X-O Manowar
From Valiant Entertainment - The Book Of The Geomancer
| |
| X-O Manowar | |
|---|---|
| Attribution | |
| Character(s) | |
| Secondary Cast | |
| Foe (s) |
|
| Locations | |
| Events Seen | |
In 408 AD, Aric Dacia, a 5th Century Visigoth, comes across the Spider Aliens, a race of blood-thirsty extraterrestrial arachnoids who slave him aboard their starship. Years later, the Map Giver, a fellow prisoner, carves a map into Aric’s hand that leads him to the Spider Aliens’ ultimate weapon – the X-O Manowar. Aric fights his way to the sentient armor and escapes with it back to Earth, only to find that 1,600 years have passed since his abduction. Now, Aric, the most primitive man on the planet, wields the most technologically advanced weapon in existence! As the Spider Aliens begin their invasion of Earth, Aric struggles to adapt to the modern world and prepares for the battle where he can finally seek vengeance against his inhuman captors!
Birth
Born as a barbarian, raised as an animal, and trained as a killer, Aric Dacia, a 5th Century Visigoth lost in the modern age, defends the Earth from the blood-thirsty Spider Aliens with the deadliest weapon of mass destruction ever created, the X-O Manowar!
Retribution Prologue
Ten thousand years ago on the Spider Alien homeworld, a planet beyond the boundaries of the Milky Way Galaxy, two First-Among-Equals, the aliens' spokebeings, led their worshipers to an immense forest on the surface of the planet to wait for a large silicon-based plant to give birth to the golden Manowar seeds. As its limbs moved, a first pointed excitingly up to the tree and alerted his companions that the time had come. While the firsts performed a ritual for an event they waited a millennia for, the worshippers worked in unison to form a small cradle device that would serve as a receptacle for the seeds using high-tech equipment and the bodily secretions from their hands and mouths. As the tree continued to move, its limbs wrapped around each other while the foliage fell by the side, the worshippers placed their cradle down near the base of the tree just as a small fissure opened and released two small pods. As the firsts led the others away in a single file with their boon and they boarded a hovercraft that flew away from the garden, the tree withered and died.
While the hovercraft descended on a landing platform, two High Priests stood nearby to receive the incoming party, and as the worshippers filed passed them with the pods, they performed a ritual. Making their way through the labyrinthine temple to the lower levels, the priests came upon a receptacle by a doorway and secreted a fluid from his fingers that opened the entrance. While the priests and worshippers made their way though the hangar deck, other arachnoids hurried to get two alien ships prepared for take-off.
Inside the red room in one of the ships, a priest stood vigil while the other attached small metallic devices on a pod on the chest of a bipedal arachnoid. As the priests watched in amazement while the seed metamorphosed and increased in size, tendrils protruded from its center and groped about the room and integrated with different sections and devices, including the biped. As the pod took the shape of the upper body and helmet of Manowar Class armor and continued to make adjustments while it grew in size, it wrapped around the biped and their consciousness joined together. While the priests observed as the armor continued its integration and performed a ritual, their vessel assumed a standard orbit over the planet Earth.
On August 13th 399 AD in a region of Southern Europe in the providence of Dacia inhabited by Visigoths, Rolf Dacia showed off a new sword to his young son, Aric Dacia, who expressed his belief that its magnificence was the reason others in the village looked up to his father. As Rolf told Aric that others preferred to steal their weapons from the Roman pigs while he learned the art of sword-making so their people would not be reliant on stolen plunder, he held the blade in his hands and said that he made it for his uncle Alaric, the King of the Visigoths. When Rolf promised him that when he reached manhood he would make a blade for him, Aric told him that he would be a great warrior and make him proud. Suddenly, a distant cry for help from Inga Dacia, Rolf’s wife and Aric’s mother, roused their attention.
As Aric and Rolf came out of the blacksmith tent, they witnessed as legions of Roman Centurions wantonly slaughtered their brethren. Hurrying home, Aric and Dacia ran inside just as Marcus, a Roman Centurion, and his cohort were raping Inga. When Rolf ordered the Centurions to let his wife go, Marcus slid Inga’s throat with his sword to Aric’s dismay. Enraged, Rolf ripped Marcus’ cohort apart and urged Aric to flee to the forest, but the young Visigoth refused to leave his father and witnessed as Marcus beheaded him. Filled with rage, Aric skewered Marcus with his father’s blade, and as his body fell, he swore to kill all Roman pigs.
Nine years later in the village of Rieti in Northern Italy Aric and his best friend, Gafti, recklessly and mockingly beheaded a pair of Roman Centurions until Aric’s uncle, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, ordered them to dispatch the Romans. As Alaric reminded Aric that they were not there for him to exact his revenge, he ordered him and Gafti to take what they needed and put the rest to the torch as was the Goth way. Later, as they galloped to the edge of the city on horseback and Gafti laughed that Alaric did not approve of his blood oath, Aric told him that, while Alaric felt it clouded his judgment, the Holy Roman Empire owed him a debt of blood that he would collect as was the Goth way.
As they came upon a Roman Temple, Gafti reminded Aric that his uncle wanted provisions and weapons, not gold, but then Aric joked that they could barter the gold for provisions and convinced Gafti to follow him. Inside the temple, Aric and Gafti kept to the shadows and witnessed as a Catholic Priest warned Mericus, a Roman Captain, that the Visigoth scourge was God’s wrath for his consent to have Deidre, a beautiful Irish disciple of the God Lugh that the priest believed spread her heathen beliefs like a plague, as a slave. Convinced by the priest’s words, Mericus proclaimed that Deidre had to die if they were to be cleansed of the Visigoth curse, but as he was about to kill her, Aric impaled him with his sword. After Aric slew the priest, he released Deidre from her bonds and took her with him because, even though she was a heathen and his uncle would disapprove, she was better looking than the women in his camp were.
That evening in the Visigoth village, Aric warned Deidre not to even think about escaping because she belonged to him and, to his surprise, she told him she would never leave because she owed him her life, and it was her people’s way to repay such a debt. When Deidre asked him how she could serve him, Aric took her in his arms and made love to her. Weeks later, Deidre told Aric that if they were to join in the eyes of Lugh the both had to drink from the same cup. As he drank from the chalice, Aric washed his hands of the Roman God and proclaimed that he would gladly serve Lugh, who brought Deidre to him.
Several months later while on night patrol, Aric and Gafti came upon a clearing in the forest that he believed was an imperial encampment within the Visigoth perimeter. As Aric rode over the ridge to take a look while Gafti and the others watched his back for treachery, he was appalled to see as the Spider Aliens devoured his people. Certain that they were demons from Hell in league with the Roman Emperor, Aric leapt through the foliage with sword in hand and split one of the aliens in half. When Aric lunged after one of the aliens, it shot him across the head with a blast from his ray gun and rendered him unconscious. After the alien dragged Aric inside its vessel in the belief that his spirit would serve them well in the slave pens, Gafti and the others witnessed in horror as the alien mothership vanished into space.
Seven years later, the Spider Aliens removed Aric from suspended animation to transfer him to a labor camp on asteroid LZ15, a refueling station. When Aric awoke and spat on the guard’s face, the alien disgorged a vomit from his mouth into Aric’s that tranquilized him for transport. Before he passed out, Aric vowed to kill all the Hard Skins, his name for his alien captors. Against his will, Aric worked for the aliens while they prepared their armada to invade the Earth, until, one day, he met the Map Giver, a prisoner who spoke his language that told him that he might be tough enough to fight his way to the aliens’ ultimate weapon. When the Giver asked him if he was brave enough to kill the aliens, Aric simply told him to show him the way.
Weeks later aboard a Spider Alien Transport Vessel in Earth orbit, the Map Giver told Aric that, after years in the aliens’ servitude, he had learned the layout of the mothership. While the Map Giver carved a map on Aric’s hand using a bone and warned him that the aliens kept their ultimate weapon in a heavily guarded room, and that when he found it he just had to pull the control ring, Aric assured him that he would not fail and many Hard Skins would die that day.
When a Spider Soldier came to take Aric away for a First Among Equals to sustain himself on his blood, at that moment outside the Earth’s atmosphere, Phil Seleski, the hero known as Solar, attacked the alien fleet and gave Aric the opportunity he needed to escape. Armed with an axe from one of his captors, Aric followed the giver’s directions to the Red Room, where he found a Manowar Class Armor with a ring sticking out of its chest plate. Though the aliens tried to stop him, Aric pulled the ring and the armor enveloped him. Amazed that the aliens would risk using their weapons inside the ship, Aric concluded that the armor was a Good Skin.
As an aliens’ blast blasted open a tear in the hull, Aric flew out of the vessel into the void of space. While confused by his surroundings, which differed from what he remembered, Aric remained surprised that the armor carried him where he wanted to go and obeyed his commands. When the alien vessel opened fire on him, Aric tore it apart and it exploded. As the force of the blast propelled him towards the Earth, Aric asked the Good Skin to take him away from the Hard Skins and back home.
The Rise of Lydia
In preparation for their invasion of Earth, the Spider Aliens established bases around the world hidden behind legitimate enterprises with agents strategically positioned within them. Lydia, a ruthless bio-engineered Spider Soldier and the leader of these covert operatives, is on a mission to find new genetic material to preserve her people’s diminishing ability to reproduce and create a warrior capable of surviving the maddening effects of the Manowar Class Armor.
