Category: Tales to Amaze

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…

Prometheus was asked to give a lecture at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Germany, the alma mater of his “father,” Victor Frankenstein. The scheduled date is Monday 15 November 2016, and he flew to Germany on Friday the 11th (on Max Mars’ private jet), and is returning on the 20th (after explore some of his creator’s old haunts in Germany and Switzerland).

In the days following the near-disaster of the Halloween fund-raiser at the New Camelot Theatre and the exorcising of the ghostly Silver Scream (however temporary it might prove to be), the Vanguard were able to return their attention to the matter of the Pack-Rat. The facts that the child-like Junkpile could provide concerning his new “friend” were few enough, but it gave Artemis a place to start.

While she worked her many contacts in the Undercity, Scion put Chuck, Jonny and Seth on a deep search and pattern analysis of the news archives from the last yer, looking for any information on the kind of low-profile crimes that Pack-Rat and his gang seemed to favor. Meanwhile he and Quanta continued to spend as much time as they could spare with Junkpile, both studying and socializing him. Totem joined them on occasion, to examine the possibility of supernatural elements in the creature’s origin.

At the group’s weekly meeting on Monday morning 7 November…

My game plot points/notes:

This will be somethign of a seat-of-the pants adventure, as it’s one where the PCs are being proactive and setting a trap for the new criminal Pack Rat and his band of merry streetfolk, the Rat Pack. There are as many as four set pieces for this adventure, depending on what plan the Vanguard comes up with:

A Street Encounter when the McGuffin technology is being moved from the old Reshift Energy (now Apergy Systems International) ware house to the storage warehouse of the auction house TechCycle. This is if the Rat Pack decides to try an in-transit heist. They will use the sewers to move about and launch the attack.

A Warehouse Encounter, at TechCycle’s warehouse, where the McGuffin tech is being stored prior to the auction, used if the Rat Pack decides to do a B&E heist instead, coming up from the sewers as is their MO.  

Regardless which method the Rat Pack uses to steal the McGuffin tech, they will escape (as part of the brilliant Vanguard plan or in spite of it, as required). Any technological tracker will be disabled as soon as it enters the big Faraday cage that is their main lair. This will give the heroes the general area of Astoria, within a two block radius, but no more. If Totem’s mystical tracker is used, then it will lead them to the Astoria Tower and it’s basement – it’s a magic directional guide, so it will point them towards their path, not directly at the tracker itself.

Once the Vanguard figure out how to breach the upper security of the Rat’s Nest the action will move to the final set piece, the Abandoned Subway Station Encounter. This is intended to be the main boss fight of the adventure.

With either the Street Encounter or the Warehouse Encounter, Pack Rat will have a group of his minions set off the alarms at several major stores in the Diamond District, as well as the Emerald City Diamond Exchange. None of these are actual robberies, just a diversion to draw away the Vanguard while  rodent and his gang go after the tech they want. In either scenario, Pack Rat will have six of his regular minions with him and two Hornet Drones at the actual target sight.

The Rat’s Nest is an abandoned subway station in Astoria – quite a feat for a city with no subway system. It was  one of two built secretly in 1928-29 by Elija Astor, a cousin of JJ’s grandfather. The secrecy was felt to be neccessary after the Emerald City and Astoria City Councils both refused permits. Under cover of supposedly tunneling a new 8-foot diameter sewer line, for which he could get permits, Astor went ahead and built a quarter-mile of pneumatic train tunnel and a grand showpiece station. 

In Emerald City, using several local front companies, he built a much less grand station and another quarter-mile of track. The final phase of his elaborate scheme, the construction of a tunnel under the Columbia River connecting  the two sections of track, was almost two-thirds completed in October of 1929. Astor lost most of his personal fortune in the Crash, and was forced into bankruptcy. He lost the Astoria Tower, and with it the station and tracks beneath it, although he somehow managed to keep the Emerald City property. 

This was salt in the wound, though, as he hated EC – his life’s goal had been to push his city, Astoria, into the limelight, even if he couldn’t push Emerald City out of it entirely (that long-fought battle had been over for decades by then, as most of the rest of the Astor family had realized well before the turn of the century). Elija’s Astoria Tower had been meant to show Astoria as cutting edge as the dynamic new 20th Century began. At 16 stories it was the  tallest building on the West Coast when it opened on 12 June 1901, topping Emerald City’s McTavish Building by six floors and 100 feet. It only held that record for 14 months, however, until the 35 story, 349-foot Stanley Tower  was completed in Emerald City in August of 1902. That held the West Coast record until 1923 and the construction of Seattle’s Smith Tower, at 49 storys and 489 feet.

Elija Astor died on 14 January 1932 at age 57, a bitter and disappointed man living in a residence hotel in Astoria,  estranged not only from his East Coast cousins but from his own three children. Born 11 March 1875.

When his illegal subway project was discovered during the bankruptcy, Elija spent much of his remaining money fighting legal battles to avoid now-crippling fines. He succeeded, but the effort left him almost destitute anyway, by the standards of his class. The new owners of the Astoria Tower quickly paved over the two-story atrium lobby, making the former mezzanine level the new lobby. The lower lobby was sealed off except for the sidewalk freight elevator, becoming a storage basement. In the 1940s the ticket booth and the entrance to the subway were walled off entirely during an effort to shore up the supports of the building after a minor earthquake.

Pack Rat found the place after being told by the Professor (Reginald Brown) about it – the man’s grandfather had been set to be one of the ticket sellers when the line opened, and was one of the few people to see the project, outside the work crews, before it was abandoned and selaed away. The humanoid rodent bored in from a sewer line and created a new opening into the walled off section with the ticket booth. A hidden door in a main sewer tunnel opens into a new tunnel leading to the refurbihsed lair. 

To open the boarded-up doors to the booth requires a DC 20 check against Investigation or Perception.

The lair is protected by sensors that alert inhabitants when the secret door is opened and two disguised security cameras (DC 15 against Perception to notice them).

When trying to find a way into the basement of the Astoria Tower it’s a DC 20 Persuasion (or Intimidation)  roll to learn about the freight elevator from the sidewalk to the basement. Only one small section is currently used (the building is old and seedy, up for sale, and half empty of tennants). A DC 30 Investigation roll is required to learn more about the closed off area – almost no one even knows that it exists.

Attempts to talk Pack Rat or any of his minions out of their life of crime are not doomed to failure (none of the  humans are really bad people), but it’s a tough sell. The Rat Pack have all been discarded by society and have little trust in any authority figues, including the Vanguard. Artemis’ reputation gives her a +5 to any attempt at either Persuasion or Intimidation. Scion recieves a +2 bonus at Persuasion or Insight. 

Persuasion, Intimidation or Insight can be used to try and sway Pack Rat and his gang (the minions roll as one, the Librarian, the Professor and Pack Rat himself get individual rolls. The attempt is a Challenge, and lower the Attitude of the gang and/or its leader, with a DC 30 (for the Rat Pack) or DC 35 (for Pack Rat ). Each attempt at persuasion takes a Standard Action at least, and requires two degrees of success to improve attitude by one level (can be cummulative), but only one degree of failure to worsen it. Three degrees of failure or more ups attitude two levels, while three or more degrees of success lowers the level by two. If Pack Rat’s Attitude ever hits “Hostile” then any future attempts at persuasion have a DC 40.

Attitude: Effect

Hostile Will take risks to attack or interfere with you. 

Rat Pack becomes totally focused on attacking heroes. Pack Rat becomes vicious in his attacks.

Unfavorable Will insult, mislead, or otherwise cause you trouble. Rat Pack attacks when
provoked, but will disengage if allowed to do so – Attitude starts here.

Indifferent Acts as socially expected towards you.

Rat Pack tries to ignore heroes, focused on the job. Rat Pack will try to occupy
but not harm heroes.

Favorable Will chat, advise, and offer limited help. Rat Pack can be reasoned with, won’t
attack first. Pack Rat remains defensive, but willing to listen.

Helpful Will take risks to help or protect you. Rat Pack an be convinced to do what the
heroes ask, within reason. Pack Rat can be convinced to depart, but will only
surrender on a second successful roll or on a natural 20.

Edgar Holmes is the name of  The Librarian, who seldom leaves the Rat’s Nest. If either or The Professor are killed,or even seriously injured, Pack Rat will go berserk and attempt to kill at least one hero before escaping.

If either of the uplifted rodent’s chief lieutenants can be moved down two levels, then Pack Rat is automatically lowered by one level. If he himself is lowered a level by direct persuasion, the Rat Pack moves the same distance on the Attitude Table.

Discover Perimiter Alarms – DC 35 Perception / Investigation /Technology Check (DC 20 for Scion)

Disable Perimiter Alarms – DC 30 Technology Check (DC 20 for Scion)

Disable/Control Security Cameras – DC 20 Technology Check (DC 15 for Scion)

Disable/Control Robo-Defenses – DC 40 Technology Check for Scion (no chance for anyone else)

Discover existence of the Menagerie – DC 25 Investigation Check or DC 30 Current Events Check)

Artemis #1 –  You knew of, and on a couple of occasions had business interactions with, Elija Astor, back in the early 20th Century. You found him annoying, a relentless self-promoter, and a tedious champion of Astoria over Emerald City in the (generally one-side) rivalry of the two cities. You remember shaking your head at the money he spent building his 16-story Astoria Tower in 1901, and his petulant fury when Emerald City took back the record for tallest building on the West Coast just 14 months later with the 35-story Stanley Tower. You were in Shambhala Vale during the Depression, of course, but know he lost everyhting and died broke in the early 1930s. You can roll a DC 20 Check against Expertise: History to remember more details of the man and his works, if you wish. 

Artemis #2 –  You’ve known Reginald Brown, street name The Professor, for several years as a denizen of the Undercity. He was a tenured professor of history at ECU in the ‘90s, but suffered an emotional breakdown in 2003 when his beloved wife of 32 years died in a freak home accident. He took to drink to dull the pain, eventually lost his job, and by 2005 was living rough on the streets. He never lost his compassion, however, and became a sort of father-figure to many younger cast-aways fo society once he found a place in the Undercity, even while despising the system that he believed failed them all. You worked with him on several occasions when, as Artemis, you needed aid in trying to help some lost soul. You knew him as a bitter, broken man, but nonetheless a good one at his core, more focused on others than himself (except for his own loss and pain).

Scion #1 –  You know of a company named TechCycle, which specializes in auctions of technology & commercial property. You have a bunch of older tech that you acquired from Redshift Energy for which youy have no use – you planned to get rid of it using TechCycle’s services at some point. It’s exactly the kind of relatively low-value stuff the Rat Pack seems to go for, so why not advertise that you’re auctioning it off now to lay the trap? 

Scion #2 –  The ever-efficient Ms. Penny Monet, whom you’ve promoted to Operations Officer for Apergy Systems, has found an employee, a holdover from the ZeroPoint Energy acquisition, who has a gambling problem and would likely be a good candidate to “sell” information about old tech being disposed of. His name is Gerhart Mueller, and he works at your manufacturing and shipping facility. It’s a DC 20 Persuasion Check to talk him into helping. If you offer to pay off his debts (conditional on his seeking treatment afterward, of course), add a +5 to the roll. 

Astoria, Oregon – 24 December 2017

Another write-up I’ve not finished. But here are the game notes I ran the adventure from:

24 December 2016, 16:18 – You have just returned from dealing with a train derailment on the eastern edge of the city… no deaths, no significant environmental damage, and only minor injuries, but it did help to break up the boredom of this gray early-winter Saturday. 

Winter has definitely settled upon Astoria like a dark, grey shroud. The leaden sky has been spitting bursts of freezing rain onto the streets, creating a chill that settles into the bones and spirit. Now, as the feeble daylight fades, an icy fog has begun to settle over the city. It’s clear the people of Astoria feel the oppressive weight of winter, too, as they huddle into coats, hats, and scarves, scuttling about their dreary business, scarcely even looking up to the grey sky above. Night is coming, and there seems little to look forward to except another evening of patrolling the streets for signs of trouble, which has become increasingly common, as it always does at this sad, grey time of year…but really, what else can you do?

If any of the players ask exactly when in December it is, mention it’s the early evening of December the 24th. If any of them note that it’s Christmas Eve, or ask about the holiday season, or Christmas in any fashion, just give them a blank look and say, “Christmas? What’s that?” Indeed, make it clear the heroes, at least, have no recollection of any such holiday or time of the year, nothing that breaks up the endless monotony and bleakness at the start of the long, dark winter months.

Before the players have too much time to wonder about this oddity, however:

Sure enough, you haven’t long to wait for trouble to arise. Dispatch informs you that an alarm is sounding from the Northwest Diamond Exchange at the corner of 3rd & Amethyst, on Diamond Circle. Police sirens can be heard wailing in the distance, but this sounds like a job for the Vanguard!

Scene 2:
NW Diamond Exchange, Diamond Circle (Combat)

16:24 – A group of six thugs are robbing the Diamond Exchange. They’re armed with pistols and wearing ski-masks and their getaway car is running outside the building. Needless to say, the robbers are not prepared to deal with an entire team of superheroes; treat them as minions, meaning one hit is enough to take them down. But they hired a metahuman to cover their asses in case of just this situation.

Unfortunately, the meta is Foxfire, who is more interested in fun than money; she’ll put up a token fight but will vanish soon enough, leaving her would-be employers in the lurch. She’s wearing a different body, so it’s unlikely any of the heroes will recognize her from their previous encounter. This encounter isn’t really meant to challenge the heroes in any case, just give them a little warm-up and the opportunity to show off their powers. Once the group has mopped up the bad guys:

Suddenly, there is a shimmer in the air in front of you, and you brace yourselves for more trouble. What could it be now? 

The shimmer takes the form of a man in a long, flowing cloak of dark blue, clasped at the throat with a circular silver amulet with a triangle inscribed inside it. You recognize him immediately: Arkanos, the Magus Prime of Earth! His image remains translucent, as he spreads his cloak and holds out a hand towards you.

“My friends,” he says in a hollow and spectral voice, “I have paused this moment in time to reach out to you.” Indeed, as you glance around, you see everything and everyone else frozen, motionless. Even scatterings of snowflakes hang still in the air.

“There is a great disturbance in the natural order,” the master mage says. “Some force has disrupted reality and things are not as they should be. Whoever, or whatever, is responsible for this alteration to reality has chosen their timing well – I away from Earth’s dimension, in a far nether realm, and facing a critical battle – but I have managed to send my astral form to you. I need your aid to right this disturbance and restore the cosmic balance. If you are willing to help me, then quickly reach out and take hold of my cloak.”

Totem is most familiar with the Magus Prime, and will certainly encourage the others to accede to his wishes. When the heroes touch Arkanos’ cloak, it feels only vaguely substantial. The world swirls around them like a blizzard and they are instantly whisked…elsewhere.

Scene 3:
Realm of Myth and Archetypes (Combat / Roleplaying)

Time unkonown – A chill wind swirls around you and the world fades as if behind a wall of snow and mist. When it clears, you find yourselves standing outside on snow-covered ground in a mountain pass of some sort. Arkanos’ phantasmal form hovers above, a look of strain on his face.

“I have expended my energies,” the Magus Prime says. “I must return to my physical body at once, in preparation of my upcoming battle. The forces that have derailed the natural order are close at hand, however. It is now up to you, my friends. You must put things right once more!”

Before you can respond, Arkanos’ astral form fades and is gone. A cold wind swirls through the pass, whipping up the snow, and thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance.

Although he hasn’t time to explain to the heroes, Arkanos has in fact transported them to another plane of reality, a kind of “dream realm” where the archetypes of human myth and consciousness are real. In particular, they are near a mythic representation of the North Pole, the home of Santa Claus! Initially, the world appears quite normal, but things quickly make it clear the heroes are not in Astoria any longer.

