Chapter Three

Welcome back dear reader, when last we were in the pulps of the Bionic Knight–Chapter Two and now we rejoin our tale already in progress…

The penny melted into their hand. Greenish oxidized copper vanishing into their palm. Green flames engulfed them, but did not burn or consume. Illuminating the darkness. The Round Table Room and castle are gone, the woman is gone. A man stands before them. Clean bald head, salt and pepper goatee. Old blue jeans, a black shirt, green zipper hoodie under a well worn brown leather bomber jacket.

Piercing green eyes.

It is the eyes Harry connects with. They had seen them many times in battle behind the helm of their nemesis, The Bionic Knight. The face was unfamiliar, but obviously this was the man behind the armour. Judging fromt heir age, it struck Harry, with how many different folks had held their moniker, that this man had become what the world called a hero, as a teenager. The gasp was audible. What was the purpose of this journey?

“Welcome to purgatory, Harry.”

Purgatory? A place of purging. “Why?”

A laugh, a deep belly laugh, the man’s shoulders shook. “Because Camelot with my beloved, and our children, is my eternal rest. Yet, your soul is troubled, all of your known as Killer Face, were always not criminally responsible due to the entity that possessed you, your radicalization and/or your own psychosis or all of the above. Hundreds flocked to the role over time, so much life lost. A burden, you as the last, internalized.”

The man did not lie. The green flames stil engulfed them. What could Harry say. “As I healed, how could I not blame? I had a choice to let it end with me, to end me, and yet…I picked up the knife…”

The man levitated to share the green flames with Harry. The flames engulfed them both. “You cannot blame yourself, for the decisions you made in the past. They were made with the life lived to that point, the coping tools you had, and the wisdom you held. Today is not then. Today the flame chose you.”

“Chose me?”

The man’s crow’s feet crinkled, as he grinned. “Today know peace.”

Harry watched as teh void of blackness was filled with green flame.

The pain.

The past.

Who they had been as a villain.

Gone.

Peace.

Being loved.

A new hope.

As they vanished….

to?

“Welcome home, Harry. A new life.”

An old oxidized penny tumbles out of the darkness, the man steps back into the castle, as the void vanishes.

The penny lands on a sidewalk,

in a town or is it a city

somewhere in Canada?

A struggling soul’s eye catches sight….

Chapter Two

Welcome back dear reader, when last we were in the pulps of the Bionic Knight–Chapter One and now we rejoin our tale already in progress…

Like a bad 1980’s television formatted movie as the flames and fog rolled away, Harry was no longer within the Major Oak. Herne– the Bionic Archer— onece upon a time, PinBall, simply put, John MacCurtis, the crusty mentor of many supra’s was no longere there. Faded into obscurity. Lost to the flames and the fog. They wondered where they were now.

Darkness in the realms. Why would Herne let him move forward? Not decide to step into the now with them. But continue… An act of acceptance? Succession? What was happening? Streams of red light cracked through the darkness. A spot of light, glints off only that green colour one who used to roll pennies could know. The oxidized older penny. Not a penny for their thoughts, but one taking them through the travels of…

“I thought you were dead?” That voice, like Lauren Bacall, Harry was no Bogie, but…

“The rumours of my death were grealty exaggerated.” An old joke, but whether you were on the side of legal or illegal Supra’s and the world they spawned of super powers, mysticism, magic, and science flowing together, it could be an oft repeated phrase because up until the last few years. Death was not permamnence, like the Great Sky Writer, left the door to the Underworld unlocked, or better replaced it with a revolving door even if there was a body, just wait 30 days and see what actually happens.

But the last few years, felt like the Bronze Age of comics for Bucky Barnes and Flash (Barry Allen) fans, where there appeared long term permanence to those heroic deaths. The villains were locked away, and could be out in less than a month. Harry remembers reading those tales, and when the sky effect brought the powers, and their visitor was unleashed…the hatred they felt towards the heroes of their city. The Bionic Knight and the sidekick, the Great Crime Fighters, all those that came to follow and take up their name in the desire for carnage and death.

“Get out Killer Face, or cease to be.” the wonderful Bacall voice, she had been one of those damsel types. The voice also caused a cringe, before vanishing into the system, before being cured. They had one last tango, the Knight saved her, they can still feel the crunch of their groin under her cowboy boot heal for the many years of kidnappings.

“Where am I?” The sound of falling tapestry. The rising sunlight bathes the room, stone and stain glass. In the middle a table. A round table. “Camelot?” This trip through weirdness was starting to feel like their fifth grade classroom library.

Now they could see the older woman, her blonder hair streaked silver, some crow’s feet around the eyes, and glowing red enery around her hands. “Yes, Camelot. Now go back to Earth.”

Tears began trickling down their cheeks. The penny glows. Their chest tightens. The energy was warming the room. “Please, I don’t know how to go home.”

