Episode 3 Part 1
“We’re-”
“I know who you are.” he interrupted. “You belong to X don’t you?.”
The group looked at the stranger in astonishment. All seemed to be surprised that this tall, rugged man in naught save for a loincloth could have known about X. Several things about X, they themselves didn't know.
“He used to wear a jacket with a symbol just like that when he and his goons first wreaked havoc here. I take it he’s some sort of commander now.”
“‘Goons’ ? ‘Havoc?” asked Alex.
“What business do you have here?” the man asked.
“We’re here on a mission to capture an international criminal who has plans of committing his next act of terrorism from right here on this island.” Lorna stated, choosing to focus on the agenda at hand, obviously ignoring any insignificant questions that might arise because of the man’s statement.
“Criminal? You mean our invader, Magneto, is no longer allied to X?”
“H-. How do you -”
“We’re here for Magneto.” Lorna interrupted Alex’s question. “Now if you’ll excuse us.” She turned and began to walk out of the clearing they had just made in battle and into the dense forest. The agents all unquestioningly began to follow suit.
With a thwoop a spear flew pass Lorna’s ear and into a tree as the sabretooth snarled and roared.
“I’ve been aware of Magneto’s presence here for a while, and I want him off my island every bit as much as I want you off of it, child.”
The group turned around in shock yet poised again for a fight if necessary.
“So you’ll help us.” Lorna said.
“I had planned to get him off myself. And you’d have never been able to do it without me.”
“What do you mean? Who are you, sir?” asked Ali.
“You are probably working in a time frame. There are no mutants on this side of the island, as you may already know. But I’m sure you haven’t accounted for the tar pit at least three of you would have gotten caught in as close as twenty five paces in the direction you were headed. Or the nests of the mutant fire wasps sunward from there. And there are more machines where your adversaries came from.” He paused and looked at them with a certain authority and condescension that suggested that all he was saying must have been true. This was, no doubt, his territory and a place he probably knew better than anyone. “My name is Ka-Zar.”
Lorna walked towards Ka-Zar, who towered over her by at least a foot, and whose muscles only added to her diminutization as she approached. Even with that difference they seemed equal in measuring up each other as they stared unrelentingly, with an air of contempt, one at the other.
“How did you plan on taking on Magneto?” Lorna asks.
“Approach him, then kill him.”
“Fair enough. We want to get close enough to his base undetected. Lead the way.”
Ka-Zar walked off in a direction left of where Lorna was initially headed; his pet silently behind him. The agents looked at each other, puzzled, before they realized Lorna was a close ways behind him, then they followed ; Alex behind her, then Ali, Howlett and Anole closely behind.
The group walked silently, pensively, for minutes through what seemed to be never ending forest. The day begun to heat up, noticeably elevating humidity as the forest seemed to come alive with buzzing and croaking, and chirping and shuffling. Lorna finally broke the silence to ask what everyone else was thinking.
“You said X and Magneto wreaked havoc here?”
“A long time ago, before mutant existence was widely known, X and his fellow agents, Magneto and Wolverine were sent here after the discovery of the small community called Morlocks. They’d been living here for a short number of years, and had been growing. X came with the promise that one day, very soon, mutants of all kinds and appearance would be able to live normally among humans and encouraged them to repatriate as a means of normalizing their existence among humans. Out of that came a war.”
"A war? There was a war here?"
"There have been other battles fought here. That was the first."
The trees were becoming more dense as Ka-zar led them deeper into the forestry. The agents were having more difficulty maneuvering over and around plants as they tried to keep up with the strange jungle man. Anole had already taken to the trees, melting in them in such a way that only the occasional thud and shake was evidence of his presence. Cipher had resorted to lazily phasing through trees. Ka-zar moved expertly through, as if on auto, while he recounted his story
"There was a divide among the Morlocks over whether or not they should.stay here or repatriate, both among the people and the leadership. The majority had begun to accept the idea of integration and were ready to leave. A smaller amount did not agree. Smaller, they were, but powerful. And they rallied behind Callisto, a high ranking leader in charge of security on the island."
