Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #3

1000 years later:
900 years after Storm cast her spell and moved Orbis Stellaris’ Worldfarm (and with it Sinister’s Moira lab) far away to the edge of the galaxy, to what is now called the Storm System. Its lone ruler, a wizened Jon Ironfire, a mutated dog at his side, looks outside and wonders how many still know what the Storm System means. What Arakko once meant, what it’s come to mean again: A land under siege.

The Queen in Red is coming to break them and they are not ready. After the Diamand Jubilee disaster, they are a shadow of their former strength. Yet, if they fall, all that is falls with them, he muses. They need hope… a symbol… Someone once asked him his deepest regret: He said he should have trusted the Storm. Can he trust her now? he asks Khora of the Burning Heart, his only contemporary left. She tells him that is not the question. It’s not her he has to worry about trusting. He agrees.

They walk past a gallery of former Great Ring members. Ironfire laments X-Man’s death at the hand of the Orphan-Madrox. They could have used his counsel. Khora impatiently retorts he would tell him the same thing: Ironfire is putting his faith in the devil himself, the father of all Sinisters, to give him back a northstar he has long learned to navigate without. It’s folly! she continues, and it goes against their oldest ways. Even out here, at the edge of everything, they are of Arakko. They are not afraid of a life that ends! Maybe they should have been, Ironfire insists, when it was her life that ended. Anyway, they are committed now.

They enter large hall. Or they should be! Mr. Sinister puns, disappointed that no one reacts. He is there with four further mutants.

All right then, Jon Ironfire, regent of Arakko, Mr. Sinister announces with a grin. Shall they see what his new Five can do?

Lightyears away but closing in fast is the fleet of the Red Diamond Empire, led by its queen Emma Frost. Having spied Arakko, her psychic clone brains send out missiles.

Unaware of that, in the Storm System the new Five begin their ritual of resurrection. Sinister offers a single vial of Hope Summers’s blood to ensure true resurrection. He injects it into Old Oda’s egg. Caana the Commander makes the egg viable. Bloodroot the Boneshaper forms the body and Genas Mindflayer tears memories from the king himself of his goddess. Khora bathes them all in her heart’s fire creating union… and, surrounded by clouds and lighting, Ororo rises reborn.

Ironfire whispers her name in reverence while Sinister grins darkly.

The new Storm asks her name. Is that who she is? Kneeling before her, Ironfire explains it was her name in her last life. She likes the name and tells them it is good to meet all of them.

Ironfire reluctantly thanks Sinister, who quips he kept that DNA around for a rainy day or for a day he needed some rain. He reminds him that she has the knowledge Ironfire supplied but no memories. The Storm he knew is dead. But if he is feeling that grateful, they could discuss…

He is interrupted by an alert. Enemy of Arakko sighted. Ironfire orders the Brotherhood to their arms.

It is Emma Frost, her attack spearheaded by several cloned, four-level chimeras: High Summers, Hot Claw and Sage Advisor who savage their foes.

The Red Queen criticizes that she wanted this wrapped up by the time Beast arrives with the rest of the fleet. They are running behind. She decides to take matters into her own hands. Emma enters a red bath and orders her servants to die for her. She can take it from here. As she complains about Beast being unable to forge a more desirable chassis, she muses, there is a certain beauty in coopting an old nightmare, isn’t there? She connects to the overbody, a giant shell she is steering via the red synaptic fluid, giant whip in hand, as she turns against the enemy: “hello darlings” she announces. Auntie Emma’s come to punish them!

Ororo protect them! the forces on the Storm System mutter as they see her. She heard that! Emma chides telepathically. They’ve broken her first commandment: Praying to another goddess. The giant form strikes with her whip, destroying part of the Storm System.

Inside, Ironfire warns that the battle is endangering the integrity of the center-sun. Ororo pleads, they must reach the surface. This is too enclosed. She can hear the pain of the sky and stars…

Sinister interjects, asking wouldn’t it be better to head to the center of their center-sun? If there were an impregnable vault they were guarding… Ironfire cuts him off. They owe him, but the vault at the heart of Arakko is not to be touched. Death’s door will never be opened! None of them have ever been inside, though their psychics dream of bones and sulfurous incense. Calling him a metal-veined hippy, Sinister mutters that he has other friends, referring to the Doombot who now consists only of his upper half. Sinister ask where Moira is. The Doombot replies that Doom knows all the arts, all the sciences… “I don’t know” would have been sufficient, Sinister replies and steals his arm, which contains a gun.

He joins the others who come to witness how Emma’s chimeras (among them a Havok-Cyclops-chimera) are attacking them. Sinister mutters Emma finally got herself a body that fits her ego. Ororo tells Ironfire she has his memories of what she can do, but she doesn’t know how to do it. He replies, when all hope died, she fought on. That’s who she is. Trust her instincts! Trust the Storm!

Wielding lightning against the chimeras, she replies that experience would be better. Khora offers her power to support Ororo and tells her there is a trick they’ve done before. She joins her powers with Ororo’s. But now she is drained while the Brotherhood are battling the chimeras. Caana tries to make the whole sun her weapon but she and Gebas are killed by the chimeras. Angrily, Khora marshals the rest of her energy to fight by hand but then she and Bloodroot are killed by one of the Cyclops chimeras.

Emma faces the newborn Ororo not taking her seriously without her experience. She hasn’t learned to fight yet, Emma mocks, never mind how to win. She hasn’t learned yet to lose, Ororo replies calmly. She has not learned limits or boundaries or fear. All she knows is the play of the living sky, the wind, the seasons… the lightning. She calls the lightning home, shattering the form of the diamond queen.

Their enemies collapse, their psychic strings cut and a lethally injured Ororo falls to the ground. She didn’t block the radiation, she realizes. Maybe next time, she mutters in Ironfire’s arms and asks if Arakko will live. Ironfire believes reinforcements will come, Beast most likely, but she has given them a chance. The universe has a chance now. That’s good, she mutters, to live is good, but she isn’t afraid of a life that… She dies before she can say “ends.” Ironfire grieves, his back turned to Sinister. With a smirk, Sinister aims his gun at Jon’s head. He isn’t afraid either, he grins and fires…