had all the ice around me I could want. I'd sneak out late at night and build snowmen and igloos just by thinking of them. I'd imagine it and the ice would do it. It wasn't easy," she looked back at Guardian, "but I could do it."

"Against the Plodex dogs, you used your powers again," Guardian said, softer this time.* "You took the water in a puddle and splashed the Plodogs with it. But you did more than that, too, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Shelly said, finding it easier to look a clump of bushes than at Guardian. "I froze the water in the puddles to ice. So I can't just move water around, I can change it, too. Then I … I killed that one … what did you call it, a Plodog? Yeah, I killed a Plodog. Hurray for the good guys." She shook her head. "I hate playing the weak female, you know? All my life I've hated that character in movies. That whimpering, whining, crying female that has to lean on the others for support … I just hate it. But I've never killed anything. Never. Once it's dead, heck, I'm okay, but to actually kill something … never."

"Sometimes you have to kill," Guardian said quietly, taking a couple steps towards her. "It's not pleasant, but sometimes … sometimes it's you or them."

"Don't," Shelly said, seeing Guardian approach. "Don't come over here and wrap your arms around me and tell me everything is going to be okay." She smiled and her eyes suddenly flashed to life, "I don't want to turn this into some kind of moment, you hear me? That'd be too early Sue Storm for my tastes. 'Cause let me lay this on you, Guardian. I love my powers. Ever since I've gotten them I've been having a blast testing myself, seeing just how much I can do. I just wasn't ready for the whole kill-or-be-killed thing."

Guardian looked back at her and tried to smile, but found he couldn't. "Want to know something scary?" he asked her seriously.

"You're not going to tell me ghost stories and try to make out with me, are you?" she smiled at him.

"No," Guardian said seriously. "The scary thing is that I don't know how to smile. Or laugh. I'm serious twenty-four hours a day. Always thinking about Alpha Flight and Department H and … and what my teammates think of me." He looked at her square in the eye, "They don't think I'm the real Mac, you know. They think I'm some kind of impostor."

"Is it?" Shelly asked, her turn to take a step forward. "Why? From what I hear you don't know everything that James Hudson was supposed to know. Maybe you're a clone. Or an LMD. Or an alien shapeshifter sent here to spy on us."

"Because I am!" he snapped. "I don't care if I can't remember everything, they said the regression technique would cause some gaps in my memory. Heck, what 40 year old man can remember everything, huh?"

"Not even close to being true! I've got no reason to doubt what Department H told me!"

Shelly let the words hang in the air for a moment before continuing. "No, but everyone else on this team who has had any kind of contact with Dept. H does have a reason to distrust them. Why are they playing it straight with you and not with them?"

Guardian hung his head. "I don't know. I swear, I don't know which answer I'd prefer. Would I rather be the real James Hudson or an impostor? Sometimes I think everything would be a lot easier if I was a phony, but most of the time, damnit, I know I'm really him. It goes completely against everything I know to be true and hold dear to my heart to think that I'm not really James MacDonald Hudson de-aged into a nineteen year old body."

"Well," Shelly said, stepping in close and laying a hand on his arm, "don't you think it's about time you found out?"

Heather Hudson shook her head and looked at her diminutive teammate. "I don't know, Puck. I feel like nothing is in our control. Guardian, Shaman, Snowbird, Clouvere … seems like everyone is deciding our fates these days but us. We still don't know what's really up with Snowbird, Michael just keeps telling us that all will be revealed in time. Before we've even reformed, we've got two new members, Shelly and Aquanea, the first who's too confident for her own good and the second who won't eat anything but raw flesh because her Master told her she'd die if she ever did. We have no idea where Aurora is."

"You don't really want to get back into this life, do you, Heather?" Puck asked quietly. "I can see the way you look at Madison and Lil. You wish that it was you who could turn Alpha down and go raise a family. You wish it was you who had the husband and was expecting a child."

"That's not what I meant, eh?" Puck smoothed. "I know you're awfully sensitive about my past feelings towards you and all, Heather, but really, it's not the only thing on my mind." Heather nodded her apology. "The only thing you wanted originally was to be Mac's wife. Then Mac and Department H and Alpha Flight got you caught up into this life. After Mac died* you kept us all together, eventually donning the Guardian suit** because you felt like you couldn't lead us without having some kind of power. But you never did want this life, did you?"

Heather sighed. "No, Puck, I didn't. Sometimes I wish I had never kept Alpha Flight together."

Heather and Puck looked at each other for a long moment. Puck decided to take the humorous path, "Did you hear that Shelly decided on a nickname?"

"She said she wanted something that sounded retro. Kept telling me how cool the simple names used to be. Captain America. Spider-Man. Wasp. 'Those were names that rocked,' she said. 'I want something like that.' I daresay she's been thinking about it for awhile."

"Nice to see some young hero who doesn't take their powers as a curse," Heather mused. "So what did she decide on?"

Heather pursed her lips. "Okay. Not bad, I suppose. Better than Hydro Woman." She shook her head, getting serious again. "So what do you think about the Magnus Accord?"

"I dunno, eh?" Puck shrugged. "I wish I knew what Magneto was thinking, though. I'd give up beer for a year if I knew the answer to that one."