One particular thing the heroes discover immediately is their movement powers don’t work: they can’t fly, teleport, run at super-speed, and Jonny can’t take on his plasma form. This is because of the unique nature of the realm. The same is true of any unusual sensory powers like Remote Sensing or Post-Cognition, which allow the heroes to sense beyond their immediate area/time. There’s no immediate explanation why these powers don’t work, they just don’t. So, for the time being, the heroes have to make their way through the pass on foot. 

Award the players a hero point for this complication.

As the heroes make their way through the pass, they’re affected by Desparia’s increasing influence over the realm and are set upon by her hobgoblin minions. Fortunately, they get some aid from an unexpected quarter. Read the following aloud to the players:

The air is freezing cold in the mountain pass and you’re wishing Arkanos had provided you with some winter gear before he disappeared. The snow reaches up to your knees and it’s slow going trudging through it to who-knows-where. It’s rapidly growing darker as night begins to set in and curtains of green and gold light begin to appear in the dark sky above you, flickering and shimmering in a gorgeous display. But despite the beauty of the scene, you have the disturbing feeling that you’re being watched.

As the rough stone sides of the pass loom up overhead, the wind whistles and moans through the narrow gap. Suddenly, burning red eyes gleam from the shadows and a pack of grey-furred wolves with eyes like burning coals rushes to attack! 

The winter-wolves are Desparia’s minions, ordered to keep intruders away from the North Pole and the Workshop. There are at least twice as many of them as there are heroes. What’s worse is the wolves’ attacks appear to ignore mundane defenses. Non-Innate Protection powers are largely useless against them, providing no reduction to their damage. The heroes should discover this the first time they are scratched by a wolf’s claws or teeth. The creatures are not immune to counterattack, but they are supernaturally tough. The heroes should put up a good fight, but they should also feel outnumbered and out of their depth. 

Award the players another hero point for this complication.

If the fight begins turning against the heroes, or if the heroes gain a significant edge over the wolves, a new element will enter the picture:

Suddenly, from the rocky crags up above, comes a volley of missile fire! One wolf is struck by a half dozen darts tipped with suction cups and falls over in the snow. Another is pelted by water balloons, which begin instantly freezing its fur, while others are bombarded by snowballs, foam-darts, wiffle-balls, footballs, soccer balls, and a variety of other things. Howling and shying away from the sudden rain of attacks, the wolves quickly withdraw.

“That’s got ‘em,” a high-pitched voice says from above you, “but they’ll be back soon enough.”

You glance up to see a small figure, about three feet tall, standing on an outcropping of rock, hands on his hips. He’s dressed in a bright green coat with brass buttons, red and white stripped stockings, and curly-toed green shoes. A jaunty green hat rests on his shock of red hair, supported by a flaring pair of pointed ears. Similarly dressed little figures emerge from cover behind the rocks.

“What’s the matter?” the little guy asks with a grin. “You look like you’ve never seen an elf before.”

The heroes’ rescuers are indeed Santa’s elves, or at least those elves that escaped Desparia’s takeover of the Workshop. They’ve been hiding out in the wilderness and organizing resistance, but haven’t been able to do much more than evade the sorceress’ minions. With outside aid, however, they may be able to do more.

The red-headed elf and leader of the small band of rebels introduces himself as Herbie, although the other elves all call him “Doc.” (If any of the heroes happen to ask Herbie what he’s a doctor of, he curtly answers “dentistry.”) The elves are holed-up in a nearby cave in the mountains, where they’ve stockpiled various toys as weapons against Desparia’s minions.

More importantly, the elves have a small amount of Santa’s magic corn, which Herbie correctly suspects will restore the heroes’ powers, at least temporarily. It tastes like candy-corn and restores the heroes’ memories and abilities, allowing them to recall Santa Claus and Christmas and to use their powers normally.

NOTE: Chuck has been feeling a strong sense of deja vu since the group arrived in the Mythic Realms, especially when he gets occasional glimpses of a tall, jagged mountain range far to the southeast (insofar as compass directions mean anything here). If he asks the elves about it, they’ll explain that the range marks the edge of another realm, that of Jotenheim, home of the terrible Frost Giants. If pressed, they’ll say that while there’s no love lost between the North Pole and the land of the giants, they’ve had a peace treaty for many centuries now, if little regular intercourse beyond occaional trade delegations. Once Chilz makes an appearance the elves will be surprised; if the hero makes a DC20 Perception Roll he will notice their reaction and may ask about it. If he fails the roll, or doesn’t follow up on a successful one, they will not offer any comment, being too polite. But if he asks they’ll say he looks like a tiny version of one of the many varieties of Frost Giants.

Scene 4:
Elves’ Cave / Santa’s Workshop (Roleplaying / Combat)

Time unkonown – Once the heroes are ready for action, after eating the elves’ magic corn, Herbie tells them the situation:

“It all happened just a few days ago, but it seems like it’s been forever. We were getting things ready for the big Christmas run when she showed up. Came right out of a swirling blizzard, she did, with those wolves and hobgoblin soldiers behind her. We tried to protect the Workshop, of course, but she’s a sorceress and her power…”

Herbie sighs deeply. “She calls herself the Ice Queen Desparia. She captured both Santa and Mrs. Claus. He told us to run, to save ourselves, and we fled out into the storm… all we could hear as we ran was her laughter on the wind, mocking us. We need to free Santa and the Missus, but all we’ve managed to do so far is stay out of the clutches of the sorceress’ minions. We’ve developed a plan, but we just don’t have the elf-power to pull it off, even with the reindeer who escaped… but with your help, it just might work!”

Herbie explains the basic plan: the heroes create a distraction, drawing out Desparia and her minions, while an elite group of elves slip into the Workshop to free Santa and Mrs. Claus. Let the players offer suggestions and their own plans. They can investigate or attempt some reconnaissance, if they’d like.

When the heroes want to create a distraction, all they need to do is offer a show of power, or even just appear within sight of Santa’s Workshop, to draw the attention of Desparia and her minions. The sorceress confronts the heroes, proclaiming loudly how they cannot defeat her and Christmas will never come again. Her not-inconsiderable Toughness and Magic rank make Desparia a formidable foe. Feel free to use complications to provide Desparia with enough successful resistance checks to weather the heroes’ initial attacks, and to allow her to overcome some of the heroes with her powers.

The hobgoblins are vaguely ape-like creatures, with thin limbs, distended bellies, and heavy green fur. Their faces are distorted with rage and their eyes burn with an unholy yellow glow. Feel free to arm the hobgoblins with melee weapons, or even to give them Ranged Combat skill and things like crossbows or nets to make them more of a challenge, if you like.

Scene 5:
Santa’s Workshop (Challenge / Roleplaying)

Let the fight against Desparia and her minions play out for as long as it’s interesting, or until one side clearly gains the upper hand, then:

Suddenly, the howling wind dies down, the growls and grunts of Desparia’s minions are silenced, and a single voice booms out.

“Ho, ho, HO!” laughs the jolly old gent in the red suit trimmed in white fur. “What have we here? You’ve been a very, very sad and naughty girl, Heather, now haven’t you? Do you really want to ruin Christmas for all the boys and girls of the world?”

“Why not?” Desparia sneers, face twisted with anger. “It was ruined for me! Why did my mommy and daddy have to die? Why? It’s not fair!”

Desparia’s tall, pale form seems to shrink in on itself, becoming more like a thin little girl with a tearstreaked face. As she starts to sob a burst of black smoke, smelling of brimstone, appears next to her, and a dapper man dressed in a dark suit steps out of it, one eyebrow raised in a sardonic expression.

“Because life isn’t fair, my dear,” he says. “Not for you, anyway, so why should it be for anyone else?”

This is primarily a roleplaying scene. Once Trastada Infante appears, the players should have some idea of what’s going on. If they don’t, play out the conversation between Heather, Santa, and Infante a little longer, until they understand “Desparia’s” motives better. The revelation that the “evil sorceress” is just a sad little girl should restrain the heroes’ desire to simply beat her into submission.

The ideal way of handling the problem is, of course, to encourage Heather to deal with her pain and reject Infante’s gift of power of her own free will. While interaction checks are entirely appropriate, you don’t have to make it all about which character has the higher Presence or Persuasion rank. Let the players offer heartfelt speeches on the true meaning of the holidays, family, and forgiveness. Infante plays devil’s advocate (rather literally), countering the heroes’ arguments and encouraging Heather to take up the power at her command and wipe out Christmas once and for all. Still, the terrible tempter’s words ring hollow sooner or later. All he really has to offer Heather is vengeance and power over her monstrous minions. He can’t give her real happiness or a family to replace the one she lost.

CHALLENGE: To convince Despairia to reject Infante’s power and to encourage Heather to deal with her pain in a healthy way. The challenge is DC 15, requiring six successes before three failures. Encourage players to use the Hero Points they earned during their battles earlier to help persuade Heather to help them.

If the players falter, or seem intent on using brute force to solve the problem, Santa Claus steps in to offer a word or two of fatherly advice. The old fellow certainly won’t condone the heroes using violence against a confused young girl, and you can be certain that Mrs. Claus will soundly scold anyone who even contemplates it! It’s best to allow the heroes to do the convincing rather than having Santa step in to save the day, of course, but it’s an option for a quick and easy ending to the scenario.

Desparia starts out at “Hostile,” and must be moved to “Helpful” to succeed:

“Hostile” – Desparia will order a renewed attack the heroes by her minions after any failure that leaves her in this state or that returns her to it.

“Unfavorable” – Desparia will not attack the heroes first, but will keep her minions ready. If attacked she will fight back (and move one level up, to Hostile).

“Indifferent” – Desparia will relax her guard, but if attacked will defend (and move up to Unfavorable).

“Favorable” –  Desparia will send her minions away, disolving them into mist with a wave of her hand and a sad smile, but will herself remain in her “adult” form, with all its powers.

“Helpful” –  Desparia will revert to Heather, and Trestada Infante will give an insouciant shrug and a wry smile, saying “Win some, lose some… but the Game goes on eternally,” as he vanishes.

Then it’s back to the Claus’ house for milk and cookies before the big guy has to leave on his yearly run. As he drives out of sight the heroes will find themselves returned to JJ’s condo, where it’s Christmas Day. Moments after they return a knock at the door Meg and Álvaro, followed over the next few minutes by Eddie “Paragon” Ritter, Cassandra “Ghostlight” Hartwel, and Chris “Kid Singularity” Terrazo. Several of the support staff from the Tower also show up, as does Penny Monet, Sang Smith, and Kevin “Stormlord” Kasperbauer, all ready for the X-mas breakfast buffet JJ had invited them to. Everyone is in a particularly festive, thankful, and joyous mood, althought they can’t quite say why…

Maybe hint that the Vanguard visit the Danvers Orphanage, out in Bethlehem Flats, and bring a little holiday joy to Heather Landers and the other children there, if none of the players think of it…

Author’s Note: I still haven’t got around to properly writing up this adventure, but I herewith present the notes/script I wrote to run the game the day we played it… so enjoy a “peek behind the curtain” while I work on the finished tale.

Thorson Conglomerate HQ, New Atlantis, NJ
Thursday 15 June 2017

In the aftermath of what the world in general believes to be the latest attempted invasion by Chronos and his Weldian forces, a grateful city throws a party for the heroes of the day, Astoria’s Vanguard. Everyone who’s anyone in New Atlantis is there, including Mayor Erik Thorson, who awards them a ceremonial key to the city.

Urbana stays away, ostensibly to maintain her monitor duty in the Overwatch, but really so as to not steal the Vanguard’s thunder in their moment of triumph. The Sampson Family, of course, are on Europa with Vitruvian.

Sarah Thorson, the mayor’s daughter, was already a civil rights lawyer before the recent influx of aliens to Earth in the wake of Entropy’s destruction of the planet Halicon and the subsequent upheavals and military losses in the Confederated Union of Words, and has recently been making waves as a leading alien-rights advocate.

Given that her father, recently (if very narrowly) elected to his third term as mayor, has made some questionable legal moves to seize “illegal aliens” – and their technology – and hold them without trial or recourse to counsel, this has put her at loggerheads with him. Tensions are running high with them both there, given that she has led many of the protests against his actions, and won two court victories so far.

With her at the celebration is K’ora-thyn, a blue-furred, hulking behemoth of an alien. He stands over seven feet tall and presents a frightening appearance to most humans at first glance. In fact, he is highly intelligent, a scholar on his home planet of Jevasik. He was already on Earth as part of the Union Ambassador’s entourage when the Stellar Protectorate (very recently officially re-named the Stellar Empire) overran his home system. He now works with Sarah Thorson in defending the legal rights of alien refuges on Earth (or at least in the US), and is currently studying to get a law degree himself. He plans to eventually seek US citizenship, once the courts sort out extraterrestrial immigrant’s rights.

Ella-Va, rescued by the team (and later, on Earth, by Artemis) has recently moved to New Atlantis to accept a job as advisor to the Union Ambassador / Observer, Manga-Tor. Both aliens are at the party, and pleased to see the Vanguard again.

Manga-Tor is accompanied by Daily Star Senior Editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Louise Lancaster. The two seem to be romantically involved, to the discerning observer, although their behavior is so circumspect and proper that they just might be good, old friends enjoying one another’s company.

Meg Halcyon is also at the event, on the job as a reporter for the Vanguard’s home state newspaper, the Oregonian. She’s been in town as long as the Vanguard, having traveled with them on assignment to cover their gig as the Liberty Alliance’s designated replacements.

John Quest and Hadji Singe were in town during the big event, and stayed on specifically to come to this party. They spend some time with Cooper and Meg, and have little liking for Mayor Thorson, which they make abundantly clear to their friends – if off the record, of course.

Protesters are the other major “guests” at the celebration. Two groups have managed to infiltrate a handful of partisans each, trying to use the event to catch the mayor’s (and more importantly, the press’) attention.

The anti-alien crowd want Thorson to keep on “doing something” about all the illegal aliens “flooding” New Atlantis, robbing, murdering and “taking our wimmin!” They are supportive of the mayor’s questionable legal tactics in rounding up aliens – in fact, any and all aliens, legal status be damned!

The others are in favor of giving the alien refugees all the rights and protections of American law, and letting them immigrate and integrate into American society. They oppose the mayor’s “fascistic” attempts to “disappear” the already traumatized visitors, and his seizing of their property, all without due process.

THE FACTS

Erik Thorson is a corrupt, amoral monster, although he’s been good at hiding it for years. He is a puppet/front man for The Forgotten and the Crucible. In 1989, at the age of 28, he murdered his father, Charles, as the price of “admission” into the criminal organization, making the death look natural. He took over as head of Thorson Technologies, changing the focus from tech to bio-pharmacutical and medical research, and the name to Thorson Conglomerate. The company has been a successful legitimate front for the Crucible ever since.

Recently he has been funneling captured alien tech to the Crucible via one of his subsidiary companies, Regal Fabrication. The Forgotten has been very enthused at having new alien devices to study and reverse-engineer in his on-going drive for world domination.

Even more reprehensible, however, is the fact that some of the more “interesting” aliens arrested have also been shipped of to another subsidiary, Helix Labs, and a more dire fate. Thorson has long been in the business of finding ways to “empower” humans – in fact, the infamous Ascendance process was developed by one of his subsidiaries, the now defunct GeneJump.

He’s begun to feel the heat, and been forced to back off considerably, in recent weeks, not least because of the legal victories his daughter has won. Increased federal scrutiny has made it much more difficult to “disappear” both the aliens and their tech.

Sarah Thorson runs a non-profit law center aimed at both traditional Earther immigration and civil rights, and the very new emerging field of off-world refugee rights. The Pavonia Law Center is run out of modest offices in the North Canal district of the city.

