"A Welcomed Hand"
TEAR ASUNDER
Part III
Issue 18
Written by Gary Dreslinski
Edited by Stephen Crosby

Universes danced on his fingertips. It was all so simple now, with everything laid out in front of him. Everything he had ever dreamed, everything he had ever hoped, was all his for the taking. Corben Whitman sat in the throne room of the city of Chronopolis, the city of time. It existed outside of the time stream, being the place from which all time was regulated and controlled. It was a city of mystery and power. It was his city now. He had taken it by force, with the unwitting aid of every Black Knight that had ever existed. He had been one of them, once. The best of them. The one that the others could not allow to reach his true potential. They whispered his name as a dark spot on the name of Whitman, as if the things he had done were anything less than the fulfillment of the true destiny that was due the name. They called him the Blackest Knight, in his time line he had been hunted down and destroyed. But Dane had interfered with that by calling all his kindred together to this place. Dane Whitman, the Black Knight who had started the long line of misguided fools to take the name. One after the other they formed a bridge to the future. A bridge that Corben had taken delight in breaking. They had called him many things, in his time... that timeline no longer existed. It had been the first to go.

The one called Halcyon had gathered them together to combat Immortus, and under Dane's leadership they had done it. Immortus had been overthrown, Dane had vanished, and Corben had stayed, learning the secrets of this marvelous city. It had taken years for him to gain the knowledge, the experience, to take over operations. But he had done it, with an understanding that none of its previous residents had ever truly understood - that being a gateway to all of time meant that it was also a gateway of realities. For time is not mapped out, no matter what some may say, but rather a wild and chaotic stream with many branches. Some of those branches might take the curious into one future - and take others into a universe much different. Which meant that anything, anyone, that had ever existed, was his to meet, and befriend. It had been that way with Moriarty, the arch nemesis of the fictional Sherlock Holmes. He had come to him one night, offering Corben his talents, his way of thinking through a problem. That had been when things had really clicked together. They had built the throne room, and started the job of hunting down the rogue Kangs. After all, the city could only have one ruler, and the despot had kept showing up to complicate matters. Most of them were safely dead now, although one or two were still running around. But once Corben Whitman had managed to close the last of the possibilities by destroying the remaining divergent time spans - they too would wither and die. Moriarty had assured him of it.

Corben gazed at his reflection in the Orb of Agamotto. He was still a young man, still strong, still handsome. He had all of time on his side, and there was only one thing he still wanted to do. He tried not to think about it, but somewhere out there was Dane Whitman, the light to his darkness. He had killed one after the other, but they weren't the right ones. The "right" Dane Whitman had an unmistakable energy signature to him, one that could not be mistaken. Corben would find him, Moriarty had whispered that to him, somehow the man knew what it was that he needed to hear. The Blackest Knight would find his ancestor, and run him through. Corben's eyes went to the corner to the display case where he kept the Ebony Blade. In the 2080s it had been long destroyed, its curse ended forever. It had called to him though, in his heart, called to him from across the centuries. Now, it was his. Soon, it would return to being embedded in the breast of its former master. Soon all would be...

***

The world changed, as it has wont to do.

Halcyon sat watching time flow by. "You see where he made his mistake?" he asked his apprentice. The young man nodded.

"He did not see that the nature of time is change," Halcyon began.

"And yet, he is still there." The apprentice noted.

Halcyon smiled, patting the young man on his shoulder, "Absolutely correct. Corben Whitman is still in that bubble of time, planning and plotting. Eventually he is going to realize that his victory has been hollow in terms of the greater multi-universes. But what will happen then?"

"He will find a way out."

"Why do you say that?" Halcyon asked.

"Because there are infinite possibilities. Surely in one of those he will have found his way out."

Halcyon nodded. "You have learned much. Your mother would be proud."

At the mention of his mother the young man blushed. He had seen her, from a distance many times, but never actually met her face to face. She had sent him here for his own safety, and to learn. The years had been meaningless, being in a place without time. He had watched from the wings as she had brought his infant self to Halcyon just yesterday, tomorrow he might just do it again. Someday he could very well be the one to receive himself into the fold. "We must be our own teacher," the saying went, "We must be our own student."

"What will we do then master?" He asked.

Halcyon thought about the problem for a moment, "We need to remove the problem."

