DC Heroes Presents: Sentinels of Liberty

He watched his face in the mirror, looking at his expressions change the more he concentrated. It would have been comical if it hadn't been so deeply rooted in his soul. Something was wrong, he could tell. Something was different. The defender of the Earth Mother, the man known as the Black Crow decided to take a different route at locating the problem. He turned his efforts toward changing back into his alter ego. He closed his eyes as he felt the fog roll over his body. It wasn't real fog. It was spirit fog. The fog that rolled over the ghosts of his ancestors, the fog of the world beyond.

When the fog retreated, he found himself staring at the reflection of Jesse Crow. But only for a moment. His legs buckled beneath him, sending him to the floor. "Of course" he muttered. Every once in awhile he forgot that not all bodies are equal. His own form, as opposed to that of the Black Crow, was paralyzed from the waist down. It had been for quite some time. But the longer he remained the spirit protector, the more he forgot his own human limits.

Maybe that was part of the deal. It often occured to him that way at least. Maybe he was able to serve the earth so well by being reminded of his own connection to it, his own human fraility serving as a constant reminder of the price to be paid.

Or maybe, he thought, maybe it just happened. Things don't often make sense, they don't always have to connect to one another. Look at what happened to Rick Jones for instance...

He thought of his new friend, who had lost his own mobility at the hands of his own closest friend^*.
^*The Incredible Hulk - GD

It was that sort of thing that showed just how random life was. How... Jesse Crow caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. From his position on the floor, he looked up quickly. He only hoped he would be able to transform himself in time to stop whoever it was from...

Rick Jones stood before him. Jesse propped himself up on his elbows.

"Need a hand?" Rick asked.

Jesse silently shook his head. He nodded toward Rick's legs. "How?" he mouthed. "How?"

"Don't fall back to stereotypes now kemosabe. You've come so far."

"For real, cracker." Jesse responded with a grin, "You're standing...walking...you better start talking or I swear to the spirits that I'm going to get right up from this floor and kick your sorry white butt."

Rick smiled, and held out his hand. "Let me get you someplace comfortable first." he said, as he helped his friend off the floor and onto the bed. "It's a long, and sort of confusing story. Something I've been trying not to think too much about lately. But it's time to, I think, it's time to get this out in the open."

Jesse settled back and listened to his friend's story, stopping him at points to ask clarifying questions. As he listened, he took in his surroundings. So much had changed lately. Not too long ago he had been somewhat of a loner. And yet, fate, and the Earth Mother herself, had brought him together with others. They had brought him here, to a newly built complex in Richmond, Virginia. They had made him part of the

#1 - Screaming on the Inside
"THE MURDER, Part One"

By Gary Dreslinski

With Special Thanks to Adam Di Stefano and Dave Skorupa

After all of those changes, what was one more?

The man behind the mask took it off and washed his face. He stared at the mask, stared deeply at the outlandish colors, at the constant expression on the face. It was the look of madness. Which, he supposed, was why he had taken the name Madcap. He had gone over the edge. Was he back now? Would he ever truly be? For that matter, did he WANT to be all right in a world that had literally driven him to that insanity. No, he corrected, it wasn't the world that was at fault. Nor was it God, despite the evidence to the contrary. Maybe God HAD abandoned him - or maybe, just maybe he had been given the test of JOB and been found wanting.

He stared at the smile etched on the mask, staring into what had been his soul for so long. Maybe he had been found wanting. Maybe he still was.

"I want to apologize for..."

Lemar Hoskins, Battlestar, turned to the voice. It was a lovely voice, starting to say something that didn't sound like a lovely thing. Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, leaned on her arm against the door jam. She had ditched the costume in favor of a large orange knit sweater. But for some reason she had kept the mask. Lemar chuckled inwardly as he realized that he had done that same despite his blue jeans and t-shirt. You could take the super-paranoia out of the field, but you couldn't take it out of the man. Or woman in her case. He looked her over, remembering how she had been holding him when they had returned from...he gave a mental shrug, from wherever they had been. He remembered the feel of her body against his, the softness of her skin, the smell of her hair and the... He looked back up, reminding himself that she was still there, that she was still talking. Apologizing from the sound of it, for what he was just romanticizing.

"Nonsense" he finally interjected. "I'm sure there was a good reason. And even if there wasn't, the idea of being close to a beautiful woman such as yourself is by no means offensive."

A smile crept to her lips. "Thank you." she said, gently, "I just got the impression that..."

"That?"

"Well, that it might not have been as welcome as you now say it was."

"How so?"

She shook her head. "I really can't say. Just one of those things. Maybe it falls into the category of things we don't know - like what the 'good reason' for it might have been."

