Issue Number Three
Written by Barry Reese
"Ghosts and Devils"
Part Three
Cast of Characters:

Kelsey Leigh shivered as the cyborgs locked her into place, binding her to the device Brainiac called the Dimension Breaker. "Why do I have to be restrained like this?"

"The process could be painful for you," Brainiac admitted. "It is essential that you not move during the powering of the machine."

The Spirit of Vengeance known as Ghost Rider had already been locked into place and he regarded Brainiac with open suspicion. "What guarantee do we have that your machine won't just kill us, leaving you to escape to your own universe?"

"You have none," Brainiac replied. "But it would be a wasteful expenditure of energy to slay you when there is no certainty that this machine will take me home. My calculations suggest that we will arrive in my home universe just scant hours after I left... but if I am wrong, I will certainly need your aid to rectify the situation."

"Hearing you talk like that warms my spirit," Kelsey deadpanned. I should have waited until I knew more about him before agreeing to this. Noble was right... for all I know, Brainiac could be his world's version of Doctor Doom. Could certainly explain his bedside manner.

Brainiac turned away from them, nodding once at his cyborg helpers. They were Meat, of course, and so could only experience a small portion of his binary brilliance, but he had grown to admire his little workers. They pushed themselves to their limit again and again, frequently working so hard that their bodies simply began to break down. "Begin the process."

Ghost Rider looked over at Kelsey, the hellfires dancing about his skull. "I am doing this for Daniel... so that he might escape the nightmare of this universe. But why are you risking so much?"

Captain Avalon thought about what she had left behind on her own Earth... and realized there wasn't very much. Her children and husband were gone and the friendships she'd started to forge in the Knights of Avalon were now over a year old. They'd probably forgotten all about her by now. "Noble... I'm not certain. I guess I don't have anything better to do."

"I doubt that. I can sense great power in you... perhaps you merely need to find your proper place in this life."

"You mean I might have a greater destiny?"

"Yes."

Kelsey laughed and it was a cold, humorless thing. "Noble... that's a dear, sweet thing to say. But I'm not a woman of destiny. I'm a failure, something created to serve as an instrument of deception... nothing else. I once fancied myself Captain Britain, if you can believe that. But it was a lie... just like every other damned thing in my life. All I'm good for now is killing and maiming."

"Your self-loathing will gain you nothing," the Ghost Rider replied. He was about to continue, relating something from his own existence, when pain suddenly flared through every inch of his frame. He screamed and heard his own voice joined by Kelsey's, echoing his own agony. Deep within his soul, in that small compartment that served as his connection to the mortal named Dan Ketch, he felt a twitch of soul-searing discomfort. Even in the Void, Dan felt the waves of energy coursing through the Ghost Rider.

Kelsey Leigh felt like she was dying and being reborn with every breath. A myriad of realities flitted through her mind's eye, offering tantalizing -- and sometimes terrifying glimpses of worlds that might have been. She saw herself seated upon the throne of Otherworld, the beloved commander of the Pendragons. In another vision she was lying in bed with her husband, looking quite old and happy. She also witnessed she and a beautiful man locked in a passionate embrace... and though he bore little resemblance to the skull-faced hero at her side now, Kelsey knew that the man was somehow Noble Kale. The rest of the images moved by too quickly for her to understand... all save one, that seemed to linger in her mind for long afterwards:

Captain Avalon stood with Ghost Rider at her side. They were joined by yet another hero, one whom she had seen on the telly but never actually met: the so-called British "Iron Man" who had fought alongside the Hulk and the Pendragons. The three of them were locked in a verbal argument with a man she didn't recognize, but whose name was somehow implanted into her head... Pen Dragon. Kelsey saw herself draw the Sword of Might and stab at Pen, opening a nasty wound on his chest....

And then all was black.

"And why should I help you?" the aged man asked, softly rocking back and forth.

"Because it'd be the right thing to do?" Jenny responded, though she sounded uncertain as she said the words.

"The. Right. Thing. To. Do." The man laughed aloud, making the spectral little girl in front of him jump in alarm. "I know what you are... and yet you still seek to play upon my sense of right and wrong? Astonishing."

Jenny made her pouty face, the one that always worked on her mom. "What I am? I'm a little girl!"

The old man stared at her, his eyes wide. "You don't know, do you? You and your brother...."