Magneto sat in a chair, in the dark, and thought long and hard about everything that had happened to him in recent months. There was only one building in all of the Valley of Chance and Magneto was sitting inside it. It was a large warehouse of metal and wires that had been built to serve as a Canadian listening post during World War II. Or so the Canadian government claimed.

He sat in his old costume that he had worn around the time he faced trial before the World Court in Paris, the purple one with the large white M across the entirety of his front.* He had surprised himself that he still had it, but figured it was fitting to take back out at this time. He wondered, again, if he had made the right choice by signing the Magnus Accord, but he knew it was the best chance he was likely to get at starting his new life.

Because it was a new life he was starting, Erik Magnus Lensherr reminded himself. It wasn't just about the protection of mutants anymore.

He wondered what Charles Xavier thought about all this. Charles, who had now decided to leave the X-Men and make a run for the United States Senate.* He cared not for what the rest of the world thought about the decision, their opinions mattered not at all to him. Most were simple minded fools, and all were certainly ignorant about his reasons for taking this step. Magneto knew, too, that Canada would try to use this as a way to stick their chest out to the world stage, but he had made it perfectly clear to them that he would be nobody's puppet. He had protested the formation of new Omega Flight to serve under him, as well, but Canada had insisted.

'Fine, let them have their army of superheroes,' Magneto thought. 'They haven't any greater chance at stopping me than anyone else.'

There was a knock at his door then, and Magneto knew who it had to be. There were only two others in the complex with him, the first two residents of the Magneto Territories. "Enter," he called and the door swung open.

Into the room walked a soul of innocence carrying a soul of innocence. The first was a purple skinned woman full of hope and the second was a baby. They were, for all intents and purposes, his family.

Reaction to the Magnus Accord has started to come in. Here's a sample of your thoughts …

Alpha Flight is a title that I enjoy to no end. Although Mark is writing large stories, they grab you in a way you don't notice the time passing. The story really flows.

All the characters are sounding a little "vol.2", but I guess I'm just spoiled by Byrne's run, the quintessial Alpha Flight to me. Still, Mark is treating them with the image I usually have of them.

Judd and Mac are my favorite characters, since they're the one who seem most committed to the team.
Now the story:

- I feel a great mystical story is unfolding, and I can't wait to find out what could be so menacing that Narya told Michael they'd need the Great Beasts as allies (although knowing them, I expect at least Somon to trick the Alphas). This type of announcements are very overused in comics, but knowing Biscuit's flair for the big epics, I know he'll deliver.

- Magneto? Love it. Unexpected. I'm speechless. Can't wait to see it more developed. Dept. H and Clouvere are sure planning something. Maybe they're thinking even bigger than Clarke used to. Can you say "Canada takes over the world"? Now, I'm waiting to see who Omega Flight is. Radius, Flex and Murmur are obviously in, now let me check the charts for possible membersdibbed by the Biscuit (ain't I a cheater?): uh uh; don't know; might work; whoa; strangely missing; not dibbed.

You guys probably don't know what I'm talking about, right?

Well I see a few people in there that might work, although one of them brakes Dept. H's rules, still he's an old acquaintance of a certain Canadian supersoldier project from the Cold War. How about it Mark, care to
give us a few teasers?

A few teasers about the new Omega Flight line-up? Sure … almost all of the members have strong ties to ALPHA FLIGHT. Radius, Flex and Murmur will NOT all be a part of Omega Flight. One of the members of Omega Flight will make Snowbird very, very angry. One of the characters will be a new character in an old name. How's that? Let the guessing begin! The all new, all different OMEGA FLIGHT will take their bow in ALPHA 137!

Mark, just read Alpha #134. I was a little concerned at first, reading through and realizing that, for the most part, I don't have a lot of love for these characters. I was enjoying it, but nothing made it jump out at me the way most of your work on AGC, Fantastic Four or even the first couple issues of Alpha did.

Then you got me, with the Magneto Territories. This ranks up there with SCN as the kind of thing that could shake MV1 and shape its future. My mind is already filled with at least three different stories that could be set in that type of place, if it remains long enough. And even if it's not a permanent change, it's such a neat idea, having a government try to work *with* Magneto out of their own well-being instead of fear (a nice contrast to the MU's "Give him Genosha" outcome recently). I'm very intrigued.

I'm also interested in Aquanea, who seems like a worthy replacement for the dear, departed Marrina. I'm less sure of Shelley...to be honest, I think you've been going overboard with the description of her "lab assistant who has discovered she earned her powers" lately. It's beginning to ring in my ears the same way Psylocke's "focused totality of her psionic powers" did. :)

One final complaint, if I may...*please* resolve the "Who is Mac?" question quickly. It's not a mystery I've cared for much since its introduction in Seagle's AF, and I'd just as soon see it answered and, if possible, put behind us.

Other than those minor complaints, though, I'm enjoying the title, and very curious to see what's next.

Thanks for the insightful letter, Randy. The Magneto Territories is an idea that's been sitting in the back of my mind for awhile now. I fully hope that it's a long lasting change to his status-quo, but we'll need to wait and see how everyone else in MV1 reacts to it. Heck, I've already got an LS plotted out for the place.

Aquanea is one of those characters that just kind of created herself, but she seems likable enough. Plus, this'll be the last issue that I harp on Shelly's powers. Honest. <g>