Giant-Size Collection #3

"Four Tales of April, 2201"

written and created by Mark Bousquet

Reprinted within are the following stories:

TALES of AGC # 1: Spider, "Junkie Shock"

TALES of AGC # 2: John Francis Saint, "Colonial Heart"

TALES of AGC # 3: Daimon Hellstrom, "Soul Cage"

TALES of AGC # 4: Stephen Strange, "Mortal Angels"

Tales of AGC # 1

Spider

"Junkie Shock"

MANHATTAN

2201 / APRIL

Slow night in the Big Apple.

The man inside the spider suit wanted to go home, to rest, to feel the alien symbiote called Venom slide off his body and give him, momentarily, at least, his old life back. He felt Venom disagree with that thought, the symbiote rippling over his skin, sending white spiders dancing across the surface of the uniform, the host's head its destination.

The Brock inside the spider suit shivered at the effect he'd used a great many times to scare a criminal into giving out the info he wanted. 'They're not real, they're not real, they're not real,' he told himself, shaking as he felt Venom ripple with laughter. He was helpless as the white spiders crawled up and around his head, before disappearing somewhere out of sight, most likely burrowing into the base of his skull.

'We must remember our destiny, young Brock,' Venom hissed in his ear, mocking his host's heroic ideals. 'There are evil-doers on the streets that need to be put down.'

"You mean, 'have their brains eaten,' don't you?" Zed Brock whispered back harshly, his body shivering at the nightmare remembrance of Venom's hazing.

'Only if they deserve it,' Venom hissed. The symbiote paused for long moments, as symbiote and host looked out over the New York skyline. It was a quiet night. No sign of the Goblin, yet, but it was early. The sun was just now beginning to set over the distant horizon. Their relative peace was interrupted as Zed felt Venom grow suddenly angry, 'You're thoughts are of the red-head, aren't they?'

"I don't know what you mean," Brock answered, wondering if Venom could read his mind. His thoughts, at that moment, were indeed of the beautiful Angelica.

'Dangerous … pining for the Goblin Child.' Beat. 'We should have killed her.'

"You'd like that."

'Goblins and spiders are enemies, young Brock! We may be neither Parker nor Osborn, but we are involved! The Goblins have …'

"The Goblins have hurt you." Zed let the words slice deep. "Locked you away, got you addicted to the sludge. If it wasn't for me-"

Quicker than Zed could react, Venom quickly ripped itself loose of Brock's body. "Unnngh!" Zed fell to the hard, cold rooftop, his dead legs returning to their useless state.

'Do not forget why you set us free,' Venom menaced, stretching his body wide over the fallen form of its host. 'You are as addicted to walking as I was to the sludge. You desire a night of how things used to be? A night free from Venom? You will have it.' Venom snapped his body away, then stopped to swing its head around. 'Looks like rain tonight, cripple.'

Zed could do nothing but watch as the symbiote slid over the rooftop's ledge, headed for the ground below. In moments, he heard the screaming of a man who would not see the morning. That Venom's victim was certainly a criminal made it only marginally easier to take. "What have I done?" the young man wondered for the hundredth time, rolling over onto his stomach.

As he began to pull himself across the rooftop, headed for the shelter of a nearby chimney stack, a gentle rain began to fall.

It would be hours before Venom would return, and all through that night Zed wondered what kind of God would ever create such a being.

END JUNKIE SHOCK

Tales of AGC # 2

John Francis Saint

"Colonial Heart"

2201 / APRIL

FANTASTIC COLONIES

John Francis Saint, head security officer of the Fantastic Colonies, watched as the small Kree transport landed inside the small hangar used for high-security personnel. Somewhere out there a large rectangular module – the Kree Laboratory Wing - was about to join the FC. It wasn’t more than four months since Saint had last seen General Van’Rogg, and yet it seemed as if the entire Everything had been turned upside down.

The Eternal War was over. Saint shook his head – it wasn’t reality yet. The fifty-four year old human closed his eyes, the image of Ben-Vell Parker slaying Thanos running through his mind. ‘And yet,’ he thought, watching the small Kree entourage empty forth from their ship, ‘there are still the sick and wounded and dying pouring in every day. The War is over but the killing goes on. And if the rumors of this new war are true …’

"General," Saint extended his hand as Van’Rogg approached. "Welcome to the FC."

