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#1
MAY 10 |
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“Cradles of Civilization” Part One
The wings of the geese beat quietly in the sky. They were far higher than any other creature at this moment. Their migration route took them over the ocean, and away from their last known position in America. They flew with ease and did not tire. Birds are the most efficient organism at processing oxygen. The Geese flew, as they always did, in a “V” Shape, allowing the lead goose to provide the navigation for their long journey, feeling the electromagnetic waves of the planet.
The lead goose didn't notice a straggler, honking at the end of the right row. A green goose, a rarity if there ever was one, flying with ineptitude as though it had never been this high before. Never felt the slipstream of another goose before it. Never flown in a position within a group before.
The Green Goose had also never navigated with the electromagnetic waves of the planet before.
And it appeared to love every second of it.
“What is....?” Sarah Withers knelt on the edge of the sand dune, as she looked out across the beautiful backdrop that was the coastline of the Ivory Coast. She scooped her hands through the sand, having seen something unusual scuttle through it. She smiled as she lifted it up in her hands, its eyes locked onto hers. Not with fear, not with anger.
It was just peering at her.
“My,” Her partner, Doctor Andres Madsen said, replacing his glasses after breathing over the lenses and rubbing them against his jumper, “What odd colouration.”
“I'd agree. It appears to be a species of skink that lives in this area, but, it doesn't have any of the usual colouration. In fact, it being this colour makes it stand out like a sore thumb. Why such a bright, vibrant green? How is this one still ali...” As she spoke, the skink threw itself from the edge of her hand, folding its legs back and wriggling its body in a frequent undulation to dig itself into the sand, even before it hit the surface.
Sarah looked up at Andres who shook his hand in disbelief, placing his hands on his hips.
“Never have I seen such a thing before, Sarah. That was almost as if it were planning ahead.”
“Roger...Roger!” The Englishman called, his binoculars dropping to his chest. He waved for the American man to come to the front of the truck. The older man, whose grey tinted hair gave his true age away, got up from his position at the back of the truck, sharpening a hunting knife and admiring the cliché he inhabited. A hunter who enjoyed killing animals, even though it was illegal. He wondered if it was his father’s lack of love that made him enjoy the murder of less powerful things, or his fifteen years in Wall Street.
“What is it, Craig?” Roger asked, running a finger across his immaculate moustache.
“You said I need to keep my eye out for something unusual right? Well, I thought I found some White Rhino, but...” Craig offered Roger the binoculars.
“Ha,” Roger said to himself as he took the binoculars and looked down them at the animal in his vision.
“A green Rhino is unusual enough, right?” Craig asked, looking up at the older man. Roger said nothing, as he removed the Binoculars and clicked his fingers at the man sitting in the driver seat of the van.
“We want to get closer over there, okay?” He turned to Craig and shook his head, “I swear, if we get any more locals to help us, I'm going to go home with their heads instead of animals.”
The van started up violently, as Roger and Craig made their way to be back again, picking their guns up and staring down the sights. Soon they'd have one of the rarest animals in the world in their van, and its hide would make a pretty penny.
“Seem to be cropping up all over the place, dunt they?” Craig said, locking the safety off his rifle.
“What's that?” Roger said, looking up at Craig.
“Green Animals. They're cropping up everywhere, ain't they? Something in the water, scientists are saying. Or at least that's what I read,” He shrugged as Roger shook his head.
“I wouldn't believe everything you read, Craig,” Roger said, shrugging off the conversation, as he clicked his fingers again.
“Stop the van,” Roger said, annoyance in his voice. He sucked his index finger and held it in the air, to test the direction.
“We're downwind. Good.”
Jumping off the edge of the van, Roger was quickly followed by Craig, as they made their approach to the Green Rhino as it was slowly munching on some grass. He was clearly part of the herd that was milling around in the knee length grass, but he appeared to be separate as well.
“He doesn't look like he's with them,” Craig said in a harsh whisper. Roger just put his finger against his lips and shook his head, slowly taking aim at the large creature.
The crack of the gunshot ran out into the plains. The Rhinos around the hunters panicked, looking up from their meals and beginning to stampede in all directions. Despite Lions and Jaguars and Cheetahs being the apex predators in this environment, very little actually bothered the Rhinos in terms of predation.
Their biggest concerns were human. In this case hunters.
