Author: flintgraphics@comcast.net

1 November 2020

“Glad you could join us,” Scion said as Quanta stepped out of his shimmering portal onto the soggy grass of Cathedral Park. The clouds seemed darker here and the drizzle was certainly heavier than it had been downtown. “Sorry to interrupt your date… hopefully you’re not missing too much of the program?”

“Actually, the concert was over,” Quanta replied, then heaved an exaggerated sigh. “We were, however, on our way to a late lunch when the call came through. When I tell you we were headed to Pietro’s, you’ll understand why I considered ignoring the call.”

Kyle was getting good at reading his friend’s reactions even with his helmet on – he somehow knew JJ was grinning under that metallic blankness. He was, after all, the one who had first turned on he and Nora to what most people still regarded as the best old-school Italian restaurant in the city.

“You have a will of iron, my friend,” Scion laughed. “But I’m beginning to wonder if our newest member can say the same. Brimstone hasn’t answered the alert, and so far dispatch hasn’t been able to reach him.”

“Hmmm. Think we should be worried? Maybe he’s been attacked by an old enemy and needs back-up.” Quanta considered his own question, and he and Scion shook their heads at the same time. “Nah, he hasn’t been around long enough to have old enemies and VTS is too busy with their own troubles just now to be coming after him… even if they knew who he was.

“No, he’s really been enjoying that image inducer we whipped up for him. I suspect he’s out rubbing elbows with the hoi poloi, and reveling in looking fully human again. He probably just left his watch at home again.”

Scion shrugged agreement and they both turned to examine the scene before them. A large, professional photo/video shoot had been set up on one of the wide lawns of the park almost under the soaring groined arches that upheld the roadway of the Lewis & Clark Interstate Bridge. Actually, as he looked around more closely, it was almost exactly the same spot where the newly formed Vanguard had first fought Nemesis, over four years ago. All signs of that battle were long gone, of course; today the area was covered by three large service tents, lights, screens, cables and the other detritus of a professional photo shoot.

Detritus was an apt word, Quanta realized. Although the tents were still standing, one of them had a mound of dirt spilling into one end; equipment, clothes, and furniture were scattered about as if a cyclone had just blown through; and a score of people were apparently just beginning to clean it all up. Nervous people, actually –they kept glancing fearfully over at the nearby ten-foot high circular berm of fresh earth … and the dark hole at its center. He saw the Blue Flame hovering over the almost perfectly round opening, while Totem had climbed up the slope of displaced soil to stand looking down into it himself. 

Quanta had to smile inwardly. It was obvious the team wizard was scanning for magical residue, and even a year ago he would have been scoffing at the idea. But Kyle was a man devoted to the scientific method, and he couldn’t deny the reality of what he’d experienced — and measured — in the last four years. Given the recent failures of JJ’s high-tech security, at both his lab and home, he was thinking maybe it was time to give magical security some serious consideration. If the technology designed and built by JJ and de la Vega, two of the best minds he knew when it came to practical engineering, was vulnerable then a second, unrelated line of defense seemed… prudent.

Quanta watched the Blue Flame drop into the mysterious hole, then turned his attention back to the matter at hand. He, Scion, and Artemis headed for the largest tent and the man who seemed to be in charge — a short, slender man, slight of frame, with a mane of silver hair and an expressive face. He was orchestrating the cleanup effort from his director’s chair, and he rather reminded Kyle of a scaled down version of the former President and current First Gentleman, Bill Clinton. Although, was the man… yes, the fellow was wearing an actual ascot! When he caught sight of the approaching Vanguard he stood up and clapped his hands together.

“Thank God you’re here at last!” he cried in a surprisingly pleasant alto. “Marguerite, my assistant was sure you’d be showing up, and here you are! I’m Marsden Raphael, the director of this poor, misbegotten shoot.”

“Yes,” Scion said, reaching out to shake the man’s hand and make their own introductions. “Can you tell us exactly what happened here Mr. Raphael? I have to say, it looks like we’ve missed the action.”

“That’s for sure,” Quanta murmured sotto voce. “So you guys can handle this if I pop out for a quick lasagne, right?” Scion shushed him with an amused gesture.

“Well yes, rather,” the little man agreed, pointedly ignoring the byplay. “But really, it happened so fast you can hardly be blamed. And please, call me Marsden, Captain.”

Quanta could hear sirens in the distance, and figured emergency services would be along in the next five minutes; he turned his full attention to the odd little dude’s story. Which began with explaining far more than anyone wanted to know about the shoot for Revlon’s latest line of makeup — “Otherworldly,” inspired by the trendy looks of the recent influx of alien refugees to Earth. As Kyle already knew, Revlon had hired the hottest up-and-coming young model, 23-year-old Tara Brinks, to be the face of the campaign. 

After some blunt hints from Artemis, the man finally got to the relevant information… although it was obvious that he was going to tell the tale in his own inimitable way.

“Yes, well, as I said, it was so sudden, and so confusing! First that horrible machine burst from the ground in a spray of dirt and rocks – I was nearly struck myself, it absolutely shook me –  and then this absolute madman pops out and strikes a very dramatic pose and begins ranting about how we’ve taken his bride, his queen, and that he’s come to rescue her. 

“Of course we had no idea what he was raving about. Then this absolute army of hideous little creatures – honestly, at first I thought they were some sort of mutant Minions, from that cartoon, what with the dark goggles and all — anyway, hundreds of them burst from the ground around the machine and began running absolutely amok. People were screaming and running every which way, it was absolute chaos!

“The leader kept going on about his queen and, well, eventually it clicked that he was looking for our dear Tara, which just seems absolutely mad — what could she have to do with a loon like him? I mean yes, she’s gorgeous, of course, and I could totally see how she might make an absolutely fabulous queen, but really!”

As Marsden finally paused to take a breath, a bearded 20-something hipster under a baseball cap and carrying a very expensive looking video rig came up behind the director, looking a bit hesitant. 

“Hey, um, Vanguard guys… and , um Vanguard lady, sorry… um, would it help to actually see what went down? I managed to record some of it, before it got too hairy and I had to duck for cover… even then, I managed to get some decent footage, I think. Oh, I’m Brice Collin, the principal videographer for the shoot.”

As it turned out he had got some decent footage, and it had confirmed what Quanta had begun to suspect – the attack was the work of The Master of Tyr’Ana and his Terra Cavans — minions indeed. The video showed an improbable-looking subterranean burrowing machine, conical drill-bit nose and all, bursting out of the lawn just east of the shoot. Equipped with two wide belt treads, it had slammed down and moved forward a dozen feet before stopping. Its design was decidedly odd to Kyle’s eye, possessing an almost steam-punk aesthetic. He suspected Nora would love it.

After a minute a hatch at the top of the vehicle popped open and The Master emerged to stand (Quanta had to admit Marsden had been right about the melodramatic posturing) and began monologuing. He was barely halfway through a grand declamation about his true love and how the surface dwellers had kept her from him for far too long, when the promised horde of Terra Cavans made their appearance, emerging from the hole behind the big machine.

Contrary to the director’s claim, there were about 60 of the diminutive creatures, by Artemis’ quietly voiced estimate. They fanned out across the area, running up to people, forcing them to stop, then letting them go after peering up into their faces. It was obvious that they were looking for someone specific and, as the video went on, equally clear that the few injuries incurred by the humans had been unintentional. The broken arm and two concussions, which were the worst of the lot, seemed more the result of panic  by the humans than any malice on the part of the little humanoids. Quanta could also see why Marsden had compared them to Minions, since every one of the Terra Cavans wore heavily smoked round-lensed goggles — again, with a steam-punk design of which Nora would certainly approve.

When it was clear the person they were looking for couldn’t be found, The Master had descended from his ride to confront a clearly terrified, yet endearingly defiant Marsden Raphael. After some heated back and forth, The Master had stalked off back to his burrowing machine… and a shaken  Marsden had collapsed back into his chair in visible relief.

“As you can see,” Marsden continued when Collins stopped the tape, “when I finally got it through that helmeted head of his that Tara simply wasn’t here, the armored madman stomped off in a huff, turned his machine around, and vanished back down his hole, with his nasty little army swarming down right after him.”

“And made a clean getaway, I’m afraid,” the Blue Flame said. He’d joined the group halfway through the video, after his reconnoiter down the hole. “It goes straight down for a bit, then turns into a steep slope, which gradually flattens out after a couple hundred feet. I went ‘til I hit a branching fork, with no sign of the vehicle; at that point I decided I’d better head back and report.”

“So how is it that they didn’t find Ms. Brinks,” Quanta asked, feeling a certain respect for the strange little director; despite his obvious fear, he hadn’t run and had stood up to an angry, armored man of uncertain mental stability who could have easily killed him. 

“Oh, Tara left when we broke for lunch… she said she had a headache and needed a couple of hours to rest. She retired to her suite back at the hotel, and we’ve been waiting on her divaship for over an hour now… I’d been forced to work on B-reel shots and stills of the damn makeup itself — as if we didn’t have enough of those already — when this Master fellow showed up!”

“Hotel?” Artemis asked sharply. “Which hotel? And did anyone think to call her, warn her of this threat?”

“Of course we did,” Marsden said with a bit of heat, although Quanta could see Artemis intimidated him. “She’s at the Mandalay — she insisted, although the rest of us are at the Regency Park — Marguerite has been calling ever since the madman vanished, but Tara’s not picking up. I was just going to send—“

The director was cut off by Artemis’ raised hand as the Dispatch alert sounded in all their earbugs. “Damn it, reports are coming in of a strange machine bursting up through the middle of the west-bound lanes of Pacific Avenue – right in front of the Mandalay Hotel!” she explained for those without comms. “This was several minutes ago, apparently some sort of interference was confusing communications in the area. Quanta, can you open a portal again so soon?”

“Yeah, it’s been getting easier and easier, especially since our latest inter-dimensional jaunt. Give me a minute…” OK, he might’ve been exaggerating a wee bit. Opening quantum tunnels did still drain him some, but not so much, nor for nearly as long, as they had in the beginning. Damn, he’d only been 25 blocks or so from the Mandalay when he’d been at the Symphony Hall… if he’d known, he could’ve saved himself this side trip.

Nevertheless, he had a new portal irising open in just a few seconds, and the Vanguard stepped through two at a time. He gave a jaunty wave to Marsden and Collin’s, who waved back wide-eyed, as he stepped through last and closed the portal behind himself.

• • •

The Vanguard appeared on the north side of Pacific Avenue just west of the 19th Century elegance that was the eight-story Mandalay Hotel. There was no traffic in the westbound lanes… nor any in the three eastbound lanes, either, Quanta noted. The latter was due to two police cars parked across the roadway just this side of the Silver Way pedestrian overpass; westbound traffic, on the other hand, was backed up in a snarl behind the familiar-looking circular berm of earth and its central hole, which blocked all three lanes.

Unfortunately, they seemed to have arrived almost too late, he thought — the rear end of the burrowing vehicle they’d seen in Brice Collins’ video was just vanishing back down the hole it had created. Behind it, swarms of Terra Cavans were running amok, threatening screaming citizens in apparently pointless attacks… no, not pointless, Quanta realized. They were clearly meant to keep the heroes from following their master…

“Blue Flame!” he called out over the quantum link they’d developed this past year. “Can you—“

“Already on it, Quanta,” his friend said as he streaked forward to dive down the hole after the vanished vehicle. They immediately lost touch, of course, sine the quantum resonating trick only worked in line-of-sight, but Kyle trusted the kid to take care of himself.

“It’s obviously a diversion,” Artemis called out over comms. “But we can’t ignore it. Public safety comes first — spread out and take the Terra Cavans down as quickly as possible. And if that means hard, then so be it!” 

She herself then melted into a nearby shadow. Quanta saw her reappear down the block and across the street, under the awning of a posh 1940s-looking apartment building. A group of maybe ten of the uncannily silent Terra Cavans were swarming toward it, and Artemis leapt from the shadows straight into their midst. In a swirl of black cloak, flashing legs and arms, and flying shadow sticks, she took them all out in under a minute!

“I’m concerned about the Blue Flame going after The Master alone,” Scion called out on comms. “Can anyone follow him?”

At that point, however, a swarm of Terra Cavans rushed Totem, swarming over him in a silent tide. He vanished from sight beneath their bodies, and Quanta started to move toward the mage. But Scion was already swooping toward them when the pile of little bodies suddenly bulged upward. Totem rose into the air, shedding Terra Cavans like a bad case of dandruff. When the last one dropped away, he was hovering 20 feet above the ground. Reluctant to really hurt them, Quanta suspected, the mage gestured and muttered something; his familiar green sleeping mist began to fall on the creature’s upturned faces…

Which seemed to confuse them momentarily, but wasn’t making them go to sleep, as far as a surprised Quanta could see… he wondered if they were magic resistant, and if so, was there any way to study the phenomena. But magic resistant or not, they weren’t immune to Scion’s Brain Tickler. Quanta could see the distinctive quantum signature of the otherwise invisible attack, and the demi-horde dropped like puppets with their strings cut as the silver and bronze armor flashed over them.

