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Day of the Tornado
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
Dark clouds had settled over Millennium, a summer storm, searing heat meeting the last trough of a cold winter, fueled by the Lakes. Craig Carson knew it was going to be a bad one. It was perhaps the least useful of his powers, his storm sense. It wasn’t as showy as throwing a tank at VIPER. But on a day like today, it was useful.
“Guys,” Craig said, contacting UNTIL. “We have a situation.”
The officer on duty was Agent Catherine Shaw, a two year UNTIL vet, if a mere two years of service allowed you to call someone a veteran. Comm duty in the Millennium office was a far cry from her previous tenure serving in Afghanistan, but Ms. Shaw was able to find a challenge in anything. As soon as she received Thundrax`s signal, she instructed the nearest drone to intercept.
“I copy, Captain,” she said, quickly tracing the rank through the signal. “It’s not the best signal. There’s a lot of bad weather.”
“I know,” Craig said. “That’s the situation.”
Craig patched his HUD into the UNTIL signal, and Catherine Shaw gulped as she found herself staring at a large funnel cloud, about to make touchdown.
“I believe the words that come to mind is “Oh ****.”" Craig said.
“Protocols, Captain,” Shaw answered. “No cussing on duty. Except in Gaelic.”
“And what’s Gaelic for “Oh ****”?”
“O cack,” Shaw answered.
Craig shook his head. “I was expecting more of a tongue-twister,” he quipped.
The agent chuckled and turned her attention to the storm. “Taking a radar snapshot,” she announced, and she frowned.
“It’s an F4.”
“What does that reset on my keyboard?” Craig asked, joking.
“It means it’s almost the worst kind of twister we can imagine.” Shaw answered. “Three hundred kilometers per hour. Three hundred meter radius, moving...”
“Sounds like the tornado that hit Edmonton in ’87. SUNDER had to help can it up.” Craig said. “And I can sense its path. Extrapolating... it’s going to hit five apartment buildings’. That’s possibly hundreds of casualties. I've got to stop it...”
"But what can you do to stop THAT, Thundrax?”
Craig considered the problem for a minute. “I’ve been developing new powers lately. Weather control. I was able to use them in my battle with Primordo to save people when he summoned a localized hurricane. If I can reach the core, I may be able to take control and get it to calm down...”
Agent Shaw looked into the virulent storm as it raged. With its wide base of destruction, ascending into the crown of stormheads, blacker than black, lightning flashing as it raged, it resembled nothing less than a nuclear explosion that would not go away. Craig Carson was a man, 6’7” tall. The storm was well over a kilometer in height and the funnel was hundreds of meters wide. What could one man do against that?
As it turned out, little, at least at first. Craig Carson charged into the storm, got caught in the funnel, and like an inconvenient house, was whipped around in the vortex and came shooting out the other side. He slammed into a nearby park, uoending a lot of turf and groaning as he pulled himself from the ground, which was wet and slick from the storm that had accompanied the tornado.
“Well, that sucks.” Craig moaned. He had to slap below his ear to get the comm inplant to work. “Do you have any recommendations?”
“UNITY is finishing up an assignment, Captain,” Shaw said. “I would recommend waiting for them.”
“I don’t think we have time,” Craig stated, and he brushed himself off. “Well, let me try this again. This time I’ll thundercharge myself.” Craig brought a small storm around himself, clouds and energy bristling at his fingertips, lightning overlaid on his form. With that, Craig screamed and shot himself into the storm. Three times he tried to reqch the core, and three times he was given the bum’s rush, being unceremoniously deposited over the landscape in less than dignified positions. Craig mouthed an obscenity.
“Are you hurt?” Shaw asked.
“Yeah,” Craig replied. “I’ve got a very sore ****, and I took a mortal wound to my pride. Gonna need surgery when this is over. By the way, miss, what’s your name?”
“Catherine Shaw, sir,”
“That’s Catherine Shaw, Craig,” Thundrax corrected, “You ever meet my brother?”
“No sir,” Shaw replied.
“Good,” Craig nodded. “That means I don’t have to apologize for him. Well, Ms. Shaw, I did feel a connection on the last pass. I think in a couple more tries, I may just figure this thing out.”
“Captain, it’s only a minute away from the first apartment building at its current ground velocity.”
“I know,” Craig said, and he charged again into the fray.
I’m not used to this, he thought as he approached the sky horror. I’m a Man vs. Man guy, or on occasion Man vs. Himself. Man vs. Nature isn’t in my line of work.
He was bounced again and lay on his back, staring into the black sky. “Well, what do you know,” he said as he composed himself for the next attempt. “I actually found a use for the crap I learned in Elementary school.”
The storm continued to rage, as if mocking him. Craig charged again; this time he held himself in the storm's edge, screaming as the vortex battered him. The winds pounded every inch of him, black rain washed him, soaking him to the bone, and soon the winds were swamped with debris as it reached the first of the apartment buildings.
"STOP!" Craig screamed. He may as well have remained silent.
The stormhowl laughed at him, and there were snapping sounds, numerous snaps and groans and crunches. The demolition had begun. Four stories filled with lives, human lives, people about to have their evening meal, kids playing on their cell phones, a man, having gotten drunk early, was arguing with the weather channel.
“No!” Craig shouted at the storm. “No! No! No!” But the twister was merciless, and soon Craig was surrounded by death and debris. Lives were destroyed. Lives were ended, thrown like an angry child hurling blocks. And Craig, a ragdoll in the maelstrom, a lowly little thing, was buried in the debris. And yet, for one terrible second, Craig felt something awesome and awful and unexpected in the same instant.
He felt, for the briefest of moments, like he belonged there.
The hero shuddered, looking at a dead body lying torn in the detritus. How could he feel at home in that?
Craig sighed, closed his eyes, and thought of the person who lay dismembered next to him. The apartment was occupied by the lower middle class, the working poor, struggling students and families with single parents. Nobody cared about them. No one would miss them. They were the people who held no worth in society, no status, the disposables.
