Issue 1 Downtime

It wasn't far from London. At least it wasn't by the way the crow flies, which was what descended from the sky that sunny afternoon. Circling, they landed and resolved into Samantha's shape.

It was a clearing she'd visited before, blessedly removed from the thoughts of others. Some distant whispers were still able to be sensed, but for the most part she could be away from the din here.

Sam wouldn't have long before she would be able to sense that she wasn't alone.

There was something... surreal about the presence. It would almost make a telepath question whether or not they were sensing a person or... some other sort of being.

"Your battles trouble you, Stormcrow," A deep, powerful voice said from behind her.

"Having my privacy disturbed troubles me," she said as she slowly turned around.

The cloaked figure stood behind her, a decent distance, seeming surprisingly unimposing for its voice. There was the sense of something else... but then it was gone. "Would you begrudge one who would offer you his help? Your armies have suffered... but they will be needed again, will they not?"

"I'm not one for taking charity, and even less for bargaining with one I don't know..."

"Who offers a bargain?" The voice rumbled. "I offer what you wish, what the world needs you to have."

"Would you refuse the strength to never again fail your followers?" While the words could be offensive, they were simply stated, like it was a simple fact to not be denied. "Can you afford to abandon a chance to forge them into something stronger, something that will not suffer losses as they have of late? Into something strong, that can be a sword to wield to across the world?"

"I'm not certain I like your tone."

"This world has swords aplenty. Trust me, I know."

"Are you here to help or rub salt in my wounds?"

"I know what my failings have been. I don't need them pointed out to me."

"I'm already learning. Who are you to think you know me?"

The figure pushed his hood back, stepping forward... and growing to a much greater height in the process as he regarded her with hard, pitiless eyes. "One who has seen the rise and fall of the mighty over millenia. One who would have you and yours counted among the strong, that the weak should not crush you beneath their will," spoke the mutant known as Apocalypse.

"One who felt I wouldn't trust him if I saw his face..." She said as she regarded him.

"Yet here I stand, openly, before you," Apocalypse rumbled. "And here I offer you your place at the front of the battle. To show the true strength of your people, and lead them in the coming trials."

"So it's war you bring, is it?"

"I bring nothing," he said, "Save the offer of survival. You and yours are strong... but you must be stronger. The time to allow children to be coddled has reached its end"

"Coddled? These 'children' have been through more than you realize."

"Do not presume to know what I realize," Apocalypse said, taking a step toward her, revealing another cloaked figure standing silently behind him, unmoving. "I have watched this planet for ages of the development of man. If you would see man survive long enough to watch them grow as I have, you should heed the wisdom of my words. I doubt not their experiences... I doubt their strength to weather such experiences in the future. But this can change."

"And for this, you expect me to kneel?" She curled a lip.

Apocalypse made a rumbling sound... and it would take Sam possibly a moment to realize that he was laughing, in sincere (if disconcerting) amusement. "Kneel," he said with a slight sneer... though he always seemed to sneer. "I expect you to be STRONG!" he thundered. "Do the strong kneel!? Does the mighty Morrigan kneel to anyone? You are the battle-crow, the raven of war! You are glorious among your kind, to whom could you kneel!"

She pursed her lips in thought.

"Then perhaps we do understand each other better than I thought."

Apocalypse regarded her coolly. "You are one of the mighty... but there are lessons you hesitate to teach for the sake of your followers." He gestured behind him, and the cloaked figure stepped forward. Wings spread behind it, and all she could see beneath its hood were two glowing eyes. "Today, this one will learn those lessons. All fear him, and his touch will come to nearly all in time... Morrigan, I present Death."

"...as always, you've a tendency to work in themes."

"Certain things motivate mankind. The greatest of them, and the greatest of my Horsemen, is death," Apocalypse rumbled. And then, he was gone, leaving Sam alone with the cloaked horseman.

She narrowed her eyes, meeting the Horseman's gaze, wary.

Death spread his wings and arms, a glowing green scythe appearing in his hand. Disconcertingly, as he did, the grass and plants in a small radius around him withered and turned black. His eyes blazed... and then he was surging forward through the air, scyth arcing toward her. "Death comes for you Battle Crow!"

"...don't insult me."

It was like slicing through water, as she broke apart into the flock and flowed around him.

"You're not the only one to try this recently..."

She bore down on his mind with the crushing weight of the corruption she had witnessed in the battle at the grove, the sheer madness and immensity of the abyss she had brushed up against in the cultist's mind before she'd snuffed it out.

The scythe's blade cleaved through open air, but seemed to catch on the ethereal connection between all the birds, bound by their nature as a part of Sam. She could feel it like a sudden diminishing of herself... and it would only take the memory of what had happened to all of the grass around him to figure out what he was doing to her.

Her mental attack crushed in on a mind well accustomed to despair and loss... moreover, one that did not fear oblivion or the abyss. "You deliver something I have already. Death is in us all, Morrigan. Feel its touch... feel it as its drawn out within you," the voice said, both quiet and carrying all at once as the sensation of the soul-chilling cold spread wherever her body or mind came close to his.

"You think I don't know that?"

"Death isn't what I fear. Living is."

A second mental blow lashed out, bearing the burden of the years of memories she'd received from the future. The grief of everyone she'd known dying horribly, even as she continued on year after year.

Oddly, this particular memory seemed to spur Death on further. "Then do not reject what my Father offers," he countered in a low laugh. "Take the gift when it is offered... be strong so that the world shapes the way you wish it." Death spun, impossibly fast, and his wings swept a cloud of Ravens into the path of his scythe as it carved its soul-searing path through the air.

A shudder went through the flock before they regrouped.

"And what has your 'father' done? What are you but the latest pawn he's cast in a familiar form? What will you be when he's done but another discarded experiment when the next 'Death' is launched against his enemies?"

"Is this supposed to impress me? Am I supposed to be eager to join, seeing what he's stripped from you?"

"En Sabah Nur is eternal," Death growled, a touch of amusement in his voice. "He is the fire that tempers the blades. If I am cast aside and trodden into the earth, then I am an unworthy failure and deserve that fate."

"I've no desire to be an instrument. You say he offers me the strength to shape history, but I want it to be my will, not his..."

Most of the physical flock was forming again into her body, but the mental flock marshaled and circled around, aiming to draw a chain tight around his avatar's throat.

There was a bright, almost manic light in Death's eyes, even as he tried to fight off the astral attack. "You've said what you want," he hissed. "Then why do you not take it!"

She gestured in the physical world, and the mental ravens holding the chain snapped back suddenly, aiming to drag his avatar to the ground.

"Because I need more chains even less than you do..."

Death's eyes fixed upon her, as he spoke contemptuously. "You're afraid, and letting that fear paralyze you from taking the chance you need."

"Clever puppets your master makes, if you don't even mind the strings..."

"ENOUGH." Apocalypse's form rose up from behind Death, picking him up by the neck. "YOu are strong... but you both have weaknesses you must overcome." His eyes fixed on Sam. "Peril always approaches. If you wish to be among the chosen who will lead the masses..." He let his statement hang, then turned his attention to Death. "You have much to learn, my champion," he growled.

She unclenched her hand in the physical, releasing her mental hold on Death.

"Was this for my benefit, or his?"

Death writhed, and managed to choke out words in an angry tone. "Yes... Master..."