TENSEN 2099UG	Writer/Artist/Editor: Gary M. Miller  |  Creator: Peter David  Editor-in-Chief: Michael Shirley  |  AEIC: Chris Lough
Jan 21, 1998 #6

Click the pictures to see character profiles!

John Tensen	Xina Kwan	Meanstreak	Thanatos	Reed Richards

After reconstructing the Virtual Unreality portal in Las Vegas, John Tensen, Xina Kwan, and Meanstreak were assaulted by the madman known as Thanatos.  In the ensuing battle, Tensen's hand was burned off, and Meanstreak suffered a crippling injury to his leg.  Tensen and Thanatos went through the portal, leaving the others to fend for themselves.  In a dream in between realms, Tensen encountered beings from his past, including Keith Remsen, better known as Nightmask--but curiously absent of that persona.  Waking on the world of Tensen's birth, Tensen and Thanatos faced execution at the hands of the deadliest man alive--Reed Richards, Emperor of the New Universe Earth entire.  Having no choice, the adversaries teamed up against the group of paranormals who cried for their blood...

Vegas, 2099:

Shock Tensen, anyway.

She wasn't feeling so well herself, to be honest, and the ever-increasing heat wasn't helping. The sweat was pouring from her skin; she'd taken off her blouse in favor of her bikini top she wore underneath, the one which she had worn in the case that she'd ever have the opportunity to catch some sun. She had the sun, but not the mood. A small part of her now wished that she'd brought along some SPF-150 sunblock to protect her from the ultraviolet rays. Then again, she didn't feel like parading around looking like one of those New Atlanteans she'd heard about, blue skin and all. To Hel with it, Henri was her prime concern now. Henri, who'd been taken down by Thanatos.

And Tensen hadn't done a shockin' thing about solving their problems. He could have transported Xina and Henri both to some hospital, any hospital, and then gone after his quarry. But his macho male ego didn't permit any of that, did it? Or was it something else? Tensen was acting sort of strange after he'd had his hand carbonized off. Then again, John Roger Tensen had acted strange the whole time she'd known him.

Xina looked over at Henri, for whom she'd set up a blanket to lie upon. She'd tried to keep him talking, but now she realized he was going deeper, ever deeper into shock from the trauma he'd endured. She tried to remember enough of her brief medical training from her Academy days in order to attend to his wounds, but she'd found she couldn't perform the task ably enough as Henri needed. If only Vegas weren't a husk of a town, if only--

Wait a minute. Why hadn't she thought of it earlier? There was an old technique she might be able to use -- one not currently practiced in such modern times, but still manageable. She might be able to remove the limb and seal off the wound with something hot -- perhaps a piece of metal from the wreckage, which was surely in excess of eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit. She went over to Henri, who had begun shaking all over, and she peeled the blanket off his leg. She gasped as now she saw the full extent of the injury. Blood was gushing from the wound -- forget "wound," this was a complete rending of Henri's bone and muscle tissue. The lower portion of Henri's leg was dangling by a few cords of muscle, nothing more. Thanatos had indeed done his job well.

"Henri," she said, trying to get his attention, to divert the oncoming shock. He looked briefly up at her as she rested her hands on each part of his leg. Then he shook his head, as though he knew what she was about to do.

She protested his protest. "This is what's best, Henri. Remember our EMT training? I can perform miracles, just not with the short time we have, and certainly not with the feeble equipment we brought along. It won't hurt for very long, I just need to..."

"NO!" he gasped, breathing in air faster and faster, hyperventilating.

"You don't want me to--?" Xina was getting angry. That made two men who disagreed with her good intentions. "Henri, you're going to die without this."

"Th-th-there's another w-way," Henri said, finally managing to talk through the pain. He raised his hand, pointing in the direction of the rubble.

"What are you trying to say, Henri?" Xina asked. She decided she was wasting valuable time, as she saw Meanstreak's limb bleeding even more than it had only a minute prior; Xina ran quickly to get the medkit out of the car. As soon as this was over and done, she would put Henri in the back of the car -- he'd probably be unconscious for quite a while -- and then drive somewhere far away for further treatment.

