The Sentry Reborn #8

TS R | #8 

You've Always Known This Place Existed.

Never Wanted To Accept It.

Where Your Base Of Operations Sits At The Heart Of The Most Vibrant City In The World, His Eats At The Core Of The Most Desolate Area Of The Planet.

Where Yours Is A Triumph Of Architecture, Towering Above A City, His Is An Afterthought Of The Devil, Hidden In Sub-zero Temperatures Beneath The Ground.

His Lair Is A Twisted Parody Of Your Masterwork, An Exact Opposite Of Your Watchtower In Name, Design And Intent.

Because The Void. by His Very Definition. is Everything You Are Not.

Greetings, Sentry. My Master Bids You Welcome To The Hidey-hole. We Trust Your Stay Will Be Unpleasant.

I Will Be Your Tour Guide For This Evening. Donations Are Welcome. Please Mind.

Mind The Aard Vark.

You May Call Me Colc.

That Was Backwards.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself.

I Am The Computer To Obliterate Life Completely

My Master Wishes To Nform You He Is Aware Of The Cure You Have Effected On The Daughter Of Doctor Cornelius Worth.

In Retaliation For This Unprovoked Act Of Spiritual Aggression. He Has Bestowed Untreatable Breast Cancer Upon A Young. Unwed Mother In Cleveland Named Juilie

Where Is Your Master Now, Colc? Is He Here?

My Master Went To Purchase Marbles And Will Return Shortly. That Was Recently. It Was A Tuesday When He Left. Now He Is Back.

My Master Waits For You In The Trophy Room.

You And He Have Much To Discuss. You Have Come Here To Learn Who You Are, Sentry. And Why You Exist.

My Master Looks Forward To Speaking With You At Great Length On The Subject.

But First, He Instructs Me To Kill You.

There Has Been A Rule Change.

Today Is Opposite Day

My Master Will Grant You An Audience.

Only If You Survive.

You Asked Me Here, Void! Why Try To Kill Me.

Before I Know What Want?

To Kill You Is Our Primary Function.

Hasn't This Always Been The Way, Sentry?

Are You Not Rder To His Chaos?

The Truth Is, For Every Person You Save, Another Person Dies. For Every Act Of Compassion, A Senseless act of Violence

Cornelius Worth Saw It: That's What Sent Your Darker Side Over The Edge In The First Place.

His Drones Are Programmed To React Counter To Your Intuition.

You Find Yourself Unable To Fix The Problem, Unable To Focus. The Void Wants To Tell You. He Is Compelled To Kill You.

But If You Can't Defeat Them By Conventional Attack.

Then The Opposite Must Be True.

Stop! You Are In Violation Of The Rules Of This Engagement.

He Knew You Would Figure It Out.

But Then Again, He Wanted You To Survive This Attack, Didn't He? He Doesn't Want You To Die Just Yet.

You Are In. Violation Of Rule Moving A Ball In A Hazard.

You Will Be Assessed A One Stroke Penalty-

Not Until He's Made His Real Play

Let's Assume You Want To Kill Me.

I Want To Kill You Too. Can We Agree That We'll Get To It In A Minute And Have A Civilized Discussion First?

That Depends On You. Can We?

We'll Play A Game Of "Twenty Questions." I Have A Secret And I Want You To Guess What It Is. That Counts As One Question For You.

I'm Not Playing Your Stupid Game.

Who Are These People? What Did You Do To Them?

Most Of The Fresh Ones Are From The Prague Operatic Society. They Butchered "La Traviata" Last Week And So I Butchered Them In Return.

This Is Scaredy Cat He Smells A Lot. We Call Him "Smelly."

Will It Be Okay With You If He Acts As The Referee? He Likes That.

You Can Forget The Act, Robert. I Was The Only Part Of You That Was Good the Part You Despised. But You Cast Me Away And Now You're Free To Be The Void, As You Secretly Always Wanted.

There's Something You've Been Dying To Tell Me. So Why Don't You Tell Me Before One Of Us Dies?

HMM? What's That You Say, Scaredy Cat?

Well, I'll Mention It But You Know How He Gets.

Scaredy Cat Says You'll Have To Beat That One Out Of Us.

I Know You As Well As I Know Myself. You Want To Confide In Me So Much It Burns,

You Never Really Tried To Kill Me. The Pantomime Is For Your Own Benefit. So Tell Me: What's The Big Secret?

I Can't Tell. You Have To Ask Properly. Twenty Questions.

Why Did You Kill The General? Why Lead Me To Him, Only To Kill Him Before He Had A Chance To Tell Me What He Knows?

What Can I Say? I'm The Devil Incarnate And When I Die, I'm Going To A Very Warm Place. I Needed Him To Draw You In. To Pique Your Interest.

You Had My Interest.

