The Adventures of Goldfish and Geneva

The Five Goldfish (Part 1)

With thanks to Michael 'Blaquesmith' Peterson who helped write the Askani chapter of this fan fiction!!!

The radio clicked on as Dave Goldfish steered the yacht across the crystal blue water of the Pacific.
"Happy New Year, 2006!" came the announcer. "It's 8.05 AM and this is Queen..." Dave smiled as 'A Kind of Magic' came across the air, echoing across the silent horizon. The smell of bacon wafted to his nose, and he knew that Bethany was awake and cooking breakfast. They had saved he good food especially for this moment, to celebrate their return to dry land. They were just short of a small atoll, just west of the Camen Islands where they had set up a small base of operations. After the debacle with the Fringe and the death of Josephine, things had changed. Blaquesmith was seemingly forever and even Dave's brief flirtation with the Crimson Shadow had not been enough to keep him happy. He had resigned from the X-Wars and now lived apart from the other people who had once made him happy. He no longer cared about them or what happened to them. Let them deal with their own problems, he thought. The rest of my life is for me and Beth. He knew his daughter would soon be gaining the rest of her powers and he knew they were in for a difficult time with that. Teaching was not part of his resume, and especially not homo ultima. He wasn't Charles Xavier or Nathan Dayspring, or even Sean Cassidy but he was the former avatarr, a cosmic aspect of immense power.
"Here you go, Dad," said Beth as she brought him breakfast. The orange juice was freshly squeezed, the bacon crisp - the way he liked it - and the toast covered in melted butter and orange marmalade.The coffee smelt good as well. He locked the wheel in place with his powers, which were still not 100% but worked well enough without the daystaff, and sat down to breakfast.
"Cheers, kiddo," he said. "Nice work."
"Well, we are nearly home," she reminded.
"So we are," he chuckled. "So we are. I..." he stopped short as his head started to pound. The sun had gone in and the signal had been broken off on the radio. "Uhh..." he moaned, though Beth only just heard it.
"Daddy?" she asked.
"Something isn't right here," he said. "Get me to the island. Quickly." Beth nodded as Dave staggered down to his cabin and lay out on his bed.

Back at the island, Dave could barely stand and Beth had to help him to their home. Once there he sat down and began typing at the computer systems which had lain dormant for such a long time. When he was still CEO at WeaponsTech he had used them a lot but since his retirement he had hardly ever needed to. However this was different. In fact this was more than different, this was bad. Dave activated the global scanner network and skipped over the various X-Warrior's that were highlighted as part of the old program. Who would ever have though that the Crimson Shadow would turn out like that. Mannix certainly wouldn't, the devil take his soul, thought Dave as he smiled. Jakob's death hadn't been pretty and it was one of the few X-Wars event he had watched in the past ten years. He had watched it with satisfaction as well. But that was the past, and this was now. Dave surveyed the world but saw nothing. He extended the scan range and was stunned at what he saw.
"Flonq," he said. "This is bad."
"What?" asked Bethany.
"A crystal wave is coming, very much like the Age of Apocalypse wave and the Age of X-Wars wave after that. Blaquesmith is dead, so that must mean the M'Krann crystal has been compromised."
"But only you and two others knew where that was placed."
"Yes, Slen doesn't remember anything after that battle with Apocalypse which got the Resistance killed and Blaquesmith, we've mentioned. Damn it."
"What can be done?"
"Only thing I can think of is to try and stop the wave before it hits Earth. With the superhero poulace as spread out as it is, by the time they realise it'll be too late."
"Won't they already know?" "After the problems caused by Darkside's Shadow War? I doubt they're even looking. It's up to me to save the planet. Again. I'm getting too old for this."
"What needs doing?" asked Bethany.
"We fly out to the wave in the Liberator and use the daystaff to absorb the it."
"Will that work?"
"Don't know. We'll soon find out..." And within minutes the Liberator launched from the island.

