Ondur'ra
the Twentieth Tale
MIDGARD STANDARD YEAR 2200 / NOVEMBER
OLYMPUS
Franklin Richards walked the streets of Olympus. 'This is where I returned from the Void,' he thought to himself, looking around at the broken buildings. 'Fitting. Once repaired - and that won't take long - it shall make a worthy home.'
With a wave of his hand, all of Olympus, including himself, vanished.
ONDUR'RA
"Wh-where am I?" Captain America asked as he tried to sit up. "He had a vague sense of sitting near a fire and a person sitting close, but his head was too foggy to comprehend what his senses felt.
"Rest," a female voice said.
"I’ve had enough rest," Captain America struggled to remain upright. He blinked his eyes several times and pushed the light blanket off of him. Looking around, he saw sparse surroundings: a small fire that crackled sharply, a cave that tunneled out by his feet and a young woman crouched at the mouth of the tunnel. Steve couldn’t see how far away the entrance back to the outside was as the woman blocked his way.
"Did you sleep well?" The woman had short, cropped black hair. She wore light, animal skin boots, wrapped in leather that set the tone for her entire outfit. She looked like-
"You’re a Ronin," Cap said, his mind jumping alive.
"I am, Cosmic Protector," she replied honestly, bowing slightly. "You have crash landed onto our homeworld, Ondur’ra."
"So I did make it," Steve rubbed his head, remembering being jumped by Ikaris.* "I don’t remember landing, however …"
* In AGC 18, Avengers Without Consent
"You didn’t," the Ronin answered without smiling. "You crashed, falling unconscious through the atmosphere."
"Huh," Cap shook his head, looking at the Nega Bands of Mar-Vell that he wore on his wrists. "I owe you thanks, then, for bringing me here."
"You do not," the Ronin answered. "One does not need to be thanked for duty."
Steve didn’t respond as he rose gingerly to his feet. The cave was small, but there was enough room for him to stand and stretch. Thoughts came back to him unevenly as his body became more and more alive after the long sleep. He felt hungry, but okay, sore, but that was nothing unusual. He thanked the Nega-Bands that he didn’t have any broken bones.
He went through a stretching routine as he thought about his current situation. Grennan, a member of the crew of the Supreme Unintelligence, had told him he could find answers about the unauthorized Avengers team that had popped up and been either taken prisoner or killed by Thanos’ troops.
"I had a dream while I was sleeping," Cap started, and stopped. Little was known about the Ronin, somewhat surprising given how long they’d been around. Steve knew they were an intergalactic police force, of a sort. They journeyed through the Everything, helping those that needed help and had no other means of saving themselves. It was rumored they had inspired the ancient Samurai on Earth, but that was, as far as he knew, just a rumor. One of the things that had filtered down about them, however, at least as a rumor, was that they shared a mind-link.
"A dream is not uncommon for a being of Earth," the Ronin answered.
"A friend of mine, Grennan, had told me I could come here and learn the answers to a question I had," Steve continued.
"Come," the Ronin said, standing up. "We have a long trip to make."
"Where are we going?" Steve asked, not pressing for an answer. Yet.
"The Elders have requested your presence. They would be honored if the Cosmic Protector would grant them a meeting."
Without waiting for a response, the Ronin turned and left.
LATER
"Is your name Alana?" Captain America asked as they walked through a grass field, under a warm sky. The grass came up to their waists and swayed gently in a warm breeze, reminding Steve of Vietnam.
"No," the Ronin answered without turning. She kept a quick, if easy, pace that was constantly a step or two ahead of him and preferred, it seemed to Cap, to walk in silence. She had a soft face and light brown skin and stood, he guessed, five-five or five-six. Her long, braided pony-tail bounced easily down her back. Given her attire, mannerisms and features, he was tempted to ask if there was any truth to the rumor about the Ronin's influence on the Earthly samurai, but there were more pressing matters.
"I was told by a friend that there would be a woman here named Alana that could tell me the answer I seek," he kept on.