She knows nothing of her fathers ancient crimes, barely remembering her murdered grandfather who died when she was just three, nor of his association with the Crucible. She does, however, have her suspicions regarding his possible connections to organized crime. She also despises his politics, which she’s seen firsthand when she worked for her his administration fresh out of law school.

After less than two years she quit and joined the law firm of Keldan & Reese, well-known champions of civil rights in New Atlantis. She’s had a distant relationship with her father ever since. The last six months have been especially rocky as her new practice, less than a year old, has scored two victories in court opposing his administration’s policies concerning treatment of alien refugees and their property.

Sarah was inspired to get into the alien-rights arena after reading the eight part series on the destruction of Halicon by Meg Halcyon and Louise Lancaster, which ran in September of last year, and makes that clear to both when she meets them tonight.

Recently Sarah and K’ora-thyn have been is some disagreement in how to proceed after the two injunctions their Pavonia Law Center has won against the city administration. He wants to go after the mayor in person, to hold him accountable personally for the crimes committed by his administration; she worries both about the legal precedents and the personal costs of completely dynamiting her relationship with her father.

Ted Harper was a former intern at the Law Center, an intense young man with a passion for justice, but also a great impatience at the slow turning of the wheels of the legal system. Four months ago, at age 23, he was diagnosed with a severe case of Hashimoto’s disease, a devastating and potentially fatal condition.

Three months ago he left both graduate school and his internship to pursue a potential cure, via a revolutionary gene-therapy being developed by TheraGene, a division of biotech giant Helix Labs. His friends and former co-workers knew what he was seeking, but he was fairly quiet about specifics, at the request of the company, who claimed trade secrets were a concern. Three weeks ago was the last time any of his friends saw him.

In fact, TheraGene is a front, providing real gene therapy but also stealing patients’ genomes for their own research. Since acquiring several aliens, they’ve been developing a new method of hybridizing alien and human genes, seeking a new method for creating controllable super-beings. Ted was one of three patients who met their criteria of: genetic compatibility, no close family, and a certain specific psyche profile; he became their third test subject…

TIMELINE:

18:00 – Thursday 15 June 2017

The soirée to celebrate the Vanguard’s defeat of Chronos begins in the Grand Lobby of Thorson Conglomerate’s headquarters building.

18:00 – 21:00

The Vanguard meet various guests, notably Mayor Erik Thorson, activist-lawyer Sarah Thorson, alien scholar and law student K’ora-thyn, Daily Star editor Louise Lancaster, Union Ambassador Manga-Tor, John Quest and Hadji Singe, and a slew of alien-rights protesters, both pro and con.

19:38

The festivities are interrupted by a group of pro-alien protesters who managed to infiltrate the event to put their arguments to the mayor directly. Anti-alien protesters also managed to sneak in some partisans, and the two groups confront one another. Security belatedly moves in to break it up and ejects the first set of protesters (but not the second).

Mayor Thorson is obviously in sympathy with the anti-alien group, despite his politician’s attempt to at least appear even-handed in front of the press. The confrontation re-ignites an obvious long running argument with his daughter.

This in turn sparks a disagreement with her associate, K’ora-thyn over the tactics they should pursue against the city – he wants to bring suit directly against the mayor, personally, but she prefers to keep it strictly policy-based. The exchange is heated, enough so that it draws some attention from other attendees, but could not reasonably be called a “fight.”

K’ora-thyn leaves in frustration shortly thereafter, and the whole event winds down on a rather sour note.

20:17

Ted Harper escapes from the secret TheraGene lab faculty, killing five people in the process – two fellow experiment-victims, a med-tech and two security guards – and injuring several more.

20:42

Harper accosts several teen gang members, stealing a cell-phone, which he uses to call Sarah, leaving a desperate voicemail at 20:46, demanding her help.

21:35

Sarah Thorson arrives at her North Canal condo, but it isn’t until 22:45 that she listens to her voicemails. She is disturbed by the rambling, difficult to understand message, but attempts to call Harper back, only get some Hispanic kid’s voicemail (in his frustration, Harper destroyed the stolen phone after leaving his message).

23:06

Harper scales the side of Sarah’s condo building to reach her 12th-floor balcony. He manages to restrain himself enough to not smash the glass sliders, and Sarah lets him in. She is horrified, but her compassion overrides her fear as he disjointedly recounts his horrifying story.

23:32

Harper, exhausted, eventually falls into a doze. Sarah phones K’ora-thyn and insists that he come over immediately. She refuses to go into details, and speaks in strained, hushed tones, but claims “it’s so much worse than we thought.”

23:34

Harper wakes up to hear Sarah whispering into her phone and his already paranoid mind snaps. Sure that she is betraying him to “them,” he attacks her, killing her almost instantly. Now thoroughly panicked, he crashes through the glass sliders and vanishes into the night.

22:36

Worried neighbors call the police.

22:39

K’ora-thyn, who resides in a small apartment above their law clinic just a few blocks away, arrives. Getting no response, and his alien senses smelling human blood, he breaks the door down. Shocked to see his friend dead and mutilated, he futilely attempts emergency medical aid.

22:41

The NAPD arrive to find a monstrous-looking alien, covered in blood, pawing at the savaged corpse of a human woman. In the time-honored tradition of police restraint and professionalism, they taser him before he can do more than turn and raise his hands. Within five minutes the condo and street out front are packed with police cars, ambulances and TV trucks,

23:02

The first televised reports of a “viscous alien killer” go out over the local Fox affiliate; other outlets are more circumspect in their language, but don’t hide the fact that police have a “non-human alien” in custody. No outlet immediately identifies the victim, as the police release no names, but it is quickly known that the victim is Sarah Thorson, the mayor’s daughter and champion of alien rights.

23:41

Unable to resist the delicious irony of it, Fox interrupts their late-night programing to break the news of just which alien-loving lawyer was murdered by an alien. This is when the Vanguard will learn of what has transpired.

00:07 – Friday 16 June 2017

Erik Thorson arrives at his daughter’s condo just as the coroner is preparing to leave with her body. The resultant breakdown in front of the cameras is media gold, and the half of the city that’s still awake sees the mayor vow to end “this alien scourge on our city, whatever it takes – and to hell with anyone who gets in my way!”

His lawyer and aides hustle him away quickly at that point.

00:19

Ted Harper, freezing even in the East Coast mid-summer heat and humidity, seeks warmth. He finds it a mile or so southwest in the West Side Industrial district, in the Fitzmeyer Industries steel processing plant. He sneaks past the skeleton night crew and collapses in the shadows on a catwalk above the furnaces, where he’s finally comfortable. He drifts into a deep sleep.

09:00

Sarah Thorson’s associates, backed by lawyers from her old law firm of Keldan & Reese, appear before Judge Ellen Gordan to demand access to K’orathyn, who has so far been denied access to counsel. The DA argues that the alien suspect has no expectation of human legal rights, and besides it’s too dangerous to produce him in open court, as witnessed by the growing crowds already beginning to gather outside the courthouse, threatening mob justice.

The Pavonia Law Center and K&R lawyers argue that there at least as many gathering to demand ACTUAL justice, and a fair trial, and since when do mobs dictate the decisions of the court and the legal system?

09:24

Judge Gordan rules that the city has until noon to produce the accused, healthy and unharmed, for a proper arraignment in her courtroom. They are also to immediately allow the accused access to the legal team here representing him, without further hindrance or delay.

10:00

Darren Krosden, one of Sarah Thorson’s Law Center associate, and Karen Reese are allowed in to meet with K’ora-thyn. He relates the events of the previous night as he knows them, adding that the wounds he saw on Sarah could not have been made by his relatively thick, dull claws – they seemed more razor-like – and surely the forensic evidence must acquit him.

If the Vanguard have not yet involved themselves in the case, this is when the lawyers will call them in to help.

11:00 – 12:00

Rumors swirl across the city, and the crowds around the Justice Center continue to grow, becoming increasingly restive. Clashes between the pro-alien, justice-for-all crowd and anti-alien, hang-‘em-all crowd begin with verbal confrontations, but become increasingly more violent as themorning wears on. Police are out in force to try and keep order, and Judge Gordan grants a one hour extension. She also agrees to a video arraignment, as long as the defendant has counsel present with them at the jail.

13:45

K’ora-thin is bound over for trial, not least because the judge fears for his safety in the current climate if he is released. Given the mayor’s own incendiary comments, she also grants the defenses motion that K’ora-thyn be held in the Liberty Alliance’s detainment cells, under the watch of the Vanguard and Urbana (who agrees to return from the Overwatch to take personal responsibility for the prisoner).

14:05

K’ora-thyn is moved into a cell in the Alliance’s high-tech detention center, via teleport.

14:00 – 18:00

Unrest continues to grow, as do physical clashes between pro- and anti-alien groups. Resident aliens, even one’s who have been in the city for years, are attacked in several cases, as are humans who “look” alien. The Mayor’s Office issues a mandatory curfew, beginning at 18:00 and lasting until 07:00 the next day.

18:00 – 00:00

The curfew lessens, but does not eliminate, the disturbances, as not everyone obeys it. “Humans First” groups prowl the streets in several neighborhoods, while pro-alien groups mount protective watch vigils outside known alien-owned businesses or homes. The police enforcement of the curfew is sporadic and uneven – some officers ignore the anti-alien “patrols” and disperse or arrest the pro-alien factions, while others back up the defensive groups and actively disperse or arrest the anti-alien agitators. This leads to some tension within the police force itself.

17 June 2017

This is going to be a bad day for New Atlantis if the Vanguard hasn’t solved the case yet. Continuous news reports on the attacks on alien residents inflame passions, and a full-blown riot will occur in Alliance Park in the late afternoon unless other events occur to defuse the situation.

CLUES AND INFORMATION:

Scene One – The Féte

Mayor Thorson recently squeaked out a narrow victory in his third run for the highest office in the city.

Source(s): Sarah Thorson, John Quest, Louise Lancaster

Mayor Thorson placed all of his corporate holdings into a blind trust nine years ago, when he first ran for mayor. He has no day-to-day contact with the business, beyond collecting dividends like any stockholder.

Source(s): Erik Thorson, Sarah Thorson, Louise Lancaster

The tension between the two Thorson’s will not be obvious to strangers on first meeting without a DC 30 Perception Roll. After the protesters’ interruption, however, the tension will be palpable – noticed on a DC 10 Perception Roll. But any emotion sensing (or successful DC 15 Perception Roll) will determine that under the anger there is still love on both sides; and in his case a deep, genuine sadness.

Source: Observation

Sarah Thorson was inspired to start her Pavonia Law Clinic eight months ago by the moving eight-part series that Halcyon and Lancaster wrote last year. She was encouraged in this by her former employers at Keldan & Reese, especially her mentor Karen Reese.

Source: Sarah Thorson

K’ora-thyn is a large, physically intimidating being. His voice, deep and rumbly in normal conversation, has harmonics that trigger instinctive fear in many humans, especially when he is angry or upset.

Source: Observation

K’ora-thyn and Sarah seriously disagree about the future tack to take in opposing the city’s stance on aliens. The alien will leave after they argue publicly about it, but Sarah will assert that he’ll cool off soon enough, it’s just their way.

Source: Observation, Sarah Grant

K’ora-thyn is not a warrior, nor are most of the Jevasiki (natives of the planet Javasik), although a few do go for a mercenary in their youth. They are, in general, a contemplative, non-violent race, and he himself is a scholar of some repute in the Union.

Source: Sarah Grant, K’ora-thyn, Manga-Tor

Ambassador Manga-Tor and Louise Lancaster are rumored to be dating. They neither confirm nor deny, but only smile.

Source: Observation, Meg Halcyon

Sarah Thorson went to work for her father’s administration straight out of law school, but quickly became disillusioned with his politics and policies, even before the alien crisis. She left to take a job with the civil rights law firm of Keldan & Reese, which proved to be much more her style.

Source: Sarah Thorson, K’ora-thyn, Louise Lancaster

Scene Two – The Scene of the Crime

The condo is on the 12th floor, out of 15 floors, with no security to speak of, including no cameras in lobby or elevators. The latter was a selling point to privacy-rights advocate Sarah.

The front door has been kicked in by a powerful single blow that shattered the lock and door frame and took it partially off its hinges, so that it cannot now be properly closed.

Blood spatter on the inside of the door indicates it was kicked open after Sarah was killed – there is not a drop of blood on the edges or outside of the door. DC 20 Perception or Investigation Roll.

The slider to the balcony was shattered from the inside – almost all the glass is outside of the living room, on the balcony. DC 10 Perception or Investigation Roll.

Downstairs neighbor heard a scream, cut off, followed by breaking glass, “around eleven-thirty” and called the police. Police logged the call at 23:36.

Examination of the railing will reveal fresh scratches to the metal; further examination will reveal narrow, deep gouges in the stonework from the ground up, in a roughly hand-shaped pattern. Examining the ground shows something heavy landed, three-point spread. DC 15 / 20 Perception or Investigation Roll.

Sarah’s voicemail can be accessed legally by a court order, or extra-legally by hacking the phone company. DC 30 Technology Roll (or similar, if a player can justify it).

Her last voicemail is: “Sarah, please, you have to help me! I didn’t mean to – they did this to me – I hate them! Please, you can save me from them! This is Ted, Ted Harper, please, your were always so kind, help me! Oh, why don’t you answer—” The call ends abruptly.

Sarah’s phone shows two attempts to call the number associated with the message, at 22:46 and 22:47, neither call lasting more than 15 seconds.

Calling the number brings up the voicemail of a young Hispanic man: “Yo, you got my machine, so hit me up wit you message and you digits and I get back a’ tchu. Maybe.”

Phone records indicate it belongs to Hector Lagunista, a 16-year-old middle-class Latino kid with pretensions to being “gangsta.” If found and questioned he reveals that he and his “homies” were out last night, coming back from a late movie (Baywatch) and were jumped my some maniac on the Esplanade. “Dude jumped out of the bushes, threw us around like we were little kids!” He can show a series of cuts on his shoulder and arm, and his ruined hoodie, shredded as if by knives. All the dude wanted, though, was a phone (if pressed he’ll sheepishly admit he’d just been on the phone with his mom, explaining he was on his way home, when attacked).

Getting a description will prove difficult. Neither Hector nor his friends can give much beyond an impression of grayness… it was dark, the guy moved so fast… big, wide, white eyes and a face “like Voldemort” is the best they can do. Once he had the phone he vanished into the greenery along the river as fast as he’d appeared.

The phone message should lead to either the Pavonia Law Clinic, and the questioning of the grief-stricken staff, or Ted Harper’s apartment:

If questioned, the staff can report that Ted was a graduate student at Bensalem University, and started as an intern at the Law Center about six months ago.

Four months ago he was diagnosed with Hosimoto’s disease, and three months ago he quite both school and the internship to pursue some sort of treatment.

He was fairly reticent about the treatment, but one person, another intern named Katie Walsh, will remember that the clinic he went to was in Queensport, because she drove him there for his first appointment.

He’d seemed very excited, but after that visit he seldom mentioned it again, would just mumble that it was “going well.” A week later he was gone.

She thinks the name of the clinic (it was very discrete, just a little plaque next to the door) was something like Theraputic Genetics.

If the gang search Ted’s apartment in the North End they may discover that he hasn’t been there in three weeks, based on the backed-up mail. Neighbors will confirm that they haven’t seen him in about that time.

Amongst his papers are literature from TheraGene gene-therapy clinic, advertising the benefits of modern gene-therapy in curing many previously incurable conditions. There are also several invoices from the clinic, starting in March, all paid except the last one, from May, which is amongst the unopened mail accumulation.

One of the most recent bits of mail, delivered two days ago, is a past-due notice from the clinic.

