---

Canteen
Department H
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

“Lettie,” called Adrian Corbo, the mutant orphan Flex, as he stood in awe.

Blood gushed from her neck and stained the pointed teeth of the villainous Sasquatch. Her beauty was diminished...she looked haggard and worn. Limbs were sprawled at odd angles against the rubble that was her grave. Flex noticed his brother was crouched on the ground mere feet away from the Canadian beast; Jared Corbo had given the order that had led to the death of one of his teammates, Arlette Truffaut’s blood firmly on his hands.

Catching his breath slightly Flex was thrown from his feet by the magic of Shaman. He narrowed his eyes, having never before realized the dangers of his position. He had always imagined himself to be safe; Radius had always promised to protect him, but then Radius had failed to protect Murmur and he felt little hope in depending on his brother any longer. Hatred was all that filled him as he jolted forward, balling his fists.

Shaman was taken by surprise as Flex’s punch made contact and knocked him to the ground. seconds passed before the doppelganger was mounted by the young boy and he punched repeatedly against the First Nation man’s face, and he didn’t stop when the blood began to spread across the dirty floor they lay on. Tears streamed his pale face as he screamed in anger, revenge was all he wanted but nothing would bring Arlette back.

Noticing what he had done, Flex stepped back from the body, his mouth dropped.

There was a fine line between being the hero and the villain – murder was that line and he had crossed it. Sasquatch turned on his brother ahead of him and he did nothing.

“Flex,” grunted his mentor, Guardian, through battle. “It’s do or die, kid.”

Guardian guarded himself against the blasts of energy from his own copycat, catching the sight of Flex using his powers to attack the Sasquatch. One man had already fallen on the field, and Guardian didn’t need or want any more corpses on his conscience. It had been his decision to fully reinstate the Alpha Flight program, even after the issue with the bomber had been resolved and now he had something to prove.

He just didn’t know if he was willing to prove it at the cost of people’s lives?

Propelling himself higher into the air, he watched his doppelganger crashed into the wall behind to his right. Glaring at the mimic, Guardian used the opportunity to blow the wall to pieces around his foe, which was drowned in the collapse. Guardian hovered for a few more moments before he started to wonder where the duplicates had come from. It seemed logical to assume they had been cloned but that led to the bigger picture of who had done so and why had it been done.

Rubble blasted around him as the other Guardian broke free and tackled him mid-air. Mac exhaled heavily as he was thrust into the roof above them.

Puck entered the chaos, his eyes wide, using himself as a projectile he ricocheted across the walls to launch himself into the other Guardian, and propelled him into the open-air as Mac had been. He hadn’t realised that there would be quite such a fall and he braced himself for collision. Arms wrapped around the dwarfed man as they created a crater upon impact, he looked up into the face Jared Corbo, the mutant Radius.

Radius lowered his hand in and pulled Puck free from the crater.

Northstar panted as he fell to the ground, his eyes darted upwards into the faces of his comrades. The evil incarnations of Northstar and Snowbird landed behind him, walking towards the French-Canadian as he clutched as his chest.

“Are you two going to stand there and make out, or give me a hand?” snarled the handsome athlete, his glare falling across the face of Radius.

Northstar turned onto his back as he created an intense blast of white light that illuminated the room and blinded the two ‘creatures’ he had been fighting. In the flurry of movement around him, Jean-Paul saw the mutant Puck bursting forward through the dimming light as he collided with the imposter Northstar. Hands slid beneath Northstar’s and he was pushed to his feet by an uncomfortable Radius.

“Look, JP, I...I’m sorry...”

Jean-Paul cut the boy off. “Retribution comes only through penance, mon ami.”

Snowbird launched herself forward, becoming a raging polar bear as she crashed into the force field that had generated around them from Radius’ hands. He pushed it outwards in an effort to cause her a collapse but as blood began to run from his nose and his eyes rolled, Northstar readied himself. The boy collapsed and his force field followed. Generating a burst of superhuman speed, he pummelled his fist against the polar bears face as it became a woman and transformed into a bird simultaneously.

Northstar took flight to follow her.

---

Alphan Lounge
Department H
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

Aurora’s body blurred into the room and she came to a stop at the sight of the mutant in front of her. “What the fuck?”

