To Kill a Mockingbird
Posted on Mon May 27th, 2024 @ 6:40am by Connor Bruin & Bliss Hawkins & Ethan Hale & Aurora Summers & Kennedy Kelly
3,659 words; about a 18 minute read
Mission:
Episode 4: The Savage ConneXion
Location: Altar of Death | Savage Land
Timeline: September 6th, 1990
The sun had begun its descent behind the dense canopy of the Savage Land, casting long shadows over the ancient and foreboding Altar of Death. The Altar, carved from dark volcanic stone, stood at the center of a clearing, surrounded by towering, gnarled trees whose twisted branches seemed to reach out like the fingers of a slumbering beast. Mist curled around the base of the altar, creeping across the ground to eerie effect.
Above the altar, on a massive, vine-draped ledge that jutted out from a sheer cliff face, sat Empress Zaladane, as regal and imposing a figure as could be portrayed in the primitive domain of the Swamp Men. She was adorned in a flowing cape of deep reds and golds that shimmered in the fading light. Her expression was one of detached curiosity, her eyes sharp and calculating as she observed the scene below.
The ground level was bustling with activity as the Swamp priests prepared for the night's grim festivities. These priests, clad in ritualistic garb made of swamp reeds and mud-stained fabrics, moved with practiced fluidity to every motion. They arranged an array of primitive instruments and sacrificial tools on a smaller stone slab beside the altar.
A line of souls doomed to be sacrificed, all bound and guarded by burly warriors, were herded into large wooden cages like livestock. The priests chanted in a low, monotonous tone, a sound that seemed to resonate with the very air of the Savage Land as if the land itself responded to their dark summons.
Among them was Bliss. Somehow, Zaladane peered down from her makeshift throne of rotten timber and peered directly at Bliss despite the thrush of muddied bodies. The Empress had picked Bliss out of the crowd and gave a wolfish grin.
Bliss may have looked beaten and degraded, but she met the smirky gaze of Zaladane with a silent, sullen defiance.
Something in the young blonde's stare unsettled Zaladane more than she cared to admit. With a wave of a finger, she summoned her minions to see her will done.
Ka-Zar had finished scouting the area and returned to the weathered deadfall that marked the current shifting border between the Mystic Mists and the domain of the Swamp People. The X-Men waited in hiding as they recovered from the morning-to-night march that had led them through the mists as fast as could be managed without transportation.
As far as anyone could tell, the Mystic Mists had not rendered any obvious changes but looks could be deceiving. Connor complained of a headache for a time before it wore off. That had not concerned Ka-Zar much.
Aurora hadn’t felt any changes except for the fact that her ability to levitate/fly had seemed to have increased in strength. It was something she’d struggled to fully master in practice, but now it felt so easy, and she hated to admit it but she liked the feeling it gave her of being more powerful.
Ethan was the one feeling the most change. He was becoming less human and more feral. But what was left of the real him, at least the real him that had started the trip, was trying to keep that hidden for as long a possible.
"FINALLY," Connor said at Ka-Zar's approach. He had grown impatient. As urgently as Ka-Zar had moved them forward, it had felt tortuous to sit through the eternal wait of his scouting. "DID YOU SEE BLISS?"
"I believe so," Ka-Zar said. "They have prisoners near the arena while their priests prepare for the rituals which will span long into the evening. If we hurry, we can interrupt them, but we must stay low and swift while we get there. This is the most sacred space for the Swamp People. Fighting for our lives will not end well except in retreat." He looked between the group. "Any questions?"
“Are we just going to try to sneak in there and take her?” Kennedy tried to examine the area marked as Swamp People territory but they couldn’t really see much from where they were. “Should I create a diversion or something? Maybe an explosion on the other side of their village to make it easier for you to grab Bliss?”
Ka-Zar shook his head. "Diversions will only raise alarms. I escaped the Altar once before, so I can lead us back inside. If your friend is unable to flee under her own power, then we may need diversions to escape without being surrounded."
"WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?" Connor pressed.
"The cover of dark," Ka-Zar said. "If we approach all together, we may be noticed. Lull them into a false sense of security and we may yet strike before anyone notices."
“If we can get within range of Bliss I can lift her free.” She looked towards Ka-Zar. “My telekinetic abilities are stronger here, I can put them to good use!”
"I can sneak over there for a closer look," Ethan volunteered. "Plus I have excellent sight. I should be helping."