The bullet had penetrated the flesh of the Green Rhino. Enough to cause blood to drip from the wound and to remove partial feeling from the leg, but the shot had been off target. It had hit the animals foreleg instead of its head.
Stomping its feet on the ground, the Green Rhino lowered its head and prepared to charge, as Craig let loose another two shots from his rifle.
The Rhino let out a bellow, as one bullet tore through its side, and the other grazed its head. It dropped forwards into the dirt, unable to hold its own weight any more.
“Man, this couldn't get any better,” Craig said to Roger, as they stood up. The other Rhinos had run away from the loud noises, easily scared by the events unfolding to their short-term herd member. As Roger removed his hunting knife from its sheath, Craig's attention was taken by the sound of metal bending under weight.
“What the hell?”
Craig's nose exploded into a mist of red as a man's fist shattered it. The Englishman shot backwards; his arms and legs limp like a ragdoll as he hit the ground.
“What in the name of?” Roger whirled around, lashing out with his hunting knife, which nicked the chest of the man before him.
Freedom Beast looked down at the older man, his fingers touching the very light wound on his chest.
“What are you doing?” The large African man asked, his eyes invisible to Roger through his helmet.
“What are you doing?” Roger asked, as Freedom Beast cracked his knuckles.
“Saving that animal's life,” Freedom Beast said, grabbing hold of Roger's wrist and snapping it in half with his much superior strength.
The hunting knife dropped to the ground, as the Beast lifted Roger off the ground, and hurtled him into the side of the truck. He snorted, watching the older man flop to the floor like a dead fish.
Walking to the side of the hurting Animal, Freedom Beast knelt by its side, stroking it gently, and offering it support.
“Do not worry, I am here,” He said softly, as the creature’s form began to change. Slowly the body of the Rhino melted away to take the form of a green furred human, lying naked on the ground. The bullet wounds had vanished leaving only an exhausted frame behind.
“This is...unexpected,” The Beast said, picking up the limp form of the green furred man.
He knew who this was, and he wasn't going to let him rot on the Savannah floor.
Gar sat in silence, avoiding eye contact with the man who had saved his life earlier. His body was covered in green fur, longer and thicker than it had been in his entire life. His hair hung around his shoulders, as the wind took it from its resting place and blew it in tufts. Freedom Beast sighed, poking the fire they sat around with a stick, and removing his helmet, setting it down gently on the sandy dirt.
They sat outside the mouth of the cave where the Beast lived, somewhere up the side of the Mount Kilimanjaro. Minutes slipped passed without a word, as Garfield traced his fingers through the sand, his limbs hanging limply by his sides. It seemed as though the playful Beast Boy, or Changeling that Freedom Beast had heard so much about was gone.
“Garfield,” His deep voice said, as he moved closer to the young man, “What happened today was not your fault.”
Gar said nothing again, avoiding looking at the Beast, and simply moving away, pulling himself up onto the balls of his feet and moving in a hopping crouch.
“Is this a deliberate thing?” The Beast asked, as he moved some of the vine and leaf wrapped parcels from their positions in the dirt, to be closer to the fire, “Your movements and actions. To avoid humanity, to avoid hurting others?”
Gar said nothing, again avoiding his gaze, and shifting his long, slender fingers through the sand.
“You have to talk sometime, Garfield. I know a lot about you. I study all “related” heroes. Do you know Buddy Baker?” Dominic asked.
Garfield again declined the response. Dominic ran a hand through his short hair and sighed. “Gods preserve me.”
Nearly an hour of silence passed as Dominic watched the sun slowly set and the moon rise in the sky. The sounds of nature below them seemed to have calmed Gar, as he settled down and sat a little more like a human and a little less like a person; confirming to Dominic that it was just an act. Beasts don't walk like men, and they certainly don't sit like them.
Dominic passed a small, piping hot leaf wrap to Gar and waited for him to open it. The Green skinned boy sat and unpeeled it, eyeing Dominic out of the corner of his eye and scooping the hot contents into his mouth.
“I think you should probably quit what you're doing, Garfield. This isn't the sort of place for you to be messing around pretending,” Dominic said after a few moments of watching him eat. The young man stopped and examined the clumps of rice and vegetable stuck in his fur, before looking at Dominic.
“You know I'm right as well,” He said, not touching his food as he watched for a reaction.