It was as though the French-Canadian found herself staring in a mirror and evil stared back at her. Her eyes fell upon Puck and her gaze met his eyes expectantly, but his eyes were blank and emotionless as she stepped forward a burst of speed crashed her body full force into the bookcase and she found herself punched by him, pushing herself forward she head butted him and freed herself. Blood stained her head as she crawled from the wreckage.

“I do not know who you are,” she muttered in her French accent, “but you are not Puck.”

Without a second thought, Aurora drew her foot against the face of the man who looked like her teammate. Using her superhuman speed, Aurora rose to her feet and her deep blue eyes fell across the raven-haired harlot that imitated her. She noticed the woman’s eyes bore no familiarity; it was only malevolence that burned within them. Diamond Lil appeared behind her and she rushed forward only to be stopped by an outstretched arm.

“Non,” the French-Canadian beauty requested of her. “This bitch is mine.”

Aurora burst forward just as Puck launched his attacked on Diamond Lil, within seconds all four within the room found themselves fighting a deadly battle.

In an all-out brawl, Aurora caught the other woman by the hair and connected her knee with the woman’s fist. Ignoring the blood that dripped onto the carpet of the Alphan Lounge, she threw her against the mantelpiece of the fire and crouched beside the injured woman, her white skirt flitting around her legs as she did so. Her eyes burned with anger.

“I do not know who you are,” growled the heroine, “but I am Jeanne-Marie. Je suis Jeanne-Marie!”

Aurora reached for the fire-poker only to be knocked off of her feet by the speedster.

Dodging the swipes she groaned to herself. What have you got yourself into? Diamond Lil reached out and clasped her hands around the wrist of the mutant known as Puck; he had proven to be more formidable than she would have expected but her skin was impenetrable and this meant she had the upper hand in any situation. Screams echoed from behind her as Lil rested her foot on the dwarf’s chest; she could sense that Aurora was taking out more than just her rage at being attacked on her multiple.

Lil kicked the dwarf into the hall and turned to face the imposter overpowering Aurora, using her strength she pulled them apart and smashed the woman’s face into the wall.

Aurora shot to her feet and impaled the woman on the fire poker, twisting it for reinforcement as the blood trickled from the woman’s mouth.

Diamond Lil stumbled back, her eyes wide with shock as she looked towards her comrade, bloodied and battered from the fight, but their eyes didn’t make contact. Aurora stumbled away from the body and sat on the arm of the sofa, her eyes wide and vacant; with little warning she dropped the fire poker and burst towards the dwarf, whom had been watching from the door.

Diamond Lil didn’t follow; she turned the opposite direction and left them behind.

---

Canteen
Department H
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

Mac hurtled his body back towards the gap in the roof, aware that the duplicate was close behind.

He had all but lost Heather and now he was forced to endure the death of one of Alpha Flight’s junior members...he would not stand for much more. Already he felt like he had been backed into a corner and forced to go back on his word, which was something Mac had never liked to do. His eyes were filled with wrath as he threw himself into the chest of the man who imitated him. His bones ached but the suit gave him and extra hope as they collided into the ground, Mac on top of the laughing man.

“Is this how you like to do it, Hudson,” laughed the voice that seemed eerily familiar.

Mac grabbed the man’s throat and held him in place as he threatened to punch him with his other hand. “Who are you?” The growl was unrecognisable, and it was something he was shocked to hear coming from his own throat but he meant every word of it, hatred filled him for the man that threatened to tear apart what he had risked his marriage for.

“I’m you...” The words had no sooner left his lips than Mac smashed his fist into his combatants face.

Aurora shielded Heather and Yukon Jack as they entered the battleground that had been their Canteen only thirty minutes beforehand. Walter howled as he rushed from behind them, transforming his body into the bestial Sasquatch that he had been for so long, his movements were wild as he pounced over the three in front of him. Aurora cast a glance over her shoulder at the now passive Heather MacNeil Hudson and her First Nation comrade, Yukon Jack.

“I suggest you get out of here, Heather,” Aurora told them, yet her suggestion was more like a demand.

Heather nodded and she led the First Nation man back towards the hallway as they made their escape. Aurora surveyed the scene and her eyes fell upon the man she had loved battling his own doppelganger, she rushed towards him in the middle of the battle and angrily she struck out at him. “Vous me coûter tout et je vous hais pour cela!”

Speeding away as she watched her brother battle the Snowbird in the air. She was a perfect image of the Goddess that Aurora had once known but she knew that it was not Narya, Narya was dead and buried as she should be. Racing past heaps of broken rubble, she grasped a metal rod and burst off into the air towards her brother and his assailant.