A DC 10 Investigation Roll will reveal that the clinic is a legitimate, if low-key, business that was founded in 2005. It has a good reputation for delivering on cutting-edge gene-therapy techniques, but nothing extraordinarily good – a success rate about 7% higher than most competitors.

A DC 20 Investigation Roll will reveal that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cryodyne, a medical research company specializing in cryonics.

It will take a DC 35 Investigation Roll to reveal that Cryodyne shares some board members with Helix Laboratories, and both are owned by Thorson Conglomerate Holding Company, .

Scene Three – TheraGene Clinic

Presumably the Vanguard will investigate the clinic as soon as possible. Assuming it’s the next day, they will find the business closed, although clearly there is activity within. Two sheets of plywood cover the main doors, on which is a “closed” sign.

Once inside, it’s fairly obvious that something has gone wrong… the receptionist is looking a bit shellshocked, uncertain that she should be letting costumed heroes in, but too intimidated to really object.

She will confide, when asked, that a gang of thieves broke in last night, obviously under the mistaken impression that they had drugs on hand. They didn’t get anything, of course, but they killed the two night guards – poor Marty and Bruce. She’s so grateful Dr. Kieth hired these new security men!

A DC 10 Investigation Roll will reveal that one of the elevators appears to have damaged doors – scored metal and a slight crumbling along one, so it doesn’t quite close. A security guard stands next to it.

There is a surprising number of security guards around, actually, and not just any security – Underhill-Hart men! This is rather a surprise for a small boutique medical operation, even one in New Atlantis.

One of the security men will quickly approach the heroes and demand to know their business.

The Underhill-Hart Security lead will insist that nothing here can have anything to do with their murder investigation, and that he will have to ask them leave… unless they have a warrant?

If the heroes ignore the security and insist their Federal Marshals credentials allow them to pursue leads wherever they may take them, there’s not much the man can do to stop them. He’s already alerted his clients that heroes have arrived…

This is a legally risky move, unless they can determine true probable cause – such as using super-senses to detect the patient-prisoners downstairs, or other such exigent circumstance. It will take at least an hour to 90 minutes to get a physical warrant, but contacting Karen Reese will get a phone warrant in less than 15 minutes.

If the heroes act quickly, they will catch the geneticists of TheraGene in the act of trying to destroy the evidence of their research and can stop them before they completely succeed. Some electronic evidence will be lost in any case, but plenty remains. If the heroes wait an hour or more, the scientists will have incinerated the poor dead test subjects (killed by Harper in his escape) and the living aliens they used to create their hybrids.

Once in the subbasement they will find the two cells where various alien “stock” were kept, and the one cell that held the human-alien hybrids. The hybrids’ bodies have already been removed, but the aliens have all been crowed into the last cell, awaiting disposal – Underhill-Hart won’t do it, and the scientists are too squeamish to do it, so they’re wait on some independent “fixer to arrive.

Most of the scientists and techs will clam up and demand lawyers, but persistent questioning and a search of any surviving (paper) documentation will reveal the key fact that Ted Harper was chimeraized with two alien species, the H’uruuk and the Sarveen, in an attempt to create a very stealthy super-soldier.

Basic facts to be found on a DC 20 Science or Investigation Roll are: he has chameleon-like powers that allow him to blend in to his surrounds, if imperfectly; razor-like claws and various arm and leg spurs utilizing various metallic elements; enhanced strength and toughness, as well as reflexes; superb low-light vision as well as a nictating eye membrane that protects against bright light.

His greatest draw-back, from the scientists’ point of view, is his blazing body temperature and high metabolism. The first was the more serious, as he was constantly complaining of the cold, no matter how high they turned up the heat; the latter issue was not quite as relevant since he could now ingest various metals and other inorganic chemicals to fuel his metabolism (and help with bone, spur and claw development).

He’d been growing increasingly paranoid, and last night he lashed out and killed the med-tech who had been trying to sedate him (the med-tech had violated policy by going in alone). He’d then turned on his “roommates,” killing them in a savage and bloody burst of speed and fury. He proceeded to kill two security guards and severely injure two more before escaping up the elevator shaft.

Scene Four – The Steel Processors

The heroes can find Ted Harper in any of several ways – search for major heat sources in this part of town (it’s a safe assumption he would avoid the river, given his heat issue); the knowledge that he needs metals and silicates now as “food” might lead them to such facilities; scanning the police bands for any unusual reports will bring up a report of workers at Fitzmeyer feeling like they’re being watched; they can have Urbana seek their target via her connection to the city (although this is a last resort if they need the help); tracking the direction of his known movements might narrow down the search area; and hopeful others the players will come up with.

After the fight and Harper’s (presumed) capture and confession, they Vanguard will have the evidence to prove K’ra-thyn’s innocence and defuse the immediate anti-alien rancor by showing that it was a human, mutated by other humans, that committed the crime.

When faced with this knowledge and the responsibility he shares with his employees for his daughter’s death, Mayor Grant will publicly confess to knowledge of the project to create “better humans to face the growing alien threat.” He does this at a live press conference, and against his lawyers and advisor’s advice, but before he can say more (even assuming he planned to say more, which is unclear), the assassin Drive-by appears, racing across the city hall rotunda on his motorcycle, guns blazing, and kills Erik Thorson. Before the heroes or anyone else can act, he vanishes on the far side of the rotunda.

The press names Harper the Killer Chameleon.

Astoria, OR / The Cell Block — 10 July 2019, 14:15

At Dispatch’s bemused suggestion JJ flipped on the feed from one of the local news stations, sending the images up to the the Ready Room’s main monitor screen. The view was an aerial view from the KRCA Channel 5 news chopper, hovering over one of the city’s expressways – The Arthur C. Clarke, by the Costco visible to the left side of the screen. An excited Gary Carter, the channel’s Eye in the Sky traffic reporter, was breathlessly describing the action…

“…traffic is a snarled mess from the University District to Uptown, thanks to two unidentified cars that seem to be racing one another at incredible speeds. The police can’t seem to keep up, and so far attempts to cut off these reckless daredevils have been ineffective.

“If eyewitness reports are to be believed, these drivers even seem to be defying the laws of physics at times – actually racing up the sides of buildings to avoid road obstructions and grinding on overpass railings! Following their trail from where it all seems to have begun, near the City University campus, I’d guess they’ve caused a couple million in damages already. From ACU they tore up the Midvale Expressway, then cut over to the Arthur C. Clarke to avoid a hastily thrown up police barricade. Reports indicate they’ve just hit Sunset Boulevard… they seem headed for the I-84 interchange. If they do get on the Aurora, there’s no telling which way they’ll go – west into Downtown or east into the suburbs. Either way it looks to be—

“Hold on – OK, there they are! We’ve got them in sight now. Gene, can you zoom in— holy cow, they weren’t kidding! Somehow that Humvee is GRINDING on the guard rail of the Crestline Viaduct! And the yellow Camaro is – wait, are these guys from England or something? I’m not seeing… Gene, can you get in tighter? I’m bringing us around, see if you can get a shot of the drivers… what the hell?!

“As you can see ladies and gentlemen, there appears to be no one actually driving these cars! Are they being controlled remotely or is this some crazy meta-human manifestation? Folks, anything’s possible in this wacky world, so who knows! This Eye-in-the-sky-reporter sure don’t!

“But whatever the truth is, one thing’s clear – if you’re in the Uptown or Union Hill areas and don’t absolutely have to be somewhere, STAY PUT, ‘cause you’re not getting there anyway. And the evening commute is shaping up to be a real nightmare. But remember, we’ll be here to bring you up-to-the-minute news on—”

JJ muted the sound and Chuck leaned forward to frown thoughtfully at the on-going mayhem on the screen. “Something about those two cars looks really familiar…”

His face lit with a sudden flash of insight, and he tapped a few buttons on his PADD. A pair of vehicles, identical in every detail to the ones being tracked on the TV, popped up in the central holodisplay, turning slowly. Chuck grinned.

• 

“Ha! I thought I recognized those vehicles — their Transformers!” Everyone around the table, with the exception of Jonny, looked at him blankly.

“Oh, yeah, I remember those from reruns on the Cartoon Network, when I was little,” Jonny said, leaning in to look more closely at the turning images. “The yellow one is… Bumblebee, right?”

“Yeah, and I think the other one is Ratchet,” Chuck nodded. “I have no idea how they—“

“Excuse me, what the hell are you two talking about?” JJ interrupted, looking slightly annoyed. “We’re trying to assess a threat level here. If you know something, please enlighten the rest of us. Are these things dangerous, beyond the obvious property damage and risk to other drivers?”

“Well, if they’re actually Transformers, then yes, I’d say they’re pretty dangerous,” Chuck said. “Of course they could just be cars made up to look like –“

“What is a Transformer, Charles?” Artemis asked, in a tone of voice that told the ice elemental that she was being… patient. Chuck reddened slightly and hurried to explain.

“It’s an old cartoon series, and a line of toys, from the 80’s. They were cybertrons, or something, alien cybernetic beings from another planet — essentially giant robots. Their gimmick was that they could transform from robots into various vehicles, to blend in here on Earth. They were at war with another faction of their kind, and they ended up slugging it out on our planet, of course.

“These two vehicles look exactly like two of the good Transformers, Bumblebee and Ratchet, and if they can also turn into giant robots… well they were pretty powerful in the cartoon show. But maybe these are good guys too? Although they are acting pretty reckless, I guess, so who knows…”

“Well, if there’s any possibility of them turning into giant robots, we clearly need to be involved,” JJ said. “The first thing to do is get them off the streets of the city and as isolated as possible, to avoid more collateral damage. Artemis, stand by at the Interceptor, in case we need more air support; Blue Flame, Chilz, you’re with me. Quanta… Quanta, are you listening?”

Things had been a little strained around Kyle the last several days, with everyone walking on eggshells after the events in Saudi Arabia. As Artemis had predicted, he’d returned when he was ready – in fact, just 48 hours after he’d tunneled away from the fight at the Maw of the Voracious. He’d apologized, both for his actions under the mental compulsion with which the Succubus had assaulted him, and for his abrupt departure. He’d also seemed to truly accept his teammates’ assurances that no one blamed him for what the demon had unleashed, and that they understood his need to be alone afterward.

Nonetheless, he’d seemed different somehow… not guilt-ridden, JJ didn’t think, although that might have been the expected reaction. Instead, his attitude seemed much the opposite. To JJ his friend appeared more confident than before, more decisive… at least when he was actually focused on team business. But he had also become increasingly distracted, spending stretches of time away (although he refused to take any actual leave time), and was deep in text or phone conversations even when he was physically present. So far JJ had let it slide, since there hadn’t been any serious field action recently, but if that was changing…

“Yes, I heard everything,” Quanta replied, before JJ could say anything else. He tucked his cell phone into the special pocket for it in his uniform, at the small of his back, and stood up. “I have an idea about these cars, whether they’re actually these “Transformers” or not, but I’ll need equipment here at the Pyramid. I’ll stay in touch, in case my theory pans out, or if you should need me there.”

As Quanta headed for, presumably, either his office or one of the labs, and Artemis and Totem headed for the hangar, Scion, the Blue Flame, and Chilz stepped out onto the balcony which ran all around the Pyramid’s 72nd floor. As the first two took to the air, and Chilz threw an ice slide over the railing to follow, Dispatch reported that the rogue vehicles were now westbound on the Aurora Freeway. Which meant they’d soon be on the elevated section of the I-84, just two blocks south of the Vanguard’s headquarters.

“Blue Flame, keep an eye out on traffic, concentrate on protecting any drivers on the I-84. I’m going to try an EMP on them – always the chance it really will be that simple. But if not, Chilz, can you make a personal off-ramp for them? There’s that large public parking lot under and just north of the freeway… if we can get them down there, maybe we can limit any more collateral damage to just cars.”

“Can do boss,” Chilz said, already arcing away on his ice slide toward the freeway. “I’d rather exit them straight into the river, but it’s just too far — especially if they really can turn into big robots!”

A few seconds later both Scion and the Blue Flame had reached the driverless speed demons, which continued to weave in and out between cars and trucks with reckless abandon. The Blue Flame immediately dove in and began clearing the way, signaling drivers ahead of the two cars, and as yet unaware of what was coming up behind them, to move over and stop. This being Astoria, the citizens didn’t hesitate when one of their local heroes gave orders. In a few seconds the roadway ahead was clear of traffic.

The two racing vehicles picked up even more speed as the path in front of them cleared, and Scion dove down to meet them. As they flashed past him to either side, he released as large an EMP as he dared in the heart of the city, focusing it as much as possible on the two cars. Neither vehicle slowed down, and he sighed as he rose and banked sharply to pursue them. He hadn’t really expected it to work, but just once wouldn’t it be nice if it could be that simple?

Just as he caught up with the speed demons, a dozen yards ahead of them and to the right Chilz shot up from below the freeway deck on a pillar of ice. Two wide ramps of ice shot our from his hands, hitting the pavement directly in front of the two cars. With no time or space to stop or veer, both vehicles shot up onto the ice ramps, which immediately began to bank and turn sharply to the right. Chilz then dropped them down toward the 4th Street parking lot below.

When the vehicles went over the side of the Aurora Freeway they were a yellow Camaro and a bright green EMS humvee… but what landed on the asphalt of the parking lot were two humanoid-shaped robots, sharing the same colors and standing at least 20 feet tall. Actually, they were each exactly 23.27 feet tall, Scion’s sensors informed him as he whipped over the side of the freeway himself and hovered in front of them. The transformation had been astonishingly fast… he was both impressed and annoyed.

“Hey! You guys ruined our race,” the big yellow robot yelled in a petulant voice, at a volume that threatened to shatter windows in the surrounding buildings. “No fair, you shoulda waited your turn to play!”

“Aw, if they wanna play, Bumblebee, I’m game,” the green robot boomed out in a deeper but equally loud voice, bending down to snatch up a yellow Tesla Volt. “Besides, I was winning anyway! Catch!” It tossed the car toward its companion, who caught it easily, crumpling the roof in its own massive yellow fist. Pellets of glass rained down as Bumblebee raised it up to toss it to Chiilz.

“Wait! Wait!” Chilz cried out, rising up on an ice ramp to the level of Bumblebee’s head. “Listen, we didn’t mean to ruin your race, but you were risking the lives of innocent people… and I know you’re not bad guys, right?”

“Of course not!” Bumblebee sounded indignant. “That’s why we’re letting you play, too. Catch!”

At the same moment that the yellow Transformer threw the Tesla, Ratchet picked up a blue Ford F-10 and tossed it at the Blue Flame, who was hovering nearby. “Here, this matches your color, dude. Catch!”

Chilz caught the bent and crushed Tesla with little trouble, tossing it behind him onto a section of asphalt empty of other vehicles. The Blue Flame, on the other hand, increased his thermal output as the Ford reached him. Like the proverbial hot knife through butter, he melted the truck into two pieces which crashed down behind him… crushing several more parked vehicles, unfortunately.

“Chilz, Blue Flame, I’ve scanned them both thoroughly,” Scion’s voice boomed out over his PA speakers. “They are entirely mechanical… although they are giving off some really strange energy readings… But there is nothing organic inside, so no need to hold back. We need to bring them down here, before they can get further into the city.”

The Blue Flame didn’t hesitate, unleashing a blast of superheated plasma at Ratchet, engulfing the green Transformer’s torso and head in azure fire. Chilz blasted Bumblebee with a fusillade of ice spears, which shattered against its yellow shell. Neither Transformer seemed damaged by the attacks.