As they fell, Quanta was already turning to deal with a dozen or so of their compatriots, who were quietly slipping off down an alley between the Mandalay Hotel and the Pendleton Office Suites next door. He supposed it might be a conflict of interest for him to go after these particular subterraneans, since Kyle Steiner happened to own the 16-story office building… but really, someone had to do it, and he was best positioned…

Seeing the humanoids so nicely clumped together, Quanta couldn’t help but wonder if that behavior was something programmed into their genes by their Saurian masters, so many thousands of years ago, or just human pack nature, surviving despite all the genetic manipulation. Either way, he was tempted to take advantage of it and go his usual route, dropping a quantum matter block on them. But he actually felt a bit sorry for the sad, pathetically eager to please little guys. 

Perhaps inspired by the “Chilz Lives!” graffiti on the alley wall, and to honor his friend, he created a dome of quantum ice and dropped that over them instead. Through the thick, translucent shell he could just make out their shapes as the little creatures attempted to pound their way out of his trap.

Good luck with that, boys, he thought, before his attention was arrested by a tremendous whoosh behind him. He whirled around to see the Blue Flame soaring up out of the hole in Pacific Avenue, trailing a tail of blue-burning earth like a comet.

“Bastard collapsed the whole thing on top of me,” the kid called over their revived quantum link. “Didn’t hurt me, of course, although it felt pretty damn weird. Took me a few minutes to burn my way out, sorry. So, what’d I miss?”

“Not much,” Quanta replied. “But we need to get these rampaging little mole-men under control, so feel free to jump in.”

He could see that Artemis had moved from the apartment building to an ATA commuter bus that was being overrun by another dozen or so subterraneans, and was making as quick work of them as she had of their friends. Totem had moved to take out another group running amok on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, using his staff to chain-lightning them all into smoking, if still breathing, lumps.

This left the Blue Flame with the last handful of Terra Cavans swarming down the face of the old hotel, apparently from a shattered set of windows on the top floor. He swept the building’s façade with a low intensity wave of blue plasma, and the diminutive figures plummeted off it like flies hit by a can of Raid. Quanta suspected it was Totem who used his telekinesis to slow their fall enough that there appeared to be no fatalities as they joined their smoking brethren on the sidewalk. He also noted that Jonny had incidentally cleaned the façade of the hotel of several years of soot and dirt without damaging what remained of its 100+ year original stonework.

While Artemis led most of the others in canvassing the witnesses in and around the hotel for more intelligence, Quanta turned his quantum-ice dome into a 30’ high cylinder. He and Scion hovered over the opening and stared down at the milling and clearly agitated little humanoids.

“These are the only ones still conscious,” he said to his teammate. “It might be nice to question them, but I don’t think we’ve ever heard them actually speak… unless that high-pitched chittering they sometimes do is speech? I don’t suppose you have Subterraneanese, or whatever language those sounds might be, programmed into your computer?”

“No, unfortunately,” Scion said. “But I’ve been doing wide-band scans of them, and it seems that they’re actually communicating at an ultra-high frequency. Those chittering noises are just the lowest parts of their range… and are still almost beyond normal human hearing range. I’m running the stepped down sounds, which are clearly language, through my linguistic suite now…”

Quanta could tell by his friend’s tone that he was very pleased to finally get to field test that new linguistic suite, into which he’d recently integrated elements of the Union’s universal translator technology. Tech the Vanguard had acquired when they’d been gifted with the Union Ambassador’s old space yacht after last year’s off-planet adventure in the Erigayn star system.

“Ah, interesting,” Scion said with obvious satisfaction, a moment later. “Took less time than I’d have thought, given the limited data set we have to work with… it’s not like they’re carrying on complex conversations down there. But their language appears to be based on elements of Ancient Saurian and Ancient Atlantean, both of which I have programmed in already. It’s a hybrid, of course, and extremely simplified, but it makes it easy to interpolate a working base…”

“So, what are they saying?” Quanta pressed, when Scion didn’t go on.

“Oh, sorry, got caught up in the algorithms – I thing you’ll find them fascinating yourself, when we have time to go over them – but it’s pretty much as we expected. They’re upset at having failed to distract us for as long as The Master had commanded them. Let me see if we can get any useful information out of them…”

A stream of high-pitched chittering came out of his external speaker, arresting the attention of the restless Terra Cavans below them. Their heads turned almost as one to stare up, the dark lenses of their goggles reflecting the overcast sky and giving them a blank and emotionless look. Their own chittering stopped, and after a minute or two it was obvious they were not inclined to answer any questions from their master’s enemies.

“We don’t have time to properly interrogate them,” Artemis said when Scion had reported their efforts to the rest of the team. “We can feel fairly confident that he is returning to T’yr Ana at this point, having gained his objective. And the witnesses we’ve talked to seem in general agreement that Ms. Brinks was not a willing participant in her abduction – although there is some disagreement about whether she was conscious or not. Quanta, can you do a post-cognition scan of the penthouse suite, see if you can garner any more definitive information on what happened?”

“I’m on it,” Quanta replied, rising up the face of the hotel to step through the shattered wall of windows into Tara Brinks’ rooms. It took him a few minutes, winding forward and backward through the chain of events from twenty minutes earlier, but he was able to piece together the story told by the monochrome gray figures of his quantum vision.

“The Master came into the building through the subbasement,” he explained to the team, gathered together back down on the street. “I didn’t bother backtracking farther, but it’s obvious he burrowed laterally from where his machine lay under the street, into the basement. From there he quietly took a service elevator alone up to the penthouse, where he blasted open the doors, swept aside Tara’s security and aides with ease (no fatalities, thankfully), and seized the girl. 

“He either sent a signal or had it all timed out, because that’s when his burrower burst up through the street. Tara was putting up a pretty good fight as he dragged her towards the windows, where he used his staff to blast an exit. At that time he did something to her, because she goes limp. Carrying her now, he used his staff again, this time as some sort of electromagnetic zip-line, to glide down from the shattered windows to the top of his waiting ride. He gets her inside, follows her, and we arrive just as they drop back into the hole.

“I’d been half thinking who are we to come between true love, that maybe there was some real connection, but now…”

“No, I’ve been scouring the ‘net,” Scion agreed, “and I can find absolutely nothing to connect the two.”

“Yes, that certainly spikes any idea that Tara is a willing “queen” to his king,” Artemis said grimly. “We have to go after them, but the question is how? Try to clear this tunnel and follow directly? Or move to cut them off before they can reach T’yr Ana, using the entrance we know of in southern Africa?”

“Well, that burrower of his didn’t seem to be doing much more than about 30 miles per hour,” the Blue Flame offered. “At that rate it’ll take a long time to get to Africa.”

“I think we can safely assume there’s an inter-dimensional connection somewhere closer to hand,” Quanta observed dryly. “No telling how close, of course, but I doubt we have time to clear this tunnel before they get there.”  

“Um, but the tunnel back in Cathedral Park isn’t collapsed,” the Blue Flame observed diffidently. “Or at least it wasn’t when we left there. Couldn’t we use that to catch up with them?”

There was a moment of awkward silence before Artemis sighed and agreed that was the obvious course of action. With a thumbs-up at Jonny, Quanta quickly opened a new quantum tunnel back to the park… with a lot less effort than it had taken to get from there to the hotel. He’d noticed recently that reopening a link between two places he’d previously connected seemed to take much less out of him than opening “new” links.

As the others stepped through, he also took a moment to create a quantum matter “shovel” to push all the dirt back off the street and into the hole… at least it might make it easier on the cleanup crews who’d be trying to reopen the street once the police hauled off the last of the Terra Cavans.

• • • • • •

Brimstone finally made a belated appearance just as Scion was wrapping up his explanation to another set of police officers as to why the Vanguard was about to ignore the recently erected APD barricade around the Cathedral Park hole.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said to Artemis and Quanta as he jogged up to them. It was hard to be certain with his barbecue-crisped features, but Quanta thought he looked rather embarrassed. “I was out walking through the Astoria City Zoo, and I’d forgotten my wrist-comp when I left this morning, sorry. I came as soon as I heard what was happening, though…”

“Yes, we’ll discuss it later,” Artemis sighed, visibly repressing a stronger rebuke. “As it turns out, no harm done this time, and you’re here for what I expect will be the main event. But in future, please wear your wrist-comp at all times – not least so that you can summon a sky-cycle from the Pyramid, rather than arriving by taxi. I assume you charged the ride to the Vanguard account?”

She glanced pointedly at where the cab driver stood next to his vehicle, some 50 yards away. The man was staring unabashedly after his latest fare and the excitement around the disrupted photoshoot, and Brimstone nodded sheepishly. Quanta grinned as she shook her head and walked away to join Scion and the APD officers near the hole, leaving him to fill in their newest member on the afternoon’s events so far.

After a quick summation the two joined the rest of the team just as they began the descent into the earth, the Blue Flame leading the way to provide light, Scion close behind him. Totem offered to give Artemis a lift via his Cloak of Levitation, but she just raised an eyebrow, smiled slightly, and leapt past him to parkour down the sides of the shaft, moving faster than the mage could float after. Indeed, she was faster than Quanta could fly, very carefully, down himself – only Brimstone, in his gaseous form, was slower. Barely.

It took only a few minutes after it flattened out to reach the bifurcation of the tunnel which the Blue Flame had noted in his first reconnaissance. It was obviously where The Master and his strange burrowing machine had turned to reach the hotel and, according to Scion’s sensor readings, where they had recently returned. The heroes continued down the main tunnel in hot pursuit.

Another 10 minutes brought them to an obvious dimensional discontinuity, where the rock and soil of the circular tunnel wall turned from the mundane material of the normal world into something – other. It was hard to describe, but somehow the rock around them now seemed more quintessentially Rock, the soil more fully Dirt. It was, however, the increasingly frequent outcroppings of glowing crystalline structures that really made it clear they had moved into the extra-dimensional realm of the so-called Hollow Earth.

“I’m finally picking up something on the long-range sensors,” Scion called out a few minutes later. “Less than a mile ahead, I’d say. Appears to be making a straight line at this point… Quanta, can you open a portal, mmmm, let’s say a kilometer ahead of us?”

A minute later the Vanguard were standing about 200 feet behind the loudly rumbling burrowing machine, which filled the width and height of the tunnel it had created on its outward journey.

“Let’s see if we can’t bring our old friend to a halt, so we can have a word with him,” Scion said, flying forward to hover just behind the steadily moving vehicle. He raised both hands and sent out a directed EMP straight into the bulk of the machine. There was a high-pitched whine, and the burrower visibly slowed for a moment. But in seconds the whine died away and the machine began to pick up speed again, quickly reaching 30 mph again.

“Damn, he must have some impressive shielding in there,” Scion muttered in frustration.

“Well, it moves through earth and rock pretty easily,” Quanta said. “Why don’t we see how it does with something a little tougher?” He gestured, and ahead of the burrower a plug of high-density quantum matter came into being. The leading drill-tip of the subterranean vehicle hit the plug, and the machine jolted to a sudden stop. But almost instantly the drill began to spin faster, a shrill shriek filling the tunnel behind it as it bit into the silvery material. The burrower shuddered and began to move forward again, if at a considerably slower pace.

“Damn, I was sure that would stop it,” he muttered his frustration in turn. “I might be able to block the air vents there, along the back sides, and overheat it… but I don’t want to risk an explosion with Ms. Brinks inside.”

“Blue Flame,” Scion called out. “Can you do a pinpoint plasma beam at the back wall of the vehicle? If his shielding is in the exterior structure, even a small break might let my EMP do its job…”

“Can do, boss,” Jonny replied, pointing a finger at the widest part of the borrower’s tail end. A thin stream of blue-white plasma erupted from his finger-tip to splash against the strange bronze-like metal… and slowly began to penetrate it. At the same instant the machine burst through the last of Quanta’s obstructing plug – and vanished from sight!

“What the hell?!” Scion barked, darting forward… to see that the burrower had actually broken through into a large natural cavern, with a floor somewhat lower than the tunnel they’d been in. It was moving steadily away across the open space as he pulled up and aimed another concentrated EMP blast, this time at the small hole the Blue Flame had burned through it. There was no dramatic noise this time — the burrower shuddered once and then simply stopped.

• • • • • •

As the Vanguard followed Scion through the burrower’s hole, Quanta saw that the strange vehicle had slewed off its straight path, missing a wide, dark pool of water but coming to a stop scraped up against a tall, flat-topped pillar of striated stone. As they looked down on the stalled machine, a dozen Terra Cavans swarmed out of two side hatches to form a living perimeter around it. A moment later the top hatch was flung open and The Master appeared, carrying the still-unconscious form of Tara Brinks. He stepped from the top of his burrower onto the flat surface of the stone pillar, gently laying the young woman down at his feet.

“Why do you hound me, surface dwellers!” his amplified voice boomed out, echoing strangely in the cavernous space, as he glared at the heroes. “I have only claimed what is rightfully mine — my wife, the Queen of Tyr’Ana, stolen from me so long ago.”