"Does it have to do with your dream you mentioned?" the Ronin asked.
"Yes, actually, it does," Cap answered, curious.
"Then you have your answer," the Ronin said simply.
"But that was a dream," Cap protested, quickening his pace to come alongside the Ronin.
"Your friend who told you of Alana must have met her in his travels. Perhaps she allowed him to take the Dreamwalk," she said without any further explanation.
Steve let her walk for several moments, hoping she'd continue, but she did not. "The Dreamwalk?"
The Ronin cast Captain America a sideways glance at that, making Steve wonder if he should feel honored or mortified that he'd actually gotten a reaction out of her. "You do not know of the Dreamwalk?"
"I do not," he answered honestly.
"You're not very smart for a Cosmic Protector, are you?" the Ronin answered, and kept on walking, her eyes straight ahead.
MIDGARD - CITY OF NEW YORK
"Who are these people?" Angelica asked the Spider as they stood on a crosswalk, overlooking a mass of dirtied people sitting on the warehouse floor below. From their vantage point forty feet up she could see the poor conditions these people lived in. Their clothes were rags, few had shoes and none looked like they had bathed anytime recently. The stench was almost overwhelming, even at this distance.
"These are the men, women and children who work the floor at Osborn Chemical, one of the many factories that keeps your mother - and you - very wealthy," the Spider said, looking down on the people. Sorrow tinged his voice, even through the distortion effect caused, Angelica figured, by the black-and-white costume he wore. Angelica had thought it was his natural voice the first time she heard it, but the more she talked to him, the more she realized that it changed in intensity and he could speak normal if he wanted to.
"I take no money from my mother," Angelica spat back, horrified at the sight below her. She had convinced the Spider to show her the true face of her mother, the Green Gobliness. "I know her through name and deed only," she continued. "Practically my whole life has been spent on Asgard, raised by Volstagg the Lion," she spoke proudly.
"So, what'd you do," the Spider asked, "run away and join the circus?"
"Hardly," Angelica replied.
MIDGARD - 2186 / FEBRUARY
Pain.
What she remembered most was the pain.
Angelica Osborn lived with her mother for the first five years of her life inside a luxurious penthouse apartment on the East side of New York. She was aware that her mom went to work for the day after she woke up, came home in time to tuck her into bed and was rarely ever there when she woke up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache.
Friends never came over to play, except when Nanny Annie snuck in one of the kids from downstairs in the morning. But that didn't happen more than once or twice a month.
"And how are we feeling this morning, Angel?" Nanny Annie asked in her trademarked sing-song voice.
"Good, Nanny Annie," Angelica smiled over her bowl of wheat cereal. "Can I watch toons this morning?"
"Not this morning, Angelica," Nanny Annie replied, bending her kind, elderly face down close to Angelica's. "But mommy might come home this morning. How's that sound?" She smiled.
Angelica frowned and let her spoon full of wheat chunks fall with a plop into her bowl, splashing milk out onto the table-top. "I don't wanna see mommy."
"Why not?" Nanny Annie asked, concerned. "Angelica, look at me. Look at me, Angelica. Come on now, girl," she continued stern, but friendly. "Did mommy hit you again, last night? After Nanny Annie left?"
Angelica turned to look out the window. A window, she knew, that could be opened by a remote control her mother kept on the glider she had hidden somewhere in their apartment. "I was bad last night," she said absently, but didn't elaborate.
"How bad?" Nanny Annie asked, knowing Angelica would never come out and tell her what she was punished for. Not if it was serious, at least.
"Real bad," Angelica said, her mind seemingly somewhere out over the city she was looking down on. "She made me watch those movies I hate."
"The Spider-Man movies?"
"Yeah," Angelica said. "All of them. Why does she make me watch them?" she asked, her head turning back to her Nanny. "I hate Spider-Man. I hate him! I hate him hate him hate him!" She started pounding her fists on the table, "HATE HIM!!! I HATE HIM!!! HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HATE HATE!!!"
