Subject: [OTL]: HellsX 25 Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 04:56:03 -0700 (PDT) From: D Benway HellsX [25:45] Janet Van Dyne Produced by Benway. See notes for disclaimers. _______________________________________________________________________________ I'm not what I once was. I'm so much better, now that I've found the Lord. I had what most would consider to be a good life. Daddy owned the largest silver mines in the country, and with all the demand for bullets, he had more money than he knew what to do with. He certainly tried to do a great many things, though. They said he slept with half of Hollywood. He took me to the Playboy Mansion when I was eleven. I was supposed to stay in the car, but I didn't and man with a tan and a nice smile and a moustache and a hairy back made me into a woman. I tried to tell Daddy, but he didn't want to know. He died of a heart attack while in a hot tub with Tom Cruise a year later. They put all the money in trust. Mummy had a breakdown and never got better. I was sent to a very good finishing school in Switzerland, where I found heroin and started growing wings. I'm really not sure which came first, I can remember so little of that time. I was living in a squat by Zurich Hauptbanhof when someone found me and told me that Mummy had died and left me everything. I had no idea that I'd even turned eighteen. They tried to fix me. They even cut the wings off without my asking, but they grew back. They told me I was a mutant, but I didn't care, because I could get smack any time I wanted it. They put me into therapy, but I knew that Mummy and Daddy had been just as fucked up as I was already. They told me I wouldn't live to see 25, but I didn't care. One night they picked me up on 42nd St and took me to the Tombs. They didn't put me in a cell, instead they put me in a hospital room and made me go cold turkey. They kept giving me Bibles, but I profaned them. They put me in a special straightjacket that kept my wings free, and Steve came to see me. He gave me a new Bible and told me about the Lord. He spent three days and three nights with me, showing me how I'd done wrong, and how Jesus could forgive. On the last night, with my hands clasped in his, we prayed to Jesus and I was saved. When I took Jesus into my heart, I was filled with joy until I saw that the wings were still there. I doubted, but only for a moment. Steve explained to me how the wings were a gift from God, and how they were as natural and as beautiful as the wings on a dragonfly. I told him how ugly a dragonfly was, but he told me all about them, how they ate the mosquitoes back where he lived down south, and how they made things better for everyone as part of God's plan. When I asked him where my wings fit into God's plan, he told me. I went to Area 51 as a volunteer. Nothing happened there that was worse than when I was on smack, but some things almost were. They did something to me, made me able to fire this weird kind of lightning from my hands, and made me able to shrink. When I shrink, I can fly. Even though I'd had Jesus in my heart the whole time I was there, I didn't know true joy until I could fly up into the air, a thousand feet above Roswell, and watch the sun setting over the mountains. When they were all done with me, Frank came to take me back to Washington. He told me all about Steve's plans for expanding the Sentinels, and for creating a new elite force, the Avengers. He said that Steve wasn't sure I should join, but that he would sponsor me and win Steve over. In Washington, I got to meet Dr. Banner and Iron Man and see Frank in training. When Iron Man took off his mask, I knew it was a test, because I recognized him back from the Playboy Mansion. Still, with Jesus beside me, I forgave him and said nothing of it. I'm pretty sure he had no memory of it anyway. [Next: Angels Walk Among Us]