Ka-Zar appeared to consider that for a moment before nodding. "That will work. Take to the air where you cannot be seen and spy for trouble. One squaw signals caution. Two squaws to tell us we've been spotted nearby. A long shriek to warn us we're about to be surrounded." He pointed at Kennedy who had displayed the hardest time traversing the jungle. "Retrieve your friend Escapade to safety, then Artemis, and then anyone else. Nobody gets left behind."
"AGREED." Connor nodded vigorously in full agreement with Ka-Zar's calculus.
“Sounds good.” Aurora nodded and looked to Connor. “Let’s get Bliss back.”
Ethan may not have been himself, but whatever was changing his body and doing a number on it hadn't negatively affected his abilities.
"I will be careful," he promised as he took to the air. He stayed just above the treetops to minimize the chance of being spotted from above or below by enemy forces.
He then flew toward his target.
"The rest of you, follow me." Ka-Zar headed back the way he'd come.
Priests of the Swamp lit their torches and flung them on the pitch at the base of the Altar of Death. Flames leapt from the fuel and licked at the darkening sky like the fires of hell waging war against the heavens. Waves of ambient heat washed over several meters, pushing back all but the most ardent of Swamp worshipers.
"Bring them forward!" the Swap High Priest called out. "Bring the sacrifices!"
Vertigo returned to the wooden cages to oversee the warriors who were opening them one by one to escort the prisoners to their ultimate fates. Her eyes were squarely on Bliss. If her charge was to humiliate her in front of Zaladane, then it would spell doom.
Bliss caught sight of the sickly green haired strumpet. It was true that the empress was the ultimate enemy, but Vertigo had become the name to Bliss's pain. During the past few days, every degrading moment and painful torture had the face of Vertigo. Her very presence gave Bliss a specific hard and sharp focus.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to miss this." Bliss stretched to loosen muscles cramping from the days past.
"Can't you just die quietly?" Vertigo snapped. "You should be honored to be chosen as tribute to the Great Old Ones. Most people's deaths are meaningless. Yours will bring prosperity. If you had accepted that, then you could have been treated with dignity. But you couldn't even accept our Empress's offer." Shaking her head, Vertigo smirked without pity or remorse. "One by one, though, we will see all of you outsiders on the Altar."
Alate had remained still and silent in the corner of the cage. Disregarded because of her small feathered frame and weepy behavior, she was completely ignored by Vertigo whose focus seemed to be on Bliss and Bliss alone. But the two of them had devised a plan. Neither one of them was willing to be slaughtered on that altar and they weren’t going to wait for anyone else to save them.
As Vertigo turned her back to Alate, she moved into a careful crouch and closed in on her. Bliss’ stretch was her signal to take action and the Aerian Princess lept through the air and onto Vertigo’s back. Her hollow bones and light bird-like body wouldn’t pose a huge threat to green haired swamp woman but it was enough of a distraction for Bliss to take action and execute their escape plan.
All Bliss wanted was that moment of distraction from the weakened Alate, and she got it. Her own telekinesis was relatively weak. It was more than enough, however, to drive the shiv of sharp metal she had received from Magneto into vertigo like the needle of a sewing machine perforatibg her from hip to shoulder and back again as fast as she could make it go. It may only penetrate 6 inches but you get 20 or 30 stabs? They're going to feel it.
"Go to hell, you vomit haired bitch."
"Die with dignity, X-Man." Vertigo sneered. "If you can."
"They're about to begin!" Ka-Zar said as loudly as he dared. The Altar was up ahead in all its fearsome glory. "I will challenge Zaladane and draw her attention. The rest of you get to the prisoners and get them out of here."
Kennedy huffed a sigh as the muscle-bound Ka-Zar sprung into action. He had discounted her as being a ‘B-squad’ level X-Men thanks to her hatred for hiking and it was a classification that left her annoyed. This wasn’t a mission to sit back and be idle during, she wouldn’t wait for someone to come back and rescue her too.
Surveying the Swamp Men she noticed that several dozen of them rode giant flightless birds. Hook beaked and with powerful legs, the prehistoric creatures seemed like they would have been terrifying had they not been domesticated and saddled. Kennedy convinced herself that they were just ugly horses, an animal she was more than experienced with riding. If Ka-Zar had deemed her too slow, Kennedy would find a way to make herself faster.
Aurora followed on, right now she needed to focus on helping to clear a path to Bliss. She wasn’t going to let Connor down by them failing to free the woman he cared so much for. “Let’s do this, Connor! Let’s get Bliss!”
The group hurried back down the path that Ka-Zar had prepared. Several Swamp Men were strewn out along the way, knocked out before they saw the intruder coming. In a moment, they had reached the flickering light of the Altar at which point Ka-Zar stopped them.