“Artemis, Totem, I didn’t think we’re going to need the Interceptor,” Scion said over comms as he followed up his teammates’ attacks with a barrage of his own. His electro-bolts stitched small welts across both metallic hides, but the dents healed almost instantly, leaving the robots unaffected. “The cars have transformed into the giant robots Chilz mentioned. I think we’re going to need you both here. Quanta, how’s that idea of yours coming along?”

“Working on it, Scion,” Quanta replied absently. Back at the Pyramid he was staring intently at the computer terminal in Artemis’ office, that being the one with the best view of the city, Mt. Defiance, and the Pacific. He was going to want that backdrop for his next video call, once this matter was dealt with. “I’ve isolated a Bluetooth signal between the two, but it’s strongly encrypted… and the firewall is really something.” He tapped out several quick commands, frowning at the screen. “Anything you can do to interrupt that signal, even briefly, would be a big help.”

Meanwhile, just as Artemis and Totem appeared in the deepest of the shadows under the elevated freeway, both Transformers raised an arm, one pointing directly at Chilz and the other at the Blue Flame. Two missiles erupted from each forearm casing – the Blue Flame zigged and then zagged, dodging the two aimed at him; Chilz, less mobile on his ice slide, was struck in the chest my one missile, while the other shattered the slide itself. He was blown back to come crashing down onto several parked cars… he winced as he pulled himself from the twisted wreckage of a Mercedes SL and another Tesla – this one an Electraglide. Damn, this is getting to be an expensive operation, he thought. Thank god for insurance… and de la Vega’s deep pockets!

The Blue Flame was having his own moment of regret. He’d realized, just a second too late, that he should have plasma-blasted his two missiles, instead of showing off how nimble he was. True, they’d missed him quite handily… but they hadn’t missed the elevated Aurora Freeway directly behind him. Both had exploded into the north side of the structure, sending concrete and rebar raining down into the parking lot. At least another dozen cars in the lot were totaled. But hey, I cleared the freeway earlier, Jonny thought, glancing around to see if Scion had noticed the explosions. So at least there’s no danger of innocent commuters plunging into that gaping hole in the roadway…

As Bumblebee raised his other arm, taking aim at the hovering form of Scion, Artemis leaped from the shadows onto the roof of a nearby truck and snapped her Shadow Whip out. It’s ebony strands wrapped around the massive arm, and she tugged with all her strength, yanking it down to point at the asphalt. At the same moment Scion aimed another electromagnetic attack at point blank range into the yellow Transformer’s head — and this time it seemed to stagger the robot.

Totem, who had decided that the strength of Bear might be of more use in this situation, rushed forward to tackle the metal giant, only to be met with a spasmodic kick from one massive leg, a result of Scions scrambling its brains. The blow sent him flying across the parking lot to slam into a freeway support pillar. With a growl, he pulled himself from the Bear-shaped impression in the concrete and shook his head. Ever since Kúng had absorbed that eldritch energy back in Saudi Arabia, they’d all felt stronger, more energized – but also much less in control of their abilities. The boy really needed to integrate this new power soon… but maybe that was going to take a team effort…

While the others were dealing with Bumblebee, the Blue Flame and Chilz had turned their attention to Ratchet. “Time to try out the Go To Extremes Maneuver,” Chilz called out. Giving him a thumbs-up, the Blue Fame dove in low, aiming an intense blast of plasma at the Transformer’s feet… and the ground beneath them. The asphalt melted and flowed like molasses under the heated metal, and the robot sank several inches into the sticky surface.

As it struggled to pull its feet out of the morass, Chilz glided in on an ice ramp, almost-invisible greenish energy rippling from his hands. Ratchet’s feet and the pavement around him became coated in green ice, re-hardening the asphalt instantly and trapping him like a dinosaur in a tar pit — a very shallow tar pit, but sufficient. As the robot struggled to free its feet, micro-fractures ran up its — the superheated and then supercooled metal stressed to its tolerances.

“Hey! No fair,” Ratchet cried out, and at the same moment Scion sent another massive EMP into Bumblebee’s head. This time the yellow Transformer froze in place, the light in its eyes flickering before going dark… and then it began to topple. Bear leaped over half a dozen cars and intercepted the falling robot, lowering it slowly to the ground, and away from any more cars. Well, except for an ancient Toyota Camry, which was crushed by a limp robotic arm. At least it wasn’t another Tesla, Scion sighed inwardly. Maybe the owner will be grateful to be getting a new car, courtesy of the Vanguard…

Back at the Pyramid, Quanta shouted “Yes!” and hit the Return key on Artemis’ computer. The worm program he’d written flashed out and into the momentarily defenseless computer brain of Bumblebee. From there it was no trouble at all to punch through the still active defenses of Ratchet – defenses aimed outward, and thus not expecting an attack from within. Even as the green Transformer complained “Hey, no fair,” his own electronic mind shut down, his eyes flickering and then going dark too.

The rest of the Vanguard stared warily up at the seemingly deactivated robot, Bear ready to catch it should it, too, fall. But with feet locked in the asphalt, it remained upright, and after a moment they all began to relax.

“Well done, team,” Scion said. “Very well done – that was as by the numbers as we could want. Chilz and Blue Flame, particular kudos for that double-team action. Now let’s see if we can figure out what the hell this escapade was all about.”

•• •• ••

As soon as the APD and SHADE were on the scene and able to take over the removal of the now inert giant robots, the Vanguard returned to the Pyramid. Artemis was surprised to find Quanta in her office, just finishing up a video phone call. In German.

“Yes, Dr. Becker, I respect Dr. Jörg Winkler but I want you handling this,” Quanta was saying as she leaned in her doorway, an eyebrow raised in surprise. He held up a finger and went on, “I just think you’re better suited to handling the specifics of this case… thank you Nikolaus, I appreciate it. I believe I can arrange a meeting for early next week, if that works with your schedule… yes, wonderful. I’ll see you then. Thanks again.”

“You do have your own office, Kyle,” Artemis said mildly, as he ended the call and stood up, moving out from behind her desk and picking up his PADD. “Any particular reason you are using mine?”

“Sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind,” Kyle shrugged. “I felt the more impressive view from your office would help in a video call concerning a… private matter I’m pursuing.”

He does’t seem particularly sorry at all, she thought. Which was unusual for him… while not as obviously as intimidated by her as the younger males on the team sometimes were, Kyle had always been at least a little wary around her. That had changed since the debacle in Saudi Arabia… a change of which, on the whole, she approved. Still…

“Apology accepted, Kyle,” she said, moving around to drop into the seat he’d just vacated. She looked up at him as he turned to go, catching his eye. “But in the future, please ask before using my space, yes? Especially when pursuing your efforts to get Epiphany Jones a new hearing. I assume, despite making calls from our HQ, you’re not using your position in the Vanguard to pursue this matter?

“It’s not hard to put together,” she went on at his startled look. Startled, she noted, but not nervous, as he would’ve been even a week ago. Perhaps that encounter with the Succubus would turn out to have been a good thing after all. Perhaps.

“I speak German too, Kyle, and I also know that Nikolaus Becker is the foremost expert on meta-human psychosis in the West. His clinic in Hamburg has made great strides in the last five years in the diagnosis and treatment of power-induced psychotic breaks in new meta-humans.

“Combined with at least two contacts that I’m aware of with leading criminal defense law firms in both New Atlantis and New York, and your well known affection for the young woman, it’s obvious you hope to secure her legal release, if possible. If you wanted the effort to be secret, you might have been better off pursuing it away from your coworkers.” She smiled as she said that last piece, to take the sting out of it. She actually understood his impulse in this matter… better than he might imagine.

“Well, at least away from the one coworker who is also probably the world’s greatest living detective,” he sighed. He looked down at his PADD for a moment, turning it absently in his hands, then back at her. “I’m not exactly trying to keep it a secret, Artemis, but I’m not ready to share this with the team, not yet. Not until I know if the possibility is even practical. Hell, I don’t even know if she feels the same way about me…”

“And you’re finding it hard to get in to speak with her directly, I assume?”

“Ha! Yes! I can make arrangements for lawyers or doctors to see her, but I’m having shit-all luck getting an interview with her myself. Do they really think I’d try and break her out of custody? Hell, I helped put her there. Twice!”

“And perhaps you now regret that,” Artemis said, pulling back her hood and leaning back in her chair. Her mask was already in its slot on her belt. “No, no, don’t get bent out of shape, I don’t actually believe that. But the institutional mindset can be somewhat narrow, and certainly suspicious. Which is, after all, their function. I don’t think anyone else who knows you believes you’d actually break her out, either. But the authorities don’t like to take chances when they can avoid them… especially with a power-set as dangerous as Ms. Jones’.

“That said, I have a few strings at my disposal, which I might be willing to pull on your behalf. If it will help to get your mind back on your job… during business hours, at least. Tell me Kyle, if it turns out she doesn’t reciprocate your feelings, what then?”

Kyle shrugged. “I’ll still see to it that she has the best doctors and legal representation my money can buy her. But if there’s really nothing for me there, I’ll move on… sad, sure, but hardly broken. It’s the dithering around I’ve done for so long that’s been the problem. Not just about her, but about so many things in my life. I’m done with that. Whatever happens, I’m moving forward from here on out — no more treading water!”

Artemis actually smiled, a full-on smile rather than her usual Mona Lisa demi-smile. “That’s good to hear, my friend. I’ll make a call this afternoon, and see what we can do about getting you in to see Epiphany… in the meantime, everyone is waiting in the Ready Room, to go over what we know about today’s strange encounter with those “Transformers.” I assume you’ve had some time to go over the data, between the personal phone calls?”

•• •• ••

Quanta had, in fact, examined the data he’d pulled from the deactivated robots, and he filled in the others a few minutes later. “It appears the robots’ primary function was to keep the authorities, and especially the Vanguard, distracted for as long as possible. There is some deeper programming in there, but it’s going to take time for the computers to decrypt and analyze it.

“I was able to determine that these so-called Transformers are not sentient beings. They don’t even rise to the level of true AI; not even close, really. The programming was fairly sophisticated, but nothing that any one of a score of talented hackers listed in our databases couldn’t have easily pulled off.”

“While we were out dealing with these rampaging “toys” I had Dispatch run a check on any similar incidents recently,” Scion said. “They didn’t have to look far — two other nearly identical attacks have occurred in the last four days. One was in New Atlantis, yesterday; the other was in San Francisco two days before that.

“The San Francisco incident involved Transformers named…” he glanced down at his PADD, “Optimus Prime and Megatron. Unlike our two, they appeared to have been battling one another, although neither one seemed to have any regard for collateral damage. In New Atlantis it was Bulkhead and Starscream, also locked in their own combat and doing significant property damage in the process.

“Zephyr and Nova of the Phenom Four brought down the New Atlantis robots fairly quickly, although not much was left of the mechs afterward. The two in San Francisco gave the Guardian a tougher time, but he eventually was able to blow them apart over the Bay, with minimal damage to the Bay Bridge… again, not much left there to sift through for clues. So it looks like whatever we can get out of Bumblebee and Ratchet is all there’s going to be.”

“We should have Dispatch run a scan on all other 911 calls around the times of each of these attacks, in all three cities,”Artemis suggested. “If the goal here in Astoria was, as Quanta stated, to keep emergency response occupied, maybe it was the same in the other two attacks – and if it was, perhaps there’s a commonality as to what precisely they were trying to distract us all from.”

It didn’t take long to narrow down the possibilities in the other two cities. Amidst the usual urban cries for help two stuck out as unusual; in San Francisco, a collectible card shop on the Embarcadero was attacked and ransacked, supposedly by action figures come to life; in New Atlantis the Byrne Museum of Fine Art suffered a strange break-in and theft, along with some odd vandalism… in a store room. There was nothing in Astoria that immediately drew the eye, but Dispatch was continuing to collate the information coming in, with Chilz running his own analysis of the raw calls.

“I’ll take Totem,” Artemis said, ”and we’ll check out the New Atlantis museum incident. I suggest Quanta and the Blue Flame go to San Francisco to follow up on the looting of the collectibles shop.”

“I’ve increased my quantum tunneling range significantly in recent days,” Quanta objected. “But I still can’t make the 600+ mile jump from here to the Bay Area without multiple jumps, and I wouldn’t be much use in a fight afterwards, if we happen to run into trouble.”

“Actually, I was thinking you could take the Interceptor,” Artemis replied. “You finished your pilot certification on her two weeks ago, correct? You can be in San Francisco in just over 30 minutes, and back here just as quickly, once you finish your investigation.”

“She’s right, Quanta,” JJ agreed. “You’re ready for a solo flight, and the Interceptor is still on five-minute readiness, after the incident earlier today. While you’re all gone, and Chilz rides herd on Dispatch, I’ll work on the decryption and analysis of the data recovered from our two robots.”

•• •• ••

Artemis and Totem, still in his Bear avatar form, stepped from the deep shadows of the cloak room off the main entry foyer of the Byrne Museum, startling the young coat check girl on duty into near hysterics. Once Artemis had calmed her down and explained their purpose, the girl had very happily handed the heroes off to her boss.

Armando Montpelier, the museum’s assistant director, was a short, plump man with round features and thinning black hair, the latter fact something he tried to disguise with a careful combover. Artemis thought his pencil mustache, combined with his naturally anxious disposition, made him look like a nervous chinchilla.

“Well, of course I’m most gratified to see such an illustrious superhero, er, super heroine, um, that is a hero of your stature take an interest in our little problem, Miss Artemis,” the man twittered, his hands constantly adjusting his navy blue tie or the set of his lapels. “You and your, um hirsute friend here… whom I’m not sure I’ve ever heard… um, that is to say, with whom I am less familiar… um, how can I help?” he finished weakly.

“Just Artemis is fine, Mr. Montpelier,” Artemis assured the man, trying to put him at ease. While she clearly made him nervous, he seemed to find the massive, hairy muscles of Bear to be unnerving… or maybe a bit distracting? “This is my teammate, Bear. Now, if you could show us where the theft and vandalism occurred, we’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

“Oh, Bear… of course he is… um, that is, it’s no problem… I mean it is part of my job. Although its a good thing you arrived today, eh? This being one of the few days we’re open until late…” He glanced at Bear, who grinned at him, revealing his very white, very large teeth… including his especially large incisors. The little man squeaked, turned pink, then pale, and then scurried away, motioning the heroes to follow with a vague wave of his hand. Artemis reached up and whacked her teammate on the back of the head, although she was suppressing a smile.

The befuddled little man led them down a utilitarian hallway off of the main hall, and down a flight of stairs to what was obviously one of several large storage rooms in the basement. Yellow police tape was stretched across the room’s doorway, which caused the assistant director to pause in indecision.

“Oh dear, I hadn’t realized the police had left this, that is to say, I thought they had finished… they didn’t seem terribly interested in the whole affair, I really must say… I mean, I know it’s not the crime of the century or anything, but still… I don’t know, perhaps we should—“

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Montpelier,” Artemis said firmly, cutting off his babbling and ducking under the yellow tape. “We’re just like US Marshals, it’s quite alright for us to enter, I assure you. Now why don’t you tell us what happened… we’ve read the police report, such as it was, and I agree with you, they don’t seem to have been particularly interested in the matter.”

“Yes, well, of course there was that terrible attack across town that day, those giant robots and all. The police did have their hands full with that, and right at the lunch hour, I can hardly blame them… that is to say, our own problem being so minor, you know…” He seemed to feel the need to defend the home team against the implied criticism of outsiders, despite his complaint on the issue just a moment earlier. At Artemis’ raised eyebrow he gulped and hurried on.

