Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #7
Worst. Homecoming. Ever.
Then
Carmilla Black was crowned homecoming queen at the Grand Falls High Homecoming Dance in Vermont. After she and her date were crowned homecoming king and queen when suddenly, her date’s face to turn green and bloat due to a poison that was transmitted by touch. He then dropped dead on the floor. As everyone began to scream in horror, Carmilla’s hand begins to crackle with energy and her black hair begins to turn green.
Three Years Later
Carmilla Black finally returns to Grand Falls and finds that nothing has changed, except for the family home. There is police tape stretched across the opening in the picket fence of the Black family home. Inside, a police officer walks Carmilla through the murder scene. He tells her that according to forensics, two to three intruders broke into the home, shot Carmilla’s parents with two different guns. They then stole the contents of a jewelry box and her mother’s purse. There were no signs of forced entry, but the front door was unlocked. The officer says they typically get DNA from the next of kin, but Carmilla already knows they can’t take her that she is adopted. Looking at a photo of her family, Carmilla grimly muses over the fact that she has been orphaned twice in one lifetime. As the officer leaves, he asks how Carmilla learned about the murder, and she tells him she read about it online.
Over the next few days, Carmilla packs up her adopted parents belongings, meets with lawyers, and goes about the funeral arrangements as a way of paying back Tim and Julia Black for their hospitality. The whole time she is being observed by someone who asks for permission to “extract the package”. However, after their superiors check with council permission is denied. At that moment, Carmilla has arrived at the First National Bank where she discovers that Janice, one of her classmates, now works at the bank. Carmilla asks for access to her parent’s safety deposit box and as Janice brings her to it, she tells Carmilla that she is available if she ever needs anyone to talk to. Left alone with the safety deposit box, Carmilla is in for a shock when she opens it up and finds a birth certificate from the kingdom of Madripoor for an infant named Thasanee Rappaccini.
Later, Camilla does call on Janis and they meet at a local waterfall where she shows Jan her birth certificate. Carmilla is furious to learn that her adopted parents knew more about her past than they let on, how she can’t even pronounce her birth name, and how the nation of her birth is known for piracy over anything else. Janice asks when Carmilla became so bitter, and she has to remind her friend how her touch killed her boyfriend. Unaware that they are being observed by someone armed with a gun, Janis asks why Carmilla left town, explaining that the medical examiner could find no way for charges to be laid against her. Carmilla points out that everyone would have called her a freak anyway. Janis has to stop herself when she says that Carmilla’s adopted parents almost killed themselves trying to find her. This causes Carmilla to lose her temper and Janis cringes away, pleading for Carmilla not to touch her. This angers Carmilla who pulls off the bandages on her left arm. It begins to swirl with energy immediately and she mockingly says Janis was right she should have stayed in town to accept the mercy of an open-minded town.
That’s when three armored individuals come out of the water to apprehend Carmilla. Thankfully, she has spent the last three years learning how to control her “stinger” and the time she has spent in homeless shelters had taught her how to fight. Carmilla attacks the armored men while Janis runs for her life. One of the men tells her that they are friends of her mother come to rescue her from SHIELD. That’s when a SHIELD aircraft rises out of the water. Three SHIELD agents then sneak up behind her and slap a gauntlet on her arm that restrain her power. She is taken to a nearby housing development where the lead SHIELD agent introduces himself as Special Agent Derek Khanata who tells her that as SHIELD is a UN chartered organization, her American civil rights do not bind them. He then tells her to stop banging the gauntlet on her arm against a sawhorse as all she is accomplishing is giving Khanata a headache. They then begin briefing Carmilla about the terrorist organization known as Advanced Idea Mechanics. Derek tells her that AIM is now led by an Italian national named Monica Rappacini who has a PhD in biochemistry and once made the Nobel Prize shortlist for her work fighting exotoxins. That was before she was seduced into working for AIM and that a recent terror attack in Hong Kong using a dioxin based gas was based on Monica’s work. Seeing the look of shock on Carmilla’s face at hearing the name Rappacini, Khanata confirms that Monica is Carmilla’s biological mother. They were able to learn all this when Monica began actively searching Carmilla and prevented her extraction in the nick of time. When Carmilla asks what her mother and AIM want with her, Derek explains that intel is suggesting that AIM is preparing for a massive attack and Monica is putting her final affairs in order before making herself a martyr. He then shows Carmilla evidence that proves that AIM was responsible for the murder of her adopted family. He concludes his explanation by saying that AIM is planning on committing an act of terrorism in less than a week and they need Carmila’s help getting access to AIM’s inner circle and shutting them down before they can succeed.
After a moment’s consideration, Carmilla decides she owes it to her adopted parents to avenge their deaths and asks what they need her to do. Derek turns things over to Noriko Nagayoshi, of SHIELD’s tech directorate. He tells her that the gauntlet allows her to control her poison stinger by using a Stark neural chip interface. Calling her Scorpion — her new codename — Nagayoshi turns control over the gauntlet to Carmilla and teachers her how to transform it into an innocuous-looking bracelet with a simple thought. They explain that the gauntlet is filled with various surveillance gathering equipment that will assist her in infiltrating AIM and gathering intel for them. When she asks if they are giving her a gun, Derek tells her that in order to maintain secrecy, Carmilla is going to have to handle things on her own, something that she is used to doing.
Soon, Carmilla Black has taken out all her piercings and some normal clothes so she can take a flight to China, the first stretch of her trip to Madripoor to search for her mother and answers to why she had the Blacks murdered. As she boards the plane, Derek Khanata watches on the monitors with his colleague Ayna Sarvea. Ayna asks why he didn’t tell Carmilla about the others, noting photos of other youths with Xs drawn over their faces. Derek tells her of an old Wakandan saying: you don’t make friends with bad news.
Recurring Characters
Scorpion, SHIELD (Derek Khanata, Noriko Nagayoshi, Ayna Sarvea), AIM (Monica Rappaccini), Troy Goddard
Topical References
The Black family have a CTR television, VCR, and collection of VHS tapes. Google used as a search engine, pirated DVDs. All vague references to the War on Terror. A sign stating that the Elysium Estates open in 2006. References to Guantanamo Bay prison. Aim Toothpaste.
