Defenders/ TRANZ: part NINE, w/ guest Machine Man "Spectacle" 12 Days of Defenders

“Every Where in Presence” Dedicated to Steve Gerber



STRANGE: Now attend we the journey of the warriors true: the Dragon's Line. They were the searchers in a dark age lost to antiquity; yet artifacts and treasures they assembled have carried on to museums of the present age. Those caretakers' last mission involved the deadliest secret of their era.

The Box they had guarded together is conjured from outside time and space to reappear here and focus the energies of the Tranz-Rupture. They, its final guardians, the last defenders of humanity, have come to this place and time to prevent it once more from being misused: once, as a coveted weapon of war, and now, as an agent to shape all of human consciousness and the earth itself.

Thousands of years of greater understanding of the Box are at play---the present spell of the wolf that holds Transmetamorphosis together, that increasingly makes all in its contagious awareness to feel everywhere in presence. Many, indeed, vanish for the stars beyond---so porous is the command of intention over reality.


MADAME BLAVATSKY: Clea, I’m fascinated! Handcuffed by more than a century of time, we have communed with the Prince and the Marc Kane, who search from a thousand years past for her brother---and this Box. By hand-scrabbled runes have we domesticated the most critical place in the wilderness that is becoming your present Earth space-time. STEPHEN STRANGE, thinking (I had suspected Cagliostro, but I sense not his hand in this, lest he has staked out some far-flung future next!)

BLAVATSKY: You are my first visitors, it seems, from the future itself! At least, the first to have tea!

CLEA: The focus of Dragonfang, bearing the magic of Nicola Dragonvayne and the Marc Kane (who is---a woman, disguised as a soldier, sailor), has breached a critical point in the make-up of this being---the very fulcrum of his pastiche existence. What lies within?

STRANGE: For this do I call upon the Moon of Munipoor, that I might aid the manifestation in this stage of the mind: to call into seeming-enough, a cave. From this cave, then, may man by his own design decide to follow shadows, or return into the light.


Cleaving his form, now from its nimbus springs Remus Sharptooth, grappling viciously with Valkyrie.
A cavern appears; the spirits of Nicola and Marc Kane enter.
Inside is the other half of Sharptooth’s form, the essence of the sorcerer is revealed: her lost brother, Ray, taken by the enchantress’ spell between his vanishing at the Break through and Valhalla. Strange now feels sure this hidden being was aiding them in finding the way inside Remus’ mind.
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MARC KANE: Ray was always in sweet spirit, unfettered from care---and all responsibility, save assist Prince Nicola Dragonvayne in wandering his kingdom and beyond, as one, along with Marc Kane, of the Dragon’s Line.

Every land, terrain, battle, and boat became Ray’s teacher. So long as his curiosity and daring were challenged; ever did his barbed words fall asway his good nature...but not that day. For one time, truly, you were determined to keep your own council, believing not believing in the curse of Slave Box did leave you free of its power. What thing have you glimpsed that confused you, brother, as we scrambled to complete our mission: break through enemy lines, dispose of Slave Box.

RAY: The night...the maiden, Wanda...
NICOLA: She was in your heart.
RAY: As were you, and Prince Nicola, in your own fashion. Now do I perceive we fell victim, rather, did I your Captain, to a manipulation! The slightest breach in our rapport did render us vulnerable, as the heathen hordes did challenge us before I took the Box in my charge to the volcano.

NICOLA: Then, the break-through...the ice must've melted, we were merely a day too late in the year, and like thunder did the land beneath our boots cave...cave into a world of smoke, fire, and darkness.


MARC KANE: Something you saw...Ray, you were the one who caught me into this world with your bare hands, as I cried and our mother grew cold. I have ever been the student of all things you do, brother.

What you saw the night before we carried Slay Box to its volcanic ensconcement, I see all too clearly in its awkwardness to discuss. My brother, I wish you free, I have felt your hand in much of our “luck” against Remus Sharptooth...even in your bonds are you strongest and wisest in this world.


RAY AWEN : I raised a soldier, more than a princess, a sister more adept at mother’s ways than I ever took a mind to be. I feel how you and Prince Dragonvayne---boon companions of mine, now half of your natural born lives---have an irreplaceable need for the man in side of me. I may remain merged in this being until---until some other way is found---but now I have swam from the brackish mind beneath the thoughts men find idly daily. Emerged, I find myself, my essence, bound to a most grandiose trickster.

MARC KANE: We will find a way, do not quit fighting Ray!!!

Valkyrie: I may be here to carry you to a final reward, Ray Awen Mycearyn, or perhaps your spirit’s been taken this far from your earthly life to discover how this box you guarded well fits into the puzzle of what is meant to be, even while enigma remains: who has control over what is meant to be?
Ray: Maybe this is the Ragnarok about which I’ve laughed so many times. It is well we are together without fear. And without Nido!

Val opens way to Valhalla for Ray, Nic and Marc to find Nido again) As they join in a circle of hand to bond their energies, a word seems to emerge from the triplet indigo forms: "Mother?" "Father?"

Swirling, they vanish into destiny, beyond time and space.