“Well, um, it was around noon yesterday, when a motion sensor in this storage area went off. None of the exterior alarms had sounded, but nonetheless our security people checked it out… that’s our protocol, you know, we’re very serious about protecting our priceless art… um, anyway, they found the room just as you see it now… no indication of any person or persons about, no windows or doors opened or tampered with…”

Artemis let the nattering fellow drop from her mind as she stepped into the room, keen eyes noting every detail. The space was about thirty feet by twenty, full of crates, boxes and canvas-wrapped objects of various sizes and shapes. Several paintings, in frames ranging from the Baroque to the minimalist, leaned against two of the walls. About two-thirds of the way down the long wall opposite the door, an empty gilt frame was conspicuous, as was the shattered green pottery scattered around a crate ten feet away. On top of the crate a smaller wooden box seemed to have been torn apart, and straw from its guts lay strewn around.

“The missing picture was a very recent acquisition… arriving late in the afternoon the day before, in fact,” Montpelier explained, his habitual nervousness apparently forgotten as he moved into his area of expertise. “It was not a particularly valuable piece, you understand – a contemporary painting by a moderately-talented American artist, Katelyn Vandros. I believe she works out West somewhere.

“Actually, it’s not the kind of thing the Museum would usually be interested in; but considering the painting’s subject, and the sizable donation that came to the museum along with the painting, the director made an exception.”

“The subject matter?” Bear asked, as Artemis stepped up to the empty frame and began to examine it. “What was so special about the subject matter?”

Montpelier seemed flustered by the hero’s deep baritone, reddening again, but he quickly rallied and cleared his throat before answering. “Well, it was a portrait of the late Roland Reid, the man they called the Magus Prime… oh, but of course you probably knew him, being in the same business, as it, er, were… anyway, with his passing last year, and the fact that he had donated several small but beautiful pieces to the Museum himself over the years… in fact, that’s why we stored the painting in this particular room, since several of Mr. Reid’s donations were already stored here, waiting for the right time to go on display…”

Artemis and Bear looked at one another in surprise.

“What were the pieces he donated?” Artemis asked sharply, making the little man jump. “Are any of them missing?”

“Oh, er, no, no, only the painting was stolen… I did the inventory check myself, I’m quite certain nothing else was taken.”

Artemis frowned, then shrugged. Perhaps it really was just a coincidence that something involving the former Magus Prime should come up so soon after the attack on his Sanctum and the—

“Of course, the jade vase that was destroyed was one of Mr. Reids donations,” the assistant director went on. “But it wasn’t stolen… although I suppose it’s possible they were trying to steal it, and dropped it instead. Such a shame, really, it was an exquisitely beautiful piece, and quite old I’m led to understand.”

Artemis’ expressionless gaze left the little man sweating, and he slumped in visible relief when she returned to her examination of both the frame and the shattered pieces of jade on the floor. Taking several fine tools from a pouch on her utility belt, she extracted small bits of a gray, putty-like substance from both the frame and some of the stone shards. It seemed oddly familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Bear’s powerful olfactory sense noted its distinctive odor amongst the wood fragments of the box that had contained the vase, leading her to several more bits of the substance, but he was no more able to identify it than she.

“Mr. Montpelier,” Artemis turned suddenly back to their host, startling the man afresh. “I notice there is a security camera mounted in the corner there. I assume it’s a functioning device, not just for show?”

“Oh yes, of course it’s working! As I said, we take security here very seriously!”

“Have you looked at the recordings of the time of the theft and vandalism?” Artemis asked patiently. “I assume the police wanted to look at them?”

“Oh, er, well, the officer did mention wanting to look at our recordings, yes… but I’m not sure she ever got around to it… what with the excitement with the giant robots and all, you know. She wasn’t here very long, really… I did ask our security chief to send a copy of it to the police, of course… but I never actually looked at it myself…”

Artemis took a firm grip on her temper, and in a very pleasant voice that made Bear wince, asked “Could we perhaps view that recording now?”

In the museum’s security office, at this hour manned only by the night shift guard, Artemis leaned over the man’s left shoulder as he queued up the recording from the storage room on the day and at the time in question. Bear loomed behind the security man, while Montpelier jittered anxiously to his right, now chewing on a finger nail.

As the surprisingly good quality B&W footage began to play, everything seemed in order. The portrait of Roland Reid was clearly visible, leaning against the wall in the same spot its frame still occupied. Atop a nearby crate the small wooden box containing the jade vase could be seen. Staring at the painting, Artemis couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something about it seemed off somehow…

She actually recognized the painting, as reproductions of it had been used for the last several years on dozens of different bits of Roland Reid memorabilia, from lunch boxes to coffee mugs to commemorative plates. She’d seen plenty of them in the rubble of the Super Museum’s gift shop after the Vanguard had half-destroyed the place in the fight with Omega, but she couldn’t quite figure out what seemed wrong here…

Everything in the video remained uneventful until about ten minutes after the time they knew the Transformers’ attack had begun across town… at 12:11:34 the painting suddenly seemed to convulse, writhing and undulating within its frame. In seconds it tore itself from its housing and slid to the floor. It then began undulating, like an inch worm, making its way at a surprising clip across the floor, the image of the former Magus Prime stretching and distorting in disturbing ways until there was nothing left of it beyond abstract streaks of color on a gray blob.

When it reached the crate upon which the box containing the vase sat, it writhed up the side and then wrapped itself around the smaller box. It contracted suddenly, and when it expanded again, the wooden box was shattered. The jade vase could be seen lying amongst its packing straw, and several pseudopods of what was now a grayish blob reached out to seize the artifact. Holding it up as high as it could, the blob suddenly hurled the vase down onto the floor, shattering it.

Its task apparently complete, the rubbery gray mass oozed back down the other side of the crate and made its way to the far wall, were it climbed up to a small ventilation duct. Forcing it open, the animated putty wiggled into the opening and vanished… a moment later a single pseudopod reappeared, reaching down to pull the vent cover back into place behind it.

“That was… disturbing,” Artemis finally said after it was clear there was nothing more to see on the video, as signaled by the security guards arriving to check out the triggered motion sensor in the room. Bear could only agree, but neither were at all clear on what it all might mean.

“You said the painting was recently donated, and had only arrived the day before,” Artemis turned back to the assistant director. “Who donated the painting? The artist herself?”

Montpelier had become almost queasy watching the tape, and had to take several deep breaths before he could answer. “Oh, um, no, no… it was a man by the name of Clay Ruspéraz who actually donated the piece, and made a sizable financial contribution as well… as I understand it, he’s been very successful in the tech sector. A bit of a recluse, though, I recall all the arrangements were made over the Internet…”

Thanking Assistant Director Montpelier, and getting a copy of the video on a flash drive, the two heroes stepped back into a shadow in the corner of the dimly lit security room and vanished.

•• •• ••

Artemis’ summary report on the investigation came in just as Quanta got permission from San Francisco authorities to set the Interceptor down in a public parking lot between Davis Street and the Embarcadero, directly across the street from their destination. He had to admit, it had been exhilarating flying the high-tech aircraft solo for the first time – as much as his ability to fly under his own power had been improving, he still just preferred the comfort and power of a real plane.

“OK, remember where we parked,” he said to Jonny as they strode down the ramp and onto the streets of San Francisco. He clicked the remote to retract the ramp and set the security systems to active mode… he’d be damned if, on his first time responsible for the team’s transport, he’d let it get stolen by some ambitious street kid.

On Deck Collectibles was in an old two story brick building at the corner of Davis and Broadway, just off the Embarcadero. The original windows had been taken out and expanded so that the front of the store now consisted of three large panes of plate glass and a set of double doors, also glass. The doors were locked, and a “Sorry, Please Call Again” sign hung crookedly from the interior handle of one of them, but the lights were on and a woman could be seen moving around inside. A rap on the glass caught her attention, and once she realized who they were, she hurried to let the two heroes in.

“Oh my, I had no idea my problem would attract out-of-town attention,” she said, once Quanta had explained the purpose of their visit. She was Katelyn Vandros, owner and proprietress of the shop, and none too happy about the events of several days earlier.

“It’s taken me days to even begin to get things back in order,” she sighed, gesturing at the interior of the shop, where various piles of cards, figurines and boxes were still littered about the space. “I’ll be lucky if I can open again by the weekend.”

“Can you tell us exactly what happened here, Ms. Vandros?” Quanta asked. “We read the police report on the hop down here, but it would help us to hear about it first hand, if you don’t mind going over it again.”

“No, I don’t mind, not if there’s a chance of getting some kind of explanation… the whole thing was just so bizarre. It happened just after I opened last Sunday, around 9:15. I already had customers in the store (there was a cruise ship in down at Pier 27, and that’s always good for business), and all of a sudden about thirty of my most expensive collectible action figures suddenly… I know this sounds crazy… but they just came to life! They tore their way out of their packaging and boxes — incidentally totally destroying their value as collectibles; I could just scream — then they leapt off the shelves, and began just rampaging throughout the store.

“They attacked my customers, and even though they couldn’t do any real damage, they freaked people out, and everybody fled, except me. The toys began pulling the rest of my merchandise off the shelves and out of the display cases, piling it all up in one massive heap in the center of the store. I tried to stop them, but they would just gang up on me… even though I didn’t think they could actually kill me or anything, a lot of them did have some pointy bits, and it started to hurt. I was bleeding in a couple of spots when I finally gave up and ran out of the store myself.

“We all stood there on the street, peering through the windows as the little monsters tore my place apart. One thing that I did find strange —“ at the Blue Flame’s surprised look, she shrugged. “Beyond the entire event, I mean. Particularly strange, was the fact that the animated figurines all attacked the Arkanos action figures whenever they had the chance – you had Ultra, the Phenom Four, Dr. Magentík, the Raptor (both classic and modern versions), Red Racer, the Guardian, Sure-shot, Stormfront, Jetstream, and a bunch of others, all ganging up on the Arkanos figures. They’d rip each one limb from limb, crushing them, burning them… and then go back to wrecking my shop.”

“What, no Vanguard action figures?” the Blue Flame asked, looking disappointed.

“Um, no, I’m afraid not,” Vandros said, looking slightly embarrassed and glancing at Quanta for help. He smiled at her as he rolled his eyes and patted his younger teammate on the shoulder.

“We only signed the merchandising deal with NECA six weeks ago, Blue Flame. You do know our action figures aren’t going to be on the market until Labor Day, right?”

“Oh yeah… I sorta spaced on that. I still think we should’ve gone with Hasbro, though!”

“But we didn’t, so it’s not like the poor lady could’ve had anything but bootleg versions, and her shop seems too upscale for that. Now, what happened next, Ms. Vandros?”

“Please, call me Katelyn,” the woman smiled at Quanta’s compliment and gestured for the heroes to follow her. She led them to a small back room where several large refuse containers were lined up near the back door that lead to the alley behind the shop. In one they could see the mangled, dismembered and burned remnants of half a dozen Arkanos dolls… an oddly disturbing sight. In two large bins nearby contained more than a score of superhero collectible dolls all jumbled together.

“After they’d destroyed the last of my Arkanos collectible figures, and completely trashed the store, the surviving animated action figures just… stopped. One minute they were rampaging, the next they just fell over, as inert as you’d expect a toy to be. It took me a few minutes to work up the nerve to go back inside, but when I did – nothing. They were just toys again. Considerably less valuable toys than they’d been an hour earlier, unfortunately.”

“Why don’t you get, like a notary or something,” the Blue Flame offered before Quanta could ask his next question. “Certify that these toys somehow came to life, the rampage, the whole story. I’d think with proper, whataya call it, providence, they ‘d be worth even more than the usual kind.”

Ms. Vandros looked struck by this idea, and Quanta could almost see the wheels beginning to turn. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s called provenance, Blue Flame, and actually that’s a pretty good idea. We’d be happy to provide any declarations of authenticity that might help, Katelyn, but first things first – was anything actually stolen from the shop, or was it all just vandalism?”

“Just vandalism as far as I can tell, so far, although I haven’t been able to get everything reorganized and accounted for. But certainly nothing obvious is missing… I went through all the most valuable items first, and they’re all accounted for. I’m still working my way down the list.”

Quanta picked up a torn-open tarot pack, into which the cards had been hastily re-stuffed. It was one of the very popular Heroes and Villains Tarot decks, where each of the Major Arcana was represented by a real-life superhero or supervillain… Arkanos as the Magician, of course; Ultra as the Emperor, Gaia as the Empress, Dolórükas the Damned as Death, Lilith as the High Priestess… he chuckled at the image of Dr. Mark Sampson as the Fool.

“Am I correct in understanding that you’re the artist who created this deck?” he asked the shop owner, holding up the cards.

“Yes, indeed! I painted all the artwork for my Heroes & Villains Tarot Decks myself,” she said, taking the deck from him and beginning to sort them into their correct order.

“Well, you’re clearly very talented… these are quite good. Did you do these all just from your imagination?”

“Well, most of them were based off news footage and photos, of course, but I did get a few heroes to actually pose for me – the Guardian, for one. He also helped me get my biggest “catch,” Roland Reid himself. I can’t tell you how excited I was to be able to paint the Magus Prime from life for the Magician card! He was very gracious, and patient, and all he asked was that I let him grant the reproduction rights to his favorite charities. He let me keep the original, though.”

“Yes, about that,” Quanta said. “When you sold the original to Clay Ruspéraz, did you actually meet the man? What did he—“

“Wait, what?” the artist looked confused. “Who? I never sold the original painting to anyone.”

Quanta and the Blue Flame looked at one another in surprise, then back at the frowning woman. “Where is the painting, then?” Quanta asked. “May we see it?”

“Of course,” Katelyn replied. “It’s in my secure vault, with my other paintings… I keep them in there because it’s climate controlled.”

“Did you check this vault after the attack?” Blue Flame asked, as she led the way down a short hallway to a very solid looking door with an expensive electronic lock and key pad.

“Well, I did come back here to check, of course… but the door was still locked and sealed. It was obvious nothing had gotten in, and with everything else to worry about, I haven’t actually opened it since…”

Now looking a little worried, she hastily punched in a code and pressed her thumb to the biometric reader. With a hiss, the door seals released and she pulled the heavy door fully open. Stepping in, she gave a cry of dismay, her hand flying to cover her mouth. “It’s gone!”

Nothing else was missing from the room, only the portrait of Arkanos. Despite her obvious distress at the theft, Katelyn quickly realized there was more to tell. “I’m not sure if this is relevant, but… a strange man came in around closing, sometime late last week, asking me about this same painting. He somehow knew that Roland had asked me to mix some weird dust into my pigments in exchange for his posing.

“He did ask to buy the original, but — I mean, the guy was clearly a villain. Big coat, walrus mustache, sunglasses, strangely high-pitched voice, insisted on paying in cash… I told him to bug off because I had a sitting to paint Trevor Sampson that night, and eventually the guy slunk off, thank the Goddess. There was something really off about him, but at the same time… strangely familiar. He creeped me out, to be honest… and he smelled like popcorn, weirdly enough. Do we have a popcorn-themed supervillain in this town?”

Thanking Katelyn Vandros for her help, and promising to both keep her appraised should they find her missing painting and to help with authenticating her malicious toys, the heroes retreated to the Interceptor. As Quanta took off, the Blue Flame got on comms and relayed what they’d learned to the rest of the team.

•• •• ••

Artemis and Totem-Bear had returned to the Pyramid just about the time that Quanta and the Blue Flame were knocking on the door of On Deck. They met Chuck and JJ in the Ready Room to debrief, and it was Chuck who solved one of the mysteries of the museum robbery.

“Hey, that’s Silly Putty,” he said, examining one of the pieces of gray material Artemis had brought back with her. At the others blank looks he went on, ‘“You know, that kids stuff that comes in the plastic egg. You could press it onto a page of the Sunday comics and it would transfer the ink to the putty… then you could stretch and distort the image in fun ways. Well, fun if you’re six, I guess…”

At his words the pieces suddenly all fell into place for Artemis. “Yes, I vaguely recall when that toy was first a thing, back in the ’60s. And that’s why the painting looked somehow wrong to me – it was a reverse image of the original! Clearly this particular “Silly Putty” was magically enhanced, and I still have no idea as to why… but it fits the facts as the video shows them.”