"This is where we part," he said. "Save the prisoners. I will see you on the other side or in the next life." He thumped his chest in solidarity and darted away.
At a distance from the group, Ka-Zar retrieved pellets from the bag at his loincloth and tossed them into the fire. Rancid smoke billowed up from the fire and cast a shroud of darkness across the arena which had already been taken in nightfall.
"Zaladane!" he shouted boldly. "Pretender! I am the Lord of the Savage Land and today I call for justice to be done upon you!"
Rather than stand from her throne, Zaladane barked a command. Several warriors rushed to surround her position and her dais where her lofty throne sat.
Connor didn't waste any time. The wooden cages were within sight and he loped along the ground like an animal toward it at high speed.
The unexpected distraction was all Bliss needed.
And it was also all the distraction that Ethan needed. He swooped down from the tree where he'd been perching on grabbed one of the sacrificial victims and started to carry him away.
Aurora followed suit, using her telekinesis to take a couple more of the sacrifices out of harm’s way.
The smoke cover that had masked their approach began to dissipate. Shouts from the warriors standing guard over the cages alerted the priests who were preparing the sacrifices. All hell broke loose from there.
Ka-Zar was a tornado of limbs. His fearless dive into the frontline of warriors ended in them being scattered like bowling pins. One of them swung a heavy club a bit too slowly and found himself disarmed. Ka-Zar smashed him in the face with his own club and used it to block the incoming machete-like blades of three more warriors. Using his bulk, he pressed the attack and knocked all three to the ground. Without a moment to spare, Ka-Zar juked sideways to avoid two spear thrusts that nearly claimed him.
"Kill him!" Zaladane seethed from her throne. "Quit standing about, surround that man, and kill him!"
"BLISS!" Connor had programmed his speech-generating device to speak out her name with a simple I Love You sign with a single hand that his gloves would register and his device would recognize. "BLISS!" She had to be near the cages somewhere. She just had to be!
Alate had managed to sneak out of the wooden cage as chaos erupted through the camp. She wished she could take to the sky or that Bliss had at least stayed with her but with neither one of those being an option she dared to move through the camp. Her small figure was easily ignored amongst the smoke and screams but the environment was quickly turning into a hazardous one and Alate began to fear for her safety yet again. That is until she heard someone calling Bliss’ name.
The Princess wasn’t sure if he was friend or foe but she was running out of options. Alate took a risk and ran out to Connor.
“Are you with Bliss?” A small voice coming from an even smaller robed figure chirped at him. “She said she would help me get back to my father.”
"YES," Connor confirmed through sign language which was spoken through the device embedded in his chestplate. "WE HAVE COME TO THE RESCUE. WE MUST GET YOU ALL TO SAFETY."
Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Bliss had the bloody shiv and was zeroing in on the Big Z.
"I'm back, you bloody mother fucking bitch stain!"
All eyes turned to Bliss who had not only regained her powers but summoned them with a vengeance.
With a scream of defiant rage, Bliss jumped past her useless guards and closed with Zaladane. She knew that the bitch had the ability to take her power away. But right now all she needed was to be able to drive the shiv into the queen until she bled out or Bliss fell over. She was doing it for her Avian friend, but mostly she was doing it for herself for the pain and humiliation that she had suffered.
Ethan was using his time to pull prisoners to safety and heard Bliss's shout.
The wicked smirk on Zaladane's face was plain for Ka-Zar to see. He knew what she was about to do. Several brave warriors who had thought to challenge her head on had suffered a fatal fate for their head-on attack.
"Escapade!" shouted Ka-Zar. He abandoned the scuffle around him by vaulting himself up and onto the shoulders of the giant Swamp Man before him and performed a high jump off the other man. The action launched him on an intercept course with Bliss and snatched her out of the air just as Zaladane teleported behind her. A stone knife with a ruby embedded in the hilt which was meant for Bliss instead stabbed Ka-Zar right in the back. Both he and Bliss fell out of the air with Bliss landing atop of him while Ka-Zar himself hit the muddy ground hard enough for it to begin swallowing him.
Connor's eyes bulged out of his head. He'd taken several steps forward Bliss and Ka-Zar before he remembered that he had promised to help another helpless girl. What to do? Eyes darting about to and fro for a solution, Connor saw Kennedy astride a Phorusrhacid, if he recalled, a terror bird that was thought extinct. She nocked and fired arrow after arrow in an endless volley that kept the better part of the Swamp People at bay through explosive ordnance that was beyond their standard methods of warfare.
"ARTEMIS!" He waved his arms to get Kennedy's attention. "GET HER OUT OF HERE!"
