AURORA: Page 3 of 7

Publication Date: 20th Jan 2022
Written By: Peter Luzifer and Daytripper.
Image Work: Peter Luzifer.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 3

Langkowski's death only temporarily united the twins again. More often than not, Aurora found herself disagreeing with Northstar's actions, or disapproving of his arrogance and self-righteousness, like for example when the inexperienced Heather Hudson first donned her husband's battle-suit. While everyone else was worried and concerned about Heather's safety, Northstar, the only person fast enough to go after her and try to convince her not to use the electro-magnetic suit without proper training, chose not to - just because he was never quite okay with the decision to make Heather team leader. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #30, 32-34]

Around the same time, Aurora stopped switching between her personalities. While "Jeanne-Marie" didn't surface anymore, she was also no longer the happy-go-lucky "Aurora" of old - apparently having experienced too much grief. It was either a semi-successful attempt of Aurora to mingle her previous identities, or a newly emerged third personality gaining dominance, like Sasquatch had suspected some time ago.  Whatever the case, this incarnation of Aurora displayed the negative character traits of her previous identities; the cold, harsh demeanor of "Jeanne-Marie," coupled with "Aurora's" flirtatious nature and irresponsibility - resulting in a true heartbreaker with a heart of stone.

After a rather brief time of mourning over Walt, Aurora sought attention from a man again and started to seduce Roger Bochs, claiming that she was attracted to brains as much as to brawn. Although the scientist knew that a physical woman such as Aurora would only be temporarily fascinated by his genius intellect, he responded in kind. They started a relationship only to be disturbed by Gilded Lily's ghost that was still residing in the Tamarind Island mansion that was serving as Alpha Flight's headquarters at the time. Lily used the building's own technology against the heroes, and abducted Aurora to some dark interspatial void, once more making use of the woman's greatest fear. Lily had her former lover and mentor, Diablo, create a formula with which she would use to gain true immortality after taking over Aurora's body once and for all. However, she made a grave mistake - when she reached out of the void to fetch the vial containing Diablo's formula, Lily's arm let in a small beam of light, enough to give Aurora back some hope and fighting spirit. She overpowered Lily and this time the villainess succumbed for good. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #37, Annual #1]

History repeated itself when Roger Bochs also ended up trapped in the Box armor, as a result of him suffering from the bends after he panicked during a battle at the ocean bottom and briefly phased out of the suit. While the rest of Alpha Flight, especially the metal transmutator, Madison Jeffries, tried their everything to get Roger out of the armor without suffocating, Aurora was more concerned for her love life. Her repeated threats to break up with Roger if he couldn’t become a real man again took its toll, and eventually he let out his bottled up frustrations, attacking both her as well as Alpha Flight when they tried to intervene. Running out of options, the team brought Box to the clinic of Madison’s brother, Lionel Jeffries, aka Scramble, who could manipulate flesh as much as Madison could metal. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #40-43]

In their next mission, Alpha Flight had to enter the mines near Burial Butte and, for a while, Aurora kept her fear of the dark at bay, illuminating the caves with her powers. Unfortunately, Northstar accidentally touched his sister, taking this “protection” away from her and she reverted to the frightened child that had been locked away by the nuns so many times. She started praying and begged for forgiveness and, after a short while, her light powers returned right in time to witness Madison Jeffries effectively dealing with a few creatures that were about to attack. Yearning for a physical relationship, Aurora even made a pass at Jeffries, who was rather disgusted - after all, he was Roger Bochs’ best friend. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #44]

When the team returned home, they were in for a surprise. Lionel Jeffries had not only cured Roger Bochs’ lungs, he had also reduced his body fat and restored his legs. Aurora was overjoyed to have a rather attractive lover and the two of them went to bed to celebrate their reunion. However, happiness was not to last.

That night, Walter Langkowski came back, his soul now inhabiting the albino Sasquatch form of the recently deceased Snowbird. Demonstrating that Roger Bochs hadn’t been anything else but a distraction for her, Aurora leapt into Sasquatch’s arms, happy to have Walt back. However, in a cruel twist of fate, when Walter morphed out of the Sasquatch form to a human appearance, he found himself stuck in female body - no big surprise, as Snowbird had been a woman.