“No fucking way,” Craig said, and he vowed that no one else would die that day, knowing he would probably not keep that promise.
"Captain!" Shaw shouted, her voice not hiding her alarm. "Captain."
Some captain he was. Captains were leaders of men, saviors of those under their charge. The hero rose to his feet and moaned. "I'm alive. Not even all that hurt. The building is completely destroyed. We'll need a team to sweep for survivors. It looks bad."
“I’m trying to get some help for you, Captain,” Shaw reported.
“Most of Millennium City’s heroes are engaged in a battle downtown,” a voice said, coming through the intercom. “The Champions are dealing with an extra dimensional threat. You are alone, Craig.”
Thundrax sighed. “Welcome to the party, HUGIN.” He said, recognizing UNTIL’s AI.
“HUGIN?” Shaw wondered. HUGIN was UNTIL’s AI. It was the closest thing UNTIL had to a big boss, short of the Secretary-Marshall. It was as though President Obama took over the line from a 911 operator.
“You may assist,” HUGIN said. ”Craig, I’m aware of what you’re attempting to do. But need I remind you that you were only partially mitigate Primordo’s winds? And the winds in this storm possess an energy level four orders of magnitude higher than that you faced on that occasion. And these new abilities of yours are untested.”
“I know,” Craig said, catching his breath and staring at the funnel.
“We should think of a new strategy,” Shaw said.
Craig looked beyond, to the nearest apartment building, an eighteen story tower. “No this is our best shot. Last time, I felt something when I was in the storm, a connection. If I can get to the funnel again and connect fully, I think I can just nudge it,” he said. “No more deaths,” he added, and took off again into the vortex.
Craig found that the tornado, having touched down, had captured a great deal of debris. Craig was struck by the carriage of an SUV and the front of a pick-up truck, along with a lot of loose jetsom. In seconds, Craig was rebuffed, laying on his back, groaning again.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Craig said. The comm was barely functioning. “I need to try something more drastic. Time’s almost up.” The storm cloud was only a few hundred meters from the second apartment.
Eighteen stories. Hundreds of lives. When Craig first got his powers, decades ago, the woman who had gifted them to her, the goddess with his mother's eyes, had told him he was worthy of the gift of Living Thunder. Living Thunder. What did that mean. He could feel storms, sense them with a supernatural sense, know their path and intensity. But could he dp more?
“I need to fully integrate myself into the storm before the debris can hit me.” Craig said. "Give myself to it in a way I've never done before. Become the storm."
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “I strongly advise against this. Total integration could mean the complete loss of self.
There was no time to argue. Craig took a few precious moments to compose himself. The storm had reached the steel gating around the complex, tearing it like an energetic child pulling on hot taffy. “No,” the hero answered. “I’ve got to do this. I know I can do it, or at least I’ve got a chance of doing. And as long as I have a hope, they have to have a hope.”
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “You will likely die.”
Craig sighed. “My death is thirty-two years overdue, HUGIN.” the hero replied. That had always been his attitude, He remembered the night of the thunderbolt, that woman’s eyes – his dead mother’s eyes – and the pain as the lightning bolt sheered him, transforming him. He should have died, but instead it started the ride of a lifetime. What a ride it had been. He remembered the people close to him: Shamus, Avenger, Ravenspeaker, Justiciar, Ann, Jim Exington. Sarah. Gabe. Faye. Chivalry, Ted. Inde. Cord. Lucy. Rune. Amber. Hunter. Zeph. Keio. Max. Flynn and Aeva. Arnie. So many damn people had touched his life. **** it, he wanted to hug them all.
“If this is how I go out,” Craig said, a lump in his throat. “Tell my friends I love them. There's got to be a list somewhere.”
“I will,” HUGIN said.
“I always wondered how Vanguard felt when he saw the asteroid, back on the day Detroit died. I bet he said: "to hell with it, I’m going out at full speed.” I bet it felt something like this...”
And with those words, Craig Carson launched himself into the heart of the twister.
As he approached the funnel, Craig slowed, and he concentrated, gathering the storm around him,. Again the winds buffeted him, and again the debris battered him. But this time, Craig let himself go. He attuned himself to the storm, made it a part of his thunder. He became its lightning and was shot into the cloud to rage. His voice was lightning. His touch was lightning, and the thunder became his will.
And the voice screamed: “STOP!”
His Spirit made the heavens beautiful,
and his power pierced the gliding serpent.
These are just the beginning of all that he does,
merely a whisper of his power.
Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?”
Of course, his thunder was only the merest reflection of the one spoken in the book of Job - nonetheless, it would have to do. He screamed STOP! with a voice of thunder, over and over again. The storm bristled like a horse that was only starting to calm. He sent his thunder into the storm, extending his will into storm fingers, following the lines of pressure and velocity, taming the devil winds. His senses blackened, and even the howl was no more.
“UNTIL, are you reading me?” Craig signalled UNTIL. He repeated the message three times, and the third time, the message went from a crackle to a scream that nearly blasted everyone on channel.
“I don’t understand this signal gain, sir.” Agent Shaw said.
“He’s tapped into the storm,” HUGIN said. “No. He IS the storm now. Is there any sign of his body?”
Shaw quickly played back the footage, and to her horror, she saw Craig flayed alive, his physical form disintegrating and swallowed by the funnel. She replayed it several times and each time the horror mounted.
“I see it,” HUGIN said.
“The storm’s changing.” Agent Shaw noted. “Slowing down...”
“AHHH!” Thundrax screamed through the comm, almost breaking the receivers. “Damn! This hurts!” He shouted a series of obscenities. And even profanity, which Craig never used.
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “You’re feeling the entire storm now. Its turbulence is your psyche.”
“I can’t feel my body, HUGIN,” Craig said, and he screamed again, as if you could torture a thunderbolt. So much of his life had been pain. And people dared to call this a glamorous job!
