The More Things Change...

"Welcome to the Hellfire Club, Mr. Rook."

The man known in this house as the Black Rook smiled and sighed, taking in the opulence of the entry hall. He felt more at excited in this building than anywhere else in the world, but at the same time, never more frightened for his life. He followed the nubile young attendant, dressed in a hybrid tuxedo/negligee outfit, to an elevator concealed behind the mirror at the end of the hall.

"Have a good day, Mr. Rook," the attendant intoned, closing the mirror after him.

The carpeted and wallpapered "elevator" was nonetheless large enough to hold a few sofa chairs, ottomans, a dressing screen, and several objets d' art. The man opened a large pine wardrobe and felt the silk robes inside.

When the elevator door opened, the slight, nervous man dressed in a business suit had become a slight, nervous man dressed in a silk robe.

"Ah, the Black Rook. Our Inner Circle is almost complete." laughed the Queen, lounging on a raised cushion dais and surrounded by others of the Circle.

"Yes, *almost*," the Rood agreed, scuttling over to a cushion for himself. "Where is the newest Knight, hmm, Tsu?"

"Oh, shut up," sighed the Queen. "The BISHOP" she made a point of addressing Henry Tsu, dressed in his own silks, "has provided more entertainment for this Circle in one week than YOU have for a month. Did you see how he split up that cute young couple at the altar! Brilliant!"

Tsu playfully bit the air in the direction of the Queen. "Don't worry, Aurora WILL be coming back to us! In the meantime, I suggest we name the rest of today, 'CHOCOLATE DAY.'"

The Queen clapped her hands. "Excellent!"

The Rook looked down at his hands, fumbling with his robe. "Actually, I am allergic to chocolate."

The Queen and Tsu exchanged playful glances. "Even better!" laughed the Queen.

He looked at the clock as he had been for the past half hour. Any moment now! He perked up his ears. There was the sound! The elevator down the hall had opened!

The little man, who was often mistaken for the actor Rick Moranis, opened the door of his apartment to see Heather MacNeil walking down the hallway.

"Hiya, Heather!"

She sighed. "Hello George."

George followed Heather as she made her way to her own apartment at the other end of the hallway-- a daily ritual after each workday. "Ididn'tseeyouatthetenant'smeetinglastnight. Youreallyshouldstartcomingtothosemeetingsyouknow. Wediscussedthepossibilityofmakingadogrunonthetopoftheroof, butMr.Pearsonthoughtthatmightinterferewiththepigeonshewantedtoraise. ThatgotusdiscussingwhetherornotMr.PearsonSHOULDberaisingpigeons, becausenobodyontheTenantBoardknewaboutit, whichiskindasurprisingsinceOldMrs.Mentonalwaysgoesuptheretoseeifanyoneisstealingcablefromtheantennaboxupthere.

AAANYYYway...

wegottothepointwhereweshouldbediscussingfeesfortheinfraction, butMr.PearsongotsoupsetthathestartingmakingcommentsaboutMs.Fen'scrumbcake. Iactuallylikedthecake, Ithinksheputlittleraisionsit. Ihopetheywereraisions, 'causeifnotwegottatalktotheexterminatororsomethin.."

"Thank you, George, good night," Heather finally managed a word in edgewise as she snuck into her apartment, making a crack in the door only wide enough for herself. The door slammed shut on George's mousy face.

"Oh." George stared at the door for a second.

"Okay, then." He started walking down the hall. "I'll get you a copy of the minutes, then!" he yelled back.

Heather smiled to herself, safe in her apartment. She flopped her purse down on the threadbare couch and began the rest of her nightly routine.

"This is great! Are you sure you can take all this stuff?" Lorna "Polaris" Dane rummaged through boxes of scientific equipment.

"Sure. I won't need most of it." Shelley "Dr. H20" Holmes shrugged. "And the rest of these guys won't know what to do with it," she added.

"All right!" Lorna hugged Shelley as if they've known each other for years. They made quite a sight, Lorna with her green hair and Shelley with hers blue. "Whatever I don't have, Madison can transmogrify according to my specifications when I get back to the M. Terra."