Jenny took a step forward. Most of the magic men are dead. Are you going to help us or not?"

Baron Mordo rose to his feet, smoothing down the green robes that he wore. He was well aware of the horrors that were being inflicted upon his world and that was why he'd drawn his forces back here, to the highest mountains of Tibet. Here he believed himself safe from the zombie plague. But if this... thing... could find him, so could anyone else. He wondered if Stephen Strange had fallen prey to the disease yet... he suddenly had a vivid image of Strange bursting into the temple where Mordo had hidden himself and his followers, eager to feast on his old enemy's brains. "Yes," Mordo said with conviction. "I will aid you."

The skull shaped ship emerged through a horrible rip in space, a dagger strike straight into the heart of the Bleed.

Brainiac moved quickly, his metal form gliding through his vessel. "Reports," he barked, sending his cybernetic underlings into a frenzy of action. They read off various vibrational patterns, along with indicators of galactic age, speed of expansion and other esoteric data that made Kelsey's head ache.

Captain Avalon felt herself lowered to the floor and she blinked to try to bring the world back into focus. The images she had seen still haunted her mind, but they were fading back into her subconscious, replaced by the fear/anticipation of knowing the Dimension Breaker had worked. "Where are we?" she asked Brainiac, though the towering robot was seemingly ignoring her. Kelsey frowned when she realized that no answer was forthcoming, so she turned her attention to Ghost Rider... and nearly lost her balance in shock.

Gone was the flame-headed Spirit of Vengeance, leaving only the very human -- and haggard -- form of Danny Ketch. The young man wore a leather jacket over an oil-streaked t-shirt and jeans. He looked just as confused as Kelsey, but also very angry. "Damnit, Noble! I can't believe you did this to me!"

Kelsey pushed away the cyborgs were supporting her. "Danny?"

"Yeah, that's me," he answered, taking a deep breath. "We should have stayed back there. Tried to help...! My mom and girlfriend are still there!"

"I'm sorry." Kelsey reached out and touched his arm, feeling suddenly sympathetic for him. He was so young and obviously frightened. He awoke latent maternal instincts within her. "But he did what he thought was best to protect you."

Danny stared hard into her eyes, obviously weighing any number of angry responses. In the end, though, he seemed to accept that there was some truth in her words. "I could have saved them."

"Sometimes there's nothing you can do," she answered, and as she spoke she thought of her husband and children, dead all these years. She'd never properly mourned them, thanks to Roma and her lies.

"Something is wrong," Brainiac hissed, his words bringing both Danny and Kelsey out of their respective reveries.

Captain Avalon moved to stand beside her mysterious benefactor, her eyes fixated on the same viewscreen that Brainiac was watching. It was cycling through various recent newscasts, focusing mainly on the superhuman community. There was a group called the Avengers calling some sort of press conference... but they were like no grouping of Avengers that Kelsey could ever remember: Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Luke Cage and a few others that she either couldn't place or who weren't in a recognizable costume. "I'll say," Kelsey murmured. "Any Avengers team that'd let a menace like Spider-Man on the squad isn't like the group from my world...."

"This was supposed to be my universe," Brainiac stated. "All the calculations pointed to that conclusion." He glanced over at Kelsey and Danny. "Neither of you know this place?"

"It looks a lot like my Earth," Kelsey answered. "But I don't see any signs of the Martian invasion." She leaned forward and tapped a few keys, altering the images being shown. "And there's no mention of the Pendragons." Kelsey suddenly straightened, gasping. When she'd turned the viewer on London, she'd spotted herself. She was battling Captain Britain and a few other heroes that she recognized... "Bollocks," she whispered.

Brainiac ignored her emotional response. This was nothing more than another stopping place between worlds, another false hope. "We must try again," he began to say, but his words were lost in the sudden blaring of alarms.

"What's happening?" Danny asked. He felt Noble within him, urging him to change... but he held it off, not sure he trusted Ghost Rider at this point. Even before they'd abandoned Danny's loved ones, Noble had begun to change. He'd killed criminals, something he'd never done before.

"We appear to be experiencing dimensional flux."

"Meaning what?"

Brainiac studied the computer readouts before turning about to face Captain Avalon. "I now realize that some exterior force present in the multiverse created havoc with the Dimensional Breaker's operation. This interference caused us to go awry and drop of vibrational phase too early."