Lemar found himself nodding, "You make a good point. Until we know what happened, I guess we don't truly know how welcome, or unwelcome for that matter, it was." he stopped and looked at her for a moment, a smile coming over his face. " I can say though that for the here - for the now - I don't have a problem with it."

Felicia felt a blush pass over her face, and wondered where it had come from. It wasn't normal, at least what she knew as normal. But it was there just the same. That, and an ease to the knot in her stomach each time this strange black man spoke to her. There was something going on...something deeper...something to be investigated, explored.

"Would you like to come in?" Lemar asked, "I was about to test out this kitchenette. I think I can dig something up from what they've been kind enough to stock us with that might just be edible."

She didn't bother with words. She merely slinked in and closed the door behind her.

Kurt Wagner still wasn't sure why he had said "yes". He knew why he had told Charles Xavier he wanted to join the X-Men. He knew why he had later left to help form Excalibur. He even knew why he had returned to Xavier's fold. These were all decisions that had helped shape the direction of his life. Looking back, so had the decision to answer a request from a group calling themselves Invaders Incorporated to help track down Nazi groups in operating in the United States.

Deep down inside, Nazis made Kurt angry. As Nightcrawler, he was a mutant, looked on as any other mutant. As Kurt Wagner though, he was German to the bone. So were Nazis, they were so engrained into the culture he had grown up in that it wasn't truly possible for him to tell how much hatred was his and how much had come from the soul of his people. They had been a parasite that had nearly killed his people's body, and that had so poisoned their spirit against anything different. It had been the fascist dogma that had driven him to be hunted down through the villages like a modern day Frankenstein. The drive to ferret out that which was different and to destroy it, that had almost cost him his own life.

Even years after, when the war had been a distant memory in the minds of citizens elsewhere, it had stayed in the heart of Germany. Both sides. It stayed in the hearts of the West, it told them what they had lost. It stayed in the eyes of the East. It told them what they could have again. The Nazis had come so close to destroying one land that he loved, when the message had come, when the opportunity had presented itself for Kurt Wagner to do something to help prevent them from doing harm to the United States, he didn't have to be asked twice.

He had jumped at the chance. Looking back, that had been far larger in meaning than it had been on the surface.It had led him to the Invaders Inc, which had led him to Richmond and a confrontation with a Nazi named Rathcone^*, which has led to... he wasn't all that clear, even days after the fact at what that had resulted in.
^* In the pages of AV2000's own Captain America series as well as Sentinels of Liberty #0 - GD

What he did know though, was that he had found himself in another group. No matter where he went, or what he did, it seemed he found his fate bound with that of others. He wasn't sure what to make of them though. They certainly weren't the X-Men. Nor were they Excalibur. They were...something different. Not as much of a family as they were a team, and yet, they...well, they had some sort of bond that went beyond teammates. Or, at least he thought that he had felt it even in his brief interaction with the others. There was some sort of...he searched for the word and only came up with "understanding"...and understanding between them.

He set the blade down on the bed beside him and replaced it with it's twin. He ran the rag over it as he continued to think, polishing it until it gleamed. Until it reflected back whatever it was that he was now.

John Walker tried hard to not smile as he watched her. He wasn't sure why. But he'd found himself sitting in the complex library a couple of tables away from Katherine Pryde, the mutant called Shadowcat. She was reading a book, but more importantly, absent-mindedly nibbling on the end of her pen.

John wanted to rehearse things he wanted to say to her, but he wasn't all too clear as to what they were. After all, she was hardly his type. The Black Cat, now that was more of his type. Or what he *thought* was his type anyway. Who could be sure anymore? He had been altered by the government, by the Nazis, by just about everyone who wanted to join in on the fun, until he wasn't really recognizable. They took his face, his mannerisms, his thoughts, and twisted them into something else. Into someone else. Jack. Or was it Jake? He really was going to have to sit down with someone from ForceWorks or the West Coast Avengers and ask them a few questions about those days. He was going to have to speak to James Rhodes^* soon anyway, to find out what Stark had been able to come up with for his new shield^**.
^* Formerly War Machine
^** USAgent met with Rhodes in Captain America #1 to get a new shield! - GD

Maybe he could find out more than that. Maybe he could even come back with another piece of himself.

He looked up from the table absently and noticed he was no longer alone. Katherine was sitting across from him now. The odd thing he had noted about both of the team's mutants, is that they dispensed with the idea of masks rather quickly. Nightcrawler didn't wear one to begin with. Given his demoniac features, it wouldn't have done him much good anyway. Katherine though wore a deep blue one as Shadowcat. But it was one that came off as soon as she was no longer in uniform. As if it were in the way of being who she was really was.