“Scion, would that Brain Tickler of yours work to wake up someone, instead of knocking them out?” Quanta asked quietly over comms, as The Master continued his tirade against all things surface-dweller.

“Hmmm, I see what you’re getting at,” his teammate answered. “I hadn’t considered that before, but the device does work by causing an overstimulation of brain neurons, leading to a mini-seizure. If I try it at a very low level, it might just stimulate an unconscious brain into an active state, instead…”

A moment later Quanta saw the quantum signature of the otherwise invisible wave lance out from Scion’s armor to envelope the supine supermodel’s head. Almost immediately she moaned and began to move; in seconds she was sitting up and staring about in confusion. The Master instantly broke off his monologuing to turn to her, stretching out a solicitous hand. 

“My darling, let me help you up! Have you come to your senses at last? Are your memories restored? I promise you, I will not let these interlopers take you from my side ever again.”

But the young woman shrank away from him, scrambling to her feet and looking desperately around for some escape. The stony platform was barely six feet across, however, leaving her no room to retreat further without risking a fall to the uneven ground almost 20 feet below.

“Mister, I have no idea what you’re talking about!” she said, sounding more exasperated than afraid. But by the look in her eyes Quanta suspected it was just bluff, masking fear. “Like I told you when you burst into my hotel room, my memories are fine – and I’m only 23 years old, I can’t be this wife you “lost” twenty years ago!”

As The Master broke into an impassioned argument about why she was mistaken and how “the surface-dwelling monsters” had clearly tampered with her mind and memories, Quanta considered how best to proceed. He saw Totem, off to one side of him, flicker and vanish as he activated his invisibility spell. At the same moment Artemis stepped into a shadow, stepping out of another 80 feet away, directly beneath the stone spire. This neatly bypassed the Terra Cavan perimeter, and as she drew her Shadow Sticks, he realized she would soon be providing a perfect diversion…

When the two light-absorbing rods flew out of the shadows and slammed into The Master’s helmeted head and armored shoulder, Quanta quickly formed an 80 foot bridge of silvery quantum matter between himself and the pillar top. Realizing he needed to make it enticing to the bewildered model, he veered from his usual utilitarian approach to constructs and created side railings of arabesque delicacy and surprising beauty.

Still, the woman balked at stepping out onto this sudden apparition, and The Master wouldn’t be distracted for long… Quanta formed a waist-high curve of wall behind her, gently moving it forward to encourage her to advance toward safety…

Unfortunately, The Master shook off Artemis’ attack more quickly than he’d hoped he might. The villain leapt forward even as Tara set one hesitant foot on the bridge, yanking her back and slipping a protective arm around her waist, even as he raised his staff… Quanta cursed the timing. But then he saw the villain hesitate. Artemis was racing up a series of stone shelves toward his perch, a serious threat; but clearly the bridge remained a danger as well… The man seemed torn between which problem to deal with first…

Lightning arced out from The Master’s staff to strike the center of the silvery bridge, shattering parts of the delicate railings, cracking and blackening its surface, but failing to destroy it. He immediately followed this with a high, sweeping swing of the staff, hitting Artemis in the gut just as she made her final leap. Quanta winced, but she bent around the blow, absorbing most of its energy and using it to somersault away. She seemed uninjured, but had lost her momentum and was forced back to the cavern floor, coming down in a rolling crouch near the pool.

At that moment the Blue Flame called out “Kumquat!” and Quanta squeezed his eyes shut. Even through his quantum-matter-covered lids he could see the blue-white flash of his friend’s Dazzling Burst. When he opened his eyes a second later, all of the Terra Cavan minions were down, writhing on the stony ground and clutching at their eyes, emitting almost inaudible ultrasonic shrieks that made his teeth ache. Back in their own subterranean environment, apparently thinking themselves safe, they had removed their goggles, and were now paying the price. Quanta doubted they’d be a factor in this fight again any time soon.

Unfortunately, The Master seemed to be doing just fine on his own… Quanta saw the quantum signature of Scion’s Brain Tickler flash out again, but the quasi-invisible aura simply bounced off the villain’s helmet, without noticeable effect. He wasn’t even sure the man was aware of the attack, since he dove right back into his enraged rant.

“I had thought, for a time, that you Vanguard, at least, were honorable among the vile surface dwellers! Even after you broke your promise to return the Bloodstone I lent you, I convinced myself you were true. I see now, however, the proof that you merely dissembled, to lull me into a false trust – and like so many others, you are clearly in service to them!

“But I promise you, your overlords in the Plexus will keep my love from my side no longer! They tried to kill me all those years ago, when they cast me into the deeps; but they failed at their purpose then, thanks to my loyal subjects, and they will be thwarted once again — for our love is too great! We shall be sundered no more!”

He turned his head down to stare into Tara’s pale but determined looking face. “My darling, what can’t we accomplish when we are united and as one once more? We shall shake the halls of—“

He stopped as Tara began to rise up into the air and drift away from him, looking as surprised as Quanta suspected The Master did beneath his featureless helmet. He realized it was Totem, using his telekinesis, and he had to admit his friend had gained a more useful set of powers when he’d accepted the mantle of Magus Prime last year. And much less unsettling powers, too, compared to the menagerie of Great Beast avatars he had possessed – or been possessed by, Quanta had never been quite sure how that whole thing had worked…

For a moment it looked as if Totem’s ploy was going to work… but then The Master tightened his grip on his purported “bride,” arresting her movement away from him. For a moment she hung suspended a few feet off the ground, looking even more perplexed than before… and then she moved back into the curve of The Master’s protective arm. Quanta could almost hear the snap as Totem’s telekinetic hold was broken. However crazy he might be, it was clear The Master’s will was adamant where his “true love” was concentrated. 

For just a moment, Quanta wondered if maybe Tara Brinks’ memories had somehow been tampered with. But no, it was impossible. Her life was well documented, as Scion had demonstrated; and, as she’d pointed out, she was simply far too young to fit the timeline The Master insisted upon. Given what little the Vanguard knew of his past, the man must be at least in his mid-fifties, and he’d ruled Tyr’ana for over twenty years. Still, something about the timeline and the madman’s obsession was tugging at Kyle’s back-brain…

• • •

The Master suddenly broke off his tirade in mid-rant. Quanta had a sudden suspicion that the man had merely been play acting, seeking to keep the Vanguard distracted and — 

The wide, dark pool of still, subterranean water which they’d all been ignoring suddenly began to bubble and froth. As all eyes turned toward it, a monstrous shape rose from the depths – it was a hideous thing, its bulbous body of scabrous grey and white upheld by eight spider-like legs. In the center of its body a large maw gaped, full of long teeth and with a dozen writhing tentacles ringing  it. A singly enormous eye sat high above the mouth, and it glared around as the creature scrabbled up out of the pool, its claw-tipped legs making skritching noises on the stone.

It hesitate for just a second, and then its lone eye lit upon Artemis, who stood nearest. With a blindingly fast motion it was on her, its two fore-claws slashing and tentacles reaching out — Artemis leapt and rolled, but even her preternatural reflexes weren’t quite fast enough. One claw raked her side, tearing through the shadow-fabric of her costume, sending an arc of blood fanning out as she came down awkwardly in the shadow of the burrower.

“I’m alright,” she gritted out, although in obvious pain. She might heal staggeringly quickly, but injuries still hurt just the same. “What the hell is that thing? Is The Master controlling it?”

“It’s a Skrelling,” Scion answered almost immediately. “According to the database, it’s a rarely seen type of Kaiju. Given what we know of The Master’s ability summon and control various Kaiju, I think it’s a safe bet he’s commanding it. And if he is, I’m guessing it’s either through his helmet or his damn Master Staff… or maybe both. In any case, that helmet has got to come off!”

Scion vanished from sight as he activated his invisibility field, and Quanta realized he was going to go in hot and try to tear off the villain’s helmet before The Master could react – and then, no doubt, hit the man with another Brain Tickler!

But seconds later The Master turned and aimed his Master Staff at seemingly empty air — a bolt of lightning flashed out, only to hit something in that empty air, coruscating around an invisible, human-sized shape. The attack didn’t break Scion’s invisibility, but it did send him flying back 15 feet – Quanta could see the stone crack where his friend hit the ground. He also saw that, despite the hit he took, Scion had managed to get of a barrage of his electro-bolts. Several hit The Master’s helmet, sending him staggering back.

At the same time Brimstone had taken on his gaseous form again, and was engulfing both the Skrelling and several of the downed, writhing Terra Cavans. The little mole-men soon stopped moving, passing out from the sulfurous fumes (which was probably a relief from their pain), but the Kaiju didn’t even seem aware of the attack. Does the damn thing even breathe? Quanta wondered.

“Nice try, Brimstone,” he called out. “I think this is going to need a more brute-force approach, though.” The creature was still coming after Artemis, who was still visibly hurting from its first attack. As she rolled away into shadow and vanished, Quanta focused on encasing the monster in a thick shell of quantum matter. He was forced to let his bridge disintegrate into dust and disappear, but it proved to be in vain. Somehow the thing seemed to sense the energy wave forming around it, and it emitted a high-pitched tone while waving its legs around, shattering the cocoon before it could fully form.

Well, shit, Quanta thought. OK, a different kind of brute force then.

As if reading his mind, the Blue Flame swooped in, aiming multiple plasma blasts at the Skrelling, several of which hit. The creature screamed, in a much lower register this time, and reared up to try and claw its tormentor out of the air. 

A moment later Totem called out, in a strained voice, “I’m attempting to get into its mind, to control it… but it is… difficult… like Gojira, it’s a simple mind, but… powerful… aaaarrrrgh!”

Suddenly Totem was visible again – and struggling in the grip of several of the Skrelling’s tentacles. He seemed dazed, and unable to muster a mystical attack. Quanta was about to unleash a blast of Bucky-balls at the monster when a once-again-visible Scion and the Blue Flame flew in from either side. Their double-teaming of magnetic seizure and plasma attacks staggered the Kaiju, and it dropped the stunned mage, reeling away from the on-going attacks.

 He was able to turn back to Tara and The Master, in time to see Brimstone unleash a sulfur blast at the villain. Unfortunately, this was the very moment Artemis was dropping from the shadowed stalagmites above him. The Master turned to protect Tara from the sulfur stream, which misssed him but nearly struck Artemis, who twisted away only just in time – but again losing her change to grab the hostage.

Even as she spun away, Quanta saw she had her Shadow Whip out. The long thong of solidified shadows snaked out and wrapped around The Masters left arm, pulling him off balance and away from Tara, who stepped back as far as she could. Perfect! Quanta unleashed a stream of Bucky-balls, hitting the villain dead center of mass and sending him staggering backwards. His foot landed on empty air, and The Master tumbled off the rock pillar, vanishing from Quanta’s sight. But he heard the impact as he hit the ground.

He was still a good fifty feet from the action, so Quanta took to air to get to the surprised model as quickly as possible. But Artemis was quicker. She dropped out of shadow to land near Tara, and was just reaching out for her when The Master rose into the air behind her. The Master Staff was glowing with blue-white energy as it levitated him, and even as Quanta yelled a warning Artemis was turning… a bolt of lightning took her full on, and she was spun around, plunging off the pillar limp and unconscious.

Quanta poured on the speed, going faster than he’d yet managed— but it wasn’t fast enough to catch Artemis before she hit the ground. Damn! He land next to her still form and rolled her over. She was definitely out, but still breathing, and the wound from the Skrelling was already healed… as was the costume over it, he noted. But there were broken bones, he was pretty sure. Her souped-up healing would bring her back, even from the brink of death, in time. He wasn’t sure they had that time, and he began to pour his quantum healing power into her, amping up her already accelerated healing process.

He was so focused on his healing that he didn’t immediately notice The Master, still hovering over the stone pillar, aiming his staff at him. Fortunately, Brimstone coalesced into his gaseous form around the villain at that moment, and the blast went wide as he struggled to get away. His helmet apparently protected the man from any breathing issues, but he did seem worried by the corrosive effects of the sulfuric acid on his armor.

As The Master struggled to evade Brimstone’s gaseous form, Quanta looked up to see the Blue Flame rising up from the far side of the burrower. A searing bolt of blue plasma stuck the villain in the chest, causing the cloth to turn to ash and the armor beneath to spark and flare. Without a sound, The Master dropped to slam into a crumpled heap on the ground about 20 feet from where Artemis was just coming around.

“Hey, glad to have you back,” Quanta said, grinning. “I hope you don’t mind, but I used my healing powers to help speed up your own.”

“Yes, I sense… something odd going on,” Artemis replied in a distracted tone. “Not unpleasant, but different than the usual process. Thank you Ky– Quanta. Your help is appreciated.”

Whoa, she must be more out of it than I thought, if she almost used my civilian name!

“Any time, boss,” he said. “But maybe take a few minutes more to fully recover… I think it’s all over but the villainous whining at this point anyway.”

“I second the motion,” Scion said, dropping down near them with a visibly relieved Tara Brinks in his arms. He set her down next to his two teammates. “If you two could keep an eye on Ms. Brinks, fill her in on what we know, the rest of us will secure The Master.”