“Stay away from my brother, tu chienne,” she growled wrathfully.

Striking the woman’s chest with metal rod, Snowbird was impaled to the roof.

Mac looked around the chaos and realized that his team was becoming monsters to defend themselves from the sight of Aurora’s violent outburst to the newly revived Sasquatch ripping at the throat of his clone and he made a decision.

“Alpha Flight retreat!”

Grumblings of confusion rested upon the team but they realised that their leader had spoken and one by one the ‘real’ Alpha Flight rushed from their own personal battles and the wounded were left behind.

Guardian and his team prepared to follow only for a voice to sound in their ears.

No, return to me. We can find them at another occasion.

---

Hull House
Orloo, Ontario
Canada

“Mac...”

“Heather, don’t.”

Heather MacNeil Hudson stepped away from her husband as he requested and looked around the abandoned orphanages of Hull House, the team had seen many incarnations over its years but standing in front of her were some of the most bizarre choices ever for Alpha Flight. They had lost Arlette Truffaut, the mutant Murmur, but the junior Alphans remained with their senior peers at their sides.

Three heroes had died since the reformation of Alpha Flight and she couldn’t help but think of the title as a curse.

“So what, Mac? Shall we just sit in silence?” she questioned somewhat aggressively as he stood with his back to her. “Your team became murderers today or shall we just brush that under the rug. Shall we pretend that we didn’t leave the body of one of our own behind, because Alpha Flight has none of the morals it was conceived with.”

“You getting dangerously close, Heather,” Mac warned her, without facing her.

“Close to what, a slap or a hiding? What Mac, what?!?”

Mac finally faced her.

“When you walked away from this you gave up any and all of your opinions on the matter. This is my team and I pulled them from that battle because I saw what had happened to them. Arlette’s dead and gone, and if we were to take her with us it was unnecessary dead weight. I did what it took to protect my team.”

Alpha Flight made to move from the sofa and seats around the room where they now sat, insinuating the need for the couple to have some time for privacy.

“All of you sit down,” demanded the red-haired beauty. “I said fucking sit.”

They resumed their seats in awkward silence.

“You’re right, James, I did walk away, but obviously I didn’t walk away from enough,” she told with gently. “I’m done.”

Heather walked from the room and Mac refused to show emotion on his face as only rage filled him. Being the hero had cost him his marriage and he would make sure that those doppelgangers that had made his team monsters would pay for their part in that. He removed his mask as he looked around at the team assembled before him. Most averted their eyes, not wanting to intrude upon his sadness, but then there were the others who offered sympathetic glances that just felt false to him.

Storming from the room, he left them alone.

“Jeanne-Marie,” said Walter Langowski in his smooth Canadian drawl.

Inching closer to the seat that she sat at he looked for some emotion in her face and he was dismayed at the deadness in her eyes, Walter had loved her once but he had lost everything in the process including his identity, and he couldn’t allow that to happen to himself. He had watched Jeanne-Marie Beaubier, the only woman he had loved, fight for her life before him and he had to draw the line before the battle of heroism claimed her as another victory.

Her blue eyes lifted to him, but she did not answer. Walter reached his hand out to touch her and she pushed herself from her seat and out of his reach as she walked across the room.

She stopped beside her brother, Jean-Paul Beaubier, and she gave him a soft concerned smile. Examining the bruises and cuts across his face, she was shocked when he grabbed her hand and pushed it from his face. The French-Canadians twins were both handsome and beautiful, yet their personalities had often betrayed them and left them conflicted with one another. There was disgust in Northstar’s eyes that hurt her and she questioned it.

“I have seen a side to you I wish I hadn’t,” he told her as he prepared to walk away.

“Please, brother. I only wished to protect you,” her voice was soft and pleading.

“You always did run back to me when you had no one else to aide you Jeanne-Marie, il a toujours été votre trait le plus pathétique.”

Aurora appeared to be on the verge of tears as he brother walked away from her.

---

Department H
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

Rolling lazily into the room, the Guardian was flanked by the founding members of Alpha Flight, those remaining from the devastation of the prior battle. The ‘real’ Alphans had been allowed to escape and anger seethed from his pores at the thoughts of failure it brought upon him. Eyes narrowed upon the darkened figure ahead of him, the shuffling of his teammates silenced obediently behind him as he neared the desk.