"Commander Saint," Van’Rogg shook the hand. "The Kree thank you for your hospitality, and for extending the invitation. It is a great honor to the Kree scientists selected to take their place alongside the other great scientific minds, here inside the living monument to the great Reed Richards."

Saint raised an eyebrow, "Prepare that, did you?"

Van’Rogg stiffened. "The Kree would like to present to you the complete set of data you requested, for scientists, patients and the laboratory module, itself."

"Thank you, General," Saint nodded, accepting the collection of discs. "I would like to extend, on behalf of the entire FC community, our regret on having to refuse the applications of so many Kree patients that were submitted. We can only take so many, after all, and only those we deem unable to receive proper medical attention on homeworld."

"Understandable," Van’Rogg nodded. "The Kree government would like to thank you for those that you have taken, as well as agreeing to allow a Kree Laboratory Wing to be added to the Colonies."

Saint nodded, and handed over his own set of discs, as one of his staff stepped forward to take the Kree discs. "Here are the final set of data you need to dock, as well as a full manual of all policy procedures. Now, if you will excuse me, I have business elsewhere. Officer Ahmad Elsania," he crooked his thumb to the security officer behind him, "will see to all your needs. Good to have you aboard, General."

"Good to be aboard, Commander."

Saint turned towards the nearest exit, and left the Kree behind with Ahmad. Elsania was a rich kid stuck here doing penance, and had more patience for dealing with protocol than Saint did. Especially Kree protocol. Personally, there weren’t five Kree he’d ever met that he could say he liked, but militarily … so long as you knew they were on your side in a fight, there’s no one Saint felt more comfortable fighting alongside. ‘Van’Rogg’s a square shooter,’ he mused, ‘but I don’t see how anyone that close to the Supreme Intelligence can be trusted. They’re too damn-‘

Saint stopped dead in his tracks, and felt a cold sweat bead up on the back of his neck. Lying on the floor in front of him was a ripped piece of paper. Only one character was legible – the number 4. He looked to the air vent above him, and nodded.

THE QUARTERS OF JOHN FRANCIS SAINT

Entering his room, Saint was not surprised to see the lights were off. "Well, I got your signal. What do you want?"

Saint watched as a match was struck, and a clone of Reed Richards stepped forward to meet him. "We are worried."

"That a fact?" Saint asked, trying not to shudder. Ever since he and Captain America had gone down into the heart of the Fantastic Colonies, into the locked and sealed original Fantastic Rocket that Reed Richards had used to start the FC, Saint did not sleep easy at night. Deep within the miles of ships and modules that had been attached together over the centuries, clones of Reed Richards had been living, dying, learning, studying, cloning, forever experimenting upon themselves with the latest diseases, cures, antidotes. Saint had seen a lot in his days, had served on the front lines in countless battles with Thanos’ Deviant armies and seen more horrific sites than Nightmare himself could concoct, but the thought of Reed Richards clones, swirling and writhing in their elasticity through the centuries like snakes with hands, fingers, bodies …

Saint was not too proud to admit, at least to himself, that it seriously creeped him the frit out.

"Yes, we are very worried," this Reed answered. It was one of the older clones – Saint thought it might be the clone who had survived the self-infection of the Titan Plague. The Reeds had found a cure for that disease, one thought lost to time, in just over three months, losing only six clones in the process. Part of the agreement he reached with them was they had to turn over their complete records, and they had agreed. The Titan Plague had destroyed the livestock on nearly fifteen Alliance worlds before it came to the attention of the FC a few years back. Saint remembered how the scientist who "solved" the Plaque had sworn the vaccine just came to him, in his sleep, and Saint now knew just how that was possible. The Reeds had created the vaccine, then dropped the formula into the scientist’s lab while he slept. They had been doing that – in various forms – for 150 years.

It was good for science, he supposed, but it made Saint uneasy.

"We have heard rumors that the Eternal War is over." Saint nodded, and let the clone continue. "But that a new War, a war between Chaos and Order, will rise up to take its place. Is that true?"