“Oh, don’t hurt him,” the young super model cried, looking suddenly worried. “I know he’s… not quite right. But he never hurt me, and in his own confused way he seemed to really… care.”

“No need to worry,” Artemis assured her as she climbed to her own feet. “The Vanguard never hurts incapacitated enemies, and as you say, the man does seem confused. He needs to answer for his crimes, but I assure you he’ll get what help he needs.”

Totem had levitated the Master Staff out of The Master’s limp grip, and was moving it to the far side of the cavern when Scion knelt down next to unconscious man and began unfastening his helmet. It took a minute, but eventually he was able to lift it off, revealing the face of an older, white-haired man, pale and a bit gaunt, with deep lines creasing mouth and brow.

Almost as soon as his helmet was removed, the man’s eyes began to flicker. Then they flew open as he suddenly realized what had happened… and that he stood revealed to his enemies. The look of anguish was heartrending, even to those who had just been fighting him.

“NO!” he cried out, struggling to rise, but unable to fight against Scion’s armored, if gentle, strength. “Oh Lily, please don’t let them take you from me again! I’ve only just found you… so much lost time… lost…” He broke down in wracking sobs then.

Kyle froze in mid-sentence, speaking to Tara, as sudden realization hit him in one blinding flash of insight, all the pieces falling into place. Tara, who looked uncannily like his own mother… whose name had been Lily… who had been a supermodel… his father… missing for more than 20 years… vanished in southern Africa… The Master, found by the Terra Cavans over 20 years ago… the main portal to their part of the Hollow Earth beneath a mine in southern Africa…

He could never remember later if he ran or flew the 20 feet to land, kneeling before the weeping man, turning his face toward himself… despite the changes time and pain had etched into it, it was the face of his long lost father, Nicco Steiner.

Without giving it a thought, Kyle let his quantum shell vanish, leaving him in his Vanguard uniform and with his face revealed. “Dad! It’s me, Kyle. Your son. I know it’s been a long time, and I’ve grown up, but… do you recognize me?” 

His voice was raw with a pain, and a longing, that he hadn’t realized was there, under everything, after all these years. He had thought he’d made peace with the fact that neither of his parents had been particularly great at being parents, and with the fact of their deaths. But suddenly he was ten years old again, and none of that mattered… if he could have his father back again, nothing else mattered.

“Totem! Can you look into his mind? I want to use my healing abilities, but without knowing how he’s damaged, and how badly, I’m afraid to make it worse…”

“Of course, my friend,” the mage replied, quickly kneeling on the other side of the fallen man. Nicco flinched away at Totem’s touch, but then his eyes widened and seemed to go unfocused.

“He… he recognizes his son’s eyes,” the Magus Prime said, his own voice going strange as he touched the other man’s thoughts. “The same shade of blue that his own had been, before the damage… and the long years in the dimness of Terra Cava… there’s a memory… a boy taking fencing lessons with his father… ah! A flash of recognition…”

“Kyle?” Nicco gasped, turning his watery eyes on his son, a look of amazement on his face. “You’re a man now… but how… oh, I’m sorry… so sorry, son…”

Then the moment was gone, as suddenly as it came. Totem released his hold on Nicco, both physically and psychically, and there was again only a confused, angry old man. “Who are you?” he growled querulously, pulling away as far as he could from both men. “What are you talking about?” Totem passed a hand before Nicco’s face, and the man sagged back, suddenly in a deep sleep.

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” Totem said, shaking his head. “There seems to be physical damage to parts of the brain, especially the visual center and areas of long-term memory. The memories do appear to still be intact, I think, but his ability to access them… maybe with time, and your healing abilities, he could regain most of them. But I think it will take professionals to guide that process, and I doubt it will be quick. I’m sorry I can’t offer more…”

“I appreciate what you’ve done, Cooper,” Kyle said, scooping his father up in his arms and standing. His quantum matter shell flowed over his body, and he was Quanta again. “I’ve had a lot of recent experience with mental health experts, and I know just where to go for help.” He lifted into the air and turned toward the cavern’s exit back to the surface wold.

“Quanta!” Artemis said, uncharacteristically hesitant. “He has committed crimes. We can’t just ignore that.”

“We’re not currently in any jurisdiction where that applies,” Quanta said, pausing to glance back. “We do have a certain latitude in these matters, Artemis, and I plan to exercise it. If I have to pay to cover the damages he caused in Astoria, so be it. The only other consideration is Ms. Brinks, I think.” He turned to look at the young super model. 

“I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on here,” she said. “But… I do feel sorry for him, and if you can help him… well, he is your father, right? So what else can you do? For me, I don’t want to press charges.” She suddenly smiled, and you could see why she was famous. “And after all, I was unconscious through this whole ordeal… I wouldn’t even know who to accuse!”

With a grateful nod, Quanta turned and resumed heading for the exit. At a signal from Scion, the Blue Flame took off after him, to light the way…

16 October 2020

“My dear, you look divine this evening,” Diamond Dave Dawson said, bending to kiss the air over Jane Valentine’s hand as he ushered her, and the rest of the civilian-clad Vanguard into the Blue Note Room. “But of course you always do… whatever the costume.” His eyes glinted with a hint of mischief, and she gave him a sardonic half-smile that both acknowledged and ignored his double entendre. He knew, of course, that the classic little black dress she wore was almost certainly her Cloak, reconfigured to her current needs.

“Thank you David,” she replied. “And I see you’ve made an effort yourself tonight.” Always a dapper dresser, he was wearing a particularly stylish cut of his usual charcoal gray suit, black shirt, and white tie, but with the addition of an intricately patterned silver waistcoat and matching cufflinks.  In his left hand, as always, was his signature walking stick of old Japanese cedar with its Kagami crystal head cut into the cherry blossom sukara pattern.

After greeting the other incognito members of her team, and being introduced to their newest member under the name Peter Preston (using the new image inducer JJ had whipped up for him), David led the group through the Friday night crowd to a large, semi-private alcove overlooking the dance floor. It held a large table with four chairs, two smaller tables with two chairs, and a good view of the stage, where the Charlie Porter Quintet was just starting their first set. Jane slid into a chair at the large table, followed by John and Kyle, with David taking a seat next to her with a a suspiciously smug smile.

Chuck and Cooper took the smaller table next to them, while Jonny and Preston sat down at the furthest table and almost immediately began to arm wrestle. While neither had changed forms, Jane could tell they were both generating a certain amount of heat – something Jonny had only recently learned he could do while still in his human form. She reached up to tap the comms bug in her ear, then stopped. Sighing, she pointedly dropped them from her attention. This was a night off for all of them, and Jane didn’t need to play den mother for once. She’d just have to trust them not to go overboard and burn the place down…  

A very pleasant jazz- and conversation-filled hour or so later the Charlie Porter Quintet were taking their first break, and Chuck stood up, stretching. “I think I’ll risk a trip to the restroom,” he said quietly to Jane in passing, giving her a wry grin. She acknowledged his meaning with a raised eyebrow and her usual half-smile. 

But of course Jonny couldn’t just let the subtlety speak for itself. “Don’t get sucked into any inter-dimensional portals while you’re peeing!” he called out, just loud enough to be heard only by those nearby. Jane saw Chuck roll his eyes, and was a little surprised when he chose to ignore his friend’s gibe and continue down the steps and into the throng.

“What was that all about?” David asked her, sipping from his rum-and-coke and drawing her attention back to himself. “Some sort of Vanguard in-joke, I assume?”

“Oh, I suppose you could call it that,” Jane sighed. “Awhile back Chuck was on a date and dancing at Mimoza, upstairs, when he stepped into the men’s room, only to find himself… elsewhere. It’s a long story, but he was essentially kidnapped via inter-dimensional portal. He was a little leery of returning tonight, but eventually decided the odds were small of a repeat, especially in a different part of the club.”

“Oh,” David said, looking thoughtful. “Um, the odds might not be so long as he imagines, actually.”

“What?” Jane looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you do know that Mimoza sits atop a convergence of so-called ley lines, right? Making it a weak point in Earth’s inter-dimensional walls…” David trailed off at her expression. “I assumed you knew that – isn’t that why you were so reluctant to trade me the old warehouse in our deal back in ’73?”

“No I didn’t know that! How the hell would I have known that?” But looking back, suddenly several things clicked into place – things he’d said almost 50 years ago that now took on new meaning. She grimaced in annoyance, and David winced.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” he sighed. “I really did think you understood why I wanted this site so badly. Have you never wondered why there have been so many superhuman “incidents” here, over the years? Or why my insurance premiums are so damn high? The convergence means that openings into extra-realities, which can usually only be reached by geographically fixed “gates,” are possible here as well. I know you know of other such places… Stonehenge, that spot in the Everglades…”

“Not your fault, David, but no, I had no idea about this place,” Jane said, relaxing fractionally. “Still, what are the odds of a repeat with Chuck, specifically? I think—“

She was cut off by the sound of Cooper speaking in her ear over the comm link, from the dance floor. “Artemis, I just sensed a strange flux in the local dimensional fields – I think someone, or something, has opened an inter-dimensional gate nearby.”

“I felt something too, a disturbance in the quantum field,” Kyle chimed in. “I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but what Cooper says makes sense.”

Jane tapped her earbud. “Chilz, what is your status? Report, please.” There was only silence, She repeated her call.

“Damn! I think I know exactly where that gate opened!” Jane growled. “Vanguard, we’re back on the clock, I’m afraid. Everyone to the main restroom, now please! But try not to draw undue attention to yourselves.”

Moments later the Vanguard, minus Chilz but including Diamond Dave, were in uniform and gathered in the night club’s unisex restroom. A quiet word from their boss had caused two club employees to block off the doors and take up guard outside the restroom to ensure no interruptions. An unhelmeted Scion finished making a tweak to his wrist-comp, and looked up with a smile.

“Given the combined data from Totem and Quanta, I was able to calibrate my sensors to attune to the most recent extra-dimensional vibrations in this space… they’re dropping off quickly, but I think I can amplify and sustain them, at least for awhile.”

“And with that amplification, I’ve got a lock on the… well, wormhole, for want of a better term,” Quanta said, clearly focusing intently invisible to the others. “I can open a portal to whichever extra-reality Chilz was shunted to, but if we’re going to follow him we need to do it soon… I can’t hold this lock forever.”

“Will you be able to get us back?” Artemis asked.

“Probably? I’m 95% sure I can get us home.”

“And I have no doubt at all that I can get us home, if needs be,” Totem assured her.

Artemis looked at Scion, and he gave a short nod. “Alright, we’re going. We can only assume that Chilz’ Ice Giant father has again taken him, and plans to force him to fight in their war on the Aesir. We had no desire to be drawn into this conflict, but no one takes one of ours without repercussions. Let’s make King Logarthin regret involving the Vanguard of Earth!”

At her nod Quanta opened a shimmering silver portal, and the Vanguard stepped through in pairs. Artemis and Quanta were last, and she pulled in David for a quick, but passionate kiss. “No idea how long we’ll be gone, but we will be back!” The last thing she saw as she stepped into the silver haze was his fond, sardonic grin, and his cane raised in farewell, light flaring off its faceted head like silver fire. 

• • • • • • •

Chuck was still shaking his head at his friend’s embarrassing antics as he stepped through the unisex restroom’s swinging door… and onto a windy, snow-covered roof of a tower. A tower set atop a hill overlooking a frozen lake and a snow-covered forest of dark fir trees. On the far shore of the lake a battle was raging, between fancy vikings and really big blue giants. A sharp wind blew a freezing, stinging rain into his face… goddamn it! Not again!

“Look, Logarthin, I don’t know what you think —” Chuck’s angry words cut off as he whirled around, expecting to see his “father,” only to find a silver haired man in golden armor, leaning on a great spear. A flowing silver beard poured over his chest, and his right eye was covered by a black leather patch. At first Chuck thought the stranger was short, but then realized he himself was now in his blue Ice Giant form. The man was, in fact, rather tall, if no Giant.

“You’re not my father! Who the hell —“ Again Chuck cut himself off, as realization dawned on him. Really, this could only be one person. The two large ravens circling above him rather clinched it, he thought.

“Indeed, We are not your sire Chuck Logarthinson, and neither Hela nor her realm have anything to to with the matter. It is Wotan, All-Father of the Aesir and King of Asgard, who has summoned you here today.”

Chuck took a minute to let this bizarre new twist sink in. He really was standing on a tower in the middle of a howling winter wilderness, talking to the ruler of the Norse gods while a mythic battle raged behind him. Better than dealing with his “father” he supposed, but still… when had his life become a goddamn myth?

“Well All-Father, I’ll say to you what I was about to say to my own dear old “dad”: I’m not alone this time, and my friends won’t be far behind me.”

“Indeed, that is exactly what We hope for – it is one of the reasons We have brought you here in this manner, Lord Logarthinson. For Asgard has great need of your aid. You and your boon companions, despite their very polite refusal to become involved in this affray which your father has brought upon us all.