The rest of Alpha Flight had gathered in the makeshift labs of Walter "Sasquatch" Langkowski at their headquarters.. Not that the cabins of the native Sarcee reservation could really be considered a "headquarters." Nor had the laboratories been used much, with Sasquatch's recent disappearance.

"How are the Magneto Territories?" asked Eugene "Puck" Judd.

Lorna shook her head. "I didn't exactly stick around for too long, not that there's much to see out there beyond a big flat white plain."

"But there are families there now!" Jeanne-Marie offered. "Mutants are hearing his call and flocking to the refuge he promises. He will make a great leader of a great nation."

Lorna cocked her head, "Yeah, well, if he sticks around long enough to say 'Hi!' All I got was a nod in a direction and a "Do-what-you-have-to-do" good-bye! And HE even contacted me PERSONALLY to help build his little tinker-town."

"Phew!" Shelley waved her hand, "Politics! Don't get me started! But anyway, you can drop me off at Etiwanda on your way?

"Sure," Lorna nodded, "just follow me out to the cart. A little extra weight won't tax my magnetic powers any!" Lorna took a large box out as she exited. The rest of Alpha Flight prepared themselves to say their good-byes to Shelley..

As it started to get dark, Heather took her tea out to the small balcony of her apartment. The last of her nightly routine.

Routine.

It was kind of nice to get one of those, even though it had only been a scant few weeks since she'd left Alpha Flight. Such comfort and security-- a routine. Something she never really ever had, not after marrying Mac and being along for every ride he had as (mock announcer-voice please) *Canada's greatest scientist* and founder of Alpha Flight. Then Mac died. She led the Flight. She became a superhero. She had so many other adventures, both of the body and of the heart. "Oh, Mac. Why couldn't we have just ..... relaxed? Mac..."

"This is why relaxation sucks," Heather thought, wiping a tear away. "It makes you think."

Tonight it was time to break the routine. It wasn't time to just THINK anymore.

It was time to fly.

Not for Alpha Flight. Not for Canada. Just for herself.

What was that quote? "Once you go MACH, you never go back?"

She took down the package that she had stuffed in the back of the closet after Madison had sent it to her. She ripped into the brown wrapping, revealing a resigned battlesuit of her superhero identity: Vindicator. It looked like one of her originals, but with the color scheme of her later green and white version.

But she still couldn't stop crying.

"Hey, Shelley, wait up!" cried Jimmy a.k.a. "Guardian." He ran out of the cabins to catch up with Shelley on her way to Lorna's large metal cart covered in boxes.

Shelley shifted the weight of her packages uncomfortably as Jimmy came to a stop. "What is it, Jimmy? You already said good-bye."

"I know," he began. "But why do have to go again? Aren't you my girlfriend?"

Shelley caught herself mid-burst in laughter. "Jimmy!"

"Look," she continued, "we shared a kiss, that's all. I was ... confused, i guess. I couldn't find a place for myself, and neither could you. But you know, you've given yourself a fresh start. You've erased the memories of James Hudson and renamed yourself Jimmy. Now I've got to find a new place for me, too."

"But, it hurts. Doesn't that mean I love you?"

"No, probably not. But you ARE my friend, and it's sad when friends leave. Just like Walter, remember?"

"Uhm, I guess."

Then she looked askance. "Wait a second, we all never really grieved for Walter. We said good-bye to Aquanea, and now everyone's saying good-bye to me, but does anyone besides me care at all that Walter's gone?"

Shelley looked at the man before her. No, not a man, but child nowadays. No, not a child, but an android. How could she tell him the real reason for leaving? She craved -- no, *needed,* -- some significance to her life. That need had driven her ever since discovering her superpowers. Heck, it's what drove her to become a scientist! But Alpha Flight seemed so wrapped up in its own problems that any significance they could accomplish seemed rather low priority. Even Walter...

Jimmy looked at the ground, making impressions in the earth with his large boots. "It just won't be the same."

"I know."

Heather flew in her new costume.