The Liberator stopped just outside the range of the advancing wave and Dave took the daystaff from the power core and put on a space suit.
"I'll be back," he said and went out to meet the crystal wave whilst Bethany watched on the monitors. He gripped the daystaff with both hands and as the wave came forward he touched the wave with the daystaff. The two cosmic forces met and battled with each other, the daystaff winning the fight, absorbing the M'Krann energies in to it. The wave began to disperse and was soon depleted leaving normal space behind, but the daystaff had taken on more than it could handle. "Uh oh," said Dave and threw the daystaff away from the Liberator but it was too late and the daystaff exploded in a shockwave of cosmic energy. Using his powers over metal to shove the Liberator out of the blast range, he was pushed in to the wave himself as the law of physics kicked in. "Oh, sh..." was all he managed to say before being engulfed in the shockwave. Its power tore through him and those had been combined with the energies of the M'Krann and he felt himself being shredded and then there was nothingness and he felt no more.

In the Liberator, Bethany watched her father disappear in the blast. Her eyes went wide as she felt his screams of pain in her mind, whcih all too abruptly stopped. The Liberator was buffeted by the diminished blast, but was caught in the gravitaional pull of the planet her father had just saved. The Liberator began to speed downwards, burning as it did so before plowing in to the Canadian Rockies in a massive explosion. Debris was scattered everywhere but of Bethany there was no trace.

Micah slid out of the ventilation shaft with a groan. It was cramped in there. He carefully looked back and forth, but he was alone. He stood and checked over his weapons. Climbing up the mile or so up the length of Apocalypse's Citadel tower had been simple. Now came the difficult part. He had to find a way to rescue Rachel before Apocalypse destroyed her. Without the pwoer of the Phoenix Force, she was very near to the weakneed old woman she looked like.
    He drew his laser pistol and stepped lightly, on the balls of his feet. He could not beleive the others would not aid them. This was their Lady, their Mother. Not even Remy LeBeau would go with him. He engaged his field light, letting the brightness fill the room. He swore. It was obvious he had taken a wrong turn. This was not the passage to the throne room.
    All around him were large tanks, a person in each. All were clearly mutant, some normal-looking, some horribly twisted into caricatures of the human form. Micah had found the cloning tanks, where the host bodies Apocalypse found were collected and cloned to provide him life to feed off of forever. His intense power was burning out the bodies faster and faster, just as the Mother Askani had predicted.
    He pulled a set of detonator charges from his pack. Plasma explosives. He placed them on the tanks one by one. He was sorry he had to do this to these innocent people, but they were too far gone to save. It was all about stopping Apocalypse. That brief moment of indecision he had been faced with in the ventilation shaft was long gone.
    He placed the last charge, only to hear a psimitar ignite behind him at the same time as the warning buzzers went off in his head. He ducked and rolled as the psionic weapon crashed through the tank, shattering it and spreading the mutant's blood across the floor. Micah drew his staff and whirled around, slamming the metal rod into Ch'vare's face. The warrior stumbled backwards.
"That was stupid, boy." Ch'vare spun his psimitar around and cut into Micah's arm as the young Askani leaped back. Micah responded with a full-force TK-blast.
    "You're right. I should have killed you right away. A mistake easily rectified." Micah tackled Ch'vare, his strength augmented with telekinesis. Ch'vare slammed into one of the other tanks and crushed it and the creature inside. Ch'vare started to move, but slumped into unconsciousness. Micah took the man's weapons and ducked back into the shaft, closing it behind him. He would find Apocalypse and make him pay. And he had only an half an hour. The charges were timed and ready to explode.