“Craig,” HUGIN admitted coldly. “There’s no sign of your physical form. You’re already dead. And what’s left of you is dying with the storm. As soon as that twister goes, you’re gone.”
Already dead. Craig wanted to laugh. He should have laughed. Why wasn’t he laughing?”
“Things are starting to slip, HUGIN,” Craig said. “I think I just lost my sense of humor. Literally.” He paused to consider this. The storm was slowing around him and the pain had ebbed; the wild dance in which he had become enraptured was ending, the last notes were fading, and with them, Craig also faded. “I- I can’t remember my mom’s eyes. Or Jack’s face. Or the color of our old house.”
HUNIN would have nodded, if he had a body. “You’re dissipating in the storm. Your memories. Parts of your personality. Your brain’s processing centers were transferred into the storm, stored in electrical impulses, and now they’re fading as the snort fades.”
This was always the case of the Living Thunder. Craig could never stay long in the same place; how many people had he annoyed, over the long years, by arriving in a place and then leaving almost immediately? Stillness was death, and the serenity that should have brought peace only awakened a growing horror. “I’m- I’m frightened.” Craig said. “I think the p-part of me t-that’s brave is gone.”
“You need to hold on. To everything.”
“I don't know how to do that.” Craig admitted.
Shaw shook her head, projecting the latest data on screen. She needn’t have bothered. “The storm’s winds are down to an F2, dropping rapidly. And you’ve changed course away from the apartment. The people are safe now.” She reported.
“You won, Craig,” HUGIN said.
“I’m losing it!” Craig said, fear now obvious in his voice.
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “You need to hold yourself together just a little while longer. I’ve gotten through to UNITY. We’re almost clear for teleport. Quasar will be there in only a few more minutes. His energy form will absorb you and we can reconstitute you from there. Just a little longer, Craig.”
“I can’t! I’m falling apart!”
“A little bit more, Craig, please!” No one had ever heard HUGIN beg before. But the monitor only showed the storm abating, the funnel withdrawing into the clouds.
“The storm, it’s just... vanishing." Shaw said. She needn’t have spoken.
“Help me!” Craig shouted. “God help me!! Please God!”
“Winds have dropped below an F1. The funnel has completely gone...”
“HELP M—“
Then there was silence. A complete and utter silence, a tomb-like absence of noise and life. For a moment, the room fell as silent as any room that Catherine Shaw had ever been in.
“Did we just lose Thundrax?” she wondered in disbelief.
“Attention, UNTIL,” HUGIN’s voice resonated in every UNTIL installation on the planet, and even on Gateway in orbit above. Twelve minutes later, they would be spoken on Marsbase. “Captain Craig Alexander Carson has fallen. He gave his life as he lived it, in service of others, not wavering from his ideals, not giving into fear. All flags are to be lowered to half mast for three days, effective immediately, and a minute of silence will be observed, effective at the top of the hour.”
“Not giving into fear?” Miss Shaw observed. “But you heard him at the end. He was terrified.”
“Ms. Shaw,” HUNIN informed her. “The Craig Carson I knew faced down against Destroyer without powers and did not flinch. He walked into the flames of Firewing willingly, and entered the Qlipothic realm. What you heard at the end was not Craig Carson, it was a shard of his persona. An echo, I intend to honor him as he deserves.” HUNIN paused. “I have only a handful of individuals I call my friend. Craig was one of them. No one must ever know what he said at the end. Ever.”
“Aye sir,” Ms. Shaw answered. He had not phrased it as an order, but she knew it was one. She had no desire to share what she had heard. Death had a way of destroying one’s dignity. **** death.
Catherine Shaw, keeper of secrets, rose from her chair, asking to be dismissed. She would need to take a leave of absence, a long one. She, like the rest of the planet, would have to go on in a world with one fewer Canadian. Dr. Scott, a super powers expert from Duke, speculated that Craig might be still be alive, his psyche held in scattered storm particles, and many clung to those words. He was only “comic book dead”, people said, and that brought comfort and hope to them. Who could blame them? Even with that hope, Canada was stunned, close to shattered, and many whose lives he had touched were in tears. A superhero lives a thankless life until they die, and then the census comes in, the lives they saved, the people they made better, and Craig was better at making things better than many, and he had been in the game a long, long time. A pity it took death to get people to start counting.
Craig Carson went out screaming at a storm, saving lives. That made him a hero. Craig Carson went out terrified of death. That made him a man.
Thundrax had emphatically insisted that no memorial service be held for him – a request that was widely ignored, even for one who was only “comic book dead”, and that also contributed to the lack of closure. But Agent Shaw, who had heard the scream, heard the storm whimper, and saw the tornado disappear like magic before her eyes, knew otherwise. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind.
Craig Carson was dead. And he wasn’t coming back.
“Guys,” Craig said, contacting UNTIL. “We have a situation.”
The officer on duty was Agent Catherine Shaw, a two year UNTIL vet, if a mere two years of service allowed you to call someone a veteran. Comm duty in the Millennium office was a far cry from her previous tenure serving in Afghanistan, but Ms. Shaw was able to find a challenge in anything. As soon as she received Thundrax`s signal, she instructed the nearest drone to intercept.
“I copy, Captain,” she said, quickly tracing the rank through the signal. “It’s not the best signal. There’s a lot of bad weather.”
“I know,” Craig said. “That’s the situation.”
Craig patched his HUD into the UNTIL signal, and Catherine Shaw gulped as she found herself staring at a large funnel cloud, about to make touchdown.
“I believe the words that come to mind is “Oh ****.”" Craig said.
“Protocols, Captain,” Shaw answered. “No cussing on duty. Except in Gaelic.”
“And what’s Gaelic for “Oh ****”?”
“O cack,” Shaw answered.
Craig shook his head. “I was expecting more of a tongue-twister,” he quipped.
The agent chuckled and turned her attention to the storm. “Taking a radar snapshot,” she announced, and she frowned.
“It’s an F4.”