Deceiver
In an arena on an alien world far beyond the confines of the Milky Way Galaxy, a Spider Soldier garbed in X-O Wolf Armor loomed over a wounded soldier garbed in X-O Commando Armor and promised to make his end a swift one long as he yielded. Swatting his foe across the arena with a trust of his blade, the X-O Wolf mocked his foe’s helplessness against his armor and vowed that the prize would be his soon as his opponent’s juices flowed on the hallowed battleground, but then he suddenly let out a deafening shriek and collapsed. Standing up with a dagger in his hand, the Commando said that what they fought for was too important to leave to fate, so he took precautions to insure that victory would belong to him alone, then he severed the Wolf’s head and held it high for the crowd to see.
A few moments later, the Commando stood before a First-Among-Equals who told him that they were aware that he had poisoned the warrior before the contest, and that such treachery would prove valuable for the task to come. As they walked down a long hallway and the First told him that by the rules of trial-by-combat he won the right to lead the expedition to Earth, the Commando felt honored, but then the First warned him that honor would have little place in his mission of infiltration and subjugation.
Upon entering a laboratory where scientists had assembled Shanhara, a Manowar Class Armor, the First told the Commando that, as their vitality slowly diminished and their ability to reproduce dwindled, they needed new genetic material to preserve them and create a warrior capable of surviving the armor’s effects. When the Commando mentioned the rumors that Shanhara drove all who donned it mad, the First acknowledged their veracity and said that they had to instill individuality into their genetic make-up to cope with the armor’s artificial intelligence, but, once that was achieved, they could create an army capable of ensuring their continuation for millennia. When the Commando laid eyes upon Aric Dacia, a human the First told him they procured during their first scouting mission, he could not resist expressing his disgust at his appearance. While the First concurred with the Commando that Aric was a vile creature, he revealed that, as a race, they desperately needed his traits of individuality and adaptability to survive.
After the First shared their plan to manipulate his body for him to pass for human so he would secure a base of operations and procure tests subjects for genetic experimentation once he infiltrated Earth and their society, the Commando underwent an extremely painful process that altered his features into those of a human female. Several days later in a launch pad, as the First prayed that the alterations passed scrutiny, the surgeon responsible for the Commando’s alterations assured him that with the enhanced human sex pheromones and genetic mutagen in the Commando’s venom they were confident of success.
As a soldier informed her that all was ready for launch, the Commando reminded him that his orders were to refer to her as Lydia, and warned him that if he made that mistake again she would have him flailed alive. Moments later in her quarters, Lydia keeled over a sink soon as the cabin door closed from the unbearable pain and, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, pondered that it was difficult enough to maintain power while she looked like a hideous human and she could loose her authority altogether if she appeared weak. As the scout ship departed the Spider Alien homeworld, it accelerated to faster-than-light speeds towards its rendezvous many months later with Earth. From orbit, Lydia and her crew monitored all TV and radio broadcasts and formulated a scheme to fulfill their mandate.
Several months later at the La Bas Jazz Club in New Orleans, the atmosphere of an early warm evening became exceedingly dangerous for a young man when he offered to buy Lydia a drink and she invited him to her parlor. There, as they became intimate, Lydia injected the man on the neck to inject him with a mutagen that killed him from fatal reaction. As she tossed the man’s corpse in the basement where she kept the remains of her with other failed tests, Lydia doubted that she would ever find the perfect patient zero.
Later that night, while Lydia took a shower to rinse off the gore from his latest victim, a holo-transmission from her ship informed her that the armada had begun to establish a base on the far side of the moon and that homeworld had ordered that she accelerate her timetable. Confidently, Lydia reported she had been cultivating a plan that would provide them with limitless resources centered around Harold Polk, the CEO and President of Orb Industries, a powerful international conglomerate, who she had been seducing for months and, by keeping in a mildly-sedated condition with her venom, made extremely malleable to her will.
When Lydia returned to New York City posing as Harold’s fiancé to impose herself into his life and usurp his power for their needs, she assassinated his business lieutenants and replaced them with her agents, Prather and Aristedes, who proceeded to bring their troops and technology to Orb facilities around the world. Two weeks, as Lydia seductively fed off Harold’s comatose corpse in his penthouse apartment, she mused that he had been the most accommodating husband on Earth, but, she feared, the time had come to move on.
With Aristedes and Prather assisting her in coordinating Orb worldwide, the trio formed a powerful hierarchy for the Spider Alien network on Earth, but, privately, Lydia resented sharing her power and made a resolution to assassinate them once the time was right. As it turned out, however, time had a way of changing priorities. From their first day in orbit, technicians fed human science and history into Shanhara’s database until it held nearly the total amassed knowledge of Earth. When the time was right, the most powerful Spider warrior was to don the battlesuit and use its knowledge to defeat his human enemies, but that time would never come, as Aric Dacia, the Visigoth the Spider Aliens took in 408 AD stole the armor and returned with it to Earth.
Two days later at the New York headquarters of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Lydia accused Ken Clarkson, a devious effeminate schemer, of embezzling the company and warned him that she had no choice but to deal with him very harshly. Unfazed, Ken believed that Orb Industries was a front for Communists or terrorists and threatened to report them to the federal authority, but then Lydia mockingly assured him that they were far worse than he could have ever imagined and unveiled her fangs for him to see. While Ken trembled, Lydia offered to spare his life in exchange for his services and then ordered Aristedes to put Ken on a plane to Peru and have their agents herd Aric Dacia, who stole their most powerful weapon, where he could intercept him. As Aristedes escorted Ken out, Lydia said that Aric had a very valuable ring that belonged to them, and told him that after he had won his trust, he would bring the ring to her or die.
Retribution – Part I: Into The Fire
On November 3rd 1991, aboard a Spider Alien transport vessel in orbit over the Earth, Aric Dacia fought his way through a nest of Spider Aliens with an axe he took from his captors that allowed him to break their hard skins and make their blood splatter and pool on the floor. While he was aware that the aliens feared firing their weapons inside the vessel, Aric had no qualms about killing them, and, as he looked at the map on his palm, he knew he would soon have a hard skin like theirs. While the aliens’ fearfully battled Phil Seleski, Aric, whose skin was drenched in the crust of the aliens’ blood, crawled through a tube and entered the red room where they kept the X-O Manowar. Finding himself with nowhere to flee and nothing to fight with, Aric doubted that the armor would help him kill the aliens, but when one of them saw him, he recalled that the Map Giver told him to pull the ring from the armor’s chest plate and did as bidden.
As the armor wrapped itself around him and protected him from the aliens’ lasers, Aric realized that the armor was stronger than the aliens’ weapons and fired on them with its gauntlet cannon, which tore a hole on the ship that sucked them into the void of space. Impressed by the armor’s power, Aric dubbed it the Good Skin, and as he wished to go outside, it carried him where he wanted to go. Though confused by his surroundings, which differed from what he remembered, Aric remained amazed with the armor, which took him back to the ship and gave him the strength to tear it apart.
As the ship exploded, the force of the blast pushed Aric towards the Earth and crashed on a snowy mountaintop in Peru. While dazed, Aric stood up to celebrate his victory over the aliens and lament the death of the Map Giver, whose spirit he considered worthy. After he discarded the armor, Aric thanked it for bringing him to a place where he could walk and then he made his way south. Shortly, Aric came upon a village whose inhabitants spoke a language that made less sense than the aliens’ tongue, and while he was prepared to kill them for their food, he was surprised when they did not run and gave him what he wanted.
Meanwhile, in the New York headquarters of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Lydia met with Aristedes and Prather to discuss their options following the disintegration of their fleet. While Lydia believed that they were at risk, Prather told her that they still had options and refused to loose heart, while Aristedes noted that they were more than a fleet, and even cut off they remained the predators. Although Lydia warned Aristedes not to lecture her over how much they had left, she regretted the loss of their lifeline. Assuring Lydia that all they needed was the Manowar armor, Prather informed her that it they had tracked it to Peru, and that while Aric had the ring he could not have gone far. While Lydia worried that long as Aric had the ring he controlled the armor, Aristedes assured her that he had the brain of an ox and could not conceive of what the had.
Days later, while Aric plucked bananas from a tree, troubled by the Peruvians’ skin and tongue and worried that he was nowhere near his home, M’rrha, a beautiful villager, brought him a cup of water. While Aric drank from M’rrha’s cup, her brother, Carlitos, told her to ask Aric about his ring, and as she motioned towards it, Aric mused that it pulled her eyes as she pulled his. While Aric wondered how long it had been since he loved a woman, a driver on a jeep asked him if he was ready for their trek to the city and interrupted his train of thought. Eager to find a wizard who could tell him where he was and how to find his kin, Aric leapt on the back of the jeep, and, as he left, Carlitos noticed a fleet of helicopters coming towards the village.
Half a day later, while Aric mused that he only found worse air and heat than in the aliens’ litter, Carlitos ran into the city screaming that the helicopters had killed everyone in the village. While Aric failed to understand, he could tell that something had happened and rushed back to the village. Although Aric ran as fast as he could, his long captivity had weakened him and he was too late to save anyone. As he gazed at the villager’s dried husks, Aric lamented that he missed an opportunity to catch the aliens while they fed to kill them, when then he was horrified to see M’rrha’s head atop a spear. While Aric stroked M’rrha’s hair, he found an alien device pinned to it that played a message from the aliens that said that they had the Manowar armor and they wanted him to leave the ring for them and walk away or else they would continue to feed on his friends. Surprised that the aliens threatened him instead of kill him, Aric figured out that they feared him and the ring, which talked to him with a voice in his head that told him where the aliens took the armor. Determined to avenge M’rrha, Aric followed the ring’s voice north.