“Why did we allow them to escape?”

The Director glared in return, his voice a bored drawl. “I do not like your attitude.”

Guardian noted the man’s tone as it seemed to trigger a response in him as he backed away. The Director presumed he had remembered his place.

“This is my assault, Guardian,” snarled the man across the table at his creations. “Jerome Jaxon calls the shots.”

---

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To Be Continued...

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Saskatchewan
Canada

Lillian Crawley trudged her way throw the heaps of snow that whisked around her. The cold didn’t bother her impervious skin, but it was the immobility that grinded against her last nerve. She was neither beautiful nor ugly, and there was little to be called graceful about her movements either. Lillian held no false pretences of who she was meant to be, she walked and talked like the soldier, and often terrorist, that she had been trained as. Her career was reformed from the villain she had been but there were still thoughts and memories that brought her back. It was times like those she now found herself in, alone and abandoned.

She had not been chased away from Alpha Flight but she had gained all the information that was necessary to them whilst paying her respects to the two latest casualties of the Canadian battlefield. Lillian had watched enough people die and she was reluctant to continue yet she knew there was no escaping who she was. Once a soldier always a soldier, she thought as she allowed her dull eyes to scan ahead of her.

Diamond Lil, the codename she had taken as a criminal member of Omega Flight, stopped and let her senses stretch out around her. She was tracking him in the snow, she needed to find him and rescue him from what he had become. It only worried her as she was unsure if the change of teams was voluntary or otherwise, Madison Jeffries had been a good man for the majority of his life and it was this belief that she now held too.

Tracks were clear around her but they were numerous.

Gritting her teeth as she marched on in the conspicuous green and yellow diamond-patterned uniform that she had worn her entire career, Lillian brushed the snow from her long brown hair that now stuck to her moistened body; angrily she swept at it as if it were the cause of the problems she had encountered within her life.

It was hard to imagine that a woman with the body of a diamond could be so vulnerable, but it was Lil’s toughened exterior that played-down her volatile emotions. She didn’t show weakness and she didn’t cry, she preferred the silence of thought to the persistent sobbing of grief. Even when she had lost contact with Madison and discovered his whereabouts, her mind considered the situations practically and strategically, with little regard to the emotional turmoil that swayed around her.

She was gaining on them; the tracks were fresher than before.

Temporarily, Lil thanked the Lord for their enhanced number as she reckoned it kept them slow, but then the jovial attitude subsided and the tactical side of her mind was recovered. Diamond Lil was nearly invulnerable, yet not entirely indestructible, and she was a single woman against what appeared to be a troupe of villains, which where potentially powered. She shrugged the worries off, she could only deal with that bridge when she reached it and saving Madison was her priority, whether he wanted to be saved or not.

Sounds reached her ears long before she could see the figures ahead of her, as the snow bounded around the mountain face she entered the blocked-off cavern and dusted herself off. Voices were clear too her but only one sounded familiar. Subtle dimples appeared on her face as she looked into the flickering light of the cave; sounds reverberated and echoed around her with rapid succession.

Lil crouched behind a rock as she hid from sight, watching the lights flicker above her.

“The others should notify us shortly,” growled the leonine voice. “Then we can reach phase two.”

“Phase one is yet to be completed,” reminded the ethereal sounding Libra.

Shuffling back in shock as a figure moved into the light, Diamond Lil looked into the face of the one relationship she had ever cared about enough to save and what she saw frightened her. Hair cascaded from her shoulders as she met the eyes of Madison Jeffries but found that they were cold and dead, unaware of her relevance to his life.

Before he could so much as alert the others to her presence, she tripped him with a swing of her long, curved legs and a kick to his face knocked him out.

Her attention was then diverted to the members of the Zodiac that remained the terrorist sect with inspiration to their names and costumes based on the Twelve Zodiac animals, and their personalities and abilities defined by them. Four stood ahead of her, the others must have been away on the ‘mysterious’ completion of phase one.

Lillian Crawley didn’t care.

It was her goal to save her husband; she could care less for whomever else would be victimised by the Zodiac after she had accomplished, or failed, her goal yet she was feeling confidant. Lil had been a soldier long before she had been a terrorist or a superheroine, she had been trained in the field of martial arts and she was most definitely not the damsel in distress, she had been Madison’s rock just as much as he had been hers.