“What does that reset on my keyboard?” Craig asked, joking.
“It means it’s almost the worst kind of twister we can imagine.” Shaw answered. “Three hundred kilometers per hour. Three hundred meter radius, moving...”
“Sounds like the tornado that hit Edmonton in ’87. SUNDER had to help can it up.” Craig said. “And I can sense its path. Extrapolating... it’s going to hit five apartment buildings’. That’s possibly hundreds of casualties. I've got to stop it...”
"But what can you do to stop THAT, Thundrax?”
Craig considered the problem for a minute. “I’ve been developing new powers lately. Weather control. I was able to use them in my battle with Primordo to save people when he summoned a localized hurricane. If I can reach the core, I may be able to take control and get it to calm down...”
Agent Shaw looked into the virulent storm as it raged. With its wide base of destruction, ascending into the crown of stormheads, blacker than black, lightning flashing as it raged, it resembled nothing less than a nuclear explosion that would not go away. Craig Carson was a man, 6’7” tall. The storm was well over a kilometer in height and the funnel was hundreds of meters wide. What could one man do against that?
As it turned out, little, at least at first. Craig Carson charged into the storm, got caught in the funnel, and like an inconvenient house, was whipped around in the vortex and came shooting out the other side. He slammed into a nearby park, uoending a lot of turf and groaning as he pulled himself from the ground, which was wet and slick from the storm that had accompanied the tornado.
“Well, that sucks.” Craig moaned. He had to slap below his ear to get the comm inplant to work. “Do you have any recommendations?”
“UNITY is finishing up an assignment, Captain,” Shaw said. “I would recommend waiting for them.”
“I don’t think we have time,” Craig stated, and he brushed himself off. “Well, let me try this again. This time I’ll thundercharge myself.” Craig brought a small storm around himself, clouds and energy bristling at his fingertips, lightning overlaid on his form. With that, Craig screamed and shot himself into the storm. Three times he tried to reqch the core, and three times he was given the bum’s rush, being unceremoniously deposited over the landscape in less than dignified positions. Craig mouthed an obscenity.
“Are you hurt?” Shaw asked.
“Yeah,” Craig replied. “I’ve got a very sore ****, and I took a mortal wound to my pride. Gonna need surgery when this is over. By the way, miss, what’s your name?”
“Catherine Shaw, sir,”
“That’s Catherine Shaw, Craig,” Thundrax corrected, “You ever meet my brother?”
“No sir,” Shaw replied.
“Good,” Craig nodded. “That means I don’t have to apologize for him. Well, Ms. Shaw, I did feel a connection on the last pass. I think in a couple more tries, I may just figure this thing out.”
“Captain, it’s only a minute away from the first apartment building at its current ground velocity.”
“I know,” Craig said, and he charged again into the fray.
I’m not used to this, he thought as he approached the sky horror. I’m a Man vs. Man guy, or on occasion Man vs. Himself. Man vs. Nature isn’t in my line of work.
He was bounced again and lay on his back, staring into the black sky. “Well, what do you know,” he said as he composed himself for the next attempt. “I actually found a use for the crap I learned in Elementary school.”
The storm continued to rage, as if mocking him. Craig charged again; this time he held himself in the storm's edge, screaming as the vortex battered him. The winds pounded every inch of him, black rain washed him, soaking him to the bone, and soon the winds were swamped with debris as it reached the first of the apartment buildings.
"STOP!" Craig screamed. He may as well have remained silent.
The stormhowl laughed at him, and there were snapping sounds, numerous snaps and groans and crunches. The demolition had begun. Four stories filled with lives, human lives, people about to have their evening meal, kids playing on their cell phones, a man, having gotten drunk early, was arguing with the weather channel.
“No!” Craig shouted at the storm. “No! No! No!” But the twister was merciless, and soon Craig was surrounded by death and debris. Lives were destroyed. Lives were ended, thrown like an angry child hurling blocks. And Craig, a ragdoll in the maelstrom, a lowly little thing, was buried in the debris. And yet, for one terrible second, Craig felt something awesome and awful and unexpected in the same instant.
He felt, for the briefest of moments, like he belonged there.
The hero shuddered, looking at a dead body lying torn in the detritus. How could he feel at home in that?
Craig sighed, closed his eyes, and thought of the person who lay dismembered next to him. The apartment was occupied by the lower middle class, the working poor, struggling students and families with single parents. Nobody cared about them. No one would miss them. They were the people who held no worth in society, no status, the disposables.
“No fucking way,” Craig said, and he vowed that no one else would die that day, knowing he would probably not keep that promise.
"Captain!" Shaw shouted, her voice not hiding her alarm. "Captain."
Some captain he was. Captains were leaders of men, saviors of those under their charge. The hero rose to his feet and moaned. "I'm alive. Not even all that hurt. The building is completely destroyed. We'll need a team to sweep for survivors. It looks bad."
“I’m trying to get some help for you, Captain,” Shaw reported.
“Most of Millennium City’s heroes are engaged in a battle downtown,” a voice said, coming through the intercom. “The Champions are dealing with an extra dimensional threat. You are alone, Craig.”
Thundrax sighed. “Welcome to the party, HUGIN.” He said, recognizing UNTIL’s AI.
“HUGIN?” Shaw wondered. HUGIN was UNTIL’s AI. It was the closest thing UNTIL had to a big boss, short of the Secretary-Marshall. It was as though President Obama took over the line from a 911 operator.
“You may assist,” HUGIN said. ”Craig, I’m aware of what you’re attempting to do. But need I remind you that you were only partially mitigate Primordo’s winds? And the winds in this storm possess an energy level four orders of magnitude higher than that you faced on that occasion. And these new abilities of yours are untested.”
“I know,” Craig said, catching his breath and staring at the funnel.
“We should think of a new strategy,” Shaw said.
Craig looked beyond, to the nearest apartment building, an eighteen story tower. “No this is our best shot. Last time, I felt something when I was in the storm, a connection. If I can get to the funnel again and connect fully, I think I can just nudge it,” he said. “No more deaths,” he added, and took off again into the vortex.