Sometime later in a warehouse in Northampton, Lydia met with Aristedes, who told her that Aric was making his way towards them. While Lydia felt certain that Aric was travelling on foot and was a stupid barbarian, Aristedes worried that his trek would be long enough for him to learn more about the ring and that he had tasted power. When Aristedes told Lydia that the armor would fight to be free long as Aric was in touch with it, she agreed that they needed the ring as soon as possible and proposed a piece of treachery.
Days later, as Aric systematically slaughtered the aliens that guarded the perimeter to their landing pads, he took his clothes off to move freely and used their own weapons to infiltrate their camp. While Malachai, a Spider Soldier, informed Lydia that Aric was costing him denizens and might get his hands on their weapons, Aric destroyed their helicopters with an alien bazooka. As her call with Malachai abruptly ended, Lydia felt certain that Aric had fallen into her web.
That night, Aric's quest took him to the capital city of Peru, where he came across a pair of prostitutes, one of whom spoke in a Germanic accent and another whose touch reminded him of M’rrha. While Aric wondered if the foreign prostitute knew his kin, a Spider Soldier leapt off a roof and bit him on the shoulder. After Aric snapped the creature’s neck, he wondered if it was the kind that had poison on his teeth, but then he noticed that he lacked any green stripes on his clothing and he thanked Lugh for his good fortune. While Aric loomed over his foe, Ken Clarkson applauded him and commented that he was there looking for local color but he surpassed his wildest dreams. While he could not figure out Ken, who he thought sounded like a raven and clucked like a woman over his wounds, Aric believed that he was very bird-like and might be the wizard he was seeking, so he followed him to his hotel room. While Aric took a bath, he thought the shampoo and soap were strange oils that proved Ken was a wizard. Afterwards, while Ken showed him a couch where he could sleep, Aric wondered why he had not begun his wizardry and believed that he had to be refreshed before he could begin. Worried that with the fighting he had yet to do he was better off in a comfortable space, Aric slept on the wooden floor behind a potted plant.
The next morning when Ken woke up, he was dismayed to notice that Aric had vanished, but then he saw him behind the plant and joked that, if he wanted a brute to growl at him in the morning, he would have bought a St. Bernard. Worried for his safety, Ken told Aric to shave his beard so he could get him out of the country. At the airport, as Ken joked that Aric looked like a pro wrestler, Aric mused that he had not been without a beard since it sprang from his face and thought that Ken had taken him to his house to begin his wizardry. During their flight, as Aric mused that wizardry made the plane fly, Ken told him that he looked nervous and grabbed his hand, then, when he reached for the ring to look at it, Aric pushed him aside and pondered that, even though Ken was a wizard, the ring belonged to him.
Hours later at John F. Kennedy International Airport, as Aric thanked Ken for taking him north, Ken told him not to thank him while he was still a fugitive and asked him to wait for him while he made a phone call. While Ken informed Lydia that he had brought Aric to New York, Aric grew increasingly annoyed and decided to continue his journey, but then Ken stopped him and told him that he had found them a place where he would be safe. Since Ken could not understand him, Aric showed him the ring to indicate that he had to follow it and hugged him to thank him for his help. As Aric called Ken friend in Spanish, he mused that, while he did not understand men like him who liked other men, he thought they could be good wizards and that, someday, he would bring him great reward.
While at first Aric thought that Ken did not understand him, when he started walking north, he followed him to the tarmac certain that he had. Unable to understand Ken, Aric failed to grasp when he revealed he worked for the aliens and tried to warn him of an ambush, when, then, Malachai and a group of Spider Soldiers came out of hiding with a Spider Tank and shot Ken’s arm off. As Aric wondered how the aliens found him after he traveled so far north, he figured that Ken had never fought the aliens and hid him to spare him their cruelty. Certain that to save Ken he had to defeat the aliens, Aric drew their fire and they shot off a gasoline tank, and as the explosion engulfed him, he found himself pinned beneath the debris. As Aric heard the voice that told him to travel north again, he wondered if the armor could hear him as well and he called for it to come to him.
Back in the warehouse, the Manowar armor broke loose from the confinement beam that held it in place and Lydia exclaimed that it should respond to their commands because they made it, but Aristedes reminded her that they designed the armor to adapt to its user and that he warned her that Aric had tasted power. In a sudden flash of light, the armor assumed a spherical shape and escaped the warehouse.
As the voice in his head no longer whispered north, the armor arrived on the tarmac and kicked the debris away from Aric, and, as it wrapped itself around him like a bear skin, the soldiers fled in fear, while Malachai shot in the certainty that their weapons would destroy it. As Aric wished to jump away from the blast, the armor carried him towards the tank and he ripped its turret off its hinges, but then he found himself floating in mid air unable to move. When Malachai told Aric that watching him die would afford him great pleasure, Aric recognized his voice from the device on M’rrha’s hair and fired on the tank until it toppled on its back. Enraged, Aric pulled Malachai through the tank’s glass canopy and killed him to avenge M’rrha’s death.
While tarmac workers discovered the damage from the battle, Aric escaped with Ken to the woods, and as he loomed over him, convinced that he was a wizard since his spirit did not fly away with his arm, Aric felt pleased that he had avenged M’rrha and the others and then he set out to find a healer for Ken. As Aric mused that when the aliens took him from his home had could not kill them, he pondered that with new Good Skin he was the strongest one there was and that with it he would rule.
Back in New York, Prather conceded to Lydia that Aric's savagery in their best armor put them at risk and they began to plan ahead.
Retribution – Part II: Kingdom Come
Early one evening in Lido Beach, Aric Dacia battled a Spider Soldier garbed in X-O Wolf armor that proved to be stronger than the everyday objects he used as weapons. After the alien punched him through the side of a house, Aric noticed that the Good Skin was harder than the poor weapons he had found and rammed his fist into the alien’s carapace. As the alien’s blood oozed freely through an open wound, Aric reproached himself for thinking like a naked warrior looking for sticks and proclaimed that, like a true warrior and his blade, he and the Good Skin were the strongest one there was. When Aric ripped off one of the arachnoids’ limbs and the soldier escaped, the Good Skin bore him up after him, and, once he caught up to his foe, he mused that death was a gift to a warrior who had lost a limb, and that, though his enemy had limbs to spare, he was a generous foe. After Aric killed the soldier, he thanked Lugh for his Good Skin.
Moments later in the offices of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Lydia gently caressed a tarantula as she reminded Prather that she told him that, even with their best bio-engineered hunter, X-O Wolf armor was no match for Manowar armor, even with an ignorant barbarian in it. As Prather told Lydia that he considered the attack a reasonable attempt to reacquire the armor, she said the time for what he deemed reasonable was past and it was time for desperate measures. Though Prather was certain that an opportunity would present itself to kill Aric, Lydia worried that in time he would realize the extent of the power in his grasp and kill them. When Prather casually laughed at the idea that she wanted him to risk everything in an all-out assault, Lydia coldly told him that he should and asked him what they knew about Aric. As Prather replied that, other than being the first specimen they acquired on Earth, there was nothing remarkable about Aric, Lydia told him that an unremarkable man could not have done what he had and mused that Aric was a human whose frailties provided endless opportunities for treachery. As she left, Lydia told Prather to let her deal with Aric.
When Aric returned to Lido Beach, he found Ken behind a bush where he left him when the soldier swooped down on them watching as the police gathered around the house where he fought his arachnid foe. After Aric picked up Ken and took flight, he wished he could understand him, then, as he mused that Ken lamented the loss of his arm, he pondered that, since he was his friend, he should grant him the gift of a clean death, but then he considered that, since he was a wizard, he could grow a new arm. As they approached the house of Ken’s friend Bev, Aric thought that she lived in a castle, and after she patched up Ken’s injury and made them dinner, he thought that Ken was an important wizard for the queen herself to tend to his wounds and feed them. After Bev asked Ken what happened to him, he told her that he helped Aric escape from alien invaders who blew his arm off with a laser, but while she believed the part about the laser, she questioned the rest of his story. As Ken assured Bev that he trusted her and promised that, since they may need more of her help, he would explain everything, he told her that they had things to do and asked her to leave them.
When Ken signaled him to wrap himself in the Good Skin, Aric figured that he knew that when he wore the armor he understood him a little better and did as he asked. Certain that the armor was probably trying to help him understand, Ken told Aric that it was going to need time to develop a full rapport with him and asked him to try to get the drift of what he told him. As Ken told Aric that the beings that held him prisoner were from another world, he told him that when he destroyed their ship he stranded them on Earth, so they needed the armor to build a new ship, and long as any of them lived they would go after them, so he had to kill them all.
Later that evening, an Orb Industries helicopter landed in a warehouse in Northampton and, as Aristedes ran to welcome it, Lydia came out and asked him if he had done as she instructed him. As Aristedes informed Lydia that they began to work as soon as he received her message, he escorted her inside and showed her the assembled firepower he had gathered within the facility. Though Lydia applauded him, Aristedes doubted that all their weapons would be a match for the Manowar armor, but then she told him that all they had to do was momentarily stun Aric and hammer open the tiniest fissure through which to inject poison, and that if they stroke with massive force, they would conquer him. When Aristedes wondered how they would lure Aric into their trap and make him hold position until they could unleash the barrage, Lydia pointed at the image of Ken on a screen and told him that their former employee, who had become Aric’s ally, was their bait. When Aristedes informed Lydia that Aric was still in Long Island, she ordered him to send in their commandos.