“With the young new Magus Prime at their side, and the skills of your compatriots Scion, the half-Atlantean techno-mage, and Quanta, master of that which lies Beneath, they should have no trouble following the mystical trail We have left them… indeed, this must be them now…”

Chuck turned to look at the spot behind him where Wotan’s gaze had gone. He quickly recognized one of Quanta’s shimmering silver portals slowly irising opening…

• • • • • • •

Artemis stepped through the portal ready to fight, barely aware of Quanta behind her. But there proved no immediate threat of battle, and she slipped into mere cautious wariness. She stood, with the rest of the Vanguard, on what looked to be the top of a tall stone tower, on a hill overlooking a frozen lake and a snow-covered forest of pines and firs. In the distance, on the far shore of the lake, a great battle was raging between what looked like high-end Vikings and enormous blue-skinned giants. Before her Chuck stood in his blue Ice Giant form (she noted in passing that his night-out street clothes seemed to have sized up along with his body), and next to him was… her eyebrows went up in genuine surprise.

“Greetings, Wotan All-Father,” she said, bowing slightly.

“Greetings, cousin, and welcome to the lands of the Aesir,” Wotan replied gravely, tilting his own head to her. “And Our greetings to the Vanguard of Earth! Wotan the All-Father, King of the Aesir, welcomes you to Asgard.”

“While we appreciate your royal welcome, King Wotan, I thought we had made it clear that we did not wish to be embroiled in this conflict between your folk and the Ice Giants,” Artemis said, gesturing to battle beyond the lake.

“Indeed, your most courteous message, delivered by the Magus Prime when he brought your warning, was clear on that point. It is Our hope, however, that in despite of your doubts and earlier denial, you will yet aid Us, and your boon companion, in this desperate hour. We cannot compel your help, to be sure – and what good would it be if We could, eh? But this son of Logarthin,” he gestured at Chuck with a tilt of his great spear, “We may press, for his blood and bone are bound to this affair, will he or nil he.”

“And cousin, you at least will not regret this venture, I think. Not when all is said and done.” His one brilliant blue eye seemed to twinkle at Artemis with some hidden amusement, and she felt a sudden thrill at his words. She had no idea why, and she looked inquiringly at their host, but he merely turned his singular gaze to the rest of the Vanguard as he continued. 

“After your timely warning Loki went, at My behest, into the Yotan lands to scout out the situation – a task he had performed many time over the years, to be sure. But this time something went wrong. He was somehow detected and taken by his father’s people, I know not how. But I can sense that they have since bound him by some great ritual. 

“My blood-brother is a sorcerer of great potency, and however they have managed to bind him, they now steal his magics, draining him and pouring his Power into themselves. By this ritual all of the Ice Giants have grown in size, strength and ability. They swarmed over the passes into the lands of Asgard, and though we stood prepared, thanks to you, and they did not surprise us as they had thought to, nonetheless we are hard pressed.”

“Without my blood-brother and his powerful magics at my side, but instead stolen by our enemies and turned against us, Logarthin seeks to make the ancient prophecy come true… and he may yet succeed.”

“But the prophecy is vague, as such thing usually are. The Yotankin have always believed that it predicts their own triumph… but I have studied long and deep in these matters, and I am not so certain. The truth is, it simply says that a half-mortal, half-ice giant son shall bring a final end to the millenia of our great strife… and an end may come in many ways, not always from outright victory.”

“So how do you want Chuck, and us, to help, Sir, if not to fight on your side?” Scion asked.

“I need you all to help your friend to free Loki from whatever spell ensnares him, breaking the mystical connection to Logarthin and through him to the Yotankin – once that is done, and he is returned to us, I have no doubt the warriors of Asgard shall prevail in the larger battle.”

“May we have a few minutes to discuss your… request?” Artemis asked. Wotan nodded graciously and withdrew to the far side of the roof as the Vanguard huddled together.

“I didn’t want to get involved,” Chuck said quietly, “but I have to admit, spiking Logarthin’s wheels would give me a certain satisfaction. I may never have met my half-brother (and it still freaks me out to know he’s Loki from the Norse myths), but I feel some responsibility to help him. I can’t ask the rest of you to get involved, though—“

“No, Chuck, we’re a team,” Quanta said. “We’re either all in or all out — and I for one think we should help, at least in this one task. I wasn’t for going to war, but this seems a more manageable job, and about our speed – a rescue mission, yeah?”

The rest of the Vanguard agreed with very little debate, and they turned back to Wotan. Artemis and Scion stepped forward and announced their decision to the visibly pleased Norse god-king.

“We thank you, children of Midgård, and look forward to your triumphant return to Us. We can transport you into the heart of the Yotan lands, but not directly to where Loki is bound — Logarthin’s defenses are too strong to simply bypass, and if We strove to break through he would know of your presence instantly and guess your purpose. But We will get you as close as possible…”

With that he began to wield his great spear (Gungnir, Artemis remembered it was called) in a complex pattern of shifting lines of light, forming a glowing dome around the heroes… and then it was gone, in a flash. The Vanguard found themselves standing in a wide, snow-covered clearing amidst a dense forest of towering fir trees. A ring of immense standing stones, easily three times the size and mass of Stonehenge, which it otherwise resembled, surrounded them. Overhead the sky was gray and leaden with heavy clouds that seemed to threaten snow at any moment.

“I guess we really are in the Land of the Giants,” the Blue Flame said. He laughed, but Artemis suspected that he found the darkness under the massive trees around the clearing daunting, moreso even than the 500 foot and more height of the trees themselves. She could feel that oppressive weight herself, truth be told.

“Why don’t we take to the air,” Scion suggested, breaking the mood. “We’ll do a little aerial reconnaissance while Totem gets his bearings on our target.”

“Oh, sure, that’s a good idea,” the Blue Flame agreed, and the two rose quickly up toward the lowering skies. Unfortunately, the cloud cover proved to be just at the tops of the trees, many of the tallest actually vanishing into the mists. Visibility was no more than a hundred feet, and the heroes dropped back toward the ground all too soon.

By then however, Totem had channeled a spell of seeking through his staff, and could at least point them in the right direction. Five narrow avenues led out of the clearing, and he indicated the widest one, which happened to lay in the direction they’d been facing when they’d arrived.

“Our target is actually in that direction,” the Magus Prime said, gesturing ahead and to his right, his breath puffing visibly in the frigid air, “but this path is the one to start us out.” 

He led the way, Artemis and Blue Giant Chuck behind him, Quanta and Brimstone next, with Scion and the Blue Flame flying a hundred feet above. The towering trees closed in around them on either side, dark and foreboding, and the only sound in the otherwise freezing silence was the squeaky crunch of feet in snow.

As they advanced, wary eyes scanning the darkness beneath the snow-laden branches of the forest, Artemis glanced coevrtly at Chuck. She had thought, on the tower roof, that he seemed taller than than the 9’ 6” he’d shown the team after his first unwilling visit to Yotan, but had been too distracted to pursue the thought. Now, she could see that he was clearly taller. Approaching 11 feet she suspected — taller even than he’d been on the rooftop half an hour ago. 

“Chuck,” she began, coming to a decision after some serious thought, “have you noticed that you —“

But a warning shout from Totem drew everyone’s attention. They had just passed out of the narrow forest trail and into another clearing, larger than the first one. Scattered patches of granite stone poked up from the snow-covered earth, and a large outcropping of the same, the size of a very large house, jutted out from the eaves of the forest on the far side. But what had caused her friend’s outcry were the five massive creatures rushing toward them, each one at least nine feet tall.

“Yeti!” she cried, pulling Totem back to leap past him. She had dealt more than once with Yeti in the mountains surrounding Shambhala during her time in that hidden land. She knew their size, strength and surprising speed, but had also known them to be shy, gentle creatures, very conflict-avoidant unless severely provoked. These Yeti seemed very provoked, for some reason! 

Their pale blue-tipped white fur had made them essentially invisible in the snow until they’d moved. Now they were rushing at the group in leaping bounds, their black-skinned faces twisted into masks of rage, white teeth and fangs bared. She noticed that their breath didn’t steam as their chuffing grunts filled the  still air.  The leading beast reached for her, and Artemis ducked under its grasping claws, rolling away to the side.

Blue Chuck slammed an ice ram into the lead Yeti’s chest, but it did little more than spin the creature slightly sideways and slow its momentum a bit. Artemis leapt into the air and aimed a flying kick into the beast’s gut. — it was like hitting a stone wall, and she bounced off, spinning backwards almost ten feet, to land in a three-point crouch, her black cloak settling around her on the white snow.

As she considered her next move Artemis saw Brimstone running forward, his body shifting from solid to his sulfuric gas form as he went. Fully gaseous when he reached them, he engulfed two of the oncoming Yeti on her left, concentrating his noxious form around their heads. One staggered to a stop, clutching at its throat and gasping hideously as it inhaled the toxic fumes; in seconds it had collapsed to its knees. 

But the second Yeti managed to hold its breath and took a massive rolling leap out of the yellowish cloud. Snarling, it turned to face its struggling companion and brought its hands together in a massive clap. Artemis’ eardrums popped at the sudden change in air pressure, as the preternatural shock wave blew Brimstone’s gaseous form apart, dissipating him into the cold air… which did little to help his victim, who remained choking and writhing on the snow.

Artemis’ attention was wrenched from her teammate’s plight when a pair of massive arms grabbed her from behind and lifted her into the air. She cursed silently at letting herself be distracted, and struggled in the third Yeti’s powerful grip. But with her arms pinned and her feet well off the ground, she had no damn leverage…

Suddenly, Scion was there above them, and she saw him aiming a hand… some invisible force, probably his Magnetic Seizure blast, hit the creature’s head. Its grip on her slackened just a bit… but not quite enough…

To her left, Quanta attempted to encase yet another Yeti in one of his quantum matter shells, but the monster managed to shrugs off the attack even as was forming, shattering the silvery matter into flying shards. It let loose with a loud and unnerving roar that made even Artemis’ heart skip a beat.

A similar roar came from her right, where the Blue Flame had hurled a Plasma Bolt at the Yeti who had dispersed Brimstone. Although the beast was visibly singed, it seemed otherwise unaffected, unless it was to become even more enraged. Her vision began to dim, and she wondered if it was time to try something she’d been thinking about for awhile… the evil version of herself on Counter Earth had swallowed up victims into her Cloak, and Artemis had wondered ever since if her own Cloak could do likewise… and if so, could she swallow herself?

But before she could attempt the possibly very dangerous stunt, the Yeti’s grip on her slackened, and she was able to take a gasping breath. Next to her ear a voice not well suited to human speech rasped out the words “Cannonball-Alpha.” It took her two beats to realize what was going on, and then she smiled. 

Totem must have turned his Mind Control power onto the Yeti holding her, and succeeded  in seizing the creature’s mind — and thereby its body. The coded command he’d had it growl to her meant that — she barely had time to prepare herself as the Yeti suddenly lifted her high and hurled her at the back of the first Yeti she had attacked… the creature roared in surprise, and then pain, as she began pummeling critical pressure points in its neck and shoulders with her Shadow Sticks.

She had little attention to spare as she jabbed, while twisting away from the creature’s increasingly enraged attempts to grab her, but was vaguely aware that the Blue Flame had redoubled his plasma attacks on his already singed Yeti – he seemed to be doing some real damage this time, if the creature’s roars of pain and fury were any indication. 

She did spare a fleeting smile when the Blue Flame’s Yeti, driven totally mindless by its rage, made a prodigious leap upward to try and grab its hovering tormenter. Its massive hands passed right through Blue Flame’s legs, of course, burning the naked skin there even more deeply… when it fell yowling back to earth, it plunged its smoking hands into a snow drift, turning the ice to hissing steam.

Ah, better start paying attention to what I’m doing… that last grab almost got me. She turned her full attention back to attacks on her own Yeti’s vulnerable nerve clusters…

• • • • • •  •

Chuck had been shocked at the strength and sheer toughness of the rampaging Yeti – very few living things could take an ice ram to the chest and just walk it off, as if it had been a water balloon. Obviously magic had to be involved, and he wasn’t quite sure how to fight that, truth be told. Given that his own powers were decidedly cold-based, it wasn’t immediately clear how he could fight creatures for whom the cold was a birthright.

Still, he had been feeling stronger ever since he’d been pulled into Asgard, and even more so since Wotan had dumped them all into Giant Land itself. He was also quite sure he was now several feet taller in this blue-skinned giant form than he’d been before — either that or all of his friends were shrinking, which seemed unlikely. He also felt his power, really the power of the Living Ice he supposed, coursing more and more strongly through him the longer he remained in this winter landscape. 

A closer connection to the source? A result of Loki’s stolen power being pumped through their father and broadcast into all the Yotankin, himself included now that he was here? Whatever was causing it, maybe he could supercharge his power to do some damage that even these cold-loving monsters couldn’t shrug off… 

With a grin he saw three of the Yeti had moved close enough together that an area-of-effect attack might be worth a try. He wanted to avoid the one Artemis seemed determined to beat to death, of course, and Totem looked in firm control of the Yeti he’d dubbed Larry, but those three… using his outstretched hands to channel the energy (and it was still wigging him out a bit to see his Smurf-like blue skin) he sent a super-chilled vortex of polar air at his targets.