Nanny Annie's face showed her concern as she reached to take Angelica's little hands in her own and calm the young girl, "Shhh, Angel, it's okay. I won't make you watch the movies. Shh, honey, come on, shhh, be a good girl."
Angelica kept screaming, "I HATE HIM!!! I HATE SPIDER-MAN!!! HE'S UGLY AND MEAN AND I WISH HE WERE DEAD AND DIDN'T HAVE ANY STUPID MOVIES!!!" She shook violently as she pounded away at the table top. She hit the bowl with one of her fists, sending the contents shooting over the table and floor.
Nanny Annie backed away in horror. She was failing in her task and she knew it.
It was time to enact the emergency plan.
It had to be. Shaking, she went to the computer on the kitchen counter and brought up the telephone program. She dialed the number she'd committed to memory.
It rang once.
Angelica continued to scream.
It rang twice.
Angelica continued to scream, loud enough that Nanny Annie could barely hear the ringing of the phone.
A bored female face came onto the screen, "Maria's Body Shoppe. This is Cally speaking, how may I help you?"
"I need to speak with Maria," Nanny Annie said hurriedly.
"There is no Maria here," Cally answered, looking bored with her job. "It's just a name."
Angelica continued to scream.
"I need to speak to Maria," Nanny Annie repeated, more forcefully, "now. This is Annie Fanny speaking and I need to see the chairman of your company at once!"
The secretary changed her tone immediately, "Oh, you’re a friend of Maria's. Why didn't you say so? I'll punch you through immediately, Ms. Fanny. Right to the chairman herself."
"I HATE STUPID SPIDER-MAN!!!"
"Yes, yes, honey, I know and I'm sorry about that," Nanny Annie shushed the child and glanced her way, but didn't leave her position in front of the monitor screen.
"What's the matter Annie?" came a calm voice from the monitor.
Annie turned to see the mask of the Black Panther, "Oh, Pantheress, thank heavens, I got you." On the outskirts of her thoughts, Annie registered that Angelica has suddenly stopped screaming.
"What is it, Annie?" the Chairman of the Avengers asked patiently.
"You've got to get here right away. I know no one wants to do this, but we can't wait any-ungck!!"
"Annie?" the Black Panther asked as Nanny Annie Fanny's head slumped over onto the screen. "Annie? Annie?"
Annie's head snapped up suddenly and the Pantheress could see that her throat was slit open. "She's dead you ignorant- my my my, what have we here? An Avenger."
A cold shudder ran through the Black Panther as the visage of the Green Gobliness came onto the screen, "Now, what is my nanny doing talking to the Chairman of the Avengers? That can't do at all."
"It's over, Gobliness," the Black Panther said coldly. "I'm coming."
MIDGARD - CITY OF NEW YORK
PRESENT - 2200 / NOVEMBER
"I remember that battle," the Spider interrupted. They'd moved out of the warehouse and onto the roof. "I didn't know what it was about, but I remember it."
"Were you Spider-Man then?" Angelica asked, saddened by the memories but with no tears left to cry about it.
"No," the Spider answered, memories flooding back. "My uncle was. Wore the red-and-blues, too, not this," he motioned to his outfit. "So the Panther took you away from your mother?"
"Yeah," Angelica answered, feeling the cold night air bite into her skin. "Officially, it was a kidnapping. See, my mom did … did hit me, once in a while, but never very often. She delighted in torturing me other ways, but to an outsider, like Social Services, I wasn't anything but an unhappy five year old. It's hard to see brain-washing unless you can see it being done, or if you can see the changes it made, but to someone coming in …
"My mom filed charges, but everything was kept out of the press. I know, you'd think the press would have been all over a kidnapping of a child from one of the city's biggest businesswomen, especially when the kidnapper was the Avengers, but, well, as you can imagine, my mother has ways to get what she wants and I'm sure, though I don't know for certain, the Avengers put pressure on everyone to let it drop."
"Wow," the Spider shook his head, his voice coming close to what Angelica imagined his normal voice must sound like, "I had no idea. So you grew up in Avengers Mansion, huh?"