While Ken tried to tell Aric that the armor understood maps even if he did not and it would take him to the aliens’ facilities, Aric stared at Bev while she smoked a cigarette and grabbed it from her hand. As he stared at the cigarette and realized that it was a stupid way to breathe smoke, Aric tossed it and picked up an antique letter-opener. While Ken told Bev that Aric spent most of his life locked up and did not understand a lot of things, Spider Soldiers broke into the house. Certain that the soldiers were there to avenge their eight-legged brother, Aric confronted them head-on, but as he fought them off one of them absconded with Ken. As Aric killed a soldier with the letter-opener, he mused that, while the Good Skin was his weapon, a warrior should always have a blade. When the aliens left with Ken on a hovercraft, Aric bid his friend goodbye and mused that his spirit was worthy, but then Bev urged him to do something and he thought that she might random Ken and decided to leave before his enemies brought more harm to her castle. As Bev pointed at the corpses strewn over her house and asked Aric how he could just stand there, he thought she did not have any servants who could burn them, so he incinerated them himself, and as he flew away, he thought that none could ever say that he was not a grateful host.
Shortly, the Spider Alien hovercraft landed in a warehouse in Northampton, and as the soldiers escorted Ken inside, he warned them that Aric was going to rip them apart. Meanwhile in the control room, Lydia and Aristedes felt certain that Aric was preparing himself for their assault, but when they spied on him, they noticed that he was asleep. While Aristedes suggested that they should attack, Lydia worried that the armor would warn Aric and left to consider their next move.
The next morning somewhere off the coast, Aric woke up and thanked Lugh for the Good Skin that kept watch over him while he slept as it told him it would. While Aric searched for something to eat, he wondered if the voice that spoke to him was Lugh himself and mused how, once, he thought that those who claimed the Gods spoke to them were liars or mad. After Aric had his fill of a swallow’s eggs, he took flight on the armor and went to find the aliens to kill them all as Ken told him.
Later that morning, Aristedes informed Lydia that Aric had destroyed their base in Northern New Jersey and was moving towards Pennsylvania. Worried that Aric was not going to Massachusetts, Lydia thought it was time they spoke with Ken. Moments later, in a red room where Ken was strapped to a web of tendrils that held him upside down from the roof and walls, he sarcastically told Lydia that Aric was less simple than either of them thought. As Lydia noted that luring Aric into an ambush was risky business, she asked Ken for any suggestions on how to catch him out of the armor and unawares, but he just told her to say her prayers. While Aristedes wanted to torture Ken, Lydia did not think that he knew anything useful and said she had an idea. Sometime later, as Aric skewered the aliens with his ion beams, the voice called his name in words for the first time and he believed that Lugh, the grandest God of all, had spoken his name. When Aric asked Lugh what his was will, the wordless voice guided him towards New York, and though the sound differed from before, Aric believed that a God could speak with many voices.
That night, as Spider Soldiers released Ken from the tendrils to transfer him to one of Lydia’s hideaways where she could devour him, he lured one of them with the blood from his stump and took his weapon to kill them both. As a firefight with the rest of the guards ensued, Ken held his position in the cell and mused aloud that he would sell his blood pretty dearly and hoped Lydia would get indigestion.
Guided by what he believed was the voice of Lugh, Aric arrived at the Chrysler Building in New York City, which he thought was the castle of the king of his enemies, and slaughtered a nest of Spider Aliens garbed as Centurions that were waiting for him in the lobby. As the aliens wilted before him and fled at his approach, Aric grew convinced that the power of Lugh covered him like a cloak that filled them with fear. When a handful of the guards fled in an elevator, Aric swiftly went after them and slaughtered them all.
Meanwhile, in the top floor, Lydia and Prather garbed themselves as an emperor and his queen to lure Aric into a trap. As two soldiers encased him in a metalloid carapace, Prather worried that it offered him scant protection against Manowar armor, but Lydia assured him that the time for desperate measures had come and that she took the greater risk as, in her role she could not wear an armor. When he expressed doubt that their ploy would work, Lydia told Prater that Aric was stupid enough to believe in invisible Gods and that she lured him there with a simple directional signal and voice transmission of his name. As a soldier crowned him, Prather asked Lydia why she lured Aric to the very nerve center of their network and why she chose him, and she replied that the building would seem to Aric a proper tower for a king and that it was their duty. Ultimately, Lydia added that she would not trust the delicacy of their plot to anyone else.
As the elevator that carried Aric to the top floor, arrived Lydia reminded Prather that Aric came from an era of empire and they would offer him a token resistance and surrender so that, once he thought he had won, the game would be hers to play. When the doors opened, Aric thanked Lugh for guiding him there and proceeded to slaughter the guards that stood between him and Prather, Boldly, Aric blasted Prather’s head cleanly off his shoulders and took his scepter as a symbol of his victory, as well as the captain of the guard’s sword. As Aric loomed proudly over the aliens as they begged him for mercy, he wondered if Lugh’s purpose for him was to subjugate them or destroy them and wished that he would speak to him again, but then he decided that, unless Lugh bid otherwise, he would kill them.
When Lydia tossed herself at his feet, Aric found it strange than neither she nor Prather were aliens, and as he sat on the throne feeling confused, he ordered the aliens to bring Ken out so he could help him decide what to do about her. As Lydia ordered the soldiers to leave them in soothing voice that sounded like a soft musical tone like the sad, beautiful whisper of the night wind and a siren’s voice to him, Aric wished that he could understand what she said. When Lydia offered to bathe him, Aric mused that, while he did not find her to be beautiful, there was something strangely enticing about her and so he removed his armor to allow her to treat him like a conquering king.
Once there was no chance that the armor would translate her words Lydia soothingly called Aric by name and told him that she had studied him, and knew that, during the two thousand years he spent imprisoned on their ships, the only ones of her kind he saw were unlike humans. Insultingly, Lydia told Aric he was too primitive to imagine they could bio-genetically alter their bodies, and that those of them who conducted business on Earth could become almost indistinguishable from his kind. As she slowly caressed Aric’s neck and moved closer to it, Lydia voiced her discomfort with her human form and unveiled her alien teeth to bite him.
As Aric discerned that Lydia called him by name and realized that only Lugh knew who he was, he recalled that he knew better than to trust the aliens or the women that dwelled with them and stabbed her in the heart. When Lydia kept moving in spite of her fatal wound, Aric believed that she was a witch with no heart and donned the armor to overmatch her spells. As he grasped that Lydia had put what he thought was the voice of Lugh in his ear, Aric pulled her cloak off her and gazed at her arachnoid body just as she fell out the window. While horrified that such a creature tried to seduce him, Aric retreated inside to search her lair for charms to protect him from her like.
Sometime afterward, Aric patched the armor into the aliens’ communications web and found Ken in the warehouse in Northampton. As he saw Aric on the screen looking at him, Ken realized that they had won.
Retribution – Part III: The Most Powerful Man In The World
While wind blew through the broken window of the offices of Orb Industries in the Chrysler Building, Aric Dacia was kneeled on the floor eating an animal he killed while he read a children’s book to learn how to speak English at the behest of Ken Clarkson. Bored with the book, Aric thought that others should learn his language since he was stronger, but since he considered Ken his only friend in the strange world he found himself in, he did as he asked. As he flipped the page, Aric saw an image of a spider and recognized it.
Elsewhere in the building, a physician Ken brought from Boston told him he was lucky he lost his arm stumbling against a laser since the cut was clean and nearly cauterized, which kept him from bleeding to death and sped the healing immensely. As the doctor packed his bag, he told Ken that he was not entirely sure who he was, and Ken told him he was the new chief executive officer of Orb Industries. When the doctor noted that, while he had heard about Orb Industries he had never been entirely clear on what it might be, Ken said that his principle preferred it that way, and then, when the doctor asked him who his principal was, he sent him on his way.
Moments later, Ken entered the top floor office and told Aric that, if he had it his way, they would not let any outsiders in the building since people could never know who the principal owner of Orb Industries. Troubled, Ken noted that the Spider Aliens built Orb Industries into a powerful multinational corporation to serve as a front for their operations on Earth, but that it would all come crashing down if the world ever learned that an ancient Visigoth had captured it and become the most powerful man in the world. When Ken asked Aric how his lessons were coming along Aric angrily tossed the book aside and told him he wanted to go home, but Ken told him that he was home for the moment and asked him to believe that he knew what he was doing. While Ken said that the aliens did most of their work behind the scenes and no one outside them knew who ran their corporation, and that as far as anyone knew they had always been in charge and he had slowly transferred all their assets into his name, Aric sat on his throne and mused that Ken chattered too much.
As Ken thanked God he had the common sense to tell Aric to get rid of the aliens’ bodies, he said that, since the cops thought that mystery terrorists ransacked the building and no one knew what really happened except for them and, far as the world was concerned, Orb Industries was back to business as usual. Deviously, Ken told Aric that he was making Orb their business, and, once he was done, they would be sitting pretty and he would be able to go out again. When Ken suggested that they fix the window, Aric refused because the cold made him feel at home. While Ken told Aric that his home had not existed for two thousand years, he noted that one did not have to be a Visigoth to have trouble understanding that and asked him to forget he said anything. As they looked down at the city and Ken told Aric that, soon, they would be able to buy Germany or whatever the area he lived in had become, he said that they were lucky to have each other and that, as long as they were together, they were the most powerful men in the world.