"But wouldn't that just mean that he would exist, and win, somewhere else?"

"Of course it would," Halcyon remarked with a smirk etched on his face, "Unless of course someone were to change the rules."

***

Karla Whitman, the Black Knight of 2099 was trying to ignore the beer dripping into her eyes. It wasn't easy, the crowd that had started out as a minor disturbance on the police monitor had quickly turned into a full fledged riot. It wasn't the first of them apparently, the instances of pub riots were spreading across London at a startling pace. No one was quite sure what was causing them, other than it didn't seem quite normal.*

(* See the Avengers for details)

"Great," she muttered to herself as she used the hilt of her energy sword to bash another attacker into blissful unconsciousness, "My first time out, and I end up in a bar brawl." Still, there seemed to be something different about this one, as though it were being directed.

The crowd was pressing against her, sloshing their drinks onto each other, and onto her armor. Ordinarily force would be the last resort. But these people were out of their minds, literally. The tempo of the destruction of the area surrounding the pub was exponentially increasing. The bobbies had asked for her help. Actually they had requested Dane - but she had to explain that he was occupied at the moment. She didn't want to tell them that he was in a trauma induced coma, and that no one knew if he was going to be able to find his way out again. She didn't want to tell them that she didn't know why she had agreed to stand in as this centuries Black Knight when she had made such a mess of it in her own. She didn't want to say ... a lot of things really. And so she had found herself saying "yes". Yes to the Swordsman when he offered to help train her. Yes to Magdalene when she offered the same. Yes to them both when they insisted that she take up Dane's mantle until he could do so himself. Yes when the police asked for a hand with some crowd control. She was starting to wonder if perhaps her brain had short circuited its "NO" switch and pushed her out into the world.

She counted to herself as she used another of the moves Magdalene had taught her. A little judo never hurt, unless you were on the receiving end of it. The best thing was that it didn't do the damage that an energy blade was capable of doing. She tried to fight her way back to the edge of the riot, where the bobbies (were they even called that in this century? She wasn't quite sure, but it sounded right to her ear.) were trying to contain the group. She had gone into the fray in hopes of finding the ring-leader. That was proving fruitless. Although there was a faint feeling down her spine that she was closer than she knew. Karla looked around, but couldn't see anyone out of the ordinary. The crowd pressed her, threatening to drag her under their sheer weight of numbers. But somehow she managed to find her way to the edge again. They were stronger than the should have been, faster, more violent... if it hadn't been for her armor, some of the glancing blows would have been enough to break ribs. There was something going on, something bigger.

A hand steadied her as she found herself back behind the police line. "It's ok miss," a reassuring woman's voice tells her, "The professionals are here." Karla felt the venom in her mouth about to spew forth, when something stopped her. She looked up instead. The woman was out of uniform, her face barely covered by a makeshift mask, but Karla knew that she would know the stance anywhere. Sherwood gave her a reassuring smile, and suddenly all the doubts fell from her mind.

***

"So, here we are. Somehow I knew you'd be here."

"Where did you want me to be?" Dane Whitman didn't answer. He didn't need to. Crystal knew how he felt, what they had meant to each other, before she had gone back to her husband and family. It had been the right thing to do, for her. He had known it. Still it, hurt? More like stung. "What's on the other side of that wall?"

"You know..." Crystal trailed off.

"Humor me."

"The truth."

"Ah, that makes it easy then."

"You didn't come here to make jokes did you?" Crystal asked him.

He shook his head. "I guess I came for some answers."

"I wish I had them," replied Crystal

"Then I came for what you can do."

"And what is that?"

"You control the elements. If anyone can break that wall down - its you."

"There are other people."

"True, but none of them as close to me. None of them that I knew would be in my head."

"There's someone else of course. She... of course I'll try for you Dane."

"She, what?" another voice intruded. Dane didn't have to turn around to feel the presence of Tangerine, an alternate reality of Psylocke and a former teammate in the Crusaders. Crystal acted like she had not heard, starting to talk about the element storm she would have to generate in order to even pierce the barrier a pin prick. "..its built solid," she was saying, "I wish Karnak were here; he'd know where I had to aim..."

Tangerine put her hand on Dane's shoulder and spun him around without effort. It was his mind, but she was strong enough to manipulate the reality there, if he allowed it. "Who do you know with that sort of power?"