"No," Angelica shook her head. "The Avengers took me immediately to Asgard," Angelica continued. "God, I was scared. Ripped away from my mom and sent to live in a strange place … you've gotta remember, I was five. I knew my mom dressed up in a costume and flew out the side window of our home, but I had no idea that was any different from what any other kid had to deal with. I thought it was perfectly normal.
"I guess that's why she didn't like me playing around with other kids," Angelica shrugged. "But in time, I came to see things for what they were. The Avengers saved me. Asgard raised me. This," she motioned towards the lights of the city in the distance, "is foreign to me."
They stood together in silence for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the machines inside the power plants adjoining the warehouse.
"Why do you wear the black outfit?" Angelica asked, her arms held tight around herself, motioning with her head to the costume the Spider wore. "And why do you call yourself the Spider?"
"Dark days," the Spider answered somberly, "and I guess it's a way to make my own identity." He shook his head, looking sad, Angelica thought. "So many of the heroes around are following the footsteps of their ancestors. The way kids use to be farmers or coal miners or join the Navy because their dad or mom did, we take on the identity and costumes of our parents. We all try to find some way to stand out. We call ourselves Spider-Girl or Spider-Woman or Spider-Boy and we change the costume around a little, but we're still identifiable. We're still following in the steps. We're more like new players on a baseball team that change the uniform more than anything else."
He stopped, but Angelica didn’t say anything. It was clear the Spider had more to say, and she'd let him tell it in his own way and in his own time.
"As for not calling myself Spider-Man," he continued after the pause, "I just don't think it would be right of me to disgrace my ancestors - both in name, blood and through the Spider-Man legacy - by taking on that name."
"Why?" Angelica asked. "Because you're not wearing the red-and-blue costume?"
The Spider chuckled at that, "Yeah, but not in the way you think."
"I don't understand."
"Few would," the Spider said as he held out his hands in front of him. "Watch," he ordered as the costume oozed back off of his fingers and up his wrist, slithering back to the elbow.
"You've got a fancy costume?" Angelica asked.
"Something like that," the Spider answered, waiting until Angelica looked at him in the eye. He smiled under his mask and then peeled his lips back to reveal a row of sharp teeth. Angelica took a step back in disgust when the Spider quickly opened his mouth wide. From out of his mouth a large, thin, forked tongue shot out and licked quickly at Angelica's face.
"Oh …" she breathed hard. "You're …"
"Venom," the Spider answered somberly, withdrawing the tongue and closing his mouth so the mouth area of his mask once again looked like it was a solid black one-piece mask. "These are dark days, Angelica and my inherited powers are weak. My sisters were much stronger. It should have been they who took on the mantle, who became Spider-Man, but …" his head turned away. "We all make deals with devils. This is mine."
ONDUR'RA
"The Dreamwalk is a journey through the minds of the Ronin, Cosmic Protector," one of the Tribal Elders said to Captain America as they sat huddled around a fire. He'd walked all day with the female Ronin, who spoke even less than Skrull 4, and come here, to a meeting place to sit with the Tribal Elders.
"I have heard," he spoke over the flames to the twenty-two elders, "that the Ronin share a mind-link with each other."
"It is not a mind-link," another Elder responded calmly, "but a pool of knowledge and experience that we may all draw on."
"All of the experiences of the Ronin are there for the other Ronin, and anyone we allow to take the Dreamwalk, to experience."
"So if a Ronin engages in conflict on Asgard, the rest of the Ronin would experience it, if they chose?"
"Yes and no," yet another Elder added. "We can not see through the eyes as the event is taking place. It is not a telepathic link. A Ronin meditates at the end of each day on the events of that have transpired since his last meditation. Through that meditation, information is added to the Dream Lake. Through meditation, one may seeks answers in the knowledge waters of the Lake - such as discovering what happened to a group of kids who took on the name Avengers and died through the machinations of Thanos."