Craig found that the tornado, having touched down, had captured a great deal of debris. Craig was struck by the carriage of an SUV and the front of a pick-up truck, along with a lot of loose jetsom. In seconds, Craig was rebuffed, laying on his back, groaning again.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Craig said. The comm was barely functioning. “I need to try something more drastic. Time’s almost up.” The storm cloud was only a few hundred meters from the second apartment.
Eighteen stories. Hundreds of lives. When Craig first got his powers, decades ago, the woman who had gifted them to her, the goddess with his mother's eyes, had told him he was worthy of the gift of Living Thunder. Living Thunder. What did that mean. He could feel storms, sense them with a supernatural sense, know their path and intensity. But could he dp more?
“I need to fully integrate myself into the storm before the debris can hit me.” Craig said. "Give myself to it in a way I've never done before. Become the storm."
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “I strongly advise against this. Total integration could mean the complete loss of self.
There was no time to argue. Craig took a few precious moments to compose himself. The storm had reached the steel gating around the complex, tearing it like an energetic child pulling on hot taffy. “No,” the hero answered. “I’ve got to do this. I know I can do it, or at least I’ve got a chance of doing. And as long as I have a hope, they have to have a hope.”
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “You will likely die.”
Craig sighed. “My death is thirty-two years overdue, HUGIN.” the hero replied. That had always been his attitude, He remembered the night of the thunderbolt, that woman’s eyes – his dead mother’s eyes – and the pain as the lightning bolt sheered him, transforming him. He should have died, but instead it started the ride of a lifetime. What a ride it had been. He remembered the people close to him: Shamus, Avenger, Ravenspeaker, Justiciar, Ann, Jim Exington. Sarah. Gabe. Faye. Chivalry, Ted. Inde. Cord. Lucy. Rune. Amber. Hunter. Zeph. Keio. Max. Flynn and Aeva. Arnie. So many damn people had touched his life. **** it, he wanted to hug them all.
“If this is how I go out,” Craig said, a lump in his throat. “Tell my friends I love them. There's got to be a list somewhere.”
“I will,” HUGIN said.
“I always wondered how Vanguard felt when he saw the asteroid, back on the day Detroit died. I bet he said: "to hell with it, I’m going out at full speed.” I bet it felt something like this...”
And with those words, Craig Carson launched himself into the heart of the twister.
As he approached the funnel, Craig slowed, and he concentrated, gathering the storm around him,. Again the winds buffeted him, and again the debris battered him. But this time, Craig let himself go. He attuned himself to the storm, made it a part of his thunder. He became its lightning and was shot into the cloud to rage. His voice was lightning. His touch was lightning, and the thunder became his will.
And the voice screamed: “STOP!”
His Spirit made the heavens beautiful,
and his power pierced the gliding serpent.
These are just the beginning of all that he does,
merely a whisper of his power.
Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?”
Of course, his thunder was only the merest reflection of the one spoken in the book of Job - nonetheless, it would have to do. He screamed STOP! with a voice of thunder, over and over again. The storm bristled like a horse that was only starting to calm. He sent his thunder into the storm, extending his will into storm fingers, following the lines of pressure and velocity, taming the devil winds. His senses blackened, and even the howl was no more.
“UNTIL, are you reading me?” Craig signalled UNTIL. He repeated the message three times, and the third time, the message went from a crackle to a scream that nearly blasted everyone on channel.
“I don’t understand this signal gain, sir.” Agent Shaw said.
“He’s tapped into the storm,” HUGIN said. “No. He IS the storm now. Is there any sign of his body?”
Shaw quickly played back the footage, and to her horror, she saw Craig flayed alive, his physical form disintegrating and swallowed by the funnel. She replayed it several times and each time the horror mounted.
“I see it,” HUGIN said.
“The storm’s changing.” Agent Shaw noted. “Slowing down...”
“AHHH!” Thundrax screamed through the comm, almost breaking the receivers. “Damn! This hurts!” He shouted a series of obscenities. And even profanity, which Craig never used.
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “You’re feeling the entire storm now. Its turbulence is your psyche.”
“I can’t feel my body, HUGIN,” Craig said, and he screamed again, as if you could torture a thunderbolt. So much of his life had been pain. And people dared to call this a glamorous job!
“Craig,” HUGIN admitted coldly. “There’s no sign of your physical form. You’re already dead. And what’s left of you is dying with the storm. As soon as that twister goes, you’re gone.”
Already dead. Craig wanted to laugh. He should have laughed. Why wasn’t he laughing?”
“Things are starting to slip, HUGIN,” Craig said. “I think I just lost my sense of humor. Literally.” He paused to consider this. The storm was slowing around him and the pain had ebbed; the wild dance in which he had become enraptured was ending, the last notes were fading, and with them, Craig also faded. “I- I can’t remember my mom’s eyes. Or Jack’s face. Or the color of our old house.”
HUNIN would have nodded, if he had a body. “You’re dissipating in the storm. Your memories. Parts of your personality. Your brain’s processing centers were transferred into the storm, stored in electrical impulses, and now they’re fading as the snort fades.”
This was always the case of the Living Thunder. Craig could never stay long in the same place; how many people had he annoyed, over the long years, by arriving in a place and then leaving almost immediately? Stillness was death, and the serenity that should have brought peace only awakened a growing horror. “I’m- I’m frightened.” Craig said. “I think the p-part of me t-that’s brave is gone.”
“You need to hold on. To everything.”
“I don't know how to do that.” Craig admitted.
Shaw shook her head, projecting the latest data on screen. She needn’t have bothered. “The storm’s winds are down to an F2, dropping rapidly. And you’ve changed course away from the apartment. The people are safe now.” She reported.
“You won, Craig,” HUGIN said.
“I’m losing it!” Craig said, fear now obvious in his voice.