Dane stopped to think about it. There was... but no, she didn't ever want to see him again. There was... he stopped himself. He hadn't said her name, even in his own thought process. What if... Crystal was starting to build up for her assault on the wall. He started to go over to see what help he could be.

"Finish your thought Dane!!" Tangerine exclaimed, shaking him now.

He stared at her for a moment, unable to talk. His hand went to the sword at his side. It hadn't been there before. Now it was, clearly that meant something. He reached his other hand in his pocket, there was a gold watch. He looked at the face, but already knew that it was long past time.

He pulled the sword from its hilt and marched toward the wall. Crystal called out to him, but her voice, like her, vanished from his thoughts. There was only one thing, buffered by his own rage, and channeled through the sound of Tangerine's voice... only one thought.

He swung over-hand, landing blow after blow against the wall to no avail. Finally he found his strength and screamed out her name

SERSI !!!!!

The wall vaporized, as if it had never really been there in the first place. She had done this to him. Maybe not on purpose, but to hide his unborn child from him. She couldn't have known that he would go to the heart of time, or battle against dark magic. She couldn't have known what her mental block would do to him. She couldn't have... it didn't matter though. She had done it. She had messed with his mind. She had hid his child from him undoubtedly thinking it "for the best".

He saw the light ahead of him and stepped through it without a backward glance. He had things to do.

He sat up and stared at Tangerine, as she sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. He tried to get up, but he was still sore. There were muscles he hadn't used in a long time. He fell back against the bed. It would be smart to start slowly he knew. He stood up anyway. This time he didn't fall. He kept trying to take steps until he found that he actually could do so. He wasn't in great shape, but any means, but at least he was awake. At least he now had a purpose.

He turned back to Tangerine, "Thank you" he said.

She nodded with a slight smile, "It was my pleasure."

He started toward the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, stood at the door frame for a moment, before turning his head slightly. It hurt. But then he imagined that things would be that way for awhile until he got used to moving around again. It didn't matter though, not under the circumstances. "The only place I can go. To pay her back."

***

The sound of the waves as they crashed against the rocks was soothing. Sersi hadn't quite known where she was going to go when she had left. She had briefly considered Olympus, but there would be too many questions there. Best, she felt, if she found a little island that no one had heard of and lived for awhile there. Her pregnancy still had a couple of months to go, and there was no one more capable of delivering one's own offspring than an Eternal. It was almost commonplace in some circles. Granted, she had never been in those circles. But how hard could it be.

"I wish Dane were here," she muttered to herself. It was hardly the first time she had let those words slip through her defenses. It was hardly the first time that she berated herself for doing so. There were good solid reasons that they couldn't be together. Sometimes though, at night, or in the morning when the sun was coming up, that she wished that things were different.

The baby kicked inside of her. "Soon little one" she said calmly. Soon she wouldn't feel so... incomplete. The baby kicked again, and then something in her head kicked as well. "NO!" she screamed, flinging herself toward the window as if he was going to appear on the horizon any moment. Somehow, the mental barrier she had placed in Dane's mind had been broken. Somehow, he knew. He knew what she had done, her hand went to her tummy, he knew what they had done. He knew.... Gods, he knew... and he was coming...

***

The world changed, as it has wont to do.

The Black Knights were attacking Chronopolis. Corben tried to contain the anticipation on his face. Soon they would be inside. Dane Whitman had already been taken somewhere by the one called Halcyon, no one seemed to know where. Which meant that someone had to take charge of the battle. He had let others handle that, preferring to advise from a safe distance instead. Once they had taken the city and cast out Immortus, nothing would stop him from finding a way to get rid of the others and bending the power within to his will.

The sortie that had been sent out, under the command of Killraven had been formidable. But there was no power capable of stopping an army of Black Knights when they were focused on a goal. There was nothing... his thought process was interrupted as a hammer slammed into the time ship. "Thor?" he mouthed, unsure of what he was seeing. The hammer did indeed return to the hands of his golden-haired owner, the Asgardian God of Thunder. "Beware villains!" he proclaimed, as others started to materialize around him, "For you now face the power of the Defenders!!!"

NEXT: You might want to go over to the Defenders #210 (if you haven't read it already) before coming back here for the next installment of the cross-over!!!!