In a weird twist they felt the glee within the woman before them. She was looking forward, afer decades of the harm they had done to finally, what was the word, win. But if they ceased here, would they ever return?

And why were they in Camelot?

“Good bye, Harry.” It was a raspy male voice this time…

Green flame danced out of the maple leaf on the oxidized penny.

Chapter One

Welcome back dear reader, when last we were in the pulps of the Bionic Knight– Prologue and now we rejoin our tale…

“Penny for your thoughts?”

The Canadian penny fell into his hand. The voice he heard was gravelly. The house they had been in no longer existed. Green flame and dust replaced with…soil? Sod? Gnarly wiry trees that resembled the sketches from their old storybooks. What was that tree called? Robin Hood’s tree? No that was what the uneducated would call the known historic home and hiding place of the legendary outlaw.

“Major oak?” they gasp out, any strength in their vocal chords gone. “Sherwood Forest?”

A chortle? Or was it a chuckle? It was definately that sound of mirth between a full belly laugh and a simple snort. They struggled for their eyes to focus in the weird reddish orange moonlight. Smoke? Yet no smell of campfire? Where was this timezone? A crunch of leather soul on the ground. The outline of armour? Or rather leather breeches and chainmail with a cloak, maybe the outline of a sheather sword. Had the explosion killed them? Put them in a coma? Was this some rather twisted hallucinagonic Dungeoans & Dragons game? And why the hell did this penny keep turning up? The Canadian government had stopped making them, yet…

The gravelly voice came from a shadowy head that resembled…an elk? Or just horns of a helm? “Yes and no. My home, but not the forest of your realm.”

Realm? A shoulder roll, the middle aged body reminding themselves they were not hte villain they had once been. But this was beyond experience. But truly was it, they had after all been on of many incarnations of villainy. But that was a long time ago, when heroes did heroic things, and villains did villainous things, heroes beat villians and put them in jail, not the new era where there was no hope of redemption arcs for many villains. Mostly due to the hero being a bit anti-heroic with dealing out death.

“Who?”

Under the helm, their eyes focusing a bit better. One good eye. The eye patch, the form. Not the Bionic Knight, but familiar none the less. Is that a quiver? An end of a long bow? “Archer?”

That sound was definately a chuckle. An outstretched arm. “You knew me as Bionic Archer, sidekick of your nemesis, Bionic Knight. It has been a long time, and many realms away since I have heard that name.”

They accept the help up, and lock eyes with the good eye. An emerald green staring back from behind the helm. He pulls off the helm, revealing the scarred bald head and scratchy snow coloured beard. “Killer Face, what number are you?”

A glance away in shame. He knew who they were. “A name I haven’t heard for many years myself. I was released, declared cured. A lifepast.” A glance to the penny. Penny for their thoughts? “I’m…” what was their name? It had been so long since anyone had actually cared to ask. Let alone inquire what they were thinking? Upon release he had blended into the background at a shelter ran out of church basement, working for romm & board, some spending cash, as the on-site groundskeeper/janitor. What had pulled him to the house? Seeking answers? Confirmation? Forgiveness? Retritbution? Reconciliation? “Harry.”

“Welcome, Harry. To many in this realm I am Herne, in the next realm I am Robin. But my friends calls me John.” A fog or smoke. Now seated within Major Oak. To high backed chairs, and… “my friend, do not be afraid of the beverage, it is tea. I know you are what we used to call straight edge so no mead.” Another chuckle. The voice less raspy, the voice–

“It was your voice that came to me, calling me to the house.” Harry said.

John smiled as he sipped his tea. Crunched on a piece of biscuit with jam. “Yes, it is part of the plan of the return.”

“The return?”

John stroked his whiskery beard. “Your realm needs a protector, PenDragon or Herne we are unsure. What is sure, is that myself the Knight will not, cannot return.”

“But I am a killer.”

“There is a time for everything under the Heavens, and nothing new within the realms. Is not everyone who is humble, and seeking, allowed forgiveness? If of course you can forgive yourself?”

“Wha?”

A spark of green flame, the same penny once more in the palm of Harry’s hand.

“If I can forgive myself?”

The flame consumed the person Harry in the chair of Major Oak, as John gave a belly laugh.

The fog rolled through.

And this realm moved on

without the one called Harry.

Prologue

The innocuous coin was in a non-descript grey plastic grocery bag, on a bottom shelf, shoved away in the cob webbed storeroom of the 1970’s era split level family home. The chains holding the shelving up were beginning to sag a bit with time. The house was next to what had once been known as the ashram, a simple trailer co-op that had been used as the base of operations for a superhero conclave. After the last of the heroes had vanished, the municipal council had passed a motion to annex the land to build a new multi-purpose housing development, the long boarded up split level, rotting away in the slow death of abandonment on the fog rolling space, was also part of the plan. It is where the new green space and universal designed playground was to go.