Leo, the de facto leader, was the first to react as he pounced at the woman and his strength was unexpected as she was forced onto the ground. The man was a bestial creature that closely resembled his namesake, yet there was something more wild and ferocious about his nature. Lil’s diamond-hard aura, a thin but impenetrable veil that surrounded her body, protected her from the dangers of such a threat, and Diamond Lil rolled from under the beast.

She ducked as the creature swung its claw overhead.

Shrieks echoed around the cavern as Libra screamed for her failure to detect the young mutant, which caused some bewilderment to the mutant herself. Lil tumbled backwards to avoid the leonine mutate attacking her only to be struck by a blast of energy from the Zodiac terrorist Aquarius. Her eyes narrowed as she rushed once again to her feet.

Liquid flurried around her and trapped her as she struggled, her arms flayed and she burst threw the stream as it took the form of a woman behind her. Pisces, she glared at the watery-mutate.

Diamond Lil could see she was out of her depth but she would die fighting if she needed to; this would be her fifteen minutes of claiming history as her own. Leo charged at her and she drove a punch into his fur-covered face, whilst attempting to avoid the blasts ensuing from the silent, armoured Aquarius, who stood on a ledge above them. Sprinting past the leader, Lil drove her fist into the cave-wall and it collapsed, crashing Aquarius and Pisces into the rubble.

Leo gripped her neck firmly and threw her over his shoulder and into the wall; Lil struggled from breath as she attempted to recollect herself. She had felt the blow he had delivered. Leo stalked towards her, gnashing his teeth and her eyes narrowed with superiority. Lil had seen too much in her life to feel fear in the face of danger.

A force crashed into the stalking lion and removed him from her sight.

Madison Jeffries, the mutant known as Box, had tackled the beast that threatened her life and Lil’s face lit up at the rescue. She initially worried if Box merely wanted revenge from his attack but he clambered to his feet and pulled her to her own, her worries were denied and she felt safe with him. Not that she had ever let him in.

Lil swung herself behind the man’s back as she caught sight of Pisces reforming her liquidised body, and the rubble crumble from around the body of Leo. Aquarius was down, whether he had survived the fall was uncertain but she cared little for the man who had tried to take her life. Breathing hurriedly she dropped her eyes to the ground and she could feel the soft humming of Madison’s own breath.

“Lil...”

“We’ll have time for that later,” she informed him.

Silence whisked over them briefly.

“Thank you.”

Lil did not reply to the man, instead she focused her attention on the jets of water that erupted around her from the body of the villainous Pisces. Both women had the advantage of invulnerability but only Pisces was advantaged with long-distance projectiles of water. Lil manoeuvred through the winding streams as she attempted to smash her fist into the woman’s abdomen water encased her hand and she was knocked from her feet. Her brown hair clung to her face in wet patches as she glared at the woman beside her.

“If you can’t stand the heat...”

“Keep your cliché’s to yourself,” she spat at the woman.

Her eyes met those of her lover as she rushed towards him, in a twist they found themselves with new foes. Box approached Pisces behind her and she now found herself staring into the face of the leonine Leo.

Simultaneously they rushed at their respective opponents, Lil landing a roundhouse kick into the beast’s face and watching him stumble backwards with a sense of achievement. Leo seemed badly worn through his prior skirmishes with the heroic mutants he now faced but, even as he bled from his nose, he charged towards her. Using her inner athlete, Lil rushed towards him only to jump over his massive body and land behind him.

Catching her breath momentarily the woman turned and clasped her arms around the neck of the terrorist who threatened her as she drove both herself and her opponent into the flurry of dust in a collapse. Lil moved forwards from the scene breathlessly and her eyes fell across the unconscious bulk of a man.

Pisces dropped to the ground from Box’s grip, electrical sparks flying from his armoured body. Their eyes connected as the screaming of Libra continued until she had used her standard-teleportation device to evacuate the area.

“Lil...”

“Go back to Alpha Flight,” she ordered, turning away from him. “They could use you.”

“Lillian, I want...”

“No,” she replied to him as she looked into his bright eyes. Her own eyes shadowed with an emotion she had never before shown him. “I have to go.”

“If I’m going to Alpha Flight, come with me and we can be together again.”

Lillian paused. “I freed you...but I can’t be with you.” She looked away from him and began walking to the snow. “I have to go and find somewhere were I belong, I need to start over.”

Madison couldn’t stop her, as Lillian Crawley disappeared into the Canadian blizzard.

---

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To Be Continued...

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