“And now I’m even more sure I know what the Transformer attack here was meant to distract us from,” Chuck said, “given the toy-based theme of the crimes in both New Atlantis and San Fran. The police report got shunted to the low-priority list… it seems the 911 operator didn’t take the story of a school of inflatable toy sharks attacking a houseboat marina too seriously. It took me a while to pull it all together, but it seems pretty obvious now—”

“Where was this attack?” JJ interrupted, bringing up a map of the city in the holoprojector as he tapped quickly on his keyboard.

“The Tidewater Marina.” Chuck fiddled with the cursor at his own station and a red dot popped up on the 3D map, pinpointing the location.

“Interesting… the computer just finished decrypting the information from the “Transformers,” and it defines the area that the robots were meant to keep us, and the police, away from.” A few more key strokes and a red circle popped up on the map, centered in the Columbia River just north of Talon Island. Included within its radius was the red dot indicating the Tidewater Marina. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is where we need to focus our attentions next.”

“Maybe,” Chuck said, calling up a series of documents over the floating map. “I just ran a full background check on this Clay Ruspéraz, who donated the stolen painting to the Byrne Museum… the name is a fake, and not a particularly deep one at that. It took me about two minutes to see through it, using our resources; but it was good enough to fool a cursory search by credit agencies, banks, or whatnot.

“As it clearly did, because I also learned that “Mr. Ruspéraz,” whoever he really is, recently bought a bunch of inexpensive properties in cities around the country. Specifically: an old Sinbad’s Palace game arcade in New Atlantis, a defunct children’s theatre called the Fairy Glen in Chicago, a shuttered Toys-R-Us store in Denver, and a gutted building that once served as an elementary school in Oakland. And… an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese restaurant right here in Astoria. And look where that last property is located…”

Another red dot popped up on the map, at the southern end of the Otter Point peninsula – and just inside the radius of the robots’ distraction zone.

“Interesting,” Artemis agreed, “but I think we would be wise to investigate the marina incident first, given the nature of the other two attacks.”

Scion alerted Quanta and the Blue Flame, who were en route back from San Francisco by then, passing on the new information and asking them to meet the rest of the team at the marina. Because it was still daylight, and she’d never before had occasion to visit the marina in question, Artemis travelled with Chilz on his ice slide, while Scion carried Totem-Bear.

It took only a few minutes to reach their destination, and they were still questioning the marina’s security guards when the Interceptor arrived. Setting the autopilot to keep the aircraft hovering over the water, Quanta and the Blue Flame joined the others as they entered the houseboat that had been attacked.

“The security guards said a “flock” of inflatable sharks, in various colors, came in from the west and attacked just this particular houseboat,” Artemis indicated the large, ultra-modern floating residence, made primarily of brushed metal and green-tinted glass which they were approaching. “It belongs to one Julianna Waters, and marina security rushed to help at her cries of distress.”

“How much damage could a bunch of inflatable plastic toys do?” the Blue Flame wondered. “Even if they were sharks, one good poke with a sharp stick… and shouldn’t it be a school of sharks?”

“Actually, it would be a shiver of sharks,” Artemis replied. “And like the other toys in these attacks, they were apparently enhanced — more resistant to damage, and with plastic teeth that, while perhaps not lethal, nonetheless en masse caused painful injuries to those attacked. The guards were driven off, and Ms. Waters has since disappeared… one of the men reports hearing a scream and a splash as they were retreating.”

The houseboat, while luxurious and obviously quite expensive, was not especially large, and it didn’t take long for the Vanguard to search it. One of the more interesting aspects of the place was a small shrine, of sorts, to Roland Reid in the living room. Someone, presumably the sharks, had methodically destroyed the gathered items, with the exception of one card from a tarot deck, showing Arkanos as the Magician laying atop the wreckage. It was from the Katelyn Vandros Heroes and Villains deck, naturally… and the same image from the Byrne Museum.

“Intriguing,” Artemis said, examining the card closely. “Everything else related to the late Magus Prime was destroyed, quite savagely, and yet this card remains unscathed… almost as if someone were examining it while the destruction went on, then placed it atop the pile afterward.”

“Even more intriguing,” said Scion, looking up from the laptop into which he’d hacked, “are Ms. Waters’ emails. They indicate she’s spent much of her time in the last several months tracking down some of Dolórüska the Damned’s personal possessions after his most recent defeat, three years ago at the hands of Arkanos and several other members of the Liberty Alliance. She seems to have been particularly interested in his Golden Helm. It’s only very recently that she seems to have concluded it is in the possession of that nutter we met awhile back – the Gaoler. She’s convinced he “confiscated” the mask, and she’s been contacting him with offers to buy the artifact… six times in the last two weeks. He doesn’t seem to have responded.”

“So, if she hadn’t yet acquired this magical helmet doohickey, why was the woman targeted?” Quanta asked, staring around at all the destroyed Magus Prime memorabilia. “I wouldn’t think just being an Arkanos groupie could justify the expense and trouble…”

“Assuming she’s still alive, I suppose we’ll just have to ask her,” Artemis said. “The guards said they heard a scream and a splash, but I see no sign of a body nearby, and given the configuration of the marina, it is unlikely the river’s current would have taken it. Scion?”

“I’ve run a sensor sweep, I find no bodies within my range. I’m going to take to the air, see what I can spot. Witnesses said the sharks came from the west… perhaps they returned that way as well.”

Once in the air it took him only five minutes to spot what he was looking for. Soaked, bleeding and utterly bedraggled, a tall, slender woman with gray-streaked black hair lay gasping and only semi-conscious on a rocky beach on Egg Island. Summoning his teammates, Scion landed and began administering first aid.

“Can you tell us what happened?” he asked once the woman had revived enough to be coherent, and Chilz had wrapped a blanket he’d brought from her houseboat around her shivering shoulders. “We know about the strange shark attack, but once the security guards were driven off, they lost track of you.”

“Oh dear, yes, those poor men,” Julianna shuddered, her large brown, clearly nearsighted eyes wide in remembered fear. “They aren’t armed you know, the board voted against it… but they tried their best, I’m sure. There were just so many of those horrible things, and they moved so fast, biting and battering.

“Once the guards were gone, and the… and they had finished tearing my home apart, they swarmed around me, pushing and pulling me until we all went over the side in one tangled mass. Thankfully, they couldn’t seem to stay underwater… being air-filled and all, I suppose… or I think they would have quite drowned me!”

“As it was, they nearly did anyway, as they carried me off, out of the marina and down river… if it wasn’t for the Leviathan Band I wore… but then one of them got its teeth into it and pulled it off me. At that point they seemed to loose interest in me, and left me floundering in the middle of the river, while they sped off.”

“The Leviathan Band?” Totem asked sharply. If that was what he thought it was…

“Yes, it’s a minor magical artifact, a belt made from the hide of a water dragon… it is, that is it was, one of my most prized possessions. In fact it once belonged to Roland Reid, the Magus Prime himself,” she added proudly, “before his untimely passing.

“While wearing it I possessed some quite minor aquatic powers… including the ability to hold my breath for quite an unnaturally long period of time. Thankfully I’m a strong swimmer even without it, or else I might not have made it to shore once they took it and abandoned me.”

“Did these animated inflatable sharks appear to possess intelligence, Ms. Waters?” Artemis asked. “You said they ransacked your home, did they seem to be looking for something specifically?”

“Well, the Band, I suppose… not knowing I was wearing it. They didn’t seem particularly bright, especially when they tore apart my, um, tribute to the late Magus Prime. I think it was — that is, they were guided…” she trailed off into an embarrassed silence.

“They were guided by what, Ms. Waters?” Artemis pressed her. “Was there someone else present on your houseboat?”

“You’ll think me quite mad… I hardly want to say… “ It took several moments to reassure the shaking woman that nothing she could say would shock or even particularly surprise the Vanguard before she finally spit it out. “It was a… a giant chicken woman. And she had a banjo!”

“Believe me, we’ve seen stranger things, lady,” the Blue Flame assured her.

“We have,” agreed Totem. “But tell me, Ms. Waters, why have you been so interested in pursuing the whereabouts of such a dangerous magical artifact as the Golden Helm of Dolórükas the Damned.”

“Dangerous, yes,” she sighed, looking down at her feet, a flush rising to her cheeks. “But also, very impressive. You see… well, if you ask my neighbors and my friends in the city’s arts scene, they’d probably describe me as a… a dabbler in the supernatural… and one with more money than talent. I… I just wanted a powerful magic artifact of my own, so others in the magical community would finally take me more seriously… and invite me to events…”

•• •• ••

Once she and Totem had lectured Waters about getting involved in arcane matters over her head, Artemis had shadow-walked the still shocky woman to Dixon Memorial. On her return the Vanguard headed to the obvious destination of the shiver of toy sharks – the abandoned Chuck E. Cheese restaurant purchased by the pseudonymous Clay Ruspéraz, just a block off the water, south of the Otter Point Amusement Park.

Setting the Interceptor down in the empty parking lot of the closed strip mall to which the restaurant was attached, Scion considered their destination. This particular restaurant had gone out of business almost a decade earlier — at least partly due to the slightly creepy nature of the animatronic mouse and his friends, he rather suspected.

Chilz’ search of the public property records had shown that the building was purchased only a few months ago, by their fake Clay Ruspéraz, but nothing seems to have changed as a result. The restaurant appeared locked, but with only average padlocks and chains, which Scion snapped off without any trouble.

Inside, other than the faint light from the street filtering through the filthy windows, the only illumination in the abandoned restaurant came from the stage lights. The odors of ancient pizza and stale popcorn were soaked into every surface and permeated the air. The primary colors of the walls were faded and cracked, but clearly depicted scenes of the titular mouse and his friends cavorting. Overlaying them now, however, were a series of childlike scribblings, done in chalk. Covering much of the walls, it was all the same image: a vague, feminine figure with red eyes, wavy black hair, and rather exaggerated breasts… a child’s attempt to draw a beautiful lady?

As soon as the Vanguard approached the stage area, opposite the main door, a motley collection of decrepit animatronics in the form of anthropomorphic animals began to perform a tinny ragtime tune. The shaggy mouse who seems to “lead” the ragtag band swiveled around with a screech to face them, eyes blinking unevenly, and a childlike voice rattled from its leering grin: “What will the Dark Lady do with you once she has what she wants?”

Everyone tensed, prepared for an attack… but none came. After a moment or two, the mouse posed another question in the childish voice. “Who could have saved you, if not the Dark Lady?” This was followed a minute later by “What does the Dark Lady need?” And so it went — every minute or two, the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese would pose another question, while the “band” played bad ragtime music in the background.

“It’s almost as if someone is using the Socratic Method to figure out… something,” Quanta shook his head in bafflement.

“Perhaps his relationship with this ‘dark lady’ he keeps mentioning,” Artemis offered. “But we can worry about that later. For now, spread out and look for any clues as to what is going on here.”

There was very little furniture left in the restaurant, and the kitchen had been stripped of most of it major appliances, although two pizza ovens had been pulled out, and then left in the middle of the room. In what must have once been the manager’s office the Blue Flame and Totem-Bear found the slashed and charred remains of Vandros‘ original painting of Arkanos.

In the arcade area, Quanta and Chilz found that the prize booth still held many of its old prizes, including Transformers action figures, Silly Putty, Play Doh, inflatable pool sharks, plush versions of the animatronic mascots, clown masks, and little figurines of superheroes and dragons. They all appeared to have been untouched for years, except for the Arkanos figurines – all of these had been broken into pieces, dumped into a pile, and a toy dragon balanced on top of the carnage.

“Very strange,” Quanta observed… and then dove into the ball pit, vanishing beneath a sea of rainbow colored plastic spheres. When he resurfaced a moment later and pulled himself out of the pit, he shrugged at Chilz’ surprised look. “Just searching for a hidden door… you can’t say the possibility doesn’t seem in keeping with the theme. No luck though.”

“Yeah… Quanta, are you ok?” Chilz asked. “You seem a little off your game today…”

“I’m fine, Chilz, but thanks for asking. As I’ve already explained to Artemis, I’m just working through a… personal matter.”

“Is it about Epiphany?”

Quanta looked up from his examination of a dusty Ms. Pacman console in surprise. “Well, yes… am I really that obvious? But yeah, I’ve engaged a legal team to try and get her released, and hired top psychiatrists to ascertain her state of mind.”

“I wasn’t sure you were that serious about her… I mean, beyond her just being very attractive and all,” Chilz looked a little embarrassed, but plowed ahead. “So, how’s it going? Have you talked to her?”

“I am trying to, Chilz… that’s really my main stumbling block at the moment. I just need to know if she feels the same. Artemis has promised to help me get in to talk to her, so…”

“I really had no idea, buddy. She is very cute, but… isn’t she, like… evil?”

Quanta laughed. “Misguided perhaps, but not evil I don’t think. I know that idiot Captain Oblivious had some sort of hold over her — I believe that, combined with the psychosis that can come with the sudden acquisition of super powers caused her to act…irresponsibly.”

Chilz looked dubious, but was prepared to support his friend if he could. “Do you need any help? If there’s anything I can do—“

The conversation was cut short by Artemis calling everyone to join her and Scion near the main stage area, where the one large table left in the place had been overturned and now lay on its side. The team leaders had gathered up a pile of old children’s placemats that had been scattered about, along with dozens of crayons, and had begun to examine the papers. All were covered in scribbled text, written in a childish scrawl in a variety of crayon colors.

“I think I know who we’re dealing with here,” Artemis said as the others examined the pages. “Although I’m not sure how it is possible… Percival Lazarus has been physically incapacitated for years, and I thought he’d died awhile back. Can you run that name, and the nom d’crime Killer Tot, through your Threat Assessment Database, Scion? The information should still be there, at least in the inactive registry.”

“Yes, I found it,” Scion replied after a moment. “Percy Lazarus, aka the Killer Tot. His family founded the Toys-R-Us chain of stores and toy manufacturing back in the late ’40s. Born with a rare medical disorder that stopped his physical growth at an apparent age of around 8-9 years old… indulged by his parents, yet kept secluded, he became obsessed with his toys… after his parents deaths, when he was chronologically 18, he inherited the family business… stayed behind the scenes, given his condition, but was a brilliant toy designer…

“Until he became bored, apparently, and adopted the secret life of an underworld assassin… used his child-like appearance and specially designed lethal toys to kill his targets, taking the code name Killer Tot… eventually lost controlling interest in Toys-R-Us and turned full time to crime… sold clever, even brilliant weapons and advanced technology to anyone who could afford it, while continuing to take contracts as an assassin…

“The second Raptor eventually exposed Killer Tot’s operation, and Percy lost his remaining shares in the family business and much of his wealth… retained his criminal contacts, though, and secret bank accounts hidden around the world… went underground and vanished before he could be incarcerated… became obsessed with a new level of “games,” this time with heroes as his “worthy adversaries.” Sparred with and usually managed to escape most of the big players in the 80s and 90s…

“In his sixties, still looking eight years old, he discovered that his rare medical condition was causing complications that would eventually kill him… apparently applied his considerable intellect and inventiveness to seeking ways of saving his life… even attempted to steal and adapt the engram transfer technology used by the Living Doll and the Eternal Soldier, but it proved useless in his case… he sank deeper into mental illness as his physical condition deteriorated, becoming bedridden and wracked with pain in his final months… died in the spring of this year, alone and pretty much forgotten, it looks like.”