The Yeti that Brimstone had choked out was just beginning to regain its breath, staggering back to its feet while still coughing hoarsely, when it took the full brunt of the more-than-arctic-cold air square to the head. It barely had time for one surprised yip, and it was down again, this time for the count. The two others, unfortunately, seemed to sense the attack—  both managed to roll away, only the edge of the frigid air catching them.

But Chuck saw with some amusement that their escape put them with their backs to a reformed Brimstone. As his newest teammate dissolved once more into a yellowish cloud of gas Chuck heard him mutter  “You think your breath smells bad? Choke on this you frozen gorillas!” before he engulfed them both. One of them, the one who had clapped Brimstone away in the first place and was still smoldering from the Blue Flame’s plasma bolts, found itself choking and clawing with badly burned hands at its throat. It quickly collapsed to lay unmoving in the churned up snow. Chuck was pretty sure it wouldn’t be getting up again any time soon.

The other one, however, had inhaled only a bit of Brimstone’s noxious form. It lunged blindly out of the yellow cloud, and directly into a surprised Quanta. For such a massive, muscled creature the Yeti moved fast, and before Quanta could react it had grabbed him in a powerful bear hug, much like the one its comrade had used on Artemis. 

It was clear that Quanta was trying to return the hug with a crushing quantum matter encasement of his own, but the Yeti kept shrugging off and shattering the shells as they formed. Chuck started to move int to help, but saw that both Scion and the Blue Flame were swooping in, and Larry the Yeti, obviously still under the control of Totem, was taking a roundhouse swing at his former pack mate’s head. Instead, he turned his attention to the other Yeti still standing. 

Well, barely standing, Chuck thought wryly as Artemis did a backflip off the beast’s shoulders, landing just to his right. The battered Yeti swayed on it feet, snarling feebly at them both, but is massive arms hung limp at its sides, useless thanks to Artemis’ knowledge of critical nerve clusters. And her strength, of course.

“Would you care to do the honors?” she asked Chuck, and he was surprised that she actually seemed slightly out of breath. With a grin he made a gesture and formed the most powerful ice ram he’d yet attempted. The steel-hard column was a flash of silver in the frigid air, and slammed full speed into the Yeti’s chest. This time there was no shrugging off the blow. The creature was flung back ten yards to slam into the large granite outcropping, where it slid to the ground and did not move again.

They turned in time to see the last Yeti go down under barrage of attacks from Scion, Larry and the Blue Flame. Quanta drove a wedge of quantum matter between himself and the staggering beast, leveraging himself backwards and giving the Blue Flame a clear target for one final plasma blast. The smoking corpse hit the snow with a tremendous thud, after which the deep silence of the winter forest returned, as if it had never been disturbed.

“Jesus on skates,” the Blue Flame said after a moment. “If five frozen apes gave us this much trouble on Level One, I hate to thing what the Boss Level is gonna be like!”

• • • • • • •

After a few minutes to catch their breath and assess their damages (surprisingly, there were no serious injuries) the group prepared to continue onward. “From here we should turn right,” Totem said, indicating the direction with his staff. “I have the sense we’re getting closer now. Past the halfway mark, if I had to guess…”

As the group once again entered a narrow path between dark, gargantuan trees, Scion flew up to scout ahead once more, although still unable to see beyond the tall tree tops and heavy clouds. The Blue Flame also took to the air, but stayed at the rear, in case any more Yeti’s might be trailing them.

Less than half mile on, Scion broke through into another clearing, and for a moment he thought they’d reached their goal. But the shattered, ruined remnants of this tower had clearly not seen human (or Ice Giant) use in many years. The great primeval forest was actually encroaching on parts of the ancient ruins, casting much of the site in deep shadows.

“False alarm here, I thought we’d arrived,” he called over comms. “Just an old Ice Giant ruin, and I’m not detecting anything living on my heat sensors. There are a couple of ways out of this clearing, though, so I assume Totem might need a few minutes with his magical divining rod to sus out the right one. Might be a good place to take five.”

As the rest of the Vanguard trooped into the clearing and began curiously looking around, Chuck’s eyes went wide as he glanced up at Scion. Behind his hovering friend, rising sinuously up from the deep shadows of the broken tower, was a blue-black horror of glistening scales along a snake-like body, powerful claws, a massive reptilian head with a mouth of razor-like teeth, and quickly unfurling wings of black skin stretched between boney spines.

“Scion! Up! Move up NOW!” he roared.

Scion reacted to his warning instantly, shooting up towards the clouds in a bronze-gold streak. The blast of silver-white freezing energy that poured forth from the Ice Dragon’s gaping maw missing him by inches. The creature’s frustrated roar shook stones loose from the ruined walls and  knocked snow from tree branches all around the clearing. It also seemed to momentarily stun most of the rest of the Vanguard, Chuck realized.

As Scion vanished into the cloud cover the dragon turned its malevolent blue gaze on the ground-bound heroes. Chuck could have sworn an evil grin stretched that horrifying mouth just before it opened its jaws wide and prepared to entomb the Vanguard in lethal ice. 

Not on my watch, you frigid bastard, he thought savagely, and leapt to place himself between the monster and his friends. The brilliant cone of searing cold met his outstretched hands — and broke into a swirling vortex around them! With a tremendous effort of will, Chuck turned the arctic energies back on their creator. The silvery stream suddenly reversed itself, slamming back into the very surprised dragon’s head. 

The beast was momentarily taken aback, and Chuck instantly used his own ice-manipulation ability to form a massive ice-muzzle around the dragon’s mouth, clamping its jaws firmly together. The creature emitted a very muffled roar and reared back into the sky, its great wings beating, its massive head whipping violently from side-to-side, trying to  dislodge the muzzle.

In it’s fury it failed to see Scion dropping back down out of the clouds, and completely missed the golden, glowing net of the armored hero’s tangle field as it shot out to ensnare its limbs in painful, constricting knots. At the same moment Chuck saw Artemis step from the shadows atop the highest of the ruined tower’s remaining wall. Her Shadow Whip snaked out, impossibly long, to wrap around the dragon’s slashing tail — her own prodigious strength seemed barely enough to anchor the beast in place, thrash as it might.

Held in place by ice, electricity, and shadow, only it’s vast wings free to keep it aloft, the Ice Dragon had no chance at all to dodge the massive block of quantum matter which Quanta brought into existence a few yards above its head. Gravity worked just as well in this beyul as on Earth, and the mass slammed into the dragon’s head with a crack like a rifle shot.

The mighty beast fell like a blue-black comet, its wings rippling behind like a tail of black smoke. Artemis leaped from the tower wall just before the massive form crashed into it, shattering its stones like glass. She landed gracefully a dozen yards away as debris fell around her like rain. Slowly the rest of the Vanguard stepped up beside her to gaze at the fallen behemoth.

“It’s out, but I think it’s still breathing,” Chuck said, kneeling by the bleeding head as Quanta’s drop block rippled back into non-existence. However out of it the dragon seemed, he nonetheless kept the ice muzzle firmly in place.

Totem stepped up, his controlled Yeti Larry a few paces behind, and studied the dragon intently for a moment. Then he sighed and turned to Quanta. “Can you make a sword — a very BIG sword — for Larry here? Like his own erstwhile companions, I don’t think we can afford to leave this beast behind us, an uncertain threat at our backs as we move forward.”

With a disturbed grunt, Quanta acknowledged the dilemma and gestured toward the enthralled Yeti. A shimmering haze appeared and coalesced into a tremendous two-handed sword, straight out of a manga comic book. Larry reached out to grasp the hilt, and hefted the sword effortlessly. He then strode up to the fallen dragon and, with a single powerful overhand blow of the sword, severed its head.

Chuck was a little sorry to see the beast killed so unceremoniously, but he knew it was probably the necessary thing to do. Artemis hadn’t drilled proper combat tactics into them all for nothing, after all. Still…

As silver-blue blood flowed from the stump of the neck and dripped from the head, Larry hefted both head and sword over his shoulders and began shuffling off after Totem. “I think we’re not far now,” the Magus Prime said. “But I doubt this was the last guardian we’ll have to face, so let’s stay alert.” 

• • • • • • •

It was less than a mile before Totem was proven right, in both regards. At the end of the latest clearing they’d passed through, this one thankfully clear of guardians, Artemis threw up a hand to call a halt. At the end of the clearing, through a narrow, steep-sided defile, they could see a second clearing and what had to be their target. It was a massive gray stone structure, clearly built by and for giants, with a vaguely Gothic look of flying buttresses and steeply slanted roofs accented with distinctive Norse elements.

But ranks of the snow-clad, omnipresent giant firs blocked any movement in that direction, save where they loomed over the tops of the small cliffs defining the only approach to the building. The trees left the narrow passage dark and exceedingly gloomy, and the group hesitated at the mouth of the relatively short defile. Their goal was less than a hundred yards away, but something abut that dark passage had Artemis’ hackles up…

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Quanta said uneasily, echoing her own thoughts.

“I can’t imagine why,” Brimstone replied. “I mean, aside from the bloody, well-churned snow you can see near the other end.”

“Maybe whatever caused that is gone,” the Blue Flame offered as he touched down. “You know, had its fill and retired to its den to sleep off its meal? Like Grendel?”

“Not a bad theory, actually,” Scion said, also back on the ground again. “And I’d like to say my sensors  confirm it, since I detect no heat signatures within range. But I could barely see the Yeti, I couldn’t see the damn dragon at all,” he gestured toward Chuck, “and even Big Blue here is almost invisible to my heat sensors.” Chuck grinned at the new nickname, and shrugged as if to say ‘not my fault, boss.’

“Well, there’s no point in trying go through the forest,” Artemis said. “The underbrush is too dense, and time presses us. We’ve proved able to handle whatever this place has thrown at us thus far, so we’ll just have to take our chances… it’s only about thirty yards until it opens up again. Scion and Blue Flame, go high to cover us. Stay frosty, everyone.”

The Blue Flame and Chuck whipped their heads around to stare at one another. Had Artemis just made a joke? In the field? And a pop culture reference at that? Nah, it had to be coincidence… right?

• • • • • • •

The ambush came less than fifty feet from the end of the defile. 

Two heavily armored Ice Giants leapt from the cliff tops on either side of the group, landing with a ground-shaking thump in front of them. One was a massive male, easily 19 feet high, and Chuck thought he recognized him from his last visit to Yotan… but if this was… oh, what the hell was his name? Haugarson! Yes, if this was Haugarson…

“Think I recognize this guy,” Chuck murmured over comms. “But Haugarson was no more than about 11 tall last time I saw him… If this is him, I guess we’re seeing what Logarthin is doing with that stolen power from Loki. Shit, if it’s a proportional thing, some of the Ice Giants must be close to 30 feet tall or more now! Oh, and I have no idea who the giant chick is.”

“So, cur-like son of King Logarthin, your royal father was right,” Haugarson roared, glaring at Chuck… who realized with a start that he himself must now be close to 17 or 18 feet tall… and his clothes still fit! Well, that’s magic for you. Damn, he’d lost the thread of Haugarson’s rant… something about betraying their people, yada, yada, yada.

“Yeah, listen Haugarson old sod, I’m really not in the mood for a lot of monologuing just now. So how about you and your girlfriend… sister… whatever… just step aside and let us get on with our business, yeah? That way you both can go on living. You know, to fight another day.”

“You insult Fringsdottir, as well as pissing on our people?” the female warrior roared in a decidedly unladylike-like baritone. “Die, treasonous changling!” 

She leapt forward, drawing her staggeringly massive battle-axe from her back and bringing it down on Chuck in one very fast motion. But he was just as fast, and had his left arm up and covered in a thick shield of iron-hard green ice before the blow landed. He felt the impact through the ice and his arm, clear up into his chest. Ice chipped and flew, but her blade skreed along his ice-covered arm, throwing her slightly off balance. He brought his right fist up, also encased in solid ice, to slam into her side. With a pained grunt, the giantess staggered back two steps.

Out of the corner of his eye Chuck saw Haugarson pull a good-sized boulder from the defile’s wall, and hurl it with blinding speed at Quanta, who had reluctantly taken to the air. Chuck winced as the rock hit his friend full on, knocking him back to the ground with a crunch and a thud. But he had his hands full with Fringsdottir and her flashing blade, and Quanta would survive or not, as fate decreed…

He felt an odd moment of confusion at that last thought, but before he could pursue it Larry appeared to his left. The enthralled Yeti was still carrying the dragon’s head over his shoulder and brandishing Quanta’s massive sword like it was an épée. Fringsdotter seemed surprised to see a Yeti fighting for the interlopers, and it caused her to miss a beat… Larry dove in and scored a hit, drawing first blood with a long gash across her right bicep. 

This made her miss another beat, but actually proved lucky for her — she narrowly missed a plasma bolt that might otherwise have hit her full in the back. At least with Larry and the Blue flame both targeting her, Chuck could safely turn his attention to Haugarson… that is, to Quanta.