“Craig,” HUGIN said. “You need to hold yourself together just a little while longer. I’ve gotten through to UNITY. We’re almost clear for teleport. Quasar will be there in only a few more minutes. His energy form will absorb you and we can reconstitute you from there. Just a little longer, Craig.”
“I can’t! I’m falling apart!”
“A little bit more, Craig, please!” No one had ever heard HUGIN beg before. But the monitor only showed the storm abating, the funnel withdrawing into the clouds.
“The storm, it’s just... vanishing." Shaw said. She needn’t have spoken.
“Help me!” Craig shouted. “God help me!! Please God!”
“Winds have dropped below an F1. The funnel has completely gone...”
“HELP M—“
Then there was silence. A complete and utter silence, a tomb-like absence of noise and life. For a moment, the room fell as silent as any room that Catherine Shaw had ever been in.
“Did we just lose Thundrax?” she wondered in disbelief.
“Attention, UNTIL,” HUGIN’s voice resonated in every UNTIL installation on the planet, and even on Gateway in orbit above. Twelve minutes later, they would be spoken on Marsbase. “Captain Craig Alexander Carson has fallen. He gave his life as he lived it, in service of others, not wavering from his ideals, not giving into fear. All flags are to be lowered to half mast for three days, effective immediately, and a minute of silence will be observed, effective at the top of the hour.”
“Not giving into fear?” Miss Shaw observed. “But you heard him at the end. He was terrified.”
“Ms. Shaw,” HUNIN informed her. “The Craig Carson I knew faced down against Destroyer without powers and did not flinch. He walked into the flames of Firewing willingly, and entered the Qlipothic realm. What you heard at the end was not Craig Carson, it was a shard of his persona. An echo, I intend to honor him as he deserves.” HUNIN paused. “I have only a handful of individuals I call my friend. Craig was one of them. No one must ever know what he said at the end. Ever.”
“Aye sir,” Ms. Shaw answered. He had not phrased it as an order, but she knew it was one. She had no desire to share what she had heard. Death had a way of destroying one’s dignity. **** death.
Catherine Shaw, keeper of secrets, rose from her chair, asking to be dismissed. She would need to take a leave of absence, a long one. She, like the rest of the planet, would have to go on in a world with one fewer Canadian. Dr. Scott, a super powers expert from Duke, speculated that Craig might be still be alive, his psyche held in scattered storm particles, and many clung to those words. He was only “comic book dead”, people said, and that brought comfort and hope to them. Who could blame them? Even with that hope, Canada was stunned, close to shattered, and many whose lives he had touched were in tears. A superhero lives a thankless life until they die, and then the census comes in, the lives they saved, the people they made better, and Craig was better at making things better than many, and he had been in the game a long, long time. A pity it took death to get people to start counting.
Craig Carson went out screaming at a storm, saving lives. That made him a hero. Craig Carson went out terrified of death. That made him a man.
Thundrax had emphatically insisted that no memorial service be held for him – a request that was widely ignored, even for one who was only “comic book dead”, and that also contributed to the lack of closure. But Agent Shaw, who had heard the scream, heard the storm whimper, and saw the tornado disappear like magic before her eyes, knew otherwise. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind.
Craig Carson was dead. And he wasn’t coming back.
/
Post edited by canadascott on
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The image of the shadowy figure turned to face him, and spoke softly and openly for the first time. "Your country, your planet is very important to us, you know this and have accepted our assistance on many occasions... We have also disagreed often on how to best protect it and maintain our anonymity."
Agent Canada stared hard and interrupted "Yes but what..."
"Silence Agent, we haven't much time and you can not be here when we depart," ordered the superior voice, softening quickly in sincere regret. "Canada has been very fortunate as has much of the world thanks to the involvement of those like yourself and of course our small but necessary assignments."
Agent Canada stiffened, he never liked the secrecy of his assignments but the shadow continued on to avoid another interruption.
"You have always seen and strived to fend off the tragedies that befall your kind, we tell you now it would have been much, much worse had you not taken our counsel. We gave you information when it was truly needed and not without considerable deliberation. We can not however dictate human progress or force society to evolve fast enough to save itself as a whole. You and the others like you belong to the human race and can affect it as champions and as its people, do you understand?"
"No, but then that's always the way..." muttered the Agent with a little annoyance.
An audible sigh escaped the usually emotionless alien's presence as he continued "Canada has been very fortunate but it's 'luck' has run out, Thundrax has passed and we can no longer interfere with your planet's future, and you can no longer be just an 'Agent'."
Whatever held the tunic aloft subsided and the armour fell at his feet. "The armour is light, resilient and alive, it will heal itself given time, use it or not, the choice as always is yours..."
The Agent stooped to pick it up, and knew the moment he stood his full height again the presence would be gone, they weren't much for the social graces. Regaining his stance he stared in disbelief, the presence had indeed left but then so had everything, the spacecraft, the hidden cave, everything except the tunic he held in his hands.
"Oh ****!"
(That was an awesome read Thundrax, the Dog Thunder story was a little less grim but this was very good. Forgive me if this post is presumptuous but I wanted to add something as a fellow Canuck.)
AC
1. Nobody ever stays dead in comics.
2. When someone is resurrected in comics, something horrible happens.
Jigsaw
Craig Carson crawled out the lightning storm, onto the deck of his apartment with a scream. This time, he did not stop screaming.
"Craig," Kivioq said over the loudspeakers. Kivioq was the AI of Canada's Starforce team, on which Craig still served as a reservist. Justiciar had ordered the AI to keep an eye on him. "You reformed with a damaged physical form. Your body's nocireceptors have damaged myalin sheathes. Pain receptors are overloading!"
"I noticed," Craig growled, and he screamed again.
"Destabilize yourself now!" Kivioq advised.
Craig could hear the footsteps of his friend Dan Waltz, who was staying at the apartment to keep an eye on him. He sighed and allowed himself to return to the storm, leaving behind his friend on the terrace as a summer rain poured down on him. The jigsaw puzzle had fallen apart, and its pieces were cast into the wind.