Saint shrugged. "There’s no hard evidence, yet. Just conjecture."

The Reed clone’s head suddenly expanded, becoming grotesquely huge. "And our son?!? We have heard that Franklin Richards has come back to life! Is this true?"

Saint sighed, nodded. It was only a matter of time. "It is true."

"And he fights for neither the Alliance nor Thanos?"

Saint nodded, let his words bite deep. "Just like his old man. He doesn’t want to pick a side to fight on, either."

The Reed clone let the match burn out, and his voice was cold and lonely in the dark. "You must know the truth, John Francis. We have feared this day for two hundred years. When the time comes, call on us. We have what you will need."

"Need? For what?" Saint asked, hearing the Reed clone’s body squeeze it’s elastic form past the ventilation grate, and move backwards through the shaft. His voice, when he spoke, bore the echo of metal.

"To kill Franklin Richards. Once and for all."

END COLONIAL HEART

Tales of AGC # 3

Daimon Hellstrom

"Soul Cage"

2201 / APRIL

ST. LUKE’S CEMETARY - GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

Daimon Hellstrom stood before a typical gravestone, wondering if Doom was correct. If anything, by the standards of wealth in the stones around this lot, the small gravestone before him stood out by its basic, simple design. It bore no markings other than the simple inscription:

STEPHEN STRANGE

A Cautionary Tale of Ego

Daimon kicked at the stone with his black boot, smiling. The Son of Satan stood tall and proud amidst the buried bodies. He kept his greying hair short, his black leather jacket to his ankles. Solid black Oakleys hid his eyes from the world, as his white shirt hid the mark of Satan that was tattooed in black to his chest.

"I wonder, old enemy, older friend," he said aloud, letting his mind drift back to the memories that called to him, "in which afterlife you find yourself. How I had hoped, even prayed, to torment your soul for eternity. I was promised it, I’m sure you now know, by that bitch of a lover of yours. So distraught was I when I was robbed of this gift, I spent ten Earth years searching for your soul in all the afterlifes I could enter.

"When I wasn’t runting with Ms. Braddock, of course. Insatiable, wasn’t she?"

Daimon chuckled to the still morning.

"And yet, my heart grows warm with the thought that your eternity is hell, regardless of whether you find yourself on a higher plane than the Underworld allows me access to.

"Your ego, your unshakable belief that the world was a ship of fools and only you, the Sorcerer Supreme, could steer it in the right direction, away from the darkness.

"You cannot escape darkness, can you, Stephen? It is the grand irony of the Everything, its eternal laugh at the folly of life. Do you realize that now? Was your faith in the world shaken to its core when you realized that darkness is the natural state of things? Mortals are such fools. You were right about that, at least. God created the light, but not the dark. It is the light that must fight, light that must conquer darkness, which means conquering the Everything itself. It is God that was the usurper of the world, God who made the first assault for want of a kingdom. And it is God who shall-"

"You always did enjoy the sound of your own voice, Daimon."

The Son of Satan felt a chill down his spine, as a smile spread across his face. He turned, slowly coming face-to-face with, "A restless spirit. Of course. How very Ghost of Christmas past of you, Stephen. There is just one problem, of course."

"And that is?" Stephen Strange asked, arms folded beneath a dark red cloak. He was in the form of man from only the waist up, his legs shrouded in a spiritual, wisping cloud.

"It’s a bit early for Christmas. S’only April. Are you here to torment me, Strange?"

"Your soul is not without chance for salvation, Daimon."

Hellstrom rolled his eyes, "You did find heaven, didn’t you?" He threw his hands up, then jammed them deep into the pockets of his overcoat. "And now what, exactly? God’s errand boy?"

Strange’s face grew grim, dark, surprising Daimon with its intensity, and his voice resonated with a palpable power. "Is your lust for power so great that you would side with von Doom?"

Daimon let out a short, hard laugh. "This surprises you? Disappoints you, maybe? By the gods, Stephen, I keep my ex-wife’s soul trapped in a cage. In Hell. For fun."

"You are a tremendous disappointment, Daimon, to be certain. You did not have to walk the path your father walked."