"And now it's back--?" Kelsey wondered aloud.

"Yes," a feminine voice replied. A woman dressed in some sort of odd green colored armor stepped out from a circlet of swirling energy. Her face was hidden behind a metallic mask but something in her voice seemed familiar to Kelsey. "You three have led me on quite a merry chase."

Brainiac felt his internal sensors reeling from the energies released by this stranger. He started to strike out at this unfamiliar Meat when his entire body seized up and he was frozen in place.

Captain Avalon moved to stand before the blue-skinned visitor, brandishing the Sword of Might before her. She hadn't noticed that Brainiac and the cyborgs were standing stock-still, but she did hear Danny mutter to himself as he transformed into the Ghost Rider. "Identify yourself."

The woman reached up to remove her face mask. "Sorry. I forgot you wouldn't recognize me in this outfit. It certainly helps when you're traveling through multiple planes of existence, though. Some of them are brutal."

"Do I know you?" Kelsey inquired, lowering her weapon. When she saw the beautiful, green-haired woman come into view, she immediately placed her. "Polaris!"

Lorna Dane nodded, smiling. "I'm from your universe, don't worry. I've been looking everywhere for you."

"How? You control magnetism...."

"Yes... amongst other things, these days. A lot has changed since you were lost," she continued, sounding somewhat breathless with excitement. Kelsey wasn't sure to make of it all, since the Lorna Dane she'd heard about was a bit of a morose person.  The woman in front of her now, however, looked as happy as anyone could be. "The Barrier's down. Betsy Braddock sits on the throne of Otherworld. I've got this armor that once belonged to Lady Kang -- that's how I was able to track you down. Beyond that, I'm not even sure where to start...."

Kelsey felt herself growing annoyed at the happy expression on Lorna's face. "Start with why you're looking for me."

"Oh. That." Polaris let her smile slip slightly. "You're not going to like this, but it's for the best. Really."

"There's something wrong," Ghost Rider whispered.

Captain Avalon turned to face him. "What do you mean?"

Polaris glanced about. "I feel it, too." Lorna suddenly yawned, followed in quick succession by Kelsey. "I think we're being... put to... sleep... somehow."

Ghost Rider caught Kelsey as she fell, but was too far away to do anything for Lorna. She hit the floor hard, her skull cracking against the tile.

Noble Kale seethed but knew for the moment there was nothing he could do. Whatever was effecting the others seemed to have silenced Brainiac as well... but had left the Spirit of Vengeance free. He set Kelsey down gently and rose, waiting for the revelation of whatever dire threat would come next.

He did not have to wait long. The skull ship was towed to Earth by a powerful force, brought deep to a hidden location in the Mojave desert. It was a place whose existence was known only to a few very powerful people... people whose actions dictated the path of modern human history.

One of the walls blew inwards, destroyed by a blow of tremendous strength. Through the resultant smoke, several familiar beings entered. They seemed just as shocked to see Ghost Rider as he was to see them.

"Mr. Fantastic? Namor?" Noble asked. There were several more besides, such as Iron Man and Dr. Strange. "What is the meaning of this?"

The Sub-Mariner pointed an accusing finger at Noble. "Silence! It is we who will ask the questions here!"

"Reign it in, Namor," Iron Man warned. "That you in there, Blaze?"

"I am not John Blaze."

"Whoever you are," Iron Man continued. "You're a guest of our... little association. I hope you don't mind answering a few questions for us."

"And what sort of association is this?" Noble asked as the Inhuman known as Black Bolt studied Brainiac's inert form.

"It sounds a bit pretentious," Iron Man answered. "But we call ourselves the Illuminati... and we're afraid that your presence here might just mean the end of our world."

TO BE CONCLUDED

Next Issue: "Ghosts and Devils" concludes as Captain Avalon, Ghost Rider and Polaris find themselves captured by the Illuminati... and Baron Mordo is in hot pursuit! Everything is explained as our first storyline comes to an end!

Author's Notes

Okay, so we go from world of Marvel Zombies to Earth-616, just prior to the Civil War. Next issue will see a number of surprising revelations and make it clear why I've chosen to launch this series in such an odd fashion. Bringing Lorna into the series will allow me to play off some things that happened at the end of my Pendragons run. Plus, I like her.

Enjoy,

Barry