She cried tears of giddiness. It seemed inappropriate to cry when flying, but she couldn't help it. Just like way back when, when the inappropriateness of that funeral for her parent's friend didn't stop her from giggling uncontrollably.

She flew low, into the deserted streets of the city at night.

That's when a trash can hit her squarely on her side, sending her skidding onto the ground and to the other side of the street.

A man in a costume of white and black triangular patterns slapped the hand of his companion-- dressed exactly the same but as a mirror image.

"Yes! Stee-RIKE!"

"Excellent, m'man!"

Heather wiped the hair from her goggles. "Flashback?! And his duplicates?!" she recognized the villain.

Flackback 1 thumbed his nose at Heather, whooping with Flashback 2. They quickly turned and jumped through the broken window of the department store behind them.

Inside, Heather could see dozens of Flashback duplicates ransacking and rioting throughout the store. She got up to get a closer look.

Some Flashbacks pushed others as they sat in shopping carts, playing chicken with the other drivers. The passengers tried to spray each other with shaving cream and ketchup and mustard as they passed.

Another pitched tortilla chips and assorted food items at another with a baseball bat, exploding the food all over the place.

Others were using clothes as canvases for their latest paintings, while at the same time others used the clothing aisles as their arena for a hodgepodge of every sporting event imaginable.

"O-o-oh, ma-an!" Heather lamented.

Eugene Judd returned to the kitchen for a beer. Everyone was pretty calm, considering they had just rid downtown Ottawa from a demon invasion a few short hours ago. Shelly and Lorna had left. Jeanne-Marie, Shaman and Tundra returned to their mediations, each in her/his own unique way. Snowbird, as usual, disappeared. Even Jimmy found his routine, forgetting about Shelley as soon as he realized Friends was on.

Now what?

The Avengers were the Earth's A-team, the Fantastic Four were a family, the X-men were a school, even the recently-formed Omega Flight were the government-sanctioned team. But what about Alpha Flight? And for Judd, specifically, where did his life as Alpha Flight member end and life as Eugene Judd begin?

Where did life for Alpha Flight begin at all?

"Face it, Puck-eroo," Judd swilled his beer, "There is no Alpha Flight! I can only count on the kid and *maybe* Jeanne-Marie. Even the Fantastic Four have a bigger cast than I do!"

Judd wandered to the window and moved the curtain aside. There was Shaman, sitting with folded legs below the silent figure of Tundra.

"No one listens to the little man when it comes right down to it. What am I, some kind of mascot? All those years a solo soldier-of-fortune... maybe it's time I go back to that!"

He crushed the empty can on his forehead and restlessly shuffled off to find a good book.

Heather straightened, throwing off the crowd of Flashback duplicates huddled over her with shovels, rakes, and gardening tools.

"I said, STOP IT!" energy around her bodysuit crackled. "Why don't you just disappear, already!"

ZAP! But only one of the Flashbacks disappeared from the energy blast of Heather's gloves.

"Ya have to tag the Main Man, duh!" the other Flashbacks shouted in unison, enjoying the anarchy in the mega-store.

"Didn't you *die* way back when?" Heather narrowly dodges quarts of oil and various auto parts.

"No, no, no! We pull duplicates from future realities!" a Flashback shouted while pelting Lego's at Heather from a slingshot.

"It was a DUPLICATE that got killed!" a Flashback sped by on rollerblades.

"So at some point in the future, we're gonna die! Well, duh! Ulp!" a Flashback was zapped into disappearing.

"Could be in nanoseconds, could be in years!" a Flashback polished off a large bag of chips.

"So NOTHING'S gonna stop us from living life to the FULL in the meantime!"

CLANG! Heather was blindsided by a Flashback with a table lamp.

Shaman sat cross-legged before the 12 foot Great Beast-- Tundra.

"You felt it." Tundra intoned.

"Yes," Shaman stifled a cry.

"The land is dying. It cries out as it burns. Such pain the world has never felt."

"Pain enough," a new voice joins them as Snowbird's figure shimmers into reality, "to bring a goddess back to Earth -- and to force her away from it again."