Long ago, implosion had been taken off the table, the house would be collapsed upon itself with all contents to simply be plowed over and paved. It was a plan many municipalities had used to repurpose landfill sites in time, to build malls. It was a sound plan; the multi-purpose affordable housing project was part of the land developer’s redemption strategy. Many did not know who this shadow player was, they played their identity close to the vest.

They could not explain what brought them to remove the plywood from the door frame and enter the dust covered house. Even though it was so close to the hero commune, it had been a squatter’s paradise, overrun with mice and insects. Their expensive loafers crunched on the scurrying insects that to the untrained eye appeared as carpet. Moving his pen light to shine upwards the ceiling appeared to be moving due to the high level of infestation. Their eyes scanned the stair way up, though the low drum beat in their ear stopped them from ascending. At the landing they looked down the staircase, on the right and left there was doorways at the bottom. This weird thrumming beat in their ears reminded them of the ear infections they had as a child. Something was guiding them.

The light shone downwards, was that squirrels? The kind introduced to the city that run amuck as too many folks thought they were cute and fed them. Ruffling of feathers, obviously between the influx of woodpeckers in the area, and pigeons, that roosting had begun inside.

The descent, the stairs creaked. The abandonment, and more likely leaks and possible floods over time with some broken windows exposing to elements had done structural damage. They shifted uncomfortably in the expensive designer suit, an ox blood colour with subtle pinstripes, double breasted. They pulled on their tie to loosen the not. The thrumming was louder in their ear, they pushed back the short brim fedora a little. From an inside pocket, pulled on a pair of black leather gloves. The thrumming dulled a little when the looked to the right doorway, so they went through the left, a rotting family room with broken furniture, stepping on mice remnants, a right turn brought them into a laundry room. The mildew and mold from a burst hot water tank, a cannibalized furnace out of the peripheral, about eight feet in a left turn.

The pen light beam cut through the thick dust and cobwebs onto the rotting wooden shelves. Was that a skunk huddling in the corner? No movement, if it was, it had long since expired. The penlight scanned ripped open debris, and remnants of a family’s life heirlooms. A father, wife, and children. The light fell on a picture that had a young married couple; a heart drawn with Rick loves Susie. Their footsteps on what they think is a sheet, they squat and look closer, it’s a ripped tapestry, an image of a dragon and a knight pulling forth a sword from a stone.

A crack of thunder outside. Rain was coming. Too often the city felt like it was England or a bad Sherlock Holmes novel. The light beam glances on the shelf, the plastic bag. They walked up to it. An old journal falls off the shelf when they grab at the bag. They glance the flashlight off an entry.

May not have passed that psyc test to the best of my ability. Taking the ancient languages is tripping me out, but the push for funds having me re-look at where to go in university. Thankful to pick up writing gigs. The pain though, is that they are back. Why does society always pick up moment from the darkest elements and sidelines hope? Final’s week is not the time for a new killer mystery, maybe an old standard bearer like Killer Face or Ripper, really do not need a new BK rogue.

They smirk. Really? Their light goes back to the picture. “All these years, and your name was Rick?” They chuckle, the thrumming is louder, so much that they are not able to focus. They lift the bag, it bursts, coins and old paper money fall over.

It lands on top of their loafer. An oxidizing Canadian penny, glowing slightly.

                “A green flame?”

Lightning crackles outside the window.

                The cracked picture frame of the wedding picture bursts outward.

A piece of glass slices through their suit, a bit of blood drops on the floor.

As the thrumming becomes a word.

PenDragon.

To Be Continued…

C-PTSD and Super Heroes

Yesterday it finally arrived, Tom King and Clay Mann’s first issue of DC Comics’ next big event- Heroes in Crisis. Yes, another crisis arrives at the DC Universe (a title tagged onto big events since the end of the original multi-verse in the 80’s Crisis on Infinite Earths). This crisis brings the real to our fictional heroes, and perhaps demystifies and removes stigma– for it is set in a place called Sanctuary Trauma Centre.

You read that right. A place for Super Heroes to go to deal with the mental chakra sludge of life. I also hear there is a murder mystery (as you can see, I have yet to pick up, but it is on the read list).

It hits home, as readers know my Bionic Knight Pulps have been taking the Great Crime Fighters through a similar loop  as complex post traumatic stress disorder set in on the big three remaining in that universe. That being Rick Saturn, The Original Bionic Knight; William “Shotgun” MacKay; and Supra Agent Louis Regis. Three characters that have been travelling within my stories from the perspective of Rick for 33 years; Shotgun about 30 years and Regis, 14 years. Many adventures, many times when the old model of they are heroes doing heroic things, so it does not wear one down. Much like our world still looks at many, including charity workers who have rising rates of C-PTSD yet help falls through the cracks because the industry and individuals have a troubling time wrestling with it, but also when help is sought it is wait listed. This is due to the repercussions of Klein’s Third Way of health care having gutted what should have been on track by this point to be where European health care is, that being holistic and multi-pronged at once, not triage one symptom while forgetting or putting off the others.