---
Craig Carson crawled out the lightning storm, onto the deck of his apartment with a scream. This time, he stopped after a few seconds. Dan was gone, called away by duty.
"Craig, do you know who you are?"
"Craig Alexander Carson, born in St. Paul's hospital in Vancouver, February 20, 1969."
"Excellent," Kivioq said. "Verbal language facilities intact. Basic personal memories intact. Question: if a VIPER agent drew a weapon on you now, what would you do?"
"Destroy the weapon and subdue him as painlessly as possible, then deliver him to UNTIL."
"Primary moral priorities confirmed," Kivioq said. Craig wanted to make sure he never left his apartment if he reformed without his moral compass. "There is a checklist on the table downstairs."
Craig, who reformed naked as he always did, flew down from the balcony over the railing and landed in the living room. On the table, there was a large piece of paper covered in lines and symbols.
"Kivioq, I can't read this." Craig said, holding the paper and squinting hard at it.
"Written language centers are not functioning," the AI reported. Craig sighed.
"Can you read them out loud?" The AI complied.
"Craig, in case you are wondering what happened, six weeks ago, you used newly found weather control abilities to quell a tornado. You were forced to channel the Living Thunder that is your body to accomplish this, and it was dispersed into local weather systems, taklng your memory and consciousness with it. Fortunately, it was not dispersed beyond the local area and after five weeks, you were able, via a great deal of effort and subconscious will, to reform your body from the storm by gathering the Living Thunder. Have you understood my words?"
"Yes." Craig said.
"However, this ability is linked to and sustained by local weather conditions. When the weather calms down, your body again dissipates, to reform hours later when the weather is again right. Unfortunately, you never reform as a complete person. Each time, something is missing. Sometimes it's significant, sometimes it's trivial."
"Like my ability to read."
"Affirmative."
Craig glanced around the apartment. "Windows are open. Why?" he asked.
"We discovered earlier that air conditioning can trigger shock, Craig." the computer said. "Natural ventillation is required to ensure the longevity of your form."
"It's like a sauna in here." Thundrax remarked, and he sighed. "Summer in Millennium. Feels good, though. I'm going to go for a flight."
"Craig, you are naked."
"So?" Thundrax answered.
The AI might have sighed herself, had it the capacity for such a response. "The ability to remember social taboos has been damaged," it reported.
"Oh," Craig said. "So I came back as that guy in that terrible movie all the kids liked?"
"The one about you?" Kivioq inquired.
"Kivioq, I thought we agreed never to speak about that," Craig said. Thundrax: The Movie ranked as one of the more embarassing moments of his life.
"At least your sense of shame was only damaged, not destroyed," the AI noted.
Craig glanced over at his kitchen table. "Why are there..." and he stopped to count. "Fourteen juicers and eight coffee presses on my kitchen table?"
"You ordered them Craig," Kivioq answered, "Yesterday. We diagnosed that incarnation of you as lacking impulse control."
Craig shook his head and sat down, head in his hands. "Any news I should know about?" he asked.
"Justiciar has instructed me not to forward any news to you." the AI answered.
"David be damned!" Craig snapped. "You know I'm going to get it, one way or another. Best to give it to me now, before I tromp out naked in search of a newsstand."
"The Protectors of the World were engaged in battle against a group of what are believed to be vampires," the AI reported. "Zwein was killed, Razira is believed missing, and Artifist lost an arm."
"That's it!" Craig snarled. "I have to get back into act--" and with that, the storm abated and he dissipated once again, like a rubber band snapping.
Three hours later, Craig reformed out of a dark cloud and fell a hundred feet with a thud onto the deck of his patio. He reformed without flight or invulnerability. He would have died instantly, but instead he dissipated on impact, leaving behind a large splatter of blood.
His last thought before he found release was of Wile E. Coyote.
Six hours again, Craig reformed yet again. He went through the same procedures as he had before, except that he could read the chart, and he had no interest in current affairs. That wouid have puzzled him, had he thought about it. He looked at the juicers in the kitchen and gave thought to what it was like when an orange was juiced. When he was juiced. It occurred to him that the tornado had juiced him, if you really think about it. Everything that he was, was pulped and liquified. What he was trying to do was make an orange out of orange juice. What a ridiculous idea.
"Kivioq, what happens if I don't come back? If Peacemaker isn't able to reconnect all of my memories and personality traits, and hold them here?"
"You need the storm to pull your consciousness together," Kivioq stated. "Summer storm season will end soon, and it will become more difficult to reform yourself."
"By more difficult, you mean impossible." It was less of a question than a statement.
"Not impossible, only an extremely low probability," Kivioq told him. "Without these reappearances to draw your essence together, you will fall apart permanently. If you have to wait six months for another storm season, you'll likely be lost forever. I fear your friend's experiment is the only chance you have, unless Ravenspeaker can find an appropriate spell. Or you're telepathically transfered into a clone body. Or you return to your original human form."
"I've tried," Craig admitted. "There's no connection."
"Or the goddess who originally gave you your abilities intervenes."
"I haven't seen her in thirty-two years." Craig stated with a sigh. That memory had been constant in nearly all his forms. Except for her eyes. He was having a lot of trouble with eyes. "I have some great friends," Thundrax stated. "Dan, Ted, David, Sebastian. I think the worst part about dying would be letting them down."
"What about living?" Kivioq asked. "You're getting what the old computers would have called bad sectors. And that was often precursor to the death of a hard drive."
"I'm not really enjoying life very much right now," Craig noted. He wished Kivioq had an avatar, a face to talk to. He need to talk with a face. Dan was still away on assignment. Ted was probably busy with Guardians affairs, which is how it should be, given his recent news. David was up north, at Steelhead. Faye hadn't spoken with him since his return - her identity had been exposed, and he hadn't been there for her. Though this incarnation had little curiosity about news, that had appalled and shamed him. How could he not be there for her in her time of need?