Kennedy had stolen and wrangled the avian mount with little issue but by the time her attentions returned to the camp around the Altar of Death all hell had broken loose. Firing a few arrows into the crowds, Kennedy attempted to find the rest of her team only to notice Connor waving for her attention. Without hesitation Artemis took the small figure by Connor’s side, lifting her into the saddle was surprisingly easy, she was as light as a feather.
“My people are camped out due east of here. There is a valley at the base of Skull Mountain. Take me there and my father will grant you aid.” Alate explained to both Connor and Kennedy.
“Let’s get you out of here then.” Kennedy said while guiding her mount, they departed on swift feet away from the battlefield.
With that settled, Connor turned his attention back to where his heart demanded it. Zaladane had teleported herself to stand over Bliss and Ka-Zar. Apparently she was in the middle of a supervillain speech.
"You thought to come at me with sticks and stones," Zaladane taunted them both. "Fools that you are! I control power you cannot possibly fathom! Your deaths are ordained by those eminently your betters. Gods will revel in your passing and demons shall feast on the marrow of your bo—"
Zaladane paused. Someone... someone had thrown a stone at her. The force field surrounding her kept her safe from Kennedy's arrows, much less a rock. What insolent fool would...
"BITCH QUEEN!" Connor signed. The insult was beneath Zaladane's attention. Or at least she did not deign to respond. However, it did serve as a passable distraction. With Zaladane's attention on him, Connor gave the sign. "GRYPHON, NOW!"
All eyes fell to Connor. The minions who were assisting Zaladane in subduing Ka-Zar didn't see death knocking at their door.
Gryphon was still self-aware enough to recognize he was being called upon. He leaped into the fray, not even bothering to take to the air. Someone was attacking an ally and they weren't going to get away with it. He pulled the assailants off of Ka-Zaru. His claws slashed at the enemy's faces trying to gouge out their eyes.
The bloodbath ended in a hasty retreat with Ka-Zar being carried away with Ethan carrying him away along with the survivors he had rescued.
With Ka-Zar wounded, Bliss was left behind and that was likely just how she wanted it. Yet Zaladane wouldn't give her the satisfaction. In fact, she would exact further cruelty simply because she could. She would have to be blind not to see the way Connor looked at Bliss. This would be too easy. "You lied before," Zaladane taunted Bliss. "You do have a lover. Or, at least, you did."
Zaladane winked away in a flash and reappeared on the far side of Connor. A crimson energy gathered around her fist which she thrust at Connor. He spun around just in time to catch the blast directly in the chest.
"Connor! No!" The hoarse scream of Bliss mixed with the other sound of battle. She reached out but she was too late to deflect the lethal blast.
Rather than be knocked back, Connor just stood there and blinked. There was significant force to that blast. Connor could feel the air displacement of its passing. Yet when it collided with his body, it simply dissipated.
"What?!" Zaladane was struck with horror at what she had just seen. "That... that's impossible!"
Connor grinned at the ramifications of what had just happened. For whatever reason, perhaps due the Mystic Mists, perhaps from one or more unknown factors altogether, Zaladane's blast had no effect on him. That certainly turned the tables. He began pounding his fist into his palm.
"VERY DIFFICULT. TEACHER. VERY DIFFICULT. TEACHER." The gloves were having a difficult time discerning his intended meaning from what was otherwise a promise of violence, so the device vocalized the closest ASL equivalents. Connor charged toward Zaladane with a savage glint in his eyes that this land had awakened within him.
Seeing the charging Caveman bearing down on her, Zaladane scowled in frightful fury. "We will meet again, X-Men! This I swear!"
At that, Zaladane disappeared through her portal. Not a local teleportation, then, but a true retreat, just as she'd done in McMurdo Station. Good enough.
The Swamp Men who had witnessed the brief but surprising exchanged looked at Connor with eyes wide before turning tail to flee. Whoever this red-haired beast of a young man was, he had made Empress Zaladane flee the battle. No one remained who would challenge Connor.
"BLISS!" Connor called out, returning to his first and foremost priority. He galloped back to where she had fallen into the mud with Ka-Zar.
Aurora had watched events with Connor in awe and amazement, to see Zaladane disappear so fast was a triumph. Now they could finally get Bliss and head home.
When the three of them finally caught up with the others beyond the Altar of Death, it was a grim reunion that left little opportunity for celebration. Those who weren't wounded were exhausted.
Bliss was crouched over the man who had taken a knife meant for her. She was pressing her hand against the bloody wound. "We're going to take care of you, hang on....'
No rest for the weary, but they were alive.
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