In the Alberta system some choices can be removed due to heavy stigma, waitlists, or simply being constantly bombarded by the unhealthy Americanization of our heart-thought patterns to simply “buck up” or “white knuckle through” for it is all simply in your head.

That is what led to (spoilers ahead) the three outcomes for our long term heroes. One with their family vanishes without a trace and no one knows what happens. Another’s tipping point in the loss of his son, and saving the world one last time to protect the future pushing him beyond what the Working Mind Workplace Mental Health training would term “the red zone” (great system for usual office work)…and taking of his own life…and another simply resigns and walks away.

Neither outcome really looks like healing yet they are the choices made constantly in the vacuum.

Perhaps, our world will find compassion, and look to those who are in need and realize that when we debate costs it may look like a drain on the system. Yet that “drain” or rather INVESTMENT in our neighbour, grows a healthier Post Traumatic world.

Stories like Heroes in Crisis matter for it challenges the existing paradigm.

Perhaps challenging will cause fracturing.

Fracturing breaking.

From those pieces, a new reality of healing and belonging.

What do you think?

Heroic Wisdom of Shotgun MacKay: Post-Script

Debriefing Room. Canadian Supra Agency (also known simply as The Agency). Somewhere unknown (but definitely not the Balzac Bunker that was taken out, so possibly around the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum- but that is probably a red herring or someone would have to kill you for knowing top secret information). The Agency uses rooms designed for literal psycho-analysis. where an analyst would sit back to you, while you were laid out on a couch speaking aloud to arrive at your own insights. To save money they removed the Freudian and replaced it with a room wired for digital recording. Now, instead of a couch, it is a comfy chair and a half, leather wing-back, with side-table stocked with the agents drink of choice.

A place to ruminate. To exhale. To let out everything about the mission. Unwind. Safe, and no worries about someone outside the Agency hearing secrets they shouldn’t (okay too many Analysts were compromised, it wasn’t just cost sharing). Agent Louie Regis shared at the projected windows of what would be different inspiring sights from around the world. He loosened his already loosened argyle tie. Tossed the rumpled beige trench coat over the back of the chair. Undid the top button of his shirt, rolled up his sleeves and clumped in to the wing back. He poured himself his second glass of whisky. Picked up the cheap cigar from the table, bit the end off in a very barbaric fashion and began the lighting ritual.

The other upside he saw over the Analyst not being in the room is no one to complain to him about it being non-smoking. Though how he would debrief this mess. Regis exhaled the cigar slowly and took a sip of the amber liquid. How would he phrase this mess. Started with the Agency- hell he had been recruited out of high school, day after graduation. Little known fact to the super hero community, he was older than Shotgun. In any real world Canadian setting five years ago he should have retired.

“Too old for this shit.” A slight chuckle. The supra reporter, Rick Saturn years ago over coffee had shared how back when he had trained to be a pastor he was shocked to discover a culture of scripture memorization (not application or understanding) in college (Saturn had never been a church goer as a kid)…so to pass his one course on apologetic he had to memorize a passage. Many students chose whole epistles, Saturn simply chose John 11:35- Jesus wept. Got him an “A”.

“Jesus.” another puff on the cigar as he wiped tears away, thankfully the video recording would think it was caused by the smoke. His body ached. Old wounds- bullet and knife holes. Strained muscles from far too many years sleeping in his old hatch back Honda Civic. That especially painful spot in his right foot where he always stepped on his swiss army knife blade waking up during stake outs.

The sound of the body bagging zipping shut. The new Bionic Knight telling the battle story. From his pants belt Regis pulls the smart phone. Clicks open the app he had tech install. Three generations of Supra’s he had outlived. The fourth was emerging. The young Knight, and widowed Speedster were the new line.

The app’s name was simple: ENIGMA.

Regis remembered where the Bionic Knight said he had offered Shotgun a spot on the Great Crime Fighters. That wink of the green glowing eyes under the helmet with his trademark “Trust me, he’s a hero now.”

Regis remembers his response, “it will end badly. Guys like him can’t be redeemed.”

The smart phone falls to the hard would floor. The screen cracks. The steel heel of his shoes finish it off. Regis pours another glass. “Somedays it is good to be wrong.” Though the universe– the world was saved… the redeemable life was lost all to a simple game, a wager on a yearning for the past would pull the hero to the result needed.

Regis unhooks his shoulder holster and lets the gun and holster fall to the ground.

What to let the official record say?

After 52 years how much blood was truly on his hands?

He stubbed what was left of the cigar out in the now empty glass.