“I know you're a broken man. I don't know what happened but I know whatever it was it had to be enough to turn you from a former TV star and superhero into...whatever this is,” Dominic said, pushing himself to his feet to get a better vantage point.
“I dunno if it was tragedy, or some selfish desire gone wrong. Never understand you American heroes. Fighting for what's right and what's good, but only on your shores. On your terms,” Dominic said, pointing down to the tiny lights of the villages below.
“We're still recovering, you know, from you. From the British. From the West. You took my country and you took what was best about it and left us with debt and corruption and your out-dated morals. I saved sixteen men today who were due to be hung for loving the same sex. Sixteen.”
Gar looked at Dominic for a moment before he continued to eat his food. Dominic said nothing as he walked over to Gar, kicking him in the side and pinning him to the sand. Gar's eyes flicked from closed to open in shock, staring up at Dominic with a doe-eyed glare.
“They were going to be killed because they didn't do what they were told to do, Garfield, and here you are, eating my food, in my country, acting like an animal because of what? You couldn't handle it anymore? You couldn't handle the focus and the spotlight and the McDonalds deals and whatever else you had in your cushy little important life?”
Gar's form shimmered as he transformed himself into a Gorilla, mimicking the true guardian and mentor to the B'Wana Beast mantle. His massive green fist wrapped around Dominic's head and slammed him into the ground, saliva mixed with rice and vegetable dripped onto his taught face, as the Green Gorilla bore its teeth and spoke for the first time.
“My Wife. Died. My heart. Gone.” His words were final, and they were hoarse and croaked. He barely used his vocal chords these days. He barely said words that a human would and could understand. Instead he lived in silence, in nature, in contemplation of his life and his role in the world, trying to understand just what exactly made him...him and why death and tragedy followed him so closely.
Garfield released Dominic who wiped his face and sat up, looking ashamed with himself.
“I didn't know,” The Gorilla shook its head and sat down heavily, transforming its form back to Garfield's normal, furred form.
“You know I've had to learn a lot in my short time as a “hero”, Garfield. Tragedy comes with the territory. For every couple of dozen lives you save, you miss one, and it's that one that you miss that haunts you.”
“Didn't miss. She died.” He added. Final again. No room for interpretation or pretty words. How could he dress something like this up in pretty words? There were none.
Dominic sighed, and brushed himself off, opening his leaf and beginning to take clumps of rice and vegetable into his own mouth.
“You know, when I received the mantle of the B'Wana Beast, and changed its name, the previous hero had been a White man. He didn't understand the way things worked here because he didn't live here as I did. He didn't grow up here,” Dominic continued. Gar sat in silence looking at the dirt as though it would come alive before him.
“I fought as hard as I could to try and regain some control of my life, my anger, my career, my role as a hero – all of it, and it just didn't work. I didn't realise back then why it didn't work. There were too many parts of me all pulling together, and against each other. My anger was getting in the way of my feelings, and my love was getting in the way of my goals. Everything was blurring when they should have been getting easier, and clearer,” Dominic continued, his eyes trained on Gar who said nothing still. His silence was all Dominic needed.
“Part of what came with the B'Wana Beast Helmet, as well as the ability to telepathically communicate with Animals, and to control them is another ability; an ability that I've used a thousand times over and over to help myself escape and go into battle and be the hero for Africa that I needed to be,” He continued, finishing his food and getting up to his feet.
“It's called Amalgamation, and after I learned that I could use it on Animals, I did something one night in a drunken haze that I thought I'd never do. I used my powers on myself,” Dominic said, moving closer to Gar again.
“I started to heal myself, started to fuse bits of myself together. My emotions started making sense again, I knew who I was because I'd been broken into a thousand different versions of myself,” Dominic said, putting a hand against his bare chest.
“I know this all sounds very metaphysical, and I know there is more to it than just...fusing yourself back together, but...It's a starting point Garfield. It's a point at which you can take whatever it is you are now, and start adding what you were to it to become...you again, because let’s face it...This thing you are now, this..Green Furred man who lives amongst the animals because he can't live amongst people...it’s not very....you.”
Garfield looked up at him, anger in his eyes as he got to his feet, standing as a man would for the first time since he'd been in Dominic's presence.
“How would you know who I am?” He asked, his fists balled by his sides. Dominic said nothing as he watched the young hero storm towards the cave, where he would likely spend the night. As he walked away, Dominic sat down in the sand again and ran his hands over his face a few times.