"Then my dream …"
"Yes," an Elder answered, though at this point it seemed to Cap that they were all speaking with just once voice. "What you dreamt, whatever it was, is true. A Ronin can not add lies to the Dreamwalk although there is truth to the statement that we all see the world differently because we all see it through our own eyes."
"Is it possible to see others when taking a Dreamwalk?" Captain America asked, remembering that he'd seen Angelica Osborn there.
"Yes, but it is not common. The Dream Lake is large."
Captain America listened to the fire crackle and the wooden embers snap in the clear night sky. "It is beautiful here."
"It is," an Elder answered. "As untouched by technology and war as we can make it, Cosmic Protector, though with such a large planet, some technology must be utilized."
"It's amazing that such a large planet can be untouched by the Eternal War," Cap mused. "Especially one containing the homeworld of the legendary Ronin."
"We are many in number, Protector. Ronin throughout the Everything seek to protect any from coming this way. Coordinates are lost or miscalculated, generals formulating plans of attack end up missing, other conflicts arise. We do what we can to keep our haven, though with Thanos destroying more and more of the Everything, it is becoming more difficult to maintain our secrecy."
"Then join with us in our war against Thanos," Captain America offered.
"We already are part of a larger war, Protector."
"Larger than Thanos?" Cap asked, not liking riddles and allusions.
"Yes."
Steve didn't know what exactly to make of that. "We've been fighting Thanos and the Eternal War for almost 200 years now," he replied skeptically. "He's destroying the foundations of the Multiverse. He-"
"Yes, 'he' is doing this and 'he' is doing that," an Elder replied in the same easy voice that they all replied to everything, it seemed. "And it is important that you fight the 'he' that is doing all of this because if you fail, then our war does not matter."
"I don't understand," Steve shook his head. "You're talking abstractions."
"Yes, we are."
"But how can you be fighting something larger than Thanos?"
"It is not larger in terms of threat, Protector," and Elder answered, "but in size. You are fighting one snake with a poisonous bite. We are fighting one-thousand flies that simply annoy with their stings. Sometimes our paths will cross. Sometimes the Ronin will act against Thanos. Sometimes you will kill a fly."
Steve didn't like this and stood up angrily, "Was this the point of this meeting? To confuse me? To anger me?"
"No, Cosmic Protector. We had no intention of meeting with you until Fate brought you to our homeworld. We offer enlightenment. We offer you our home to rest. We show you that you have allies working alongside you, though they do not follow you. We are aware of your past, Steve Rogers. Think back to your early days on Earth. Think of how many times you saved the world with the Avengers. Think of how many times the world was saved by the X-Men or the Fantastic Four or the Defenders. Which threat was bigger? In the end, if any of you had failed, the world would be thrown into chaos."
"If any had failed, the others would step in to pick them up."
"Yes, they would. Which is the situation we find ourselves in, Protector. If you are failing, we shall step in to offer assistance, because if you fail, the Everything will end."
"And if you fail?"
"One can never tell with abstractions, Protector. That's why they are called what they are."
LATER
"For one who seeks allies, Protector, you spend a lot of time alone."
Steve turned to see the female Ronin that he had journeyed with come through an opening in a cluster of trees, leaving a feast in the background. "I need to think."
"Yes, you think quite a bit, don't you?" she continued calmly. "You wrap yourself around thoughts until you can conquer them, control them, understand them. You do not like to deal with concepts and abstractions."
"No, I don't."
"That is because you are a warrior, Protector. You want to fight enemies that are tangible, that can be beaten with your fists and courage."
"You know an awful lot about me, Ronin," Cap remarked, turning, "and I don't even know your name."
"I am Ronin. That is the only name you need," she answered and saw Cap roll his eyes as he turned. "My birth name, if it interests you, is Anji."
Steve turned to look at her, "Well, how do you do, Anji?"
"I am well."
"That makes one of us."
"The weight of the Everything was not meant for one man, Protector," Anji said softly, but Captain America gave no sign that he heard her.
END ONDUR'RA
We all make deals with devils.
-- MBQ …7.July.2000
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