“Is there a reliable confirmation of his death,” Artemis asked. “Did anyone actually see his body?“

“Yes, I’m looking at the autopsy report, and there are plenty of pict—“

Before Scion could finish his sentence the tinny music that had been continuously playing in the background was abruptly drowned out by a screeching voice from the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic. Killer Tot, if that was to whom the voice belonged, seemed to have begun ranting to himself while recording a new batch of his Socratic questions for the character… and now it was playing back. The animatronic mouse wheeled around again, blinking with an audible click.

“What will you do if she betrays— no! No, no no no, NO! I did the whole list! Smashed all his toys! But… there must be one left… one I overlooked. One…” The sound of papers shuffling and a table overturning come from the mouse’s mechanical mouth. “One… he overlooked? One he didn’t make…Yes! But if not him, then who? Certainly not Sabra, that horrible Hebrew harridan is useless! But what other Magusus Prime could still… oh-ho! Yes, it must be that very, very naughty boy! He’s the only one! But he’s all locked up now… yes, so once I destroy his helm, the Dark Lady can become one with the world, at last! Oh yes, yes! But I’m going to need a key…”

With an abrupt ‘snick’ the recording ended.

“Well, at least now we know who we’re dealing with, I guess,” the Blue Flame said. “And I might know where the murderous little rug rat is. Just before you called us over I found a doorway that—“

The main doors to the old restaurant slammed open, the glass cracking in one of them, and an armored figure was silhouetted by the evening sun behind it. It paused for a moment to take in the tableau, then stumbled forward, revealing… the Gaoler! And looking rather the worse for wear.

“Where is that psychotic little shite Lazarus?” he growled, and then stumbled to one knee. By the stage lights they could now see that blood spattered his white armor in several places, and that his helmet was damaged, one bloodshot eye visible behind the cracked visor. He staggered upright again and took another step, but before any of the Vanguard could respond all hell broke loose behind them.

The four anthropomorphic animatronic animals that made up Chuck E. Cheese’s backup band stopped playing and singing mid-note. Leaping from the stage, they all made a bee-line for the wounded Gaoler. The cowboy-dog Jasper T. Jowls attempted to backhand the Blue Flame out of its path, and didn’t even slow down when the hero’s hands erupted into searing plasma and melted its face off. Head a smoking ruin of plastic and metal, eyes grotesquely large in their steel sockets, the creature kept right on going.

Right up until Scion sent a blast of electromagnetic energy into the back of its ruined head, and another into the head of Helen Henny, the anthropomorphic chicken and banjo-playing distaff member of the band. Both automatons seized up, twitching and sputtering before going inert and collapsing to the floor…. which made Artemis’ devastating Shadow Stick attack somewhat superfluous.

“Quanta, I’m pretty sure the others can handle these Disneyland rejects,” the Blue Flame called out to his teammate over the quantum communicator they’d recently devised. Jonny still couldn’t use the team’s standard-issue comm units in his plasma form, but Quanta had found that he could replicate the effect using the quantum field he controlled. “We’ll end this quicker if we can get hold of that Killer Tot psycho, and I think I know where he went.”

Letting the flames fade from his hands, he led Quanta toward the back of the restaurant, where a flickering golden light was seeping under the door of what looked to be a utility closet. It was locked, but a quick blast of heat quickly took care of that, and the door swung open. A glowing portal of yellow light filled the doorway, and without hesitation, the young hero stepped through.

“Blue, wait!” Quanta yelled, reaching out to stop the younger man, but he was too slow. Muttering under his breath “Goddamn it, Jonny, do you ever stop to think things through?” he tried to contact the kid over their unique connection… but there was nothing. He’d better go after him…

“Artemis, Scion — Blue Flame has gone through some weird portal in the back room. God knows what kind of trouble he might be in, so I’m going in after him. I think–” he paused as he realized his standard communicator had gone inert the moment he’d crossed the threshold. He wondered how much of the message his teammates had picked up… and where in the hell was he?

Back in the main room, the purple furry monster called Mr. Munch and the stereotypical Italian pizza chef Pasqually had managed to land a blow or two on the injured Gaoler, who’d given as good as he got. But it was clear that alone, with his injuries, he might’ve been in trouble. Grudgingly realizing he needed the help, he backed off, giving Chilz an opportunity to spread an ice slick under the automatons’ feet. As the two slid and stumbled, gyroscopes attempting to keep them upright, Scion swooped in from behind and once again unleashed dual EMPs into the backs of their heads.

As the robots collapsed, Totem, having released his Bear Avatar, was already kneeling beside the wounded Englishman, who had collapsed himself. Looking up as Scion and Chilz approached, he shook his head, frowning. “He’s badly hurt, and the injuries appear to be at least partially magical in nature. I can ease some of the damage… but it will take time to purge the malign influences infecting the injuries and really begin serious healing.”

“Time is not a… luxury we have right now,” the Gaoler growled, struggling to stand. He was forced to settle for sitting upright, his back against a support pillar. “That murderous little villain has stolen my Master Key… which means he’s gotten into the Cell Block by now.”

“What is he after? And how the hell did a sickly nine-year-old do this to you?” Scion asked, kneeling on the other side of the wounded man. “Especially given that we all thought he was dead—“

“Oh, he’s dead alright,” Gaoler snorted, then coughed wetly. “That’s the bloody problem, init? I don’t know how, or who’s responsible, but the little git survived his own death… >hack< … seems he’s now a disembodied spirt…that possesses toys, somehow… and he’s more than half cracked… not that he was ever sane, mind you…

“As for what he wants…>hack, hack< It’s the bloody Helm of Dolórüska the Damned… which I’ve had safely locked away… in another dimension… to ensure that evil bastard never threatens the world again… why Lazarus wants it… I’ve no idea…”

“Another dimension?” Totem asked. “You mean that pocket dimension you call the Cell Block? You said he stole your Master Key — does that mean he controls that dimension now?””

“Ha! Hardly… the little shite may have stolen my Key, but I remain… the master of that place… the Key will give him access… but there are other failsafes, other wards… the bastard won’t find it… as easy as he thinks… and when I catch up with him…”

“He’ll take you out with a Barbie Doll,” Scion said, then paused for a moment. “Artemis has just informed me she’s found a dimensional portal in back — presumably the one Killer Tot opened to your prison dimension with your Key. Two of our teammates have already gone through, she’s following, and we need to join them. I need you—”

“Fine, hero, I admit it… I can use the help,” Gaoler snarled. He struggled to pull himself up. “Give me a hand, I’ll show you the way…” With a grunt he collapsed back to the floor. “Damnit!”

“You’re in no shape to go anywhere,” Totem said. “I’ve done what I can here, but you need to be in a hospital. Dispatch is already sending an ambulance, there’s no point in arguing about it. Now, tell us what you can about this private prison dimension of yours before we go in… how do we find Killer Tot and the Golden Helm?”

“Urrrrgh… damn you, shaman… but you’re right… very well, go. I can’t tell you exactly how… to find the little bastard… the Cell Block is a place of… non-Euclidean geometries… but find Shak, and he will help you… tell him I sent you… here, you’ll need this…”

He pulled a small cube of intricate gold filigree from a pouch on his belt and held it out to Scion. “This is a… Box of the Giliead… a powerful artifact, which can imprison any possessing spirit or soul… I retrieved it from a safe house… before coming here… just touch it to whatever object our little Percy is inhabiting… for just a few seconds… and he will be sucked into it… well and truly trapped…”

“Thank you,” Scion said, tucking the small artifact away at his own waist. “But who is this Shak you mentioned, and how will we know him?”

The Gaoler laughed, then drew in sharp breath at the pain. “There’s no mistaking him… he’s the living ghost of an ancient Rakshasa… a gigantic… Hindu… demon…” With that, he passed out, slumping back, and Totem laid him gently out on the floor.

Sirens could be heard rapidly approaching as the three remaining Vanguard stood up. “Do we wait for the police and the paramedics?” Chilz asked, glancing uncertainly toward the door to the back rooms.

“No, I have a bad feeling that time isn’t on our side,” Scion said. “There’s no telling what the others are facing, and we need to rejoin them quickly.”

•• •• ••

On stepping through the glowing portal, the Blue Flame found himself in a vast rectangular chamber of stark, unfinished concrete — walls, floor, and probably ceiling. Although the latter was so high, and obscured by panels of glowing white light (were those fluorescents? he wondered), that it was hard to be certain. Directly in front of him across the narrow axis of the room, perhaps 20 meters away, was a tall, very wide, immensely strong-looking set of black iron doors. To his right and left, and the far ends of the chamber, smaller but equally strong-looking doors could be seen.

Turning, he saw not another door, but a rectangle of glowing light set into the raw concrete wall. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to have just jumped through, and he should — before he could finish the thought Quanta was stepping through the portal.

“—in the back room. God knows what kind of trouble he might be in, so I’m going in after him. I think–” Quanta stopped speaking, and stared at his teammate in exasperation. “Well, Blue, whatever that doorway of yours is, it seems to block all communications. We’re on our own for the moment.”

“Um, yeah, sorry… I didn’t quite think this through,” the Blue Flame admitted. “I figured maybe we’d find the bad guy right here, and we could wrap it up quick… I guess we should go back through, wait for the others—“

“No one leaves the Cells of Solitude until their time of penance is done, little prisoners,” a voice like the roar of a mighty wind through the trees said from behind them. “You are no exceptions.”

The heroes whirled to see a monstrous figure stooping through the doorway at the far end of the chamber, on their left. Straightening up as it passed through the door, it stood five meters tall, its massive, feathered wings arching even higher over its head to almost brush the ceiling lights. It was blue-skinned, impressively muscled, with four arms, three of which wielded immense scimitars. Its legs were shaped like those of a great cat, its face a fearsome mask of glaring, red rimmed eyes and a snarling mouth, dominated by two tusks curving up from the top row of razor sharp teeth.

The creature was clothed in only a blue and gold loincloth, but was bedecked in golden chains and bracers, with a golden torc across its shoulders, all clearly Hindu in style. Its head was covered in a thick mane of jet black hair, bound by gold into four lengths, and crowned with a circlet of golden skulls. And the whole terrifying apparition was translucent, glowing with a faint blue light, the walls of the room dimly visible through its form as it stalked slowly towards the heroes.

The Blue Flame burst into his plasma form and shot up halfway to the ceiling, while Quanta took an involuntary step backwards.

“Return now to your cells, prisoners, and you need not suffer my wrath,” the creature’s deep bass reverberated across the chamber. “But defy me further, and you will be—“

The creature cut himself off and stopped suddenly as Artemis appeared through the glowing portal. She had caught his last words, and held up her empty hands, and then bowed deeply.

“We are not prisoners here, rakshasa, but rather we have come with the blessing of the maser of this place, to stop another who has trespassed and would steal away a prisoner himself.”

“Ah, is it so? Yes, I perceive you, at least, have come from the World That Lays Beyond, and are no prisoner… indeed, you are far more than these others, and you recognize me for what I am… or once was. Do you then vouch for them?”

“Hey, we don’t need anyone to vouch for us,” the Blue Flame said hotly. “And Artemis may be pretty cool and all, but I wouldn’t say she’s that much better than us… I mean, I can turn into living plasma, that’s gotta count for something!”

The rakshasa looked momentarily taken aback, and then it threw back its head and roared with laughter. “Indeed, little avatar of the blue flame, you are right. And I sense no evil intent, no guilt within you… nor in the silvery one. You do not belong here, and are not my charges. But are you then of these new protector spirits that I have heard have come recently into the World Beyond?”

“Well, I’m not sure about spirits or anything,” the Blue Flame began, a little taken aback himself by the monster’s laughter and sudden mood shift. “But I guess—“

At that moment the rest of the Vanguard stepped through the glowing portal, coming to a shocked stop at the sight of the enormous blue entity looming over their friends. They quickly recovered, however, and Scion stepped forward beside Artemis.

“Are you Shak?” he asked. “We were told by the Gaoler to seek your help in stopping the invader who has stolen his Master Key and is trying to steal a proscribed object from the Secure Vault.”

The ghostly demon looked suddenly less amused, but it also lowered the last of its giant scimitars, sheathing it with the others. “Yes, there can be no doubt you come with the blessing of the one who desecrates my name so,” he sighed, a surprisingly human sound, despite his deep bass. “The fool may be the mortal master of this domain, for now, but he is impatient, ever in too much of a hurry to use my proper title — Aatmoan-ka-Sanrakshak. In your language… Guardian of Souls.”

“You said title,” Artemis noted. “What is your name, then? Would you prefer we use that instead?”

“Ah, it would give me great pleasure, immortal one, but alas, it cannot be. I have been here so long that even I have forgotten my true name, if ever I had one. No, for ages uncounted I have been only what I do, Aatmoan-ka-Sanrakshak. And I have kept faith, even beyond death and memory, to hold the Cells of Solitude inviolate, whatever mortal may control them for a mayfly’s life… and there have been so many…

“But tell me, why has the current mortal master of the Cells granted you access to this realm, and why is he not here with you? It is his responsibility, not just his convenience.”

The Vanguard filled the rakshasa in as succinctly as possible on recent events, and on the dire physical condition of the Gaoler at the moment. He in turn confirmed that someone had entered the Cell Block — he visibly winced at using the Gaoler’s name for the ancient dimension — and had set free many of the prisoners therein.

“They are freed from their cells, and now they seek to escape from this dimension. But that is not so easily done. Although this open door would do the trick.” He reached down and past the Vanguard to touch a blue finger to the glowing portal in the wall behind them. It vanished without a sound, leaving only dark gray concrete.

“Worry not, when you have captured this “Killer Tot” and recovered the Master Key, you will be able to leave this place at will. In the meantime, I must be about the task of getting my prisoners back into their cells… which will help you in turn, as otherwise it would be a gauntlet of never-ending battle between here and the Secure Vault.”

“Can you direct us to the Vault,” Totem asked. “And can you tell us how to open it, assuming we find it still locked?”

“I can guide you, Avatar-host,” the phantom demon said, smiling… a terrifying sight, given its visage, and the tusks. He touched a claw-tipped finger to Totem’s forehead, and a glowing blue line appeared in his second sight. “Follow that, and it will lead you to where you need to be. But I cannot both clear your path and open the Vault. Chose which you more desire.”

“I think time is running out,” Scion said. “Please, clear the path, we can figure out the Vault if we must.”

The rakshasa nodded, and turned to gesture at the massive iron doors behind him. With a groan of metal-on-metal the leaves swung open revealing a wide corridor beyond — more raw concrete and fluorescent lights vanishing into the distance. The blue line in Totem’s mind’s eye lay straight down the center of the passage.

With a salute, the ghost of the giant Hindu demon turned and himself quickly vanished through the door he had entered by. The Vanguard stepped through the larger doorway and into the Cell Block proper, the great doors grinding shut behind them with an ominous finality.

Proceeding down the wide, tall, seemingly endless hallway, the Vanguard passed many smaller side corridors, appearing at seemingly-random intervals, each of which seemed to go on into infinity as well. Occasionally they heard distant shouts, screams, and roars coming from some of the side corridors, but they saw no one until Totem turned left down one particular side passage.

The new corridor, although narrower than the main way, was equally as tall, about two stories, and after a time cells began appearing to either side, each offset so that any occupant of one could not see into any other. Metal stairs on both sides led up to a narrow catwalk and a second tier of cells. Many cells were empty, but some contained prisoners — obviously, Killer Tot hadn’t released all the inmates.

Of the prisoners they saw, most were human, dressed in clothes from a variety of times and cultures; but a few were decidedly not human — there were beings of myth and legend and some entirely unfamiliar. Most seemed listless and resigned, and even the few who reached through the bars and begged for release seemed to do so without any real hope.

Following the blue line only he could see, as it twisted and turned through the labyrinthine maze of identical concrete corridors, Totem led his teammates onward without serious incident — until