The giant warrior was just stooping to grab the still-dazed Quanta, and Chuck aimed an ice ram straight at his head. Unfortunately, whatever arcane energies were flowing through him seemed to give the giant some sixth sense – he pulled his head back just in time to narrowly avoid the impact. Haugarson instantly rolled aside and came up in a fighting stance facing Chuck, his own battle-axe now out. 

But before either could act, Scion’s tangle field ripped the weapon from the giant’s grasp, leaving him open to a sulfuric blast from Brimstone. His face contorting with pain at the burning attack, Haugarson staggered back, hissing and clutching his side. He eyed his battle-axe, laying on the ground 15 feet away, and Chuck grinned coldly.

“I dare you to try,” he called out, with a laugh devoid of any trace of humor or warmth.

As Haugarson made his lunge, Artemis’ Shadow Whip lashed out, wrapping around the giant’s arm. She pulled hard, causing him to stumble, and used the momentum to somersault herself over him, landing a kick to his head in passing. As she came lightly down on his other side, Scion unloaded a fusillade of electro-bolts into the warriors back, staggering him; Brimstone came in from the side to deliver another searing sulfuric blast.

But despite his obvious pain, Haugarson managed to use the momentum from their attacks to actually roll toward his fallen battle-axe. Chuck sneered and prepared to deliver another ice ram… and this time he wouldn’t wouldn’t miss… 

A roar from behind him made Chuck whirl around, and his eyes grew wide. Larry was bleeding from a deep gash in his side, and Fringsdottir was looking triumphant… until the Yeti lunged recklessly forward, swinging its quantum sword like a scythe. This forced the giantess to leap back, narrowly avoiding a cut that would have disemboweled her.

Then it was her turn to lunge forward in a flurry of sweeping, slashing attacks. But Larry pulled the dragon’s head from over his shoulder and used it as a shield, blocking Fringsdottir’s every move. On her last attack he drove forward again, feinted with the sword, then brought the massive dragon’s head around in a surprise attack. Half-a-dozen of the razor-sharp teeth in the gaping mouth embedded themselves in the back of Fringsdottir’s left leg, and she went down to one knee with a terrible shriek.

In grim amusement Chuck realized that at least some of the dragon’s teeth must have sliced through the giantess’ achilles tendon, crippling her quite agonizingly. Before she had any chance to recover, Larry grabbed her by the hair, her helmet having spun off in her fall, and held the molecular-thin quantum blade to her throat. 

“Hey, you giant bastard,” Totem called out to Haugarson through Larry’s rough, barely understandable Yeti vocal cords. “Surender now, or I’ll finish off your sister-girlfriend!” 

Maybe it was because it came in the Yeti’s voice, but somehow Chuck didn’t think Totem was bluffing. Of course, he thought in cold humor, Cooper was usually so quiet that you tended to forget he was Haida, who weren’t exactly known for their gentle lifestyle or merciful inclinations toward their enemies. 

Haugarson, who had swept up his axe in the confusion, didn’t hesitate. With a roar he ran forward, his axe flashing. Chuck barely managed to get an ice shield up in time. The blow shattered his half-formed protection, and the axe bit deep into his arm. As Chuck reeled back in sudden pain, his cool sense of amusement turned to a cold fury.

Before he could return the attack, however, Artemis darted in to land several precise blows with her Shadow Sticks on Haugarson, rendering his arms numb and causing him to again drop his weapon. That was all Chuck needed — he sent an ice ram into the giant’s gut, slamming him into the cliff side hard, and stunning him.

“This has gone on long enough,” Chuck growled, suddenly tired of the game. “Surrender now if you want to live. You and Fringsdottir. Decide now, for both your lives, Haugarson.”

For long moments Haugarson lay sprawled against the cliff, his chest heaving as he tried to regain his lost breath. For a moment, as the giant’s shoulders slumped, Chuck thought he might actually do it. Instead, the warrior made an amazing leap to his feet, whipping out a massive dagger from his belt and lunging for Chuck. 

The Blue Flame engulfed the warrior in a searing column of plasma from above, and Haugarson  dropped, smoking and unconscious, at Chuck’s feet.

Chuck stared down at his fallen foe for a moment, then pulled the giant’s helmet off, lifted Haugarson’s head by his long braid… and put one of the helmet’s horns through the back of the giant’s skull with one quick thrust. He then strode over to Fringsdottir, his face coldly impassive. Larry released his grip on her hair and stepped back. Chuck stooped to take up the giantess’ own battle ax and without any words brought it down on her neck, decapitating her with that single blow. 

At the stunned silence and shocked faces of his teammates, he shrugged. “I said they could live if they surrendered. They didn’t surrender. The same logic as with the dragon applies — we could hardly risk leaving them bound out here while we face whatever waits in that building.” 

He dropped the axe and strode away towards the building where he suspected his half-brother was being held. He scooped up snow as he went, packing it tightly into the wound on his arm.

After a moment, the rest of the Vanguard followed, Larry taking up the dead giantess’ helm and putting it on his own furry head.

• • • • • • •

Loki’s presumed prison was a massive, rectangular structure of granite and basalt that stood almost 100 feet high at the peak of its blue-gray slate roof. Great buttresses ran down its sides, and no window pierced its grim walls. Only a single carved, arched doorway provided entry, and that was blocked with doors of black oak and iron. Carved low on the doors was a strange word…

“‘punom?’ What does that mean?” the Blue Flame wondered aloud. “And why is it using the roman alphabet? Don’t both the Ice Giants and the Aesir use runes?”

“Yes, but there is strong magic all around this building,” Totem replied, staring intently at the carved letters, “and most especially around these doors. I strongly suspect this inscription would appear in any viewer’s native script… and for all of us that would be the roman script.”

“What?” the Blue Flame sounded confused. “Aren’t you Native American? And didn’t Scion grow up in some Atlantean suburb or something? Shouldn’t you guys see it differently, then?”

“My native tongue is Xaat Kil, that is true,” Totem said distractedly as he ran his fingers over the carved letters. “But prior to the coming of the Europeans we had no written language, so the first script I learned was the roman alphabet.”

“And while I was born in an Atlantean outpost,” Scion added, “my very American grandparents taught me English and the alphabet (among other things) right alongside my Atlantean schooling. Since I’ve never thought of myself as Atlantean in any way, it’s not surprising if my subconscious default is English.”

“Which is all fascinating,” Chuck interrupted brusquely. “But it isn’t getting us anywhere. Can we focus on getting these doors open?”

He noticed the sideways stares from his teammates, but honestly he didn’t have the time to worry about it. All he wanted at this point was to find Loki and then get back home to Midgård. That is, Earth. Why the hell did I think of it as Midgård?

“If you flip the word on its horizontal axis,” Artemis said after a moment, “it reads ‘wound’.”

It didn’t take long for Totem to realize that blood, willing given, must be put into the strange locking mechanism connecting the doors — two intricately wrought iron circles touching one another, bottom to top. The question then became whose blood should be used.

“I think it’s obvious it needs to be mine,” Chuck sighed. “It’s an Ice Giant “lock,” so I’d think Ice Giant — or at least half-Ice Giant — blood would be required. Besides, none of you can even reach the lock, unless you fly. And I’m already wounded, so…”

Chuck knocked the snow off the wound in his arm and held it up. Already the edges were starting to pull together. Not as fast a healing as when I’m in my ice form… so why have I been so reluctant to change to Chilz today? He visibly shrugged the uncomfortable thought away, and squeezed several drops of dark blue blood out to drip into the locking mechanism.

For a moment nothing seemed to open. Then, with a rumble like distant thunder, the leaves of the door began to swing outward. Cautiously, senses keen for any hint of another ambush or hidden traps, Chuck led the way into the massive building’s interior…

• • • • • • •

Artemis followed close behind Chuck, her own attention divided between her habitual awareness of her environment and a growing concern over her teammate’s – her friend’s – increasingly unusual behavior. Ever since they’d arrived in the Yotan beyul he’d not only been growing taller, but becoming more distant and… hard edged? Certainly colder and more ruthless than the rather laid back and humorous Chilz she’d come to know. And why had he chosen to stay in his Ice Giant form, rather than change to his more usual ice form? True, his blue form seemed to retain most of his ice powers, but still…

She consciously set aside her speculations to focus on the large square chamber in which the Vanguard found themselves. A series of torches set around the perimeter of the room flickered with a cold, pale blue flame that gave off no heat and a cold light. The plain gray stone walls soared up to a vaulted ceiling at least 90 feet overhead, the details mostly lost in shadow. Six very tall alcoves of various widths lined the two side walls, while the far wall, facing the doors, was covered in deeply incised runic glyphs. In the center of that wall, about 20 feet up, was inset a disc of glowing blue crystal, utterly smooth.

The alcoves at the near end of the room, flanking the doors, were large and each contained a statue of a stylized Ice Giant warrior. Each very distinctive sculpture stood about 15 feet tall, constructed of a dark blue stone and inlaid with various metals and uncut, polished gemstones in intricate patterns. Matching alcoves flanked the far wall, but their pedestals stood empty. The smaller alcoves set into the center of each side wall contained smaller stone plinths, upon each of which sat a strange assortment of objects. 

In the niche in the righthand wall lay two scrolls of parchment, each bound by leather ties; a golden candle stick holding a fine beeswax candle of deep maroon red; a sliver dagger with a grip of carved bone in the form of a snarling wolf’s head; and lastly, a hand mirror of wrought bronze and silvered glass.

In the niche of the opposite wall sat a tall bronze ewer, empty, engraved with three warrior maidens; a large silver key, intricately carved with animal figures; a blood red leather-bound book, closed by a golden clasp; and a life-sized golden apple, beautifully rendered in precise detail.

“What the hell is this?” Quanta asked, staring around at the otherwise vast empty space. “It doesn’t look much like a prison…”

“I suspect it is… a puzzle,” Totem said, stepping up to examine one of the collections of items. “You have to understand, beings like the Yotankin, and even the Aesir, are more than just powered-up humans. Their existence is tied not only to the energies of the beyul’s they occupy, but even more so to the psychic nourishment of humans of the Prime Plane (that is, Earth), who help form and shape those extra-dimensional realities.

“In other words, they are often bound or constrained by the expectations of the mythologic structures that created and sustain them. It’s the major reason most of the pantheons and other mythic realms withdrew from contact with Earth over time, to try and escape those bonds. But the constraints often remain.”

“So you’re saying that this ice giant, Logarthin, was constrained by his… I don’t know, mythological programming… to create elaborate puzzles as keys to his prison, instead of just using massive locks and a platoon of guards?” Quanta demanded, sounding incredulous.

Totem shrugged. “More or less. It’s obviously more complicated than that when you get down to details, but it’s a valid approximation. Actually, the history of the creation and development of the so-called mythic realms is a fascinating one…”

While Totem lectured the others on basic cosmology, Artemis began examining all of the items on display, looking for some connection or clue. Scion and Chuck were doing same, she noted with approval. It took a second pass through the displays to stumble across the key, as it were.

Artemis had picked up the bronze hand mirror for a second time, and was about to set it down again, when something caught her eye… she had been turned so that one of the statues flanking the door was visible behind her. Or should have been. Instead, the pedestal appeared empty in the reflection. When she turned to look directly, the statue was exactly where she expected it to be. She checked the reflection of the other statue, and it appeared both in reality and in the mirror. She then turned to the empty alcoves flanking the far wall, and found the mirror showed the “missing” statue reflected in the right side nook.

“I think I’ve got something here,” she called out, and explained her odd discovery. It was quickly agreed that the obvious course was to move the statue on the left of the door to the empty pedestal catty-corner to it across the room. Even with Scion’s and her own great strength, this might have proofed a difficult task, but Blue Chuck was able to lift the multi-ton sculpture with barely a grunt.

As soon as he had set the statue in its new alcove, the blue disc in the center of the back wall began to glow even brighter. Carved runes appeared around its rim, and a keyhole materialized in the center of the crystal. Artemis smiled in satisfaction.

“Well, it looks like we have someplace for this key after all,” Brimstone said, lifting the silver key he’d been holding when she’d announced her own find. He stepped forward, but found the disc and its new keyhole rather out of reach. He sheepishly handed the key to Chuck, who had no trouble inserting it into the crystal… as soon as he turned the key, the runes carved into the wall began to shift around, changing size, shape, and location to spell out, in English, three lines of a riddle.

If I have it, I don’t share it.

If I share it, I don’t have it.

What is it?

After a brief moment to consider, several of the Vanguard answered at once — “A secret.”

Immediately the wall itself wavered, twisted and vanished like a mist. It reveal a space half as big as the original room, in the middle of which a tall, red-haired man in tattered green robes hung spread-eagled, bound by glowing blue crystal blocks. His feet were locked in a wide crystal base, his hands encased in crystal pillars hanging from the ceiling. Pulsing blue-white energy coruscated around him like lighning, and a pale violet energy seemed to flow out of him and into the crystalline restraints. He was  clearly lost in his own pain, and it took him a moment to become aware of the change in his surroundings. Then he lifted his head to stare at the Vanguard – and despite his pain, a sardonic smile of recognition lit his narrow, fox-like face, when he focused on Chuck.