Dave opened his eyes and closed them again. Then he opened then once more and decided it was darker with them open. This was familiar territory as he'd been here several times before. As far as he could tell, he was dead, or at least in the afterlife.
"Hello?" he called "Anyone there?" As if in repsonse a light came on in the distance and Dave willed himself over there. "Well, I shouldn't be surprised but I am," he said to the figure standing in front of him. "Hello, Blaquesmith."
"Oh, Dave," sighed Blaquesmith. "What have you gotten yourself in to this time?"
"Good question. But as the saying goes, no good deed ever goes unpunished. The last I remember was saving the universe from a crystal wave. I think the M'Kraan's been compromised, Micah. And if I'm here, I can't stop it from happening again."
"It's worse than you think," said Blaquesmith. "As far as we can tell, Jahf and Modt have been vanquished and someone else is now in charge of the crystal. The wave was a trap designed especially for you, and you fell for it. Retirement's slowed you down, Goldfish."
"Who's we?" asked Dave.
"A cadré of people concerned fort your welfare," came another voice. It was Jo.
"Oh, my," said Dave. "I didn't dare hope I'd see you again." He kissed his wife on the cheek but found himself phasing through her. "What the?"
"Dave," said Jo, "the trap was only one part of it. The very timestream itself is imperiled by this. You've been split in to core elements of your nature which have been scattered through time. Each of them has a portion of your physicality but each represents a stage of your life."
"What have I got to do?" asked Dave, suspicious of the answer.
"You have to regather the scattered fragments of yourself, recombine with them, and sort out the crystal, without endangering the time stream, or altering events."
"Which means," said Blaquesmith firmly, "no preventing deaths or significantly altering thinmgs so the eventual outcome is changed."
"Hey, it's me," said Dave.
"Yes, which is why we're telling you," said Jo. "D, I love you. I always have, but you do have a habit of altering things."
"Not intentionally."
"No," admitted Micah. "But you do. Chaos and dissension seem to follow you wherever you go."
"Point. So where do I start? The time stream is a very large place."
"Already taken care of," said Blaquesmith. "I can send your spirit to the future, where you'll find the first part of the puzzle, then you'll be drawn to your other parts."
"How do you know?" asked Dave.
"Trust me," said Blaquemsith, in a tone Dave had used often enough.
"Uh oh," said Dave. "That hasn't inspired me with confidence."
"Well, let's just say you'll be ahead of the game for once," said his friend with a smile. "G'journey, Dave."
"I'll be back one day, sweetheart," he said to Jo. "I promise."
"Later, D," she smiled and Blaquesmith worked his mental magic on him and Dave was cast from the afterlife and in to the future...

Micah made his way through the ventilator shaft and stopped at the next vent over, heading the way he had meant to go before. He heard voices and waited, motionless.

"At last, Mother Askani, your end is assured!" Micah's eyes widened. Apocalypse! He let out a flurry of telekinetic energy, and tore the shaft open. He dropped down onto the large statue of Apocalypse at the head of the throne room, to see Apocalypse move to flip some sort of switch. "NO!" He leapt forward, latching onto Apocalypse and letting all of his telekinetic energy surge into the monster. Apocalypse roared in pain and grabbed the young Askani off of him, extending his arm until he slammed Micah into the wall.

"Foolish mutant!" Apocalypse's red eyes glowed, surging with energy. "You think to stop me with the pwoers of your feeble little brain? I am eternal!" The High Lord secreted acid from his hand, burning Micah. He screamed, throwing up a weak TK shield. It would not hold for long. He pumped up his laser pistol and fired it into En Sabah Nur's hand, blowing it apart and falling to the floor. He grunted in pain, and watched as Apocalypse reformed his hand. Micah dashed between Apocalypse's mammoth legs, and flicked his staff open. Charging it with telekinetic energy, he slammed it across Apocalypse's back.

The High Lord screamed in anger, and turned only to see Micah roll to the side and fire his wristband's power amplifiers. A huge TK blast slammed Apocalypse head on...to no effect. Apocalypse had altered his molecular structure to protect himself. Apocalypse grabbed Micah and hoisted him up.

"Now, little Askani, you shall...eh?" Apocalypse suddenly looked confused. "Your power is greater than I had realized..." His fingers extended into cables, tying up Micah and hgolding him against the wall. "You may yet serve me as a temporary... yes... feel grateful, mutant, you are about to receive the highest honor!"

Apocalypse began to build up his energy, and then forced it into Micah, trying to overwhelm him. In moments, he would become Micah, own him like he had owned so many. It was fortunate that David Goldfish suddenly found himself in the Citadel's throne room along with them.