"How did you get over here without me..." he started.

She smiled and shrugged, "It comes with the terrority" she said, as if it explained everything. "Hope I'm not disturbing you. It just seemed like you had something you needed to get off your chest."

John could feel the weight of his own mask on his face. Maybe she was on to something. Or, just maybe, being USAgent was the only HIM there was anymore.

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, both pretending to read their books. But neither read more than a paragraph. If even more than an entire sentence without looking back up at the other, cast a shy smile and look quickly back at the word they had started with.

"Do you ever feel" John finally mused, "That you have no idea who you REALLY are?"

Katherine Pryde, known to her friends as Kitty, looked up from her book with a start. She stared into John's eyes for a moment, looking into his being.

John felt her eyes pierce into him, connecting...or, although it felt strange to say, reconnecting to something he never knew was there. As he looked into her eyes, he saw an image of a red horned skull staring back at him, laughing at him.

"All the time" she replied as the image faded into the depth of her pupils. "All the time."

NEW YORK CITY - Central Park - Sheep Meadow

"I thought I'd do us all the favor of the relocation. The more isolated we are, the less we stand to destroy."

The words made sense, but they were the last words Shock Gibson expected to hear out of the mouth of the man-mountain known throughout the world as the Incredible Hulk.^*
^* Confused? Then might I suggest a quick run to AV2000's own Incredible Hulk #2 to catch up on what's going on! - GD

"I couldn't agree more Dr. Banner." he found himself saying. "Are you quite sure you won't surrender peacefully? You seem to be an agreeable fellow, I would really hate to have to hurt you."

The Hulk's eyes glowed a bright green. " Somehow I don't think that will be a going concern." he replied, "I do thank you for the courtesy though."

Shock looked to either direction. Hydroman and the Rock continued to stand at his side. They had both taken blows that would have flattened mountains many times over, and yet, they stood. Shock looked at his companions and smiled. "They're heroes" he muttered, "Of course they're still standing, they're heroes."

It had been quite some time since the last time they had fought together, since the last time they had come out to do battle in a world of absolutes, where the good and the bad were so clearly defined.

He looked back at the green mass of the modern greying effect, standing before them in the form of the Hulk, somehow, he would fall. He HAD to.

Richmond, Virginia

It had taken some doing, and more than a little bit of money greasing the wheels of modern justice, but it had been done. The Sentinels of Liberty had a state of the art faculity, located on Belle Island. They'd managed to close the non-swimming areas with the notable exception of the portions that served as the Confederate prison camp. From the rooftop, the man known only as the Defender surveyed his handiwork.

He had helped put things in motion, like he had been asked to do. They were but one of his many projects, but in a lot of ways they reminded him of the old days... a group of heroes doing the job not for the limelight, but because it needed doing. He only hoped he hadn't made a mistake not telling them what was *really* going on. Surely they deserved that much...but an old friend had asked and he'd been unable to say no.

He gave a silent prayer hoping that everything would work out all right. But something in his gut told him it probably wasn't going to be.

He refocused his attention to the north, toward New York City. He hoped that the group he'd sent there to deal with the Hulk were fairing well. He had wanted to send a larger sortie out from the core Invaders Incorporated board, but Shock Gibson had vetoed the idea. He thought the three of them working together would be enough to take down the world's strongest mortal.

The Defender shook his head in wonder. He'd certainly seen stranger things over the years. He sent them a fond thought and went back down the stairs. There was still so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Sheep Meadow

Shock Gibson picked himself back off the ground and took stock of the situation. The Rock was down for the count, and Hydroman was regrouping again for another attack. Things had taken a turn for the worse with the location change.

The Hulk had launched himself straight at him, maybe hoping to finish him off before he could cause anymore trouble. Shock braced himself for the impact. It didn't matter how much he prepared for it though - it was still going to hurt plenty!

He shifted his position to better take the impact and closed his eyes. Nothing. He peeked through his eyelids expecting to be face to face with the green goliath. But that wasn't the case. Instead, the Hulk was being bounced - BOUNCED through the air in the other direction.

Shock looked around for a moment as he saw the others shake their heads in mutual confusion. Who was doing it - why?

The Hulk suddenly fell to the ground. He hit hard, shaking the entire meadow.

Shock blinked twice and wasn't all that surprised to see the Hurricane when his eyes opened. Trust the fastest man alive to horn in on their action!

"I thought you weren't interested in this sort of thing anymore?"Shock asked him.

The Hurricane smiled, "You're never too old to have a bit of fun once in awhile."