"Please, help us," Shaman implored, in tears. "There was nothing inside me. Just ugly ... nothingness as dark and empty as ... oblivion. There was no magic inside me."

"Nor any magic in the land." Tundra echoed.

"Nor in the sky." Snowbird agreed.

They fell silent. No one wanting to voice the pain they felt. As if keeping silent would keep it untrue.

Shaman wiped the tears from his face. "A plague across land. Magic is simply disappearing in random pockets. Worse than disappearing, they are totally negated. What is happening? Who can do such a thing?"

Snowbird shook her head. "There isn't a 'who.' It simply is. And that is all the more terrifying."

"NO!" rumbled Tundra. "What shall fill the vacuum that oblivion leaves? That may be the most terrifying thing of all!"

"All right, Flash-crap!" Heather threw a right hook at the Flashback duplicate that blindsided her, sending the man sprawling. "You're loving life, but you know what? SO AM I!"

ZAP! Another Flashback disappeared from her energy blasts, even though another appeared nearby to take its place.

"I got myself a new life! A new job! A new city!"

ZAP!

"I may not be a part of Alpha Flight any more, but I'm still a hero, and I've been denying that for too long!"

ZAP! ZAP!

"You've heard about the Human Torch's nova-blast? Well, I can tap into the very electro-magnetic spectrum of the whole freakin' Earth! Imagine how fast this entire complex will go down right on top of all of you!"

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

"So, Mr. Lovin-Life! Are you REALLY ready to die right now?"

A pause.

Like a wave of wind over a grass field, bursts of light appeared as Flashback "swept up" all of his duplicates, leaving only one man in the signature black-and-white costume. The one sitting in the easy chair drinking from all cans of the six-pack at once.

"You... you can't do that," he nervously spat.

ZAP! A energy blast left him out cold.

"Guess you'll never know!"

Heather surveyed the damage of the department store, now silent except for the growing sirens and flashing red lights.

"But I have to admit," Heather grinned in spite of herself, "that felt. . . RIGHT."

Lance Loquemion had finished telling the tale of Alpha Flight and the demon attack in downtown Ottawa.

He pressed "Enter" and rose from his computer to cross the basement.

"I updated the 'Last Seen' section. Alphanex is ready for upload, Webster."

The boy he called "Webmaster" just sneered. The punk college kid cast his headphones off to the cluttered desk -- which looked more like a long folding table if you removed all the papers, books, CDs, junk food wrappers and assorted knickknacks.

Webmaster seemed to be having problems with his own computer. "I can't raise the Old Timer."

"Anyone in Vancouver?"

"Nah. The area isn't blacked out, as much as it's, like, on hold or something. Check it out, G-man."

Lance returned to his computer and both hackers were feverishly typing, searching, cursing, and typing some more.

The concern grew.

"Is anyone alive over there?"

"It's like, the entire town just stopped functioning. Utilities, airports, hospitals... you name it."

"Wait! I'm getting something from the television station live feed."

"Nah, it's all static, G-man!"

"Bu....uuut! If I can find the latest image that WAS operational..."

"Yo! What's up with that ugly?"

The two stared at a costumed character unfamiliar to them. But one things was for sure, he looked downright satanic with his horned helmet, fu manchu style goatee, and flowing robes. The oddest thing was the 5-pointed star shape on his midsection, which looked as if it were a hole into his body.

"I don't know," Lance rubbed his chin. "But if Vancouver can't call out for help, maybe WE should call someone FOR them!"

He held up several white cards with a gold border fringing them....

CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE

WHO

are Lance Loquemion and Alphanex ? 

WHAT

is Aurora doing with the Hellfire Club ?

WHEN

will the Magneto Territories be built ?

WHERE

is Sasquatch ?

WHY

is Canada's magic disappearing ?

YOU DARE NOT MISS IT!

Do you have any questions or comments on MV1's Alpha Flight? E-mail the author ozbot@earthlink.net or go back to the main MV1 page and find out how to join the MV1-Talk mailing list!

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