"Don't..." His voice trailed off as he tried to clutch his chest -- his heart raced, then slowed down almost deathly so in a matter of moments. Sweat broke out heavily all over, and the chills -- he couldn't escape the chills. Henri closed his eyes briefly, using all the strength he could just to accomplish that one task -- and then, he opened them as he felt the faint whispering of one of the vials of med Xina'd brought with her.

"Come on, Henri, this is what's safest. I'm going to save your life here," Xina said. She then looked at Henri as his face turned even paler than it had been. "It's Pseudohexamorphine, Henri. I don't want you enduring any more pain than you need to." She then pulled out a rod-shaped piece of metal from the medkit, and pressed a small button on the side that revealed a long knife-shaped apparatus, gleaming in the last dying rays of the sun.

"Don't worry, Henri. You should know as well as I do that everything in the kit's sterile. I don't even know if you can hear me right now, but, well ... brace yourself."

Xina hesitated for a moment. What about Henri's mutant power -- his super-endurance, super-metabolism, super-speed? She then ignored those facets of Henri -- after all, he wouldn't be doing very much of that if he wound up dead of blood loss. The solution was simple.

She took the blade to the cords of muscle and flesh and bone which were all that kept Henri's lower leg attached to his body. And she cut those cords, the source of Henri's discontent.

And Henri shook. And quivered.

And screamed.

The blood came faster now, pouring forth from the wound. She had some Synthoplasma in the kit as well, but that wouldn;'t do a damned bit of good if it was pumping out of him at the same rate it was going in. No, now she had to make sure the blood loss would cease -- and she knew only one way of doing that. She grabbed Henri's now limp body under both arms, and dragged him along to where an especially large chunk of metal debris had fallen. Let's see, Xina thought, metal absorbs heat at about the rate of seventy-five degrees an hour, it's been out here for ... long enough. If I'm gonna go for it...!

She lay Henri's body down so that the bleeding leg was facing the metal, only a few inches from it. Xina felt the heat, and Henri probably did, too, because even now his remarkable metabolism made him awake, alert. And there was nothing he could do to prevent the last movement by Xina, as she pushed him with all her might, so that his stump of a leg touched the dull-red metal of the former building.

Henri screamed, and Xina covered her nose and mouth as the stench of boiling, burning flesh made its way through the air. Then Xina pulled Henri away from the debris, leaned over to the side, and vomited. Damn her, what a waste of good bodily fluids. This was no time to get dehydrated.

Henri looked like death warmed over. Vultures were now swooping overhead.

Death was near.

2049:

The hundreds of men and women around all cried out for their blood. The blood of the traitors.

And still, Thanatos was dead-set on beating the odds. So, too, was John Roger Tensen. And although they had been separated in the heat of battle, taken in a maneuver of "divide-and-conquer," none had fought so bravely before in the face of death.

Thanatos enjoyed the carnage, cutting through the crowds of paranormals with his suped-up laser cannon. He would punch one man's face inward, feeling the skull shatter beneath the weak flesh, and he would smile. Another would come forth, and he would do the same. Whether he ridded himself of them by use of his bare hands or his cannon, either way was equally satisfying. He could remember such an experience before, on a world far away -- with much greater odds stacked against him. He and three others triumphed then, just as he had no doubt that he and the one other with him would do so now. The blood which exploded forth from his victims' bodies covered him like anointing oil in an unholy baptism.

"Tensen, to your right!" Thanatos shouted, and his pseudo-partner in this endeavor responded, quickly flashing his eyes -- now functioning as his "sword" -- into action against the unseen-until-this-moment enemy. His powers were changing, ever-changing; just a few minutes earlier his swords came from his left hand, and his shields from his eyes -- but now Tensen had mysteriously switched functions. He knew he still worked at a disadvantage because of his lost right hand, but tried to overlook that fact. The fact was he did still possess the tingle of feeling where his hand should have been, and yet had no explanation for that feeling. He just kept fighting, less ruthless than the other man.

Tensen would spare his rage for Thanatos, and once this horde had been overcome, he would attack and punish the man whose name meant Death -- all the same. Right now as he knocked paranormal man after paranormal woman unconscious, he felt another sensation -- that of an earlier Tensen. The Justice-Warrior. The illusion that he had suffered due to the influence of drugs given him years ago still left its mark. If he didn't rest soon, he would revert back to that particular hell. But it didn't look as though these paranormals would give him the chance.