But Not Your Full Attention. I Thought It Was Very Clever Of You To Sit In The Sub Basement And Pretend You Were Talking To Me. I Want To Know What Made You Think Of Doing That.

I Can Read You Like A Book. Your Arrogance Is Your Weakness.

And I Can Read You Like Internet Pornography. And Your Naivete Is Yours.

So What Do You Want?

I Want What I Already Have!

To Do This Forever, Robert? For You To Kill And Me To Cure? For Me To Build And You To Destroy? It'll Get A Little Boring, Don't You Think?

That's Four More Questions. And It's Better Than The Alternative.

What Is The Alternative?

Ask Yourself This Question: Could Be Worse For This Miserable Planet Than The Sentry Versus The Void, Tearing The World Apart Until Doomsday?

Ha! Boy, Are You Confused! That's The Look I Live For!

I Keep Trying To Tell You But You Are Just Such A Cretin, Aren't You? The Real Secret Of Our Origin Is So Obvious.

Why?

Don't You Get It, Sentry? Are You Really This Dense? Do I Have To Spell It Out For You?

We Were Meant For Each Other! Together Forever! Just The Two Of Us!

You've Made Your Choice, Robert.

Thanks For Giving Me The Opportunity To Beat It Out Of You.

God, I So Want To Devour Your Soul. I Want To Put Acid Under Your Eyelids And Defile Your Wife. I Want To Eat That Stupid Damn Dog.

You Share That Sentiment In Reverse. But The Beautiful Part Is, Neither Of Us Can Win. We'll Do This For Eternity.

What Does It Do?

It Makes Us Linique: A New Form Of Life.

But You Want To Die?

Living Consumes Me.

Then What?

I Need You sentry. You Need Me Don't you see? All we Need Is Each Other. Nothing More.

Don't You See The Problem With That Serum Of Ours? Don't You See What It Does?

He's Put The Answer Out There, And He Can't Take It Back.

He's Doing Everything He Can To Tell You But He's Obliged To Keep Up Appearances.

What Does It Mean, He Wants Re To Be Just Two Of You? That's What You Have, isn't It?

Unless.

You Remember A Voice From your Distant Past "Counteract The Poison," It says "Be On Side Of The Pure."

You Know What It Means.

That Can't True.

It Couldn't Be That Simple.

But You Know It Is.

You've Been Living A Lie.

You Should Never Have Come Here.

He Knows You Know.

You've Got To End It Now.

Wait. I Beg You. 

I Love This, Sentry'

I Live For This.

Things Always Equal Out, Void- You Should Never Have Killed Those People Because I Haven't Saved An Equal Number In Return.

I Could Kill You Now! Give Me A Reason Not To!

Well. Now You're Getting It

You've Been So busy looking for some Cosmic Explanation, Some Huge Secret, You Couldn't See What Was Right In Front Of Your Face.

The Real Secret is you And I Aren't Special At All, We're Ordinary.

The Sentry!

You Pathetic Fool! It Was So Obvious All Along!

Ha!Ha! Ha!

He's Right. How Could In Have Been So Blind?

"As The Story Goes, Sometime In March Of 1947, A Joint Operation Of The United States And Canadian Governments Opened A Secret Research Facility In Western Pennsylvania.

"And To This 'facility' Were Transported Certain Former Nazi Research Scientists, Given Immunity Under The Same Conditions As Werner Von Braun Was Given For His Work With Nasa.

"With Experimental Data For Tests Performed On Live Human Subjects. The Germans Came With Experience And Know-how.

"A Secret Canadian Bio-research Program Known As 'weapon X' Supplied Raw Data And Materials, Including Genetic Coding Information And Specialized Tanks To House Floating Test Subjects.

"The Americans Gave Them A Place To Work, And One Special Ingredient: A So-called 'super-soldier Serum:

"This Serum Had Been Tried Before- Most Notably On A Young American Named Steve Rogers. That Test Had Been An Unqualified Success, Though The Formula And Its Creator Were Both Lost.

"And The Americans-being So Typically Unwilling To Leave A Good Thing Alone- Had Embarked Upon A Program To Re-create And Improve The Serum.

".To One Hundred Thousand Times Its Original Strength."

"By The Time Twenty Or Thirty Years Had Passed, 'project Sentry' Had Lost Its Original Form. We Were Now Fighting The Communists. No One Could Remember Who Was Doing What.

"The Project Became Compartmentalized, So That No One Oversaw It In Its Entirety. Control Became Lax. Some Of The Specific Research Work Was Outsourced.

"Our Esteemed Professor Was One Of The Recipients Of This Outsourced Work. But He Had Little Idea Of Its Significance.

"You And I Were A Freshman At The Time. an Above Average Mind Lapsing Backwards Into A Self Induced Haze Of Narcosis To Combat Our Schizophrenia.

"We Stole The Vial Of Serum, Intending To Get High.

Gosh-this Must Be The Sor's Secret Formula!