"John Irving once said we go through lives losing things," Craig noted. One of his favorite authors. Garp was such a great book. "I know what he must have meant. This feels like Alzheimer's must feel. Knowing things are slipping, that you're falling into the event horizon of a black hole that's sucking away your identity, and being absolutely helpless about it."
"Perhaps you should talk it over with someone."
"Who do I know who has Alzheimer's?"
Kivioq paused to formulate an answer. "Irene Maitland." the AI replied.
"Aunt Irene? She has Alzheimer's?" Craig wondered. She wasn't really an aunt, more a distant relation, granddaughter of Craig's great grandfather Walter Carson, who had died in the flu outbreak that followed World War One. Craig's closest living relative, aside from a brother who was lost in the timestream, was his second cousin Catrina, secretly the superheroine Recurve. Irene was the next closest, his second cousin once removed, not that Craig knew his genealogy that well. She only knew Irene because she sent him a Christmas cake and a photo every year, though she hadn't the last two. Her son, Stuart, was a playwright in Winnipeg and at his mother's insistence he wrote a newsletter for her every Christmas. Craig never read them, or at least he hadn't in years.
"According to her Christmas letter, yes." Kivioq, however, had the letters on file and had read them. "It is allegedly in its early stages. Moments of confusion and forgetfulness."
"That was eight months ago. It could be a lot worse now," Craig mused. How quickly could Alzheimer's progress anyway?
"I have her number. She still lives in her home," Kivioq informed him. "You might call her."
"Nah..."
"Dialing it now," KIvioq said. "I've noticed that this incarnation of you is less curious and daring than your baseline personality. You need a push, Thundrax."
Craig growled back, but did little more than that. A few seconds later, there was a loud clicking sound.
"Yes?" an elderly lady's face appeared on a large holoscreen projected into the middle of the living room. Kivioq wasn't skimping on the production values. Irene would see him on his phone, though Kivioq overlaid some clothing onto his body. There was no sense in letting her see Thundrax when he was indecent.
"Uh hi." Craig stammered a little nervous. "Aunt Irene?" He thought it was her. It might be her. He had never been very good with faces and had only met her once, at his mom's funeral, thirty-five years ago. The woman was at least thirty years older than Craig, probably in her early 80s. She wore a green sweater, speckled with gold, with a rhinestone butterfly pin fixed onto it. It looked tacky but appropriate, she was wearing old people's clothing. Craig imagined that it was habitual. He wondered how many interesting stories she could tell, if her memory wasn't more fractured than his, tale of a girlhood before television and washing machines and refrigerators.
"Who is this?" she said. She had a pleasant voice and there was very little irritation in her tone, indeed, it was one of the most welcoming voices he had heard in a long time. It reminded him of his mom's mom, Sophia, who (like so many) had died when Craig was very young.
"Your cousin Craig from Vancouver." Thundrax said. "You've sent me Christmas cake every year!"
"Oh!" Irene exclaimed. "Did you like the cake?"
"Very much! It's always a treat!" Craig declared, beaming. In truth he was lying through his teeth. He hated Christmas cake, horrible taste, like rotten fruit and bad brandy and had never bothered to actually try it. "I phoned you..." Craig said, and he stammered, realizing he didn't really have a good reason for the call. To talk about Alzhemier's? What kind of a stupid reason was that! "...to say hello."
"Oh that's very nice." she said. "Who were you again?"
"Your cousin Craig," Thundrax repeated. "From Vancouver."
"Oh!" Irene exclaimed. "The superhero! I don't mean to be critical, but that costume of yours, it's a little revealing, isn't it? At least I always thought so. But I guess you got that from your father, he was a rascal."
"Uh yes," Craig really didn't need to hear about his dad, not today, but he humored her. "Do you remember him?"
"He stole my shoes when I was a girl. He was a naughty boy."
"That sounds like dad." Craig said.
"I don't have many memories of him, I'm afraid." Irene admitted. "Or anyone! I'm very forgetful these days."
"How do you cope?" Craig asked. To his surprise, a way had opened to discuss the topic on his heart. He was surprisingly nervous about it.
Irene struggled to listen, a little confused. "Did you say cope?"
"Yes I did," Thundrax answered. "How do you cope?" he repeated.
"It's hard, very hard," Irene admitted, tugging on her sweater to straighten it. "But I never had a very good memory. It's full of holes! But that's the thing, nobody remembers everything, everyone only remembers a little bit of what they've been through anyway, so why should I be getting upset about it? Nobody's mind is perfect. Nobody's perfect, Carl, not even you, and thank goodness for that!"
"Thank goodness indeed," Craig said.
"I'm tired, Carl. I'm afraid I have to go now."
"Have a nice nap, Aunt Irene."
"Goodbye!"
The holoscreen abruptly clicked off, leaving Craig staring into space. Everything had moments of weakness, of decline. They were the brocoli of the soul, they tasted terrible, but the moral nutrients they possessed would provide a healthy sense of perspective and enable you to survive in the inevitable spiral that accompanied the end of everyone's life journal.
Brocoli of the soul? Clearly his metaphor-making abilities had been damaged in this incarnation as well.
"Did you get what you needed?" Kivioq asked. Craig shook his head.
"I'm not even sure what that is," he said.
Five hours later, Craig reformed. Kivioq again started the questioning procedure, but Craig, upon hearing a disembodied voice, shuddered, fell to the floor, and curled into a fetal ball, shivering. He was too scared to know what qualities had not made the journey this time. Courage? Confidence? Something else beginning with the letter "C"? He remained in that ball for fifteen minutes, until Dan, returning to the apartment, found him and tried to give him a pep talk.
"Don't hurt me," Craig said, and he again dissipated, a hopeful voice telling him that he would only need to do this again one more time. Once more. Maybe next time. Please, next time.
Here's to hoping you find all the missing pieces and find that nobody's shoehorned in an inappropriately shaped piece.
AC
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