Meanwhile in Tokyo, in the offices of the Harbinger Foundation, a non-profit organization that provided an environment where people with special abilities and talents could achieve their potential, Toyo Harada, the world’s most powerful Harbinger, mused aloud over what men would or would not do to obtain power while he reviewed the file on project Sniper. As Toyo read that Karl Breznoff, the mercenary called Sniper, had bionic ordnance implanted on his body, he exclaimed that he must had suffered tremendous pain in his lust for power. The next morning, Toyo offered Karl one million dollars to stop a cabal whose membership he refused to reveal out of fear he would think him insane. After Karl demonstrated his weapon's destructive power, Toyo told him that he would change from the agent of a discredited regime to an idol of the world and he was the man who would save the planet. When Karl asked him what was in it for him Toyo told him that all he wanted was satisfaction and that he could keep all the bows long as the world knew that no outside force ruled their lives.
Later that morning, Aric entered a conference room where he left the Manowar armor and was enraged to see Phil Seleski standing beside it. As Phil told him that he chased the aliens’ invasion fleet into space and he was afraid something awful could have happened while he was gone, Aric thought he was a wizard that wanted to distract him with his words. After Phil congratulated Aric for taking care of the aliens without understanding how he did it just with his will and heart, he told him that he was privileged to come back home during an exciting time for not just them but many others. As Phil vanished in a bright flash of multicolored lights, Aric donned his armor to bring him back since he was an emperor and wizards worked for emperors.
As he flew out the window, Aric told the Good Skin that he knew when he spoke to it, it could hear him, and, sometimes, he heard another voice in his head that he guessed meant it was a gift from Lugh. When the Good Skin did not answer, Aric worried he had talked too much, and, as he apologized, he begged Lugh to tell him where Phil had gone. While he flew over the city, Aric mused that the Good Skin might not know which wizard he meant since their castles filled the city, when then he came across Central Park. Certain that Lugh had placed the great forest there to answer his earlier plea to go home, Aric thanked him for giving him his freedom and removed the armor to frolic in the park, where ten bandits armed with clubs, knives, and chains surrounded him. As he thanked Lugh, Aric slaughtered the bandits with their own weapons. Pleased with the steam of new-spilled blood in the air, Aric mused that the city might become bearable with a forest like Central Park, wizards like Phil in the heights, and bandits in the depths that Lugh had provided for him.
After he donned the armor and took flight to return home, Aric realized he had only seen the outside of his castle once, but then he recalled that the Good Skin could lead him there and bid it to take him home. As the armor flew towards the Chrysler Building, Aric mused that, while wizards dwelled in the city, they would all bow to him. Suddenly, an unseen attacker shot Aric in the back, and, as he lost his balance, he ordered the armor to halt and he stopped falling. Amazed at how the armor responded to his commands, Aric turned to face his aggressor and saw Karl standing on the street below. When Karl shot him and said he had butchered worse men than him, Aric felt the blunt of the bullets and thought he was another wizard. As the momentum of the bullets pushed Aric through a brick wall, upstairs, Ken thought the aliens had staged a counter attack, but when he looked down at the street, he wondered what was happening.
While Karl confronted Aric, Toyo saw the battle through his eyes and mused that Karl was his stalking horse to scout the lair of the Spider Aliens, but he never expected they would have entrusted such power to one not of their kind and wondered how much more he ignored.
Enraged, Aric punched Karl to make him bow before him. When Aric tried to insult Karl, his unfamiliarity with English made him certain he was the target Toyo sent him to find. While Aric returned Karl’s fire with his ion cannons, he mused that, soon as he triumphed, he was going back to Ken’s book to learn how to say bad things about people’s mothers. As Aric’s lasers bounced off Karl’s suit, Karl proclaimed himself the hero of their battle and fired on him, but his bullets ricocheted wildly and hit the innocent bystanders. As Ken reached the street to help Aric, he made him notice that the people around him were dying. In a bid to safeguard the people from harm, Aric pointed at Central Park and challenged Karl to follow him there, a humanitarian act that surprised Toyo, but Karl thought he was escaping and shot him off the sky with a barrage of bullets. Though Aric called for Lugh to help him, he crashed on the pavement and Karl shot him with a bazooka that broke the Manowar armor’s helmet. Angered, Aric grabbed Karl and blocked his gun’s barrels with his gauntlets, and while Karl worried that if he fired and the armor did not give at close range he could die, he believed that if he did not try the world would die and opened fire, but the blast destroyed his implants. While Karl withered in pain, Aric wanted him to stand up and continue their battle, but Ken urged him to take them out of there because people were gawking at them.
While Aric and Ken flew away from the scene, Ken told Aric that they had to try to keep his identity a secret and that they would stay out of sight until dark and then sneak back into the building through the broken window. Though he felt the pain of the Good Skin in his head, Aric dismissed it as a ringing in his ears and told Ken that the city afforded him many fights and many bad wizards, but then Ken assured him that in the 20th Century there were no wizards.
Meanwhile in Tokyo, Toyo scanned the Manowar armor and learned that his foe was not an alien, but someone that even his foundation knew nothing about. Determined to learn everything there was to know even if it meant he had to involve himself personally, Toyo stood beneath his window to stare out at the rising sun and pondered what men would not do for power.
Retribution – Part IV: King’s Crossing
On March 1st 1992 in the top floor of the Chrysler Building, Aric Dacia and Ken Clarkson reviewed a file that held all the data Ken could find on Sniper, who he had learned worked for Toyo Harada. Since he had never heard of Toyo before, Ken researched him and told Aric that he was incredibly wealthy as well as powerful, and involved in a vast pattern of behind-the-scenes manipulations on a global scale that made him a world power unto himself. Moreover, Ken told Aric that the Spider Aliens’ files were full of references to Toyo, whose resistance against them made them fear him. When Aric proclaimed that he did not fear King Toyo or the wizards he sent to kill him, Ken noted that he thought Toyo sent Sniper to kill him because he thought he was one of the aliens and ignored that he had stolen their greatest weapon and booted them out of their headquarters, a notion he hardly believed himself.
Just then, Todd Bevins, Toyo’s personal assistant, contacted Aric and Ken through a comm-link terminal hooked into the aliens’ private communications system that the aliens left behind. As Todd assured Aric and Ken that Toyo merely reacted to what his sources believed to be a threat, he said that Toyo had made a commitment to rectify the damage. Using a remote camera at one of their medical facilities, Todd told Aric and Ken that the victims of the battle had received the best care on hand and that they had generously compensated the families of those who died. When Todd said that Toyo would like to meet with them in their offices to discuss his vision of global peace, Ken refused and warned him that the offices were off limits. When Todd suggested that they go to New Orleans where Toyo was and showed them a video of dancing girls at the Mardi Gras festival, Aric eagerly agreed to go, while Ken terminated the transmission and promised to get back to him. While Ken worried that they were not ready to confront Toyo without a plan, Aric was tired of making plans, being locked up in the building, and of what he called Ken’s wizard games, and insisted on facing Toyo his way, with or without him. Since he had invested too much in Aric to let him put his head in the lion’s mouth, Ken halfheartedly agreed to accompany him to New Orleans.
Outside the broken window, Faith Herbert, a plucky fangirl with the power of flight, eavesdropped on Aric and Ken’s conversation and then flew down to the street to report her findings to the rest of the Harbinger Resistance, a loose organization of Harbinger renegades. When Faith told the others that Toyo arranged to meet Aric and Ken in New Orleans, Pete Stanchek, a powerful psionic of extraordinary power, proclaimed that Toyo’s presence in the States was their opportunity to stop him before he became a dictator. When John Torkelson, a goliath who sought to get even with those that wronged him, reminded the others that Toyo played for keeps, Kris Hathaway, Pete’s girlfriend, told Pete that he had to kill Toyo and reminded him that he was the only one of them who could take him on. While Faith worried Aric might try to stop them, Pete told her they would politely ask him to step aside because they were the good guys.
Later that day in the airport, Aric mused that he could fly them much faster with the Good Skin, but then he figured it be undignified to lug around a wizard like Ken like a saddlebag and it was important for wizards to seem dignified before an emperor like Toyo. As the plane took off, Aric lamented that Ken did not have time to grow a new arm before they left and thought he would be embarrassed. During the flight, as Ken exclaimed his comfort with their ability to charter their private jet with the wealth they appropriated and asked Aric if the damage that the armor suffered would be permanent. While Aric assured him the armor would re-grow its fallen pieces soon, Ken told him that, if it came to a fight, the armor was all that stood in the way of them meeting his great God Lugh. Valiantly, Aric said that he was not afraid to meet Lugh, and assured Ken that he was a great warrior before the Good Skin, and that if Toyo harmed him he would meet Lugh first. Though he found Aric’s attitude charmingly hostile, Ken noted that it ill-suited their diplomatic mission.
Sometime later in a hotel lobby, Aric mused that New Orleans was hotter than New York and planned to take his suit off as soon as they got to their room. While on the elevator, Ken reminded Aric that he would do all the talking when they met Toyo and he would not say anything. When Aric and Ken came into the penthouse, Toyo’s guards reached for the bag that held the Manowar armor to inspect it and Aric thought that they were bandits who wanted to steal it. As Aric punched the guards, Toyo asked him to end the conflict between their two camps and told him that it was his hope they could become staunch allies for the betterment of the planet.