"Higher Than A Hundred Thousand Kites.

Man! What A Rush!

"In That Very First Moment- As The Serum Took Effect- I Knew I Would Be The Void Until The End Of Time.

"Oh Yes. It Was A Rush."

What Difference Does It Make Who Developed The Serum? Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

It's Not Who Made It- It's Who Swallowed It! 

"It Wasn't Supposed To Be Us, That's For Sure. But Since That Happened Anyway, The Sentry Project Brought Us In Because They Didn't Know What Else To Do.

We were transformed, Along With The Professor to the Facility.

"Think About It: The Serum Concentrate Was Supposed To Have Been Ingested By A Trained Operative. But Instead, It Had Been Swallowed By A Boy. A Nobody.

"A Diagnosed Schizophrenic With Generalized Anxiety Disorder And Agoraphobia.

"We Became Addicted To The Power. We Could Have Obliterated The Planet A Hundred Times In That First Year."

Hehh... Ha! You Look Like You Just Got Served For Jury Duty.

Do You Know Why They Destroyed The Serum And Never Tried It Again?

Because If It Could Turn A Meek Young Freshman Into Both The Greatest Hero And The Greatest Threat The Planet Had Ever Known, It Colld Do The Same To Everyone.

That's The Big secret, Sentry: We're Nothing Special.

That Serum Would Have Worked On Anybody.

That's Not True! The Phase Shifting Works Directly With My Specific Molecular Structure-

Oh, What. Did The Old Man Tell You That One? Did He Also Mention That Every Single Injection Of Serum He Subsequently Gave Us Was Merely Saline?

Get Used To Disappointment, Sentry: They Tried To Kill Us Nine Times During The First Two Months Of Our Existence.

They Would Kill You Now If They Had The Chance. They've Been Working On It For Years. It's Just That No One Can Figure Out How To Do It.

It's a lie! 

It's The Truth And You Know It! You Know The Only Thing Worse.

The Only Thing Worse Than One Sentry And One Void iS Six-and-a-half Billion Of Them, All Vying For Position. I Don't Want There To Be Anyone Elsei

Neither Do I. 

You're The Most Dangerous Man That Ever Lived, But Not For The Reason You Think.

All The Serum That Exists In The World Swims In Your Blood. You Carry The Potential To Destroy All Of Human Society By Changing It Fundamentally.

And You Can't Die. That's A Lot Of Responsibility.

Who Knows About This?

Twelve People. Stephen Strange. Reed Richards. The Current President. There's A Comic Book Writer In Atlanta Who's Beginning To Get A Pretty Shrewd Idea. I'm Going To Have To Deal With Him.

I Realize This Is Hard For You. What Is Your Purpose, If Not To Do Good?

As Much As I Hate Consider Me Your Friend. You, I Want You To I'm All You Have, Sentry. I Am Your Balance.

We Can't Kill Each Other. So This Is How It Must Be.

Aak! What--?

No! No! Listen to me! 

You Can't Hurt Me, Sentry! You Can't Kill Me.

If You Think You've Killed Me, I Won't Be Dead! I Cannot Die If You Live! I'm Robert Reynolds-

So Am i. 

And I Have No Further Need For You.

Think About It: For Every Person You Save, For Every Act Of Good, There Must Be Balance.

If You Try To Send Me Away, You Will Only Succeed For A Time, And I Will Return!

What Happens Then?

I'll Take My Chances.

I Should Have Done This From The Day You Emerged, Void. It Should Have Ended Then.

It Won't End. If I Die, I'll Come Back To Life!

I'll tally Up All The Good Things You've Done While I Was Away And Undo Them In One Fell Swoop. All You're Doing Now Is Wasting Time.

You Can't Live Alone, Sentry you're Too Unstable. Your Power Goes Up And Down With Your Emotions.

Where Do You Stand If Someone Takes Away Your Confidence And I Am Not There To Kill Them For You?

I Never Needed You.

You Always Did!

I Love You, Golden Guardian. I Promise I Do.

Please Let Me Live.

"I Am The Devil Incarnate," He Said.

"And When I Die, I Am Going To A Very Warm Place."

And He Said Something Else. Just As That First Prediction Came True.

You Heard Him Scream It As He Flashed Through Space Towards Flaming Obliteration:

"I Will Return."

He Always Said That.

And So Far, He's Always Kept His Promise.

And This Is How It Goes For You: Always The Sentry, Ever The Void So It Will Be Until The End Time.

You're Free But Who Can Say For How Long? When The Void Comes Back, Will He Destroy all you have Done?

You Must Remain Vigilant, For You Are Humanity's Only Hope.

You Are The Sentry: The Golden Guardian Of Good.

You Bestride The Narrow world Like A Colossus.

When all Else Has Failed.

When All Hope Seems Lost.

Who Gives Hope To You?

The End