At Aurora’s request, Dr. Lionel Jeffries tried to transform Walt back into a man, but because the body had belonged to a demi-goddess, Jeffries’ power had no effect on it. In the same cruel manner as before, Aurora refused to love “Wanda,” as Walter started calling himself, or let herself be touched by him. Thinking this to be the perfect chance to win her back, Roger Bochs also fell prey to Aurora’s arrogance. Finally, Roger’s mind snapped, and he became obsessed with Aurora. In an attempt to make sure that no other man would be deceived by Aurora, he kidnapped her and was about to seriously injure if not kill her when Alpha Flight intervened. Eventually, Madison Jeffries phased into the Box armor, forcing Bochs out. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #45-46]

Feeling betrayed by his best friend, Roger went even further insane. Additionally, his new legs began to decompose, which prompted Alpha Flight to once more take him to Scramble’s clinic. Seeing the hatred in her former lover’s eyes, Aurora began to see the errors of her ways and hoped that Roger could be cured - both in body and mind, however that was not what Scramble had in mind. Wanting to add Bochs’ scientific genius for himself, Lionel Jeffries used his flesh-transforming abilities to merge with Bochs into one gestalt being, Omega. Considering himself the first of a new master race, Alpha Flight had no other choice but to kill Omega. Aurora only learned of all this several hours later, as she had gotten lost in the huge clinic complex during the hours that Scramble worked on Bochs. Accidentally, she had stumbled into a secret lab where some super-powered humans that Scramble had been experimenting on were caged. Shocked by the sight of these creatures, she regressed once again to her childlike state, hugging herself in the darkness and crooning the same senseless song over and over again, even long after the specimen had broken free and escaped. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #48-49]

Just like Aurora’s fractured psyche had grown so unbalanced that she was on the verge of insanity, over the past weeks her brother Northstar had been fighting a losing battle against a strange infection. Hoping to find some way to cure both of the twins, Alpha Flight remembered the fire-fountain of the magical Viking village and ventured north. Finding a rose, blooming out of the frozen Tundra, they knew that some of the magic still had to be there. The team reached the cavern of the fire-fountain, but the energy was no longer present. Instead, they found a doorway at the bottom of the pit and, thinking that the magical energy might have come from there, they opened it and entered a maze of dark tunnels. Northstar suddenly started to burn with a fever and the others had to carry him. As this slowed the team down, Aurora opted to stay at his side and tend to his needs, while the rest of the team moved on to search for the magical cure. Soon, Loki revealed his presence to the twins and told them of their true heritage.

According to Loki, Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie were actually half-elves, born to a human father and an elf mother, who had abandoned her people. Yet the other members of her race hunted her down and actually caused the car accident in which the couple was killed. Their status as half-elves explained the twins’ powers of speed and light, as well as their pointed ears. Yet Loki also said that the pure elf blood in their veins could not survive for long on the impure Earth, resulting in Northstar’s physical illness as well as Aurora’s mental status. Only the pure light of Alfheim could cure them, but the team had chosen the wrong gateway, sending them to a dark netherworld. With these words, Loki left the siblings to their fate. Jeanne-Marie tried to hold back the attacking demons for as long as she could, until she had an idea. As an infusion of pure light was the cure, she willingly expended all her power to bathe Northstar in white brilliance. Indeed, Northstar’s health was restored, though the powerless Jeanne-Marie was dragged away by demons.

Elsewhere in the maze, the rest of the team had run into other demons and the only way to save themselves was to retreat. Along the way, they picked up Northstar and, once they had escaped, Vindicator fused the gate shut so that none of the demons could make it to Earth. However, it was also the end for Aurora and Puck, who were still trapped in the netherworld. Once the team was back on the surface in the Arctic wasteland, a gate opened in the sky and two elves welcomed Jean-Paul to Asgard. From afar, Loki watched in amusement, but he suddenly was summoned to the higher gods, who demanded an explanation for his behavior. Loki claimed to have had good intentions and, to prove his seriousness, he spirited Puck away to Tibet and Aurora, now a mere mortal without powers, was transported to the gates of a monastery - with her mind amnesiac, but fully intact and no longer divided into several personalities. [Alpha Flight (1st series) #50]