While Toyo told Aric that, for many years, he had monitored the alien invaders’ communications, disrupted their flow of supplies, and thwarted their operations at every turn, he explained how, as he became familiar with their technology and recognized his armor to be of extraterrestrial origin, he presumed the worse and apologized for his actions. When Toyo expressed a desire to know what his involvement with the aliens was, Aric insisted to speak with him himself over Ken’s objections.
In his own way, Aric told Toyo how, after the aliens took him from his home and made him their prisoner, he waited for years for the time to kill them until, one day when they were not watching, he found the Manowar armor and used it to kill them and take over Orb Industries. Satisfied with Aric’s tale, Toyo told him that the spoils of his victory belonged to him as long as he did not oppose him, but then Aric accused him of attacking him and Ken. While he reiterated that the attack was a mistake, Toyo assured Aric he could rest easy and he had nothing to fear from him as they were there to forge a bond of peace. As they reached a understanding, Toyo invited Aric and Ken to partake of the Mardi Gras festival in a place where the drinks were cool, the jazz was hot, and Aric would have his pick of any woman. While Aric was eager to leave, Ken wished to discuss further business with Toyo, but he declined. As they left and Ken whispered to him that there was more to Toyo that met the eye and said that he did not trust him, Aric told him that he did not trust anyone.
That night in the French Quarter, Aric mused that New Orleans was a magical place where people sang and danced as if it was the great festival of Lugh and everything a man could want was there for the taking. As they sat to listen to Jack Boniface, a jazz player, play his sax in the La Bas Jazz club, Toyo offered Aric and Ken a glass of Sazerac, a renowned local drink. Shortly, while Toyo ingested a pill that spared him from the effect of alcohol, Aric became heavily inebriated and excused himself to go to the bathroom. While Aric walked away, the renegades waited in the bar for Toyo to become equally inebriated before they attacked.
As he stumbled dizzily towards the bathroom, Aric pondered Ken’s assertion that there were no more wizards and noted that something about Toyo smacked of wizardly since he seemed unaffected by their liquor. Just then, Aric came across Lydia, who leapt out of his way and fled, and though, at first, he seemed to recognize her, he dismissed her presence as the result of his inebriation and decided to return to the table to drink a few more just in case Toyo would not respect a warrior who could not hold his drink.
That night, as Toyo took Aric and Ken to Bourbon Street, the Harbinger Resistance attacked, and while Toyo called his guards, Aric, who believed the renegades were wizards attacked John, who punched him through a wooden fence. As the Good Skin cleared his head, Aric dispatched John and Charlene, but then Pete deflected his lasers and tossed his in the air against his will where Faith tackled him. As John grabbed Aric’s ankles, he tossed him against a shed, but when Charlene climbed down to check up on him, he used a broken water main to douse her flames. In a huff, Charlene evaporated the water around them and created a curtain of steam that hid Aric from her and allowed him to punch her out. Though Aric thought that the renegades were brave, he also though that they fought foolishly without strategy and easily defeated John and Pete. Suddenly, Kris drove up to the club and the renegades escaped in her car.
While Toyo ordered his guards to put all stations on alert to track them the renegades, he mused aloud that their attack had served his purpose and then nonchalantly told Aric that he fought magnificently and that he owed him his life. As he reassured Aric that he would find him an equally strong ally in the future, Toyo told him that he had some important matters to attend to and left. As they walked away and Toyo told his guard that Aric might prove to be a useful tool in the days to come or else he would terminate him, he called his secretary to cancel all his appointments for the next several days as he was enjoying himself in New Orleans and wished to stay a while longer.
As Ken urged him to hide the armor before they attracted attention and told him he wanted to go back to New York because he had enough excitement for one day, Aric accused him of being a boring wizard and told him that he was not leaving until he had some fun. As Aric walked over to a couple of show girls and told him to go back to the hotel, Ken shook his head and called him a barbarian.
As their car sped out of the city, Pete told the others that they would get another chance to get Toyo, but that they would have to lay low for the moment until he gave them another opportunity. Troubled, Pete worried that they now had two powerful enemies to deal with.
Revelations
Fed up with Ken's reluctance to take him back home, Aric still had a problem grasping that Dacia no longer existed. Unbeknownst to Aric, Ken planned to kill him so he could have full control of Orb. Falling asleep while wearing the armor, Aric awoke to discover that the X–O had downloaded all the knowledge he required to understand the modern world into his mind, as well as revealed Ken's treachery, but Aric refused to believe that Ken would betray him. Throwing the armor away, Aric left in a huff. Later, as he decided that if he would not have his world back he would take the one he was on, Aric called the armor, but it did not come. Believing he had offended it, Aric used the ring to track the armor to a hotel room, where he discovered that Ax and his thugs had stolen the armor and kidnapped Ken, who he now believed had betrayed him.
Power Play
While Aric Dacia fought the cybernetically–enhanced thugs, Ax donned an X–O War armor he stole from an alien base. Taking their fight outside, Ax used his ability to control two fighter jets and used their ordinance to attack Aric. Bombarded by missiles, Aric fell into the ocean, where Ax attached a scrambler to the X–O. As they resurfaced and landed on a beach, the scrambler cut off communications between Aric and the armor. Believing he had won, Ax was shocked when Aric removed the armor and beat him with his bare hands. As Ax’s thugs arrived, Aric traded them Ax for Ken. That night, inspired by Ax’s thugs, Aric instructed the X–O to replace Ken's missing arm with a cybernetic prosthetic that would ensure that if he tried to betray him again he would die by his own hand.
Unity
When Erica Pierce, the God–like entity called Mothergod, tried to achieve Unity, a convergence of all the timeliness, the Geomancers of two eras gathered the heroes of Earth to stop her in one final decisive battle for all eternity in the Lost Land, a place outside time and reality.
A Call To Arms
After promising Ken that someday he would remove the arm, Aric joined Geoff McHenry and Pete’s rogue Harbingers in the Unity conflict, leaving Ken behind to watch over his empire. Attacked by Mothergod’s forces soon as they arrived, Aric engaged a squadron of pterosaurs ridden by rob jockeys that overpowered him with their weapons. Knocked out of the sky, Aric fell into a sub–basement prison within Mothergod’s citadel where he discovered the Skammrs offering a group of human slaves as food to the Bionisaurs in exchange for weapons. Disgusted, Aric rescued the slaves, killing the Skammrs and the Bionisaurs in the process. During the battle a Bionisaur tried to eat Aric, but the armor saved him from his bite. After the battle, Aric led the slaves to the safety of the caves in the mountains to turn them into his army, but realizing that turning this gaggle into warriors would not be easy he turned back and decided to force the Skammrs into becoming his army.
Crossroads
150 days into Unity, Aric Dacia led a raid of Mothergod’s facilities to steal a power converter. Finding Rai, who was there to destroy his prize, Aric convinced him to fight him over it at his camp. There, Rai, Magnus, and Gilad Anni-Padda talked Aric into destroying the converter so Mothergod could not use it. Three days later, Aric granted Mothergod an audience. Using his lustful eyes against him, Mothergod tricked Aric into bedding one of his bims in a ploy to get him to shed the X–O. While Aric and Cayla made love, Erica Pierce used her power to move the X–O away from him. Just then, a Bionisaur broke into Aric's tent and almost ate him. Responding to its masters cries, the X–O escaped Mothergod’s control and flew back to Aric. Wrapped in the Good Skin, Aric led the Skammrs against Mothergod’s army, but in the end Mothergod slaughtered everyone. Awakening four days later, Aric learned much to his sorrow that it would take the Good Skin 10 years to make him whole away. Filled with hatred, Aric swore revenge on Mothergod.
The Lost Chapter
While searching for Mothergod, Aric found a group of Skammr scouts. Learning of the survival of some of his people, Aric enacted his revenge. The next morning, while the Skammrs broke into one of Mothergod’s weapon caches, Aric killed the Bionisaur who ate Cayla. With the Skammrs armed with Mothergod’s own weaponry, Aric led an assault on her complex that resulted in the apparent demise of all his followers. Joining the other heroes’ attack on Mothergod’s reactor, Aric assisted Solar in destroying its core. With the Lost Land self–destructing in a cataclysm of exploding energy, Solar laid down a temporal field penetrating all those who remained. Their thoughts lead them to their own respective times, and to the places they called home.
While Aric wondered what he could have accomplished with the Good Skin when he was a warrior in 408 AD, he vanished.
Homecoming
Homecoming – Part I: Besieged
Appearing over Rome, Aric realized that he was back in 408. Finding his uncle's camp, he promised to explain what happened to Alaric, but Mallak, Alaric's advisor, accused him of being in league with Satan. To earn Alaric's trust, Aric stole the emperor’s scepter and gave it to him. Reunited with Deidre, Aric told her what had happened to him. The next morning, Aric slaughtered a Roman legion waiting to ambush them. Afraid of the power Aric wielded, Alaric I joined with the Romans to kill his nephew. Using Deidre as bait, the Romans attacked Aric, who thanks to the Good Skin prevailed over everything they threw at him. Finding Deidre inside a temple, Aric learned that his own kin had allied with his enemies to kill him. Threatening to kill all of them unless they let Deidre go, Aric was unprepared when they used mirrors to deflect the X–O’s energy blasts, which destroyed the structure and killed everyone, including Deidre. Realizing that there was nothing left for him there, Aric buried himself deep within the ground at the X–O’s direction.