"Oh, sweet freaking Jesus," said Dave as he shook his head. "I hate it when that happens." His mind still disorientated from the blast of the daystaff, he was barely aware of what was going on around him and as he pulled himself up, he heard a weak voice in his mind.
:::Dave, help us:::
"I know that voice," he said. "Rachel?" He looked up and around. "Flonq!" he said. Rachel was in danger, but safe for the moment and the immediate threat was Apocalypse. He was fighting Micah, trying to possess him. "Not today, En Sabah Nur," he said and unleashed an assault on Apocalypse who had so far ignored his arrival. Now he didn't and Apocalypse released his hold on Micah to deal with the new threat.
"So, the once and future avatarr has appeared. You will not stop me this time," cried Apocalypse. What? wondered Dave. I've never battled him in my life but if he's battled me... Dave found himself across the room.
"Ow," he said. "Son of a bitch," he said, wiping the blood from his mouth. "I'm not taking this." He pulled himself up and used the iron in his to propel himself across the room. He slammed in to Apocalypse, which stunned the High Lord but hurt Dave more. "Ah, hell," said Dave as he realised that his already lessened powers were weakened from the blast, and he doubted he could stop Apocalypse at full strength anyway. "I'm out of time, low on power and fighting Apocalypse. Happy New Year!"
"Insignificant wretch!" cried Apocalypse as he turned to face Dave. "You have interfered in my business for the last time!" Dave looked in to his eyes.
"Do your worst, Apocalypse," defiant to the last. he wondered if he had enough strength to focus his metal controls into severing the head from the body, before he died. Unlikely, he thought, as I can barely stand. Sorry, Bethany, he thought and prepared for what he knew was to come.

Apocalypse raised his fist. "Farewell, interloper!" David Goldfish braced himself, and then...nothing. He looked.
The sword that once been part of the giant Apocalypse statue was suddenly embedded in the High Lord's back. He screamed, clutching at his back. Remy LeBeau clung to the sword and rode Apocalypse like a bucking bronco, slowly charging the sword with kinetic energy.
"Get clear, stranger!"
Dave bolted. LeBeau had saved him, but where had Micah gone? He looked around, and just as the explosion took Apocalypse apart, Remy leaping free at the last moment, he saw the chains holding the Mother Askani over a bubbling green liquid that could only be the Gene Pool snap.
"NO!" Micah raced into view again, running toward Rachel Summers as fast as he could. Weakning from the battle with Apocalypse, blinded with fear for his love's life, he did not think. He did not throw up a telekinetic shield over the cauldron. He merely acted. He lept forward, and everything seemed to go in slow motion.
David Goldfish was powerless. He knew what was to happen. He wanted to save his friend from the torment he would undergo in the years to come. But he could not. Jo's words, Blaquesmith's own words, echoed in his mind as Micah pushed Rachel out of the way, only to fall into liquid himself. He screamed in pain as the process immediately took effect. He went right under, only to emerge again as his flesh turned inside out. His skin pocketed, his head burst open to show some bulbous mass beneath, his fingers stretched and twisted. He fell to the ground outside the Gene Pool, shaking.
It was that moment whe Apocalypse's lieutenant, Ch'vare, decided to return. He saw Micah's broken body and raised his laser weapon. Rachel, still dazed, could do nothing. Dave moved forward, but the ground shook as Apocalypse slammed it behind him. He turned -- Remy was a limp form in Apocalypse's hand.
"It is over."
"We beg to differ, genetrash!" The giant door to the throne room burst open and a speeder came flying in -- INSIDE the building. There were three men on the speeder, Boak, Throeblood, and one Dave could not see. The speeder flew in low, grabbing Rachel and Micah and slamming on top of Ch'vare. Boak raised his weapon and started to fire a Apocalypse.
The charges exploded, and the whole building shook. It was going to come down around their ears. The third man lept from the speeder to join the fight.
It was Dave Goldfish.

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