Daimon took a few steps to cut the distance between them in half. "The underworld is uniting, Sorcerer. I am the Son of Satan, ruler of Earth Hell. My destiny was carved in stone long before my creation."

"The excuse of the weak."

"Jesus," Daimon spat on the ground. "You are the unholy, Strange. It is you who mock the Grand Design. You and all your kind. Can’t any of you ever stay dead?"

The smoke around Strange’s body began to billow, and his form began to grow, ten … fifteen … twenty feet in the sky. His eyes never left Hellstrom’s. "I am dead, Daimon. A mortal cage could not contain the power I now wield. Run back to Doom and tell him that Earth will not be forgotten."

"Whatever it is you have become," Daimon leveled his voice, "it is not something I fear."

Strange’s face was cold and unemotional. "Yes, Daimon, it is." As his body rose higher and higher, the smoke around him billowing out and up to touch and merge with the grey clouds in the sky, his voice boomed to the earth below. "I am coming for Patty, son of Satan."

"I have always expected you would, Stephen," Daimon whispered to the suddenly rumbling clouds above.

Hellstrom watched the clouds move out across the sky, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the lines in his face grew tight. Doom was right – Stephen Strange had returned, the stench of the Clouds upon him, and somehow Doom had known.

The Army of Doom had a spy inside the gates of Heaven.

END SOUL CAGE

Tales of AGC # 4

Stephen Strange

"Mortal Angels"

2201 / APRIL

AMSTERDAM

"Once again, one of the Marvels makes a mockery of the sanctity of death, walking back onto the plane of mortals. So easily we appear to cross the holy veil. I wonder, if knowing then what I know now, would I have tried harder to stop the pulling back of the curtain?

"Or would I have sought more souls to bring back to life, knowing how little death would mean in the end?"

Stephen Strange allowed his corporeal body to become physical in a dark alley in the western section of Amsterdam. It was true then, he noted as his body was formed. He had been given the body of an angel, stripped of its wings. It was the only form powerful enough to hold the power he now held within him. His dark red cloak was pulled tight to his body and he inhaled deeply, the smell of a city washing back into his system.

A whore approached and he brushed her aside.

‘What does this say about the nature of the human spirit?’ he thought to himself, emerging from the alley into the neon-lit night. ‘That we are so determined to complete our duty to life that we cross the boundary and return, forsaking eternal salvation? Or that we are not but spoiled children, bemoaning the Paradise our Creator has given us, so that we may return and play with toys lost?"

On the crowded street beside him, Strange stopped to watch a seventeen-year-old girl inject heroin into her arm. The Sorcerer stopped, knelt beside her, watched as her eyes rolled back into her head, then refocused on the magician. "Why has God turned away from us?" she asked.

Strange closed his eyes, whispered an incantation, and pulled the foreign substances – heroin, alcohol, and … some new drug he didn’t know – from her body. The girl shuddered, looked at him with something akin to hope and desperation mixed in one. Strange stood, his eyes never leaving hers, "All parents must eventually turn from their children, young one, or else the children never learn independence."

The girl’s eyes closed. "That is so … sad."

"God has done all He can for us," Strange confided. "We have fought innumerable wars in His name, killed billions in the belief that it was His will, or that His grace was moving through us, using our bodies as instruments for his destruction. He has had enough of war. We must fight this one on our own."

She opened her eyes, tears forming, "Why are you telling me this?"

Strange was already gone, moving deeper towards the heart of the city. ‘Why indeed?’ he asked himself. ‘Why come back at all to a dirty world, desperately seeking to rip itself apart, to drown itself in hallucinogens? What was that new drug in the girl’s system? He had heard a word whispered. Sludge?

Further thoughts ceased, as his eyes found a flashing neon sign:

NAUGHTY ANGELS

Nude girls, exotic herbs, 24 hours

He entered the club, saw that it was clean, surprising him. More than clean, he thought. Nearly spotless. All the lights worked in precision, casting dark shadows in all the booths along the wall. There were three runways, upon each danced a woman of surreal beauty, stripping for men desperate to give her cash. Around the crowded room, women dressed as Victoria’s secret models – lingerie, high heels, angel’s wings – served drinks and drugs to the clientele. He ignored them, headed for the bar.