“So, my young half-brother,” he gasped out, “I assume your timely presence here is thanks to the All-Father’s machinations – a daring and unexpected gambit on my blood-brother’s part, I must say!”

Artemis barely heard the words, and nothing of Chuck’s response, over the sudden roaring in her ears as she stared in disbelief at the bound man. For a moment her vision narrowed and there was nothing in the world but her and — her father! The man her mother had known as —

“Spartan!” she cried out, hardly aware of doing so. And then, almost a whisper, “Father!”

Loki’s gaze shifted to her, and he stared intently, clearly surprised himself. After a moment he smiled a sweet, weary, melancholic smile. “Ah, you have my eyes,” he said softly, “but the lines of your face… truly, you have Katherine’s beauty. Well met, daughter.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone began talking at once. Artemis was too lost in contemplation of the face she had searched for, for much of her 150 years, to pay them any attention. Scion eventually restored order, and only at his gentle touch on her shoulder did she pull herself back from her spiraling thoughts.

“So Loki is your father?” Jonny burst out, having reverted to his human form when they entered the building.

“Apparently so,” Artemis replied, forcing herself to set aside her shock, and thousand questions, to focus on how to free… she’d just think of him as Loki for now. There’s be time to talk, later, if they could free him…

“But… that makes King Logarthin your grandfather!” Jonny blurted out. “Oh shit, that also means that… oh my god, Chilz is Artemis’ uncle! Or half-uncle, I guess…”

Chuck himself looked gobsmacked at this realization, but Artemis just shoved it down with everything else, to be dealt with LATER, goddamn it!

“Focus, people,” she said, stepping forward to examine the crystal structure that held her fa- Loki  in place. “No telling if our solving his puzzle has alerted Logarthin that we’re here. Time is of the essence now. Totem, can you break these bonds?”

“There are powerful magics at work here,” the Magus Prime said slowly, his inner eye focused on the arcane enemies pulse around them. “But if I channel my own powers through my staff…”

As Artemis watched, frustrated at her own impotence in the moment, Totem tried three times to break the complex binding and siphoning spell. “It’s almost working,” he gasped. “But the crystals… they keep reinforcing the spells… we must destroy the crystals…”

Before she could react, Chuck whirled around and snatched the quantum sword from the blank-eyed Larry, whom Totem had left in a fuge state. In his hands the blade looked more like a long kinfe. He swung it with all his strength into the glowing base encasing Loki’s feet, and the pulsing blue crystal shattered. Instantly, he brought the sword around again in a sweeping blow that shattered the upper pillars.

A burst of white light radiated out silently from the wrecked mechanisms. In concentric waves it washed over and passed through everyone in the chamber. Then Loki collapsed, and Artemis caught him, lowering his unconscious form gently to the floor. In her concern for her father, it took her a moment to realize that something else was going on…

The wave of arcane energy seemed to have passed through the Vanguard with no effect — with the exception of Chuck. Artemis saw that he had been changed into his Chilz form — albeit a much larger Chilz than they’d ever seen before! Even as she stared at him in surprise, he was continuing to grow. He was well past 20’ when he turned away, blank-eyed, striding purposefully for the door.

“Charles!” she called after him. “Chuck! What are you doing?”

He gave no sign that he heard her, and when he reached the door, now at least ten feet too tall for it, he simply smashed through the thick granite of the surrounding wall without even slowing. As he vanished in a cloud of masonry dust Artemis cursed, stooped to lift Loki’s limp form, and raced after her friend. The rest of the Vanguard followed, Scion and the Blue Flame taking to the air.

“Damn, he’s become Mega-Chilz!” the Blue Flame said, in what seemed to Artemis more like admiration than concern. As Mega-Chilz, now well over 40 feet tall, strode into the woods, Totem rose into the air himself, via his Cloak of Levitation. He didn’t try to approach their erstwhile teammate, but hovered at the height of his head, just behind him. After a moment he suddenly grabbed his own head with both hands, in apparent pain. He drifted quickly back to the ground.

“I attempted to scan his mind, to see what was driving him,” he mumbled, clearly shaken by the experience. “But I could only detect the faintest sense of Chuck Chisholm, and that was buried deep beneath… I don’t know what. I’ve never experienced anything like it, except perhaps the mind of Gojira. There’s a sentience, I think, but one very far from human… it’s vast and cold and… hungry? I’m not sure that’s the right word… but in any case, Chuck is not in control, of that I’m certain.”

“It must be this ‘Living Ice’ he’s spoken of before,” Scion said over coms, echoing Artemis’ own thoughts. And she had a premonition that getting their teammate back wasn’t going to be easy…

• • • • • • •

Chuck floated in a blue-green eternity of solid ice, a fly caught in freezing amber. He could sense an awareness all around him and through him, an awareness that was this place… and one he had dimly touched at least twice before… the extra-dimensional entity King Logarthin had called the Living Ice.

But how had he gotten here, wherever exactly here was? And where was his body?

As soon as he articulated the thought, it lead to a distant awareness of his physical form, or at least his ice form… Jesus, he’d grown huge! How… ah, he could sense it now. His body had always been an extension the Living Ice’s own substance, and now here, “closer” in some metaphysical sense to it’s home plane, it could pour more of itself into the world through him.

He dimly sensed his teammates, his friends, calling out to him, trying to reason with him, to get him to stop… to talk to them… to stop growing! But he wasn’t in control, not of his body and barely of his thoughts… he felt so sluggish…

There was a sensation, then… not a pain, not even really a discomfort… just a sense of something… oh, it was the new guy, Brimstone… he’d hit the Mega-Chilz form with some superheated sulfur attack, melted away part of one thigh.. poor Preston, he looked so disappointed as the wound healed over almost immediately… but he felt a ghost of a chuckle, actually the strongest emotion he’d felt since he woke up her, at the nickname Jonny had given him… he liked that, Mega-Chilz… very on brand…

That thought gave rise to a sudden, vivid memory, and his incipient humor died. He recalled the vision he’d once been granted — a vision of himself, monstrously large, towering over the skyscrapers of Astoria as the city was buried beneath snow and ice; of the thickening ice expanded ever-outward to engulf the world. With a jolt of real horror, he realized that was the vision which the Living Ice wished to bring into reality. It wanted to use him as a living portal to enter Earth’s dimension… and when it had taken the planet and made it a tomb of living ice, would it then move on to the rest of the universe?

He was snapped from his spiraling thoughts by the distant sense of Quanta buzzing his head, and then speeding off ahead of him… wait, Kyle hated flying, he thought he was shit at it… and had he actually muttered “I call on the Power Quantum” as he flew past? He felt a little part of himself return as he laughed at the thought…

Suddenly he was aware of Artemis landing on his shoulder… on the Living Ice’s shoulder. She was going on about something… his mother… the thought of his mother widened the cracks in the metaphysical ice around himself. And then the Living Ice seemed to notice, and shoved him back into his almost somnolent state. 

He was only dimly aware of his hands reaching up and plucking Artemis from his shoulder, closing around her and beginning to squeeze. He tried to muster the will to stop it, but the lassitude was overwhelming, and he could do nothing. Then the sheet of ice between himself and the world seemed to thin, as he saw Jonny suddenly rising up in front of him!

His friend had expanded his plasma form to match his own size, and had somehow solidified his plasma into a denser state than usual. Yes, he remembered he’d been practicing that… Jonny moved to grapple with Mega-Chilz, and he felt, as the Living Ice did, the heat blasting away his ice form where they touched. It still wasn’t pain, but it was… uncomfortable. And the Living Ice seemed unsure how to deal with it… it retreated a bit, and Chuck surged forward to take back some control… not much, but enough to loosen his grip.

It was all Artemis needed, as he’d know it would. She pulled herself free with a graceful flip, then slid down his frozen six-pack abs, leapt, touched down on the thigh of his extended leg and turned it into an impressive somersault, coming down a dozen yards in front of him in a perfect three-point-landing. Damn, she always looked so hot doing that… oh, ugh, I can’t think about her like that, she’s my damn niece now!

That thought did a little more to strengthen his grip on his body, but it was still too damn tenuous… he could feel the Living Ice, wary, but cold patience personified. Then he heard Jonny, talking to him about all the reasons he had to come back to them – he wanted to laugh when his friend insisted they couldn’t let the Phantom Ace become the reigning GTA 5 champions in the Pyramid… but he couldn’t laugh…

Then the rolling fight, such as it was, entered a large clearing, and he looked down to see the head from a truly gargantuan statue, fallen and half buried in the midst of the forest, its features broken and blurred by time. Chained to it were three Ice Giants, who had clearly been languishing there for quite awhile… three giants he recognized! The King’s Champions, who had fought, and tried to kill, him in Logarthin’s test months ago! Apparently they were being punished for their failure… but it wasn’t enough! Blind rage suddenly blotted out everything, and he felt the presence of the Living Ice retreat further…

With a roar he bent down and grabbed the massive head, heaving both it and its bound prisoners into the air. Fully in the moment for the first time since he’d changed, Chuck hurled the rock and the screaming warriors chained to it as hard and as far as he could. He almost knocked a startled Quanta out of the sky, and his relief at not having killed his friend made the rage vanish as suddenly as it had come. 

“Holy shit, he must’ve thrown that thing a mile,” he heard Kyle say, and he tried to speak. But still his body was not entirely his own, and he felt the restraints of the Living Ice, and its singular goal, compelling him. He must get to the portal, to go to Earth… no, I can’t, I WON’T! he screamed silently. But nonetheless, his body moved forward, clearing a hundred feet at a stride now.

Then Quanta was behind him, and he felt the strands of quantum matter forming around his legs. The Living Ice strove to break them… he couldn’t oppose that will directly, but he could help his friend along… Mega-Chilz stumbled and toppled, taking out a dozen massive fir trees as he did.

As he lay on n the ground, struggling with the Living Ice not to rise, Scion was suddenly overhead, firing electro-bolts into his torso. The Living Ice was forced to divert some energy to repairing their shared body, and when JJ next launched a huge tangle field over him, Mega-Chilz struggled only feebly to free himself.

Brimstone again turned to his gas form and attempted to suffocate him, and Chuck felt sort of bad for him… his offer to show him around Calgary if only he’d snap out of it had actually moved him, for some reason. He really liked Preston, but the poor guy hadn’t been around long enough to know in his ice form he didn’t actually breathe…

Then Totem was there at his head, muttering incantations or something… and he felt a pressure, something new! The pressure drove a wedge between himself and the presence of the Living Ice. Not enough to separate them entirely, Chuck doubted that was possible now, but giving him enough space to bring him truly and fully to himself again. And in that moment he knew what he could do – what he HAD to do.

He bent all of his thought on the Living Ice itself… and he offered it a deal. He would stop resisting it, and together they would take the Yotan dimension. He offered it as a sort of amuse bouche before the main course of Earth and the Prime Plane. And because Cooper’s powerful spell of banishment had succeeded at least partially, he was able to keep a part of his thoughts secret…

The Living Ice accepted his offer, and almost immediately he sensed its attention shift to the joy of unfettered expansion, as its substance flowed through their shared body and began to fill up Yotan. He wasn’t sure how long he had, but he had to get his friends out of this place, and to make them understand what was going to have to happen.

“You must all go, now!” he roared, and realized his voice sounded like two glaciers grinding together. He could only hope they’d understand him. “I have made a bargain, and it means Yotan is doomed… but Earth will be saved. Once this pocket realm is one with the Living Ice, I will be able to block it at the portals to Asgard and Earth, its only two choices to escape from here. That or retreat to its own dimension.”

“But Chuck, are you strong enough to fight this entity?” Totem cried. “I have felt its mind, so strong, so… vast.”

“I cannot win against it one-on-one for control, true. But thanks to you I now know I can block it in this one small way, at the choke point. However vast it is, it must still metaphysically squeeze itself down to use the gates. And there I can block it forever, if I must. Like that famous Dutch kid, I can be the thumb in the extra-dimensional dike.”

“But Chuck,” Artemis said, one arm around a semi-revived Loki, who was looking grim. “That Dutch boy died in the effort. There must be a way to block this entity without sacrificing yourself!”

Chuck shook his massive head slowly, staring down at the tiny figures of his niece (and how very odd to think of her that way) and his brother. He must be almost 200 feet tall by now, and he could feel his growth accelerating. “No, Artemis, I think your father and Totem can explain it better, but it is the only way, please trust me.

“But I’m not planning on dying, in any case, niece.” He figured this was probably the only chance he was going to get to tweak her with that without suffering her wrath, so he might as well seize the moment. “I must live to block the way; but maybe someday Totem, or Loki, or somebody will figure out a way to free me and still block the Living Ice from engulfing Earth.

“But you have to go, now, this place doesn’t have long, and you do not want to be caught here.” Already the snow was falling in a blinding torrent and the temperature was dropping at a staggering rate. He saw the reluctance with which Cooper and Kyle worked to open a portal, and the sadness with which his other friends entered it… but even Jonny was having a hard time with the cold. Jane and Loki were the last through, and the last thing he saw was her hand raised in salute…