Standing up, he pulls on his rumpled trench coat.

The mechanical whir of the voice recorder, “please state outcome for official record.”

Regis’ hand goes into his left jacket pocket. Much candy wrappers, and cigar ends fall onto the ground. He pulls out the badge fold. Opens it and stares at it.

“What would it be like to wake up one morning and not have to worry about whether or no the fate of the world was in your hands?”

Regis looks up to one of the corner cameras. “Outcome: Mission accomplished. Agent Louie Regis. Badge number 5- Gamma. Taking sanction Omega.” Sanction Omega- retirement.

The badge falls from his hand and hits the wing back. The screens blink to black. The cameras switch off. The recorders end.

Green light flashes over the door.

It clicks open. Regis steps out into sunlight of the prairie, walks across the short lot to his Civic.

The dust trail is the last scene.

Regis’ finger switches from news radio to the top 40 country station. A smile crosses his lips. “Finally get to sleep in my own bed.”

 

Heroic Wisdom of Shotgun MacKay: A Cowboy and a Dragyn walk into a bar

Some would say it is always dark and rainy. Lightning dances nicely, small pea size hail falls. Thunder shakes the foundations holding the double wide in place. The tumbler sits before me. Been many years since I took some stiff shots to steady up before a fire fight.

Though, when was the last time one was expected to lead an army against an invading. Well we were not rightly so what was invading. The ginger coloured liquid hit the glass. The aroma strong, and smooth. Scotch. Neat. Third glass. Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone had a rule he attempted to keep to of only 2 drinks at night to battle his addiction. I was smart, I switched to coffee. Somethings make you crave that which you had put away. For me it was knowing that the life had taken my boy, and there was nothing I could do to change the outcome.

I failed him.

Lightning illuminated the darkened trailer. Should turn on a light. The liquid burns the throat in a good way, goes down smooth Number four pours easily. Live rounds or hold to the standard Rick set out for me? Kayla, was so far down the grief spiral I was not going to hold her to coming. Beth, the new Bionic Knight, thinks I don’t trust her. She just doesn’t get what war, death, and choices of life and death can do to a soul.

They’re here.

-Enigma

Agent Regis had the Agency’s best on stand by for me. Five is a nice number. The top of my head is burning. Feels like someone has driven a spike through it.

I failed Johnny. My son. He is dead because I am worthless.

Rick and his family are missing.

Because of me.

The new mayor is running to keep Susan’s legacy alive, but Susan vanished, someone tried to kill her because I pushed her to make the city better.

Rick’s hand was young when he offered it to me. A chance at redemption for my soul. I screwed it up. Not the blood on my hands because I took lives, but blood on my hands because I couldn’t stop lives from being lost. Good kids, left to me to train.

Like Johnny.

My son.

From love they were birthed, from love the returned.

The trailer rumbles with the thunder. Hail and rain dance on the tin roof like the ratatatat of a tap dancer or an old machine gun from an action movie.

The door creaks.

I left George in his own piss and crap, cast out, due to his failure to back his team up. Should’ve been me cast out. But when you’re the boss, a multitude of sins can be covered up.

What if the legend of St. George and the Dragon was wrong?

Legend has it a dragon came, and claimed a village forcing them to sacrifice the best live stock, when that was gone. The Dragon still hungered. The beast asked for the first born. Until the day they ran out, and were left with the King’s first born, tied and left as offering. Rescued at the end of the joust and blade of Sir George…

What if it was wrong?

What if they both had saved the world?

The front door creaks. Move forward. Not fully locked the wind has caught it. The wood hits my face and I feel skin break a tooth goes loose and flies. The coppery metal tastes mixes with scotch and vomit follows the tooth out as I fly through a wall that separates my living room and kitchen. Hate wood splinters in the back. Pretty sure the ring a ding through the noggin’ is not going to help my concussed life.

Or falling through the kitchen retro- 60’s table.

Gun?

Leather flap of wings.

My phone is vibrating on the ground. Use my pinky and flip the old brick open.

The Story was right.

-Enigma.

The razor claws. Skittering across the floor.

George in the alley, left broken covered in his own soiling’s in the rain. Cut to ribbons. The cutter has returned home to roost. Not an armada, or invading force.

“Dragyn.” Judas betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. “Why?”

A toothy bloody grin. Recently fed. Someone’s dead. The piece of cloth. George’s blood. His supposed friend. “To simply feed.”

Mystical lightning always strikes different than regular. Glows green too. Little known fact. The front room bay window becomes shard as wind and rain fly through so does the shimmering gold armour.

Dragyn licks his lips. Bionic Knight lands hard, drawing her blade. My 12 gauge is just inches away. Begin crawling. Leg screaming. Look down. Wood through and through. If I pull out it will pump blood like an exploding storm drain, leave it in and hope. Just a few inches.