Homecoming – Part II: Takeover
A month after Aric vanished, a sudden quake rocked the Orb Industries building in Boston. Dragged outside by his arm, Ken ended up beside a tree that suddenly exploded and revealed Aric buried beneath it. As Ken helped Aric out of the ditch, the control ring slipped off Aric's finger and Ken picked it up. Taking Aric back home, Ken used the control ring to retrieve the X–O and hid it where Aric could not find it. Over the next few weeks, Aric regained his strength and prodded Ken to find the ring, but Ken would claim that it was lost. One day, Aric explained what happened to him to Lauren, but she did not believe him and broke up with him. That night, as Ken contemplated returning the ring to Aric after realizing that he could not kill him after all, a Spider Alien attacked him. Running away, Ken ran past other Spider Aliens on his way to Aric's room. As Ken threw the ring into his hand, Aric revealed that he knew he had it all along. As Aric called the X–O armor and it wrapped around him, they discovered that it had evolved into a different configuration.
Seed of Destruction
Seed of Destruction – Part I: Alien Whispers
Discovering that the X–O had made a blade, Aric used it to kill the aliens. Four months later, Aric could not sleep as he expected the aliens to attack, while as the armor kept changing he feared it was not safe to use it. Following Ken's advise Aric went home, where after putting it off for many hours he went to sleep. That night, Aric had a dream that he was in an arena watching a red alien kill a green alien for a pod, when then he was awoken by a phone call from Ken, who had the same dream. The next day, Ken theorized that they had he same dream due to something the aliens were doing, but Aric dismissed him. That night, Aric faced the X–O and wondered what was happening to it. Having the dream again, Aric saw as a Spider Alien priest gutted the red alien and placed the pod inside him. As liquid metal covered the alien, Aric realized that he was watching how an X–O Manowar was made, when then the alien grabbed his neck and chocked him. Waking up, Aric discovered that he was floating in space inside the X–O Manowar flying towards the moon.
Seed of Destruction – Part II: Moonstruck
As Aric landed on the moon, the Good Skin told him that every 2,000 years it could produce a seedpod that spawned an X–O Manowar armor, and that the Spider Aliens on the moon were calling her. Entering the moon base, Aric came across Rexo, who the aliens sent to retrieve Shanhara's seed. That was the first time Aric became aware that the Good Skin was a living being with a name. Revealing a heard of humans kept captive by the aliens, Rexo offered to let them go in exchange for the armor, but the humans preferred to die rather than be his bargaining chips. After Rexo killed the humans, Aric slaughtered the aliens and crippled Rexo before he filled his helmet with alien blood so he would drown in it. As Aric flew away from the moon despite Shanhara's desire to remain, the aliens sent a squadron of Commando X–O War troops that engaged him in battle. Using dampening filaments, the few commandos Aric did not kill dragged him back to the moon. Back on Earth, Randy Cartier reported to Ken's office for her first day as Orb’s security chief.
Seed of Destruction – Part III: On The Dark Side
While the aliens dragged Aric to the moon, Solar flew out of the moon base and destroyed the filaments that held Aric captive. As the aliens fled, Solar told Aric to let the aliens have the seedpod, but feeling betrayed Aric attacked. As their battle took them to the moon, Solar managed to get Aric to follow him inside the base. There Solar explained that once the aliens had the seed they could make a spaceship that he would follow to their home world so he could destroy it, but Aric still refused. Solar took Aric to meet the aliens’ leader, the First-Among-Equals, in a sacred garden, where Aric removed the X–O and gave Solar the control ring. Under alien law, Aric challenged the First-Among-Equals’ champion for possession of the armor and the seedpod. Agreeing, the First-Among-Equals led Aric to an arena where Maka, the aliens’ champion, awaited.
Seed of Destruction – Part IV: The Darkside To Victory
While Aric fought Maka, Solar went to extract the location of the alien home world from a computer, but he discovered that the First-Among-Equals had transferred it to a data module. Back in the arena, Aric released all his pent up rage and killed Maka. Turning toward the First-Among-Equals, Aric claimed Shanhara as his rightful prize under the aliens’ law. Bitten by Maka during the battle, however, Aric fell to his knees as alien poison coursed through his veins. Damming their own law in the face of exile from their world, the aliens attacked Aric, who despite his weakening condition gave as good as he got. Returning to the arena, Solar threw the ring into Aric's finger. Calling the X–O to him, Aric instructed it to flush the poison from his system. While Aric exterminated the aliens, Solar searched for the First-Among-Equals, but unsuccessful in his hunt he decided to destroy the moon base. As Solar and Aric returned to Earth, the seedpod came loose from the X–O. Solar and Aric tacitly agreed to destroy the seed so the aliens would not have it.
The Coming Of Turok Dinosaur Hunter
At the twilight of Unity, Turok fought a pack of Bionisaurs until he and Mon’Ark were the last two standing before the Lost Land collapsed into a black hole that transported them to Earth. Waking up in Columbia in 1987, Turok found Mon’Ark’s trail beside him. A month after returning from the moon, Aric and Randy debated the details of his wearing a beeper so she could track him, when then Ken interrupted with news that an Orb Industries division had successfully cloned dinosaur tissue. Traveling to Florida, Dr. Flint informed Aric of the discovery of dinosaur tissue samples in Colombia. Enraged by the thought of creating dinosaurs, Aric ordered the destruction of everything in the laboratory. The next day, Aric traveled to Columbia, where using the Good Skin he tracked down the Bionisaurs' cybernetic implants to a trading post where he met Turok., who had been trading dead Bionisaurs with mercenaries who sold them in the black market. Teaming up, Turok and Aric annihilated the mercenaries and agreed to continue hunting the Bionisaurs until they were all dead. Meanwhile, a time rift opened up and deposited a pack of Bionisaurs from the Lost Land in the middle of Central Park in NYC.
Concrete Jungle
While Aric and Turok waited for Ken to pick them up at Kennedy International airport, Turok snatched a newspaper from a man with a story about three power company workers lost beneath Central Park. Pointing to the picture, Turok told Aric that claw marks on the walls of the tunnel were dinosaur markings. Boarding a private helicopter, Turok and Aric left for Central Park. On their way there, Aric himself as he was when he first arrived in the 20th Century reflected in Turok. Climbing down into the tunnel, Turok realized that the raptors had taken a hostage, which meant that they were hunting Bionisaurs. Calling the X–O Manowar to him, Aric donned the Good Skin so he and Turok could hunt down their prey. Meanwhile, the Bionisaurs forced their hostage to remove a tracker from the carapaces on their head so they would be free to protect their brooding nest. Following the raptor’s trail, Turok and Aric made their way to the sewers beneath the zoo and exterminated the lot of them, including their eggs in their nest. Two weeks later, Turok departed to look for his people, but before he left he and Aric swore their loyalty to one another, thus becoming blood brothers.
Family Matters
In an island in the New England Coast, Diana Dalton witnessed as men armed with Spider Alien weapons killed Robert Simmons, an employee of Dalton Industries. As the men discovered her, Diana ran for her life.
The next day, Ken informed Aric that he was leaving to investigate the disappearance of two employees from Dalton Industries, an Orb Industries subsidiary. The next day Ken met with Penelope Dalton, who dismissed his concerns over her employees’ disappearance. Soon as Ken left her office to go interview the people at the plant, Penelope called Javier Cortez, the man who killed Simmons. Making it as far as his car, Ken was blindsided and knocked out from behind. As Ken awoke inside a car surrounded by Javier’s men, X–O Manowar, alerted by Ken's arm that he was in trouble, swooped down and disabled the car. When the men fired at him with alien weapons, Aric became angered and killed all of them. That night, Diana called Penelope and accused her of killing her father, an allegation she denied. After Diana reluctantly agreed to meet with her mother at her father’s stables, Penelope called Javier to let him know where he could find his daughter, unaware that Aric and Ken were listening in.
Later at the stables, Diana disarmed a man sent to kill her before Aric and Ken arrived. After Aric explained that Penelope was selling Spider Alien weapons to a criminal cartel, he picked the man up and forced him to reveal Penelope’s location, and even though he did, Aric severed his fingers. Following the lead to Hamilton Cove, Aric destroyed Javier’s boats and the cargo of alien weapons onboard. Escaping during the commotion, Penelope came across Diana, who furious with her threatened to kill her. Verbally humiliating Diana, Penelope made her drop her guard and then hit her with a briefcase filled with Javier’s money, knocking her out so she could escape. Meanwhile, Javier’s men barraged Aric with laser fire and he fell into the ocean, but then rose back up and killed all of them. Several weeks later in the Greek Islands, Javier found Penelope aboard a luxury yacht and shot her across the eyes for taking his money.
Push And Shove
Returning to New York after destroying the remains of the Spider Alien weapons at the bottom of Hamilton Cove, Aric discovered that Ken was hosting a fundraising party for his Senatorial campaign at his home. Angered, Aric drew his sword and chased away off all of Ken's guests. Once they were alone, Ken tried to convince Aric to help him out as a friend, which only angered him furthered. Reminding Ken that he had betrayed him twice before, Aric made it clear that they were not friends and that he only kept him around as his servant because it suited his needs, then he ordered him to leave. Sick of this dishonorable modern world, Aric yearned to be a true warrior again like Turok, his only true friend. In Manhattan, Don Benito Carboni learned that Orb Industries planned to develop a strip of land that had been a dumping ground for undesirables of his organization for years. Realizing the problem, Carboni ordered Angelo Scalese to use whatever means necessary to convince the Orb higher ups that it was in their best interest to not develop the land.