"Callisto. I think I've heard that name." said Lorna. She was slightly out of breath trying to keep up with Kazaar. Her hair was now damp as the increased shade didn't do much for humidity.
"That's because we came across her in studies." said Ali. "She's in the Rogues database. She's listed as a null fugitive."
"What does that mean?"asked Howlett.
"So we know who didn't go through studies before they made the team." answered Lorna. "It means she is quite likely dead but the evidence isn't sufficient to conclude one hundred percent. Some mutants don't like to stay dead. She must also have been a codeX which means she was very powerful. Those are the only null fugitives they thought it important enough to tell us about."
"Names though. Not details." said Cipher. "They aren't really expected to resurface. But with mutants, especially of some facets, you never know."
"Indeed she was powerful. When the battles began, with Magneto, X and the Wolverine enabling her opponents, Calisto was eventually forced to unleash her powers at an extent that nobody even knew she could." At that Kazaar paused and looked back at Lorna is such a way that it seemed he wasn't looking just at her, but into the past; a distant memory he wouldn't soon forget.
"What could she do?" asked Alex.
"She unleashed a kraken, so to speak. What seemed like an extra-dimensional being that resided in her. It grew to a sixth the size of the island, the expanse of its tentacles attacking everyone and everything in it's path."
"I thought you said Xavier wreaked havoc." Alex continued.
A smirk came over Ka-zar’s countenance as he shook his head disappointedly. "It might appear otherwise to you, child, but, in truth, none of this would have happened without X first coming here and manipulating its people."
"He didn't wreck the island." Lorna scowled.
Ka-zar remained nonchalant towards her attitude, looking forward as he walked on. "He did. The mutant population of the island had developed its own rules, its own ways. To dissolve the system they would need an overwhelming three fourths vote from its leaders. Some leaders were easily coaxed to X's cause. They, like a majority of the common folk, still had daydreams of living among their human counterparts in their messed up world. Others were swing votes. Xavier promised them money, status.... love. Possessed by their needs and greed to have power in the human’s world and set above the rest, they sided with him."
"I know he made some of them diplomats, representatives, defenders of the reintegrated mutants. Some leaders were given assistance with their entrepreneurial aspirations. They still help fund the mutant cause even today. " stated Cipher
"It is funny. You children do not see into your leader's ways. You've even been taught so much and yet know little of everything that happened here. I'm not surprised."
"What are you saying?" asked Lorna
“Don't be too unquestioning. If Fay wasn't then maybe she wouldn't have disappeared. She would still be here.”
“Who are you talking about?” asked Cipher.
“We’re here.” said Ka-Zar.
Before they could even notice, the team was standing in front of an elaborate construct. A building built among the trees. Intricate and intimate it was with the forest, you might not have noticed from too far a distance or even the air.
A brief thud and rustle came from above.
“I think the green one just hit my wall.”
“Who’s Fay?” Insisted Cipher.
“It’s none of your concern now, or mine. Let’s get you guys off this island.”
Episode 3 Part 2
The inside of Ka-Zar's home among the trees was just as curious as the outside. No ordinary tree house, it had rooms, compartments, on the ground as well as elevated . The floors- where there were floors- were made of the same things as the walls, and the ceilings, wood, nice carved flat panels in some places, and small cylindrical bits in others. The place was not only intricate, it also seemed vast. The team, however, were only confined to one room near the entrance.
They were in a room just big enough to fit them all, with hammocks and a wooden day bed amongst the trunks of the trees that grew throughout the house.
"Before anything else, since no one seems to wanna say it, what the hell is this place? Who the bloody hell really are you? And where did that lion thing go?”
"This place is my home. I am Ka-zar. My sabertoothed friend can take care of himself"
"Those don't answer my question and it's not your friend I'm worried for, I'd just like to keep an eye on him at all times. He disappeared somewhere on the way."
"What is important for you to know is that my home sits right at the side of the hilly interior which Magneto now operates."