“I know because you're what I used to be, Garfield.”
As morning broke over the vast Savannah below them, Garfield sat watching the sun come up. Freedom Beast made his way out of the Cave. He stretched in the cool dawn air, as Gar turned to him, looking at him for the first time with something other than anger since they met.
“Teach me,” Gar said,
Gar to the idea of Amalgamation, internal first, fusing the elements of himself together to make himself a better human being, rather than reacting to situations with different emotions and thoughts.
“Teach you what? Amalgamation? Gar, I don't have to teach you anything,” Dominic said, the helmet underneath his arm. Gar eyed it expectantly, the light shining off its surface.
The green furred man cocked his head to one side, frowning.
“I can't teach you how to fix yourself, any more than I can teach you how to use the powers locked inside of yourself. I'm not a Shaman, or a Witch Doctor. I can't perform the magic you think I can,”
“Why did you say all that stuff then?” Garfield asked, getting to his feet slowly, anger on his features.
“Because you needed to hear it, Garfield. Because it's not something I can teach you, but it is something I can give you,” Dominic stretched out his arm, holding the B'Wana Beast helmet out in front of him.
“Put it on,” He said. Garfield looked around. Something about this didn't feel right. All that talk of Amalgamation of body and mind and then powers, and he was handing over the helmet that protected his identity and gave him those abilities in the first place.
He took it gingerly, lifting it up to look inside. It was an empty helmet. It didn't contain anything other than air. Garfield eyed Dominic again, before slowly sliding the Helmet over his furred head, pushing some of his over-grown hair out of the end.
Looking through the lens of the helmet, Garfield felt faint for a moment, as a foreign voice invaded his mind. It spoke to him with words he didn't understand, filling his mind with knowledge instantaneously.
He stood in space, as a large, brown ape with beautiful blue eyes stood stock still. Its arms down by its sides. As it raise its arms, the ape appeared to become more like a lotus, it's limbs moving from their usual number of two, to four, then eight, then sixteen, slowly moving into the air in a spiral of large, hairy arms, the palms open containing a sigil, or totem, or carved shape of a representative of that animal in the animal Kingdom.
“What is...” Garfield said, as the Ape's original hand moved to its face, signalling for him to be silent, as its finger touched its lips.
Behind the air spiral, stood two men back to back. One had long hair, brown and knotted into dreadlocks. His clothes barely covered his body parts, offering him no protection at all against the harsh elements that beat against his body, wind, snow and hail. Standing with his back against the dirty man was another man, his long blonde hair reaching his back, as he stood in torn blue trousers and boots, his body bashed and beaten by the sun above him, his skin almost steaming from the heat.
They both turned to look at Garfield who could barely contain the new knowledge that was still writing itself onto his brain. He looked away, blinking behind the helmet, as the spiral arms of the Ape began to collapse, leaving him standing before her, as her final arms melted away, leaving the outlines of three figures before him.
A hulking, large ape.
A smaller, thinner, and hairy woman.
A stone statute of a woman, cast against a large tablet.
Garfield slowly began to remove the helmet, sweat having soaked his face, as he realised that during the course of the “vision” he'd dropped to his feet, and was unable to get up immediately. Dominic offered him a hand, and pulled him up.
“It always gets you at first. Speaks to your mind and your heart, and shows you things you need to know before it teaches you.”
“What does?” Garfield replied, wiping the back of his hand across his sweat matted brow.
“The helmet. It did it to me as well. Told me what it thought I needed to hear to perform my task,” Dominic said, taking it from Garfield’s weak grip and holding it tightly, looking inside as though something might have been left for him.
“It was...Powerful,” Garfield said, as Dominic nodded.
“So...What now?” Dominic asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“There's a place,” He said, his voice returning to its former gruff, guttural sound, after the brief moments of normalcy he'd managed to regain after the experience with the Helmet.
“And you're going to that place, right?” Dominic asked. Garfield nodded, and turned away from him, slowly walking away from the campsite and towards the path that led down the mountain.
“Thanks,” Garfield said, stopping and turning around to the Freedom Beast. Dominic said nothing, and watched as Garfield walked away slowly.
The Helmet would tell him all about the experiences later.
There was no reason to tell Gar that though.
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