Tensen and Thanatos battled on, as the pile of bodies below them grew in the twon square. Odd, Tensen thought as he fought more men, this place -- it seems oddly similar to Times Square. But it can't be! But then that would explain the streets -- the people -- the--! **SHRRAAAK!** Tensen felt the force of a laser cannon as he saw an enemy behind him fall to the ground, her head incinerated by Thanatos's weapon.

"Good shooting," Tensen remarked as he punched another paranormal who thought he could sneak up on him.

"The next time you may not be as lucky," Thanatos remarked as he fought onward, the gleam of intense pleasure in his eyes. "The combat is what matters. 'Do not go gently into that good-night.'"

"Longfellow," Tensen commented, amused at such an obscure quote. He kept fighting, kept punching with his left hand, holding the people back with his shields, and eliminating those he felt were a danger to his life with his psionic swords. He slowly felt himself slipping further away into madness...

DarquillMadnessSlippingCloserNeverJudgeInAngerEndolina

As the blood ran thick from the defeated acting army, Reed Richards, Emperor of Earth, sat along the sidelines. He watched as Tensen's face contorted, clearly in agony. He smiled.

RichardsFourFantasticEmperorTyrantDarquillMustStopParanormalEvil

Richards, in his coat and tie, stared increasingly hard at Thanatos, who seemed to be making more headway than was deemed sufficient. Against his better judgment, Richards began to descend below into the crowd. Past the fighting paranormals he went, and each one cleared a path for him. When he came to Tensen, the paranormal who was fighting him was on the verge of besting him. Tensen was on the verge of giving in to his insanity.

"Cease your hostilities," Richards ordered the paranormal, who was using a bludgeon formed from the flesh of his hand to beat Tensen bloody.

The paranormal didn't stop.

Richards curled up his hand into a fist, showing his arm clearly bulk up with massive muscle which threatened to burst the fabric. He then swung wide at the paranormal, knocking him up and off his feet, into the air. The man landed several feet away, on top of other paranormals, in severe pain. Richards then grabbed Tensen by the arm and tugged him along as he rushed to stop Thanatos.

The crowds parted easily enough at Richards's mere presence, and Thanatos had no problem seeing the dictator. "Well, well," Thanatos said as he cracked his knuckles. He'd just finished breaking the neck of one of the weaker, female paranormals. "I thought you'd never interfere." Thanatos then picked up the girl's body, holding her high above his head. "I believe it's time to play a decidedly Terran game," the monster said, flinging the body directly at Emperor Richards. "Catch."

Richards stood firm as the woman's body struck him. With such force as Thanatos had mounted behind the pitch, Richards should have been stifled by now. Or perhaps he would have stretched, let the woman extend his form further until it stopped, and then, like a rubber-band, have her shoot back out at Thanatos. But none of those things occurred. He stood, durable as ever, unharmed, as the woman's dead body slumped to the cold concrete.

"I command you to cease all hostilities and listen to me," Emperor Richards said, letting go of Tensen and pushing him over beside Thanatos. "We shall make a deal."

"Thanatos doesn't make deals," the one whose name meant Death said.

"Then Thanatos ... is a fool," Richards retorted. "Listen carefully," he looked at both of them, "I am prepared to offer the both of you complete amnesty. On one and only one condition."

"That is?" Tensen asked.

Richards slapped Tensen across the face with astonishing strength. "You shall never talk out of turn." He stepped back a few feet. "Now, then, my one condition is that both of you serve for me as headmaster in the Recantation Facilities, overseeing everything that is done, in every facet of the people's pathetic lives. You shall report to me on a monthly basis. You shall read all required materials pertaining to leadership, and shall never question my direct orders. My every word is your command." Richards stopped, crossed his arms across his chest, and gestured to both men. "The other choice is that you spend all of the rest of your days in the gulag for paranormal enemies of state, with no rights, no freedoms. But it is your decision.

"Now the choice is yours to make, gentlemen," Richards told them, "and I'm waiting."

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Site created and maintained by Gary Michael Miller, tensen2099@yahoo.com Tensen and all related characters are © 2001 Marvel Characters, Inc. No copyright infringements intended.