"We're close enough to infiltrate ." said Ali at the realization.
All the team instinctively looked at Lorna whose eyes were widened and face alert yet somehow distant. The one thing she's wanted since slipping through her father's fingers was to return to take him down. The thought of being on the verge seemed slightly surreal to her.
Her face became stern with determination. The x-agents, most of them, instinctively knew the directives she would issue :
"Ka-zar will let us know the best entrance point for Ciph to begin scouting. Get in, assess, get out. No tech with you. Your eyes are just going to have to be enough to map the area. Regroup, then we finalize our plan of action. Our first priority is to take out the weapons. Find out what's up their sleeve -- let's trust Howlett's story -- so we can know how best to take it out. We don't spare a minute after that to stop Magneto."
Taking out Magneto would be the trickiest part. None of the agents really packed the power to do so on their own or even together. They'd never previously been able to best him even in simulations . He was powerful. Ruthless.
If need be, X has the Junior team and The Captains on stand-by. They can be here in no time once our cover has been blown.
"The juniors?" Anole asked.
"Easy there hotshot." Alex responded with a snide look in his eye. " Don't worry your pretty green head. I'm sure we won't have to. And even if we do, they're old enough, don't you think? Well trained."
Anole,visibly, wasn't pleased.
Alex continued, "It's those Captains I don't wanna see."
"Follow directives, make it quick and clean, we'll be fine." responded Lorna.
She wasn't as sure as she sounded. But that's how it has to be with all leaders.
As the day passed and the evening approached, the humidity remained stagnant like a blanket that spread out across all of the savage land, inescapable. They were taken to another room that was somewhere deeper in the perplexing edifice that was Ka-zar’s home. To the more keen, some of the rooms with tables, sealed compartments, strange tools and the occasional sets of life specimens - potted, jarred - made it more evident that his home also doubled as some form of lab facility. He certainly didn't eat some of the things they'd seen- they would hope.
"What do you study?" Ali had asked as they entered the room earlier. Ka-zar wasn't one to be coaxed to speech.
The room was spacious and bare. One of the walls was the bare rock of the adjacent ridge. Kaz-ar had left them close to a half an hour ago to prep amongst themselves for the next step of the mission at hand. They made themselves comfortable, or as comfortable as the place would allow, around the room. Howlett leaned against the ridge wall idly making a miniature stake from a piece of loose wood he'd picked up, sharpening it with the middle bone claw of his right hand. Anole was looming silently in a shadowed corner while, nearby, Ali was stripping down to the bare spandex bodysuit that Lorna had asked her to wear while infiltrating the facilities. No tech, no metals. Ali was "Cipher" after all, able to go invisible to even psychic detection, but Lorna was taking no chances.
Lorna stood over her brother who was sprawled, relaxed on the room floor. She wiped a bit of her short, sweat-matted hair from her face as she observed him. He acted a lot less serious than he actually was. She knew him. His jest and snark and seeming nonchalance at times would mislead anyone else, but inside she knew he was every bit as grounded as she was.
"You're going to have to be the frontline against Magneto. You'll have to pack the punch and I'll back you up." Lorna said to him.
"I know." He replied
"Anole, you're Cyclops. I'll handle the Wolverine. Cipher and Howlette - "
"He needs to get a code name." Alex interjected.
"You two have to focus on keeping whatever their weapon is from ever functioning. We expect to take it out first of all, but we have to make sure there's no contingency, nothing else up their sleeve."
"Thinking a little far ahead." a voice came from the entrance of the room. Ka-zar. "Why not take things a stage at a time."
"The game plan is important." Lorna responded.
"Things do not always go as planned, girl. Cipher's mission alone could put a change on things."
Lorna peered at him without answer.
Ka-zar had in his hand a brown sac, Behind him his beast looked on silently.
"How did you get him through the door?" asked Alex as he propped himself up looking at Ka-Zar.
"He's been here since before we arrived. I brought food for you. Nourish yourself."
"Good." said Alex, We're gonna need it.
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