Knight and Dragyn battle as they have for thousands of years. A few claws. Armour chinks, some human blood. Armour gauntlets, magic blasts, and sword slashes.

A good right hook. It’s a fight, not boxing or MMA (major difference- rules). A knee up to where Dragyn’s breeding apparatus would be. The reptilian is down.

Bionic Knight freezes.

My hand is one the rifle. Push up with the good leg. Pop in two cartridges. Sawed off’s are nice for this reason.

Dragyn’s yellowy blood eyes stare up at her. “George was a fool. He had no guts. Could not destroy me. He was last of his kind. Now he is dead.” My former teammate (yeah he is so off the team), looks my way. “So easy to fool, through innocuous messages and identity of friends who vanish.”

Bionic Knight looks at me. I nod. It’s not rocket science, and one does not have to be Sherlock. Enigma, was the Saturns. They aided us, even when starting a family. Dragyn corrupted the last positive thing I had of my missing friend.

“Give me your hand Shotgun. You can be someone new.” Said Rick Saturn, the Bionic Knight.

Beth Venus, the New Bionic Knight swings her blade towards the Dragyn’s exposed neck. My one trigger barrel is faster.

Orange blood splatters her golden armour. Her helmet vanishes to reveal her face as she looks at me. Dragyn’s head is gone. “I had it.”

“Beth, you do not want death on your soul. You can be the greatest. Remember that.” She is gobsmacked as I hobble out the back door and into the rain.

Johnny, my son. Rick and Susan, my friends… all the others Kyler, Jack, John…hell even the bastard Zed, “I miss you.” Moisture on my face, not from rain. It is time for the pain to end.

“Shotgun!”

Her voice is lost in a thunder rumble. Used to tell my son when he was scared it was simply Thor’s goats racing Apollo in the sky.

The Dragyn is slayed.

The world is safe.

The hero’s soul is pure.

My second trigger and barrel are not as fast…

Thunder cracks.

 

 

 

 

High Noon on the Rise with Shogun MacKay: It’s Here

They’re Here.

-Enigma

It was the message the ended my conversation abruptly with Beth, the new Bionic Knight. She believes that I do not trust her. She has many adventures in missing the point, too many of the young and old have died. Beth needs to be the Bionic Knight, once I have FUBAR’ed this moment in history because some hero has to save the planet.

The rain dribbled off the top of my cowboy hat. In the alley, Agent Regis had the collar of his rumpled trench coat up and a Bogie fedora tilted just right to keep the rain from going down his neck. The call had come in and he had called me as I was heading back to my trailer at the Ashram.

“Bullets in the ground there and there.” Agent Regis points with a laser pointer.

“Were mine.” He looks surprised that I was using live rounds. “He had been around maybe…” I let the last bit trail off, it made very little sense to blame this alien, wanna be hero, for what happened to Johnny. But who said grief made any sense?

“C.O.D?” Regis asked in that cop tone where it makes one want to call their lawyer.

“I would say whatever sliced and diced him like the Ginsu from the old shopping channel on cable. Broken nose, ribs, and some of the lumps are mine, and probably the urine of his running down the drain with the rain. He was scared but alive when I left him.” I wait a beat. “And he also knew he was evicted from the Ashram and off the team.”

Regis stands up from his crouch and looks me in the eye. He pops a piece of gum into his mouth, trying to fight the cigarette demon last I heard. “We are ready for what is to come, you don’t have to fight this alone old man.”

“Pot or kettle on that one, Louie?”

He hrumphs. The graying at his temples betrays his age, there was a time when all of us where on the less salt side of salt and pepper in this game. Those were the days the rain did not make one quite so cold with the wet, and worry about the next mornings aches and pains from a night out in it.  “Enigma messaged again.”

I do believe it was a chortle or maybe a guffaw that escaped Regis’ mouth. “And what does the erstwhile tech ghost have for us.” More a statement of disdain than a question.

“They’re here.” I do believe the coughing fit was due to Regis almost aspirating his gum.

“She ready?” Regis asked.

I shake my head. “Not risking anymore kids. I got this one.”

“Suicidal?”

He could be right in his question. Only so much death one can handle. Only so much of outliving friends and family. But more. Sometimes there is a tiny voice in the back of your mind that challenges you to be better. “Just times up for whatever evil is coming.” Regis simply nods.

He is one of the folks that never got Enigma. The player that came online as the Bionic Knight faded into the background for a bit to have a life. It was the voice guiding the heroes still attempting to stay on track out of the dark and gritty. A voice echoing in the dark to save the world. That suddenly went silent.

My eyes move to the diced corpse of George and the purple blood washing off the cement as Agency Agents and staff clear up the mess and prepare to move the body. “I will let you know when it’s go time.”

“You realize MacKay you aren’t in charge of us?”