"About time you arrived," the male bartender smiled, wiping down a glass. Stephen thought, Even he looks too clean to be here which, he supposed, was fitting.

"You are Azmikel," Strange said, stepping to the end of the bar.

The smile vanished, "It is good to see you, Sorcerer. We did not know who else to send the calling to."

Strange nodded, Of course. "It was the angels, then, who sent the Voice that brought me back to the world?"

Azmikel nodded, "We did not know to whom else we could charge this assignment. There is a dark presence-"

"Never mind, Azmikel, Stephen. He is always too much of the doom and gloom." Stephen turned to see one of the waitresses approach. The first thing he noted, besides that her incredible beauty seemed not so much a fact as the natural state of the world, was that her wings were real. "My name, or what passes for it in the human tongue, is Bella. Come with me," she slipped her arm in his. "A private dance," she said by way of explanation, leading him into a curtained room down a back corridor.

Bella pushed Stephen down into a large, overstuffed chair, smiling at him. She leaned against a large, metallic pole in the middle of the room. "This is how it works," she said, her voice beautiful, almost a song, "as succinctly as I can tell you. Azmikel and the other bartenders, as well as myself and all the waitresses, are bound to Earth by a sacred oath. The dancers?" she nodded back towards the club. "They are not of our kind, nor do they know who we are. They strip, they get paid. We have blessed them with a beauty enchantment so that mortal eyes see in them whatever they most desire. Sometimes they take money for sex." Bella shrugged, "It is the way mortals work."

"You will forgive me," Stephen said coolly, rising to his feet. "But-"

"It seems blasphemous, or, at least, morally wrong, for angels to run a club such as this?" Stephen nodded and she continued, "There is nothing more beautiful in this world than the act of making love, Strange, when it is done with a pure heart. Those who come to places like this – to work or to watch – have been too long without that joy. It is also," she admitted, "a great way to hide in the open, gathering information against the Underworld."

She took a step towards Stephen. "For all eternity we have known the world would end with a battle of Heaven and Hell, Sorcerer. Life and death no longer have meaning. The trick of a mortal’s death is not that it is the end. Death did not remove you from the greater war, Stephen. It kept you safe, in hiding, until it was time to fight again.

"We – those of our kind - live in this mud of Earth, Stephen, awway from the Clouds," she said, now taking a step back. "God created us, the Mortali, the Mortal Angels, ‘those who are trapped on Earth,’ on the Ninth Day, to do the work He did not have the heart to do. In all wars there are things done those in charge do not want to know about. That is what we are charged with. What you now are charged with."

"And my role is what, exactly?"

"God was the first magician, Stephen Strange, and the Earth was how he accessed the magical energies of the Everything," Bella said, nearly out of the curtained room. "Surely you have noticed how magic, in all the Everything, is most strongest, most accessible on Earth? You are to protect the Wellsprings, Sorcerer, for they are in danger. You will have help. Call on those magicians lost to the afterlife that can best aid you, or those alive you can trust. If the Everything is to end in this," she rolled her eyes, "cosmic war of Chaos and Order, it is up to you to make certain that the Wellsprings survive."

"I do not fight with Asgard, then."

"No," Bella answered, drawing closed the curtains. "You fight to keep this most sacred of grounds safe. If Asgard falls, von Doom will come for Earth. We must be ready."

And then Stephen Strange was alone.

END MORTAL ANGELS

YGGDRASIL

Comments to bousquet22@earthlink.net

Thanks for reading the third issues of Giant-Size AGC, continuing the tradition of reprinting AGC stories published outside the main ALL GOD'S CHILDREN series. Contained here are four stories from the new TALES of AGC series. TALES of AGC are short stories (1-2 pages) that I write and publish solely to the AGCverse mailing list. The AGCverse mailing list, for those who don’t know, is a free list run off the yahoogroups servers where I publish all AGC stories as soon as they’re ready to publish, so you get them delivered right to your inbox instead of having to trudge on over to the AGC website. Anyone who’s interested in joining, head on over to yahoogroups.com or send me an email and I can add you. TALES of AGC issues come out about once a week.

Thanks for reading all.

-- Mark Bousquet …

Northern Bear Productions

30 December 2002