Shock Gibson shook his head. The Hurricane looked exactly the same as he had when he had first shown up on the scene back in World War 2. He considered himself and the others to be well preserved...but he knew how they had done it. By-products of their powers had kept them fit and in fighting condition. How the Hurricane had done it though...that was a mystery. Unless of course you believed the old rumors...but no one put very much stock in those.

"Let's go finish him off" Shock laughed as he saw the same idea occur to the others. Hurricane was able to hit him roughly a couple of hundred times before the rest had covered a foot of ground. But apparently that was enough for the Hulk.

He muttered something under his breath, and the next moment he completely vanished.

Hurricane searched the entire city within moments, but he had apparently completely flown the coup.^*
^* But you can see where he went by checking out the Incredible Hulk #3! - GD

Athens, Georgia

A man walked up the stairs to a small, tilted landing that served as the entrance to a store marked by the makeshift sign out front that read "Bizarro Wuxtry". He'd been told by the clerks in the music store portion of the store downstairs and around the corner, that he might want to talk to someone in the comic book section.

So he followed their instructions up the stairs. He opened the door and was greeted by a bearded gentlemen behind the corner.

He nodded back and started to look around. He had never seen so many comics in his life. To be honest, he had never seen a comic at all. But these seemed to fit the description of the things he'd been told about.

They were very colorful - most seemed to feature people he knew...he wondered why anyone would waste their time telling their tales. Their lives, their deeds were fleeting. Why would anyone want to know of the things they said or did. He went down the boxes until he came to the one marked Fantastic Four. He stopped and picked one out at random.

It all seemed to be true. There he was, on the cover. Everything he had been told was true.

He reached to his side and summoned his axe to him. His illusion fell away to reveal his true glory. He was Terrax, former herald to the power that was Galactus. He swung his axe in a wide arc, destroying everything around him.

"HEY!" the clerk shouted as he came around the corner. "YOU can't do that! You can't..." he stopped and stared for a moment trying to disbelieve what he was seeing. It didn't work too well.

Terrax took a step forward. The clerk ran out of the store.

The former herald raised his axe again and again, making it burn with the power cosmic that was his anger, that would be his vengeance.

As he exited, he called forth the power of the earth itself to rise up and lay waste to the entire building. This was just the beginning, he knew, it was only the beginning.

Now that he knew the truth, they all would pay for what they had done. They all would know his wrath.

Richmond, Virginia - Maymont

They walked through the Dooley mansion, shaking their heads as they saw what had happened. Their team had investigated what had happened of course, after the police and SHIELD teams had been finished with their standard checks into the situation, but nothing of any note had been discovered.

Something *important* had happened here. They knew it. Something *note-worthy*. But no one could tell them what is was. Rathcone had been taken into custody. It would be easy enough to break him out. Easy, but unnecessary. He was also a weakling.

As if reading her companion's mind, the woman provided, "Father always thought him weak."

The man nodded. The two, brother and sister, were now searching things themselves, trying to find something the others might have missed.

Rumors had circulated about an object of great power falling into Rathcone's possesion. If indeed that had been the case, he was more than weak, he was a fool to allow himself to be beaten.

They would find out what had happened to the people who beat him, and through them, find out what had happened to the object.

It belonged in the hands of those strong enough to use it. It belonged in the hands of those who bore the name Strucker. It would soon be in the hands of Fenris, and so would the rest of the world.

Jesse lay on his bed, trying to comprehend everything that Rick had told him. It was certainly a lot for one person to be carrying around by himself. But perhaps the act of sharing had made that load lighter. He hoped so, for no matter the deception, Rick Jones was a good man and deserved whatever came his way.

He stared at the ceiling, following the spiral patterns around to their conclusion. They reminded him of something. Something that felt important.

He stared deeper for a moment, feeling that he was on the edge of understanding. He looked for the pattern within the pattern, following it with his eyes, wishing that he could trace it with his finger.

There was something there, lurking beneath the details...something...he felt a tug from within.

The call was upon him. He saw the fog, felt the change, before he truly knew what was happening.

He rose from the bed as the Black Crow. He walked over to the window and looked out. It was a good day for flying. He opened the window and willed the transformation into his namesake.

His form fell apart, into that of a hundred crows, flying off into the dusk.

From his office, the Defender watched as the crows flew off together. He watched for a moment in silence and then reached over to close the curtain. He had to get back to work, time was short.

Next:
THE MURDER continues.

Author Notes

I'd just like to thank everyone for the support that they've given me on this title and in fan fiction in general. For those who care, this is my 25th piece of published comic related fan fiction on the net. I hope I made it special. This issue is dedicated to everyone who's made the experience worthwhile.