The next day Angelo warned Ken not to develop the land in the name of the Carboni family, but Ken brushed him off. Later that day, Ken barely escaped a car bomb when Randy stopped him from getting into his car. Informed of what happened, Aric demanded that Randy set up a meeting between himself and Carboni so he could settle things his way, a plan that upset Randy as it severely undermined her job as chief of security. Several nights later, Aric met with Angelo, who took him out to sea in his boat and distracted him while one of his men hit him from behind and knocked him out. Chaining Aric's feet, Angelo’s men threw him over the side to keep him under the water until he agreed to withdraw from the land. Calling the Good Skin to him, Aric donned the armor and emerged from the water, scaring everyone onboard. Opening fire on the boat, Aric killed everyone except for a man he told to tell Carboni to leave Orb Industries alone. That night, as Carboni had the messenger killed, he decided to leave Aric alone and focus on Bloodshot, a more immediate concern.
The next day, Randy brought Aric a box with Angelo’s bloody ring and a note from Carboni apologizing for the incident. Angry at Aric's evasive personality and lack of explanations, Randy left determined to find out what he was hiding. Alone in his house, Aric stared at the sky and thought of following Turok’s path.
Operation Deep Freeze
Operation Deep Freeze – Part I: Ultimatums
In March, CIA agent Peter Garrett, Helen Mandrake of the IRS, and several others met in the Pentagon to discuss Aric Dacia in his X–O Manowar armor, and ultimately decided to make contact with him to determine if it was necessary to put Operation Deep Freeze into effect. Two weeks later, Randy asked Paul Bouvier, an old friend of hers, to rig her up a small long-range tracker she could slip into Aric so she could follow him. Agreeing to help her, Paul warned Randy of the CIA and IRS’ interest in Aric and to watch out for Garrett. Several nights later, a patrol car sent by Garrett stopped Aric as he headed home. Introducing himself, Garrett convinced Aric to accompany him to meet with [Senator William Ackerman to discuss a matter of national security. Taken to a house in the woods, Aric met the Senator and Ms. Mandrake, who threatened to take Orb away from him and throw him in jail unless he relinquished the armor. Telling them to go to hell, Aric left.
The next day, Garrett offered Ken a seat in the Senate in exchange for his help in acquiring the armor, but due to his arm Ken refused. As Garrett left his office, Ken damned Aric. That night, Aric received a package with instructions from Garrett telling him to travel to Antarctica. Just then, Garrett called Aric and explained that he had kidnapped Randy, and unless he did as told he would kill her. Hanging up the phone, Garrett instructed his cohorts to prepare to leave, when then the lights went out. Breaking in through the window, Paul shot Garrett and the other agents with tranquilizer darts and rescued Randy. At Randy's house, Paul used the tracker to find Aric headed toward the South Pole, where Randy knew the CIA had built an installation. Realizing that Aric was walking into a trap, Randy left to help him, while Paul stayed behind to provide Intel.
Two days later in Antarctica, Randy rented a chopper to follow Aric, who at that exact moment was under attack from a squad of helicopters, armed soldiers, and tanks. As Randy approached the scene of the battle, a chopper fired on her and knocked her down on the ground, while overwhelmed, Aric was loosing his ground. Aiming a gun at Randy's head, Garrett ordered a cease-fire and told Aric to surrender or he would kill her.
Operation Deep Freeze – Part II: Gentlemen’s Agreement
In exchange for Randy's life, Aric surrendered the X–O armor under the condition that Garrett keep his word not to harm them. Garrett’s men escorted to a chopper that took them to Amundsen-Scott Station, a research station built within a crater left by a battle two years earlier where Garrett planned to have the X–O analyzed. Once inside the station, Garrett introduced Aric and Randy to Doctor Zahn, the principle designer of the base. Amazed by the scale of the operation, which defied the reports she had read about it, Randy complemented Zahn on his achievements. Surprised by Randy's insight, Aric questioned how she came to know about the base, and Garrett revealed that Randy worked for the Canadian Secret Service. As Zahn informed him that Colonel Gardner would not arrive until the next day, Garrett had a trained CIA team armed with modified alien weapons escort Aric and Randy to a cell to wait for transport to Washington, an act that Aric considered a breach of their agreement.
Locked in a cell, Randy confronted Aric over his secrecy about the X–O armor and his lack of trust in her, to which he confronted her not telling him that she worked for the CSS. Changing the subject, Randy warned Aric about Gardner, who made Garrett look like a pansy. Telling Randy to trust him, Aric showed her his control ring and told her that, though Garrett had the armor, he still controlled it. Amazed, Randy told Aric to use the armor to copy every file in Garrett’s computers to use them as leverage against him. Summoning the Good Skin to him, Aric told Randy to wait for him while he took care of Garrett and his operation.
After dispatching Garrett’s forces, Aric went after Garrett himself. Chasing his helicopter as it flew over the fuel stores, Aric was unprepared for when Garrett ordered his men to shoot the fuel drums, which set off a massive explosion that buried Aric beneath two hundred tons of ice and snow.
Operation Deep Freeze – Part III: The Consequences
Escaping the rubble, Aric gazed down at the destroyed installation with glee until the remote eye he left to watch over Randy alerted him that she was in danger. Armed with a Spider Alien weapon she took from one of them, Randy stood her own against the CIA team, when then Aric arrived and rescued her before one of them set off an acetylene tank that killed everyone. Taking Randy outside, Aric left her to find a pilot that would take her to a friendly polar station while he followed a lead from Garrett’s computers to project Deep Freeze, an installation built for the single purpose of burying the X–O armor in a shaft beneath the ice. After destroying the installation, Aric returned to NYC to make the CIA face the consequences of their actions .
Several days later, Aric met with Toyo Harada to get his help in dealing with Ackerman as repayment for saving his life in New Orleans. That night, Aric warned Ackerman that he had 24 hours to clear his people from Orb Industries and return control of the corporation to him, or else he would make the information he retrieved from Garrett’s computers public. As Aric flew away, President Clinton called Senator Ackerman in Toyo’s behalf. The next day, Aric returned to Orb and resume control of his empire.
That night, Randy arrived at Aric's state to tell him that, thanks to Toyo Harada, he was now an official citizen of the United States, when then Aric, fed up and disappointed with the civilized world, told her that he was leaving on a sabbatical and giving the Good Skin to her for safekeeping. Placing the control ring on her finger as Aric left the room, Randy summoned the X-O Manowar to her and the armor swiftly enveloped her.
Strange Bedfellows
Startled by the X–O’s sentience, Randy ordered it get off her and went home to relax and decide what to do with it. There, Paul, worried for Randy after not hearing from her since she returned from Antarctica, offered to listen to what was troubling her, but so as to not betray Aric's trust she said nothing. That night, Randy went to bed frightened of the armor, which she asked not to do anything weird while she slept.
Two days later, Randy awoke to discover that the X–O Manowar had crawled on her during the night and healed her arm, a feat that amazed and terrified her. Just then, Ken knocked on the door. Initially furious with Randy for missing two days work, Ken walked away when he saw the control ring on her finger, which made Randy realize that he knew Aric's secret. Tired of being afraid, Randy summoned the armor learn what it could do. Awkwardly taking to the skies on the X–O Manowar, which took her up to the outer atmosphere, Randy reached the outer atmosphere. There, she told the armor to tell her everything she knew, a request that caused the armor to bombard her mind with its entire database. Overwhelmed, Randy lost consciousness.
Awakening sometime later, Randy returned home, where she discovered that Randy had led Ax and his cybernetic allies to her. Garbed in his Hunter–Class armor, Ax demanded that Randy give him the X–O Manowar. Just then, however, Ken demanded that Ax honor his promise to remove his cybernetic arm, but Ax double crossed him and ordered one of his cyborgs to rip the arm off Ken's shoulder. Seizing her chance, Randy blasted the cyborg with an ion beam that inadvertently disintegrated him.
Momentarily disturbed by the shock, Randy failed to avoid Ax’s tackle, then as the battle ensued, Ax hurled a handful of his scramblers at Randy, which disrupted her connection with the armor. Mustering ever ounce of will she had, Randy managed to activate the armor’s force field and shed the scramblers, then, after turning her right fist into a morning star, she punched Ax in the face and destroyed his visage. While Randy turned to stop one of Ax’s cyborgs from killing Ken, Ax escaped.
A week later in Peru, Aric returned to M’rrha’s village, the starting point for his pilgrimage.
White Kings And Black Knights
White Kings And Black Knights – Part I
Deep in the jungles of Peru, Aric saved a man named Elib from a group of Hovitos after they killed Hanewoe, his young companion. A Yanomama, Elib took Aric to his village, where Aric delivered Hanewoe’s body to his mother. Elib then took Aric to his Shapono, the communal hut, where he met Oware, a shaman who impressed by his ability to kill four the Hovitos with his bare hands called him a friend to the Yanomama.
Back in Boston, Randy and Ken’s tugawar for control of Orb came to an end when Randy used her control of the X–O Manowar to ascertain her hold on Ken’s prosthetic arm. That night, Randy had a nightmare of the time she was Wolfbridge’s prisoner six years earlier, the third one since the first time donned theGood Skin. Refusing to let her feelings of helplessness consume her, Randy called the X–O Manowar to her and took flight to find closure
That night in Peru, while Aric watched the Yanomama cremate Hanewoe’s body in a funeral pyre, Elib educated him on his people’s funera