“You realize Regis, without the GCF you…well y’know.” I walk back into the shadows and head to my truck. Two new forms right beside it. Took them long enough to show up.

“Dragyn. Bionic Knight.” A crackle of lightning and a clap of thunder. Close together.

“THEY’RE HERE.”  I nod to Dragyn’s statement. Remember Rick and George challenging me on the fact that maybe the legend of St. George and the Dragon was wrong, what if the dragon was the hero of the story.

I look to Beth. “We’re here to help.”

“Him. You stay put.” I state. What if the story was wrong, but it leaves open the option that the story was right.

“I’m ready MacKay what the hell are you scared of?! I’m not your son! I’m not my predecessor! I’m not going to die!”

The sawed off 18 gauge is in my hand and the space between us is cleared. The end of the nozzle is in the neck chink of her armour. I can smell her fear. Back like when I used to kill people like her for a living. She could fry me where I stand, but doesn’t know what to do, or is toying with me.

“Simple Knight. Do you really think a dragon and a cowboy are going to save the universe? We’re the distraction. But keep it up and there won’t be a Knight left to play hero.” I slowly pull back the gun.

“Yooo-uu ddon’t scare me.”

“Good, B.K. because when it is all said and done. History doesn’t remember guys like me, they remember heroes like you.”

To be Continued…

A Cowboy and a Dragyn walk into a bar

The New Introspection of Beth Venus, Errant Bionic Knight

Shotgun MacKay is old. (suggested listening: Maren Morris “My Church“). He has taken many shots to the head, and is grieving. Why should anyone believe that he is getting weird analog messages on that old brick flip phone of his tracking the forthcoming alien whatever evil it is? This is what has brought Beth into a back shed of the Ashram.

Kayla Storm is mourning hard. Many have told her that it is good to get back up and at `em as advice. She overheard MacKay telling Agent Regis to do something anatomically impossible when the agent suggested the hero suit back up and get out there. Then it really shocked Beth, MacKay actually walked the agent through a lesson on grieving then punched him square in the jaw almost knocking the agent out, clearly stating “and I just buried my kid so get the fuck off my property.” The agent was grumbling about arresting MacKay for violation of the Supra Act of 1984 by donating organs and having the body cremated, but Beth had seen the old redneck get that look on his face before. He had set his face like that during the Siege just before Mayor Kobwash won the election for mayor a few years back. When he charged in, purely mortal, no super powers, just guns with rubber bullets and fists.

Beth was still trying to figure out why the ring had chosen to give her the power. She had almost been killed that day. She knew MacKay had a hard time trusting the younger heroes, at least that’s what she thought it was. Until Beth saw how his son’s death shook him (as he had always presented as crusty and emotionally aloof), and how voraciously he defended Storm from the Agency.

Now Beth was seeking out what it meant to be a hero. Rick Saturn, the previous Bionic Knight, the one everyone points to as the gold standard, kept a written record of his life in journal forms. Rather atrocious penmanship, so reading hieroglyphs would hopefully be a part of her power set.

Basics she had not known, about him coming from a family linked to crime, having them all massacred, raised by an old senior couple, falling in love. The challenges of the Kobwash family. Her parents always fighting to break them up. Even spreading different lies in an attempt to end different career paths of them. The mother-in-law’s attempt once the husband had vanished and grandkids arrived to sabotage their structure to thrive in life. Also attempting to bring known, if unproven, pedophiles around that would have coffee with her when she had the kids. The journals speak to an undercurrent of anger, as Susan struggled to break the link between her and the abusive/co-dependent parent. Rick shows such humanity wondering if the PenDragon would allow him to take a life? Would their lives be better with the mother-in-law dead?

Rick’s funniest story, and Beth could feel the pain. Susan’s aging grandfather, house bound due to health. The man wanting to be apart of church sacraments (Rick had already officially given up his collar due to ableism within the church, and was working hard on journalism again). The church pastors refused to baptize or bring communion because it was not within their “belief” structure. Rick did both, yet when the old man passed away he wrote of the hurt inflicted when the mother-in-law chose the church, and the pastors gleefully stepped in tracking the big inheritance tithe cha-ching pay out. They even spoke at the funeral about how the man was devout getting an at-home baptism and communion.

Beth chuckled. “How did Rick, with his sense of justice even manage to still function seeking community in this dysfunctional religion that kept burning him?”

“Simple kid, you got to belong somewhere.” MacKay’s gravelly voice spoke into the flashlight lit shed where Beth was sitting on a stump squint reading.

“There was no other places?” Beth said.

“Oh, Ricky found belonging in many places, yet the Hrumphs who adopted him were progressive Christians that believed all should belong in church regardless of anything from economics to abilities to orientations to race/culture. That message just stuck with him. Or as Mrs. H once told him…”

“There’s only one God and it’s about love you idiot.” Beth answered, she remembered reading that in one of his journals writing on early battles with Killer Face.

“Which is one of the things he said to me.” MacKay said.

Beth looked at this tired looking fighter. She had forgotten that MacKay at one point was a gun for higher. The echo of the vibrate function on his brick phone.

MacKay flips it opens, sees a message and walks away.

“What’s up old man?” The words ring in the darkness, as Beth’s flashlight illuminates her silhouette in the shed.

Heroic Wisdom of Shotgun MacKay: Rainbow Bridge

Part of me still thinks I should have killed him. Just firing him doesn’t seem complete enough. Thought it does honour the path my son chose. Joining the Great Crime Fighters to side against the “heroes” that placed themselves as executioners. Siding with the code laid out and lived out by the Bionic Knight (Rick Saturn, my friend, not Beth Venus my protégé).

If the answer of any movement for response is to promote violence, hatred or killing against any person or group it is not healthy. Not only do those outside the movement need to call it out, but those within need to hold their own accountable. Only then can the darkness be removed from the public discourse and placed back in the shadows where it belongs so the light can shine through once more.

-Rick Saturn, The Bionic Knight

Knuckles are sore. Rain washed the rage away. Don’t know if George knows how lucky he was that Rick is still in my head. Quick stop by the Ashram to drop off weapons, the soothing warmth of shower and fresh clothes to replace those from the hunt before a return to the inevitability of the hospital.  My son supposedly in the limbo before life and death, but honestly closer to the Rainbow Bridge than Midgard. It is weird where your mind goes and how life could be different.

It is weird in the shadows riding an elevator up to my son’s death bed at this point what memories flood back from hospitals. Memories from childhood. I know my son fought well, and even left in this state he saved many and changed fate for some. Just like my Grandma did when she saved me. Family demons hide in the shadows through regression, memories fading, aging, and changing dynamics over time. Things can be forgotten. As a child not understanding what she stopped. Watching when the person was no longer there what fell apart until healing and reconciliation by light shining through the darkness. Truth revealed.

In my young mind not knowing how to speak up, for not truly comprehending in grief and death how to share my experience. Never fully understanding the weird dynamic bond created by my saviour for no one truly remembering what could’ve been.

This is what I see as I stand in the doorway of the private room, looking upon my son as machines breathe for him. My Grandma was one shimmering piece of light in a darkness that could have consumed me. That did consume me for a while. A piece of light that Rick, as no more than a kid himself, tapped into for my redemption. A redemption that led me into my shadow self once more.

The rainbow light reflecting through the window. STARS landing outside. My friend, Kyler’s daughter at his bedside. Holding his hand. Thunder and Lightning. Johnny Power and Speedster. Two great legacy heroes. Tears streaming down her eyes.

His hand.

Squeezing back hers.

She looks up through tears to me. “He’s not ready yet.”

I nod. The doctor looks at me. Sometimes a little light shine through before the Rainbow Bridge. To remind us of what heroism is. It may not be surviving. It may be standing up. May be speaking out. Maybe using all you have to squeeze your soul mate’s hand one last time so they know no matter what you are with them.

Epilogue 1:

George was a victim of the system he told himself that night. The shelters were full. They usually currently ran just under or at capacity, but unless it was excessive heat or cold (threat to life) they would not run over. Leaving him to find a spot away from others enough. Close enough not to become a victim of a beating or being lit of fire. Away enough not to have bylaw or the police called on him for the crime of being homeless.

How had it gone so wrong?

His body ached. It had not regenerated yet as his species would after a fight. He still held in his suit pocket the two shotgun shells. MacKay was mad at him for vanishing. He could not get a word in. He knew it was stupid. But Dragyn before getting sick had said he felt “it coming”. He was scared. Very unheroic of him, he ran.

Now he was alone.

The shadows cast by what little street light there was caused him to jump.

A creak.

Fireworks from the festival.

A scream.

He turns.

His voice catches in his throat.

George’s blue blood flies.

As his body is reduced to chex mex in the night.

Epilogue 2:

Kayla holds the Oak Urn in her hands standing on the mountain top. The run was exhilarating. Shotgun had told her to be the one.

Alone.

She could still feel Johnny squeeze her hand one last time.

The team at the Ashram, the family, making dinner to celebrate with cheeseburgers and wedges a life lived heroically.

But now, she stood. “You fought to save life. You fought to know we loved you. Your last breaths by machines allowed for your physical life to give life to others. Your hand…squeeze…I love you.”

She opens the box and lets the wind move…

Prologue 1:

I could blame the tears on the smoke from the BBQ, but everyone would know it was a lie. I miss my kid. I miss my friend. The world is a changing, and I am one of the last I feel.

My phone vibrates. Kayla wouldn’t bother texting her return, she moves to fast.

I flip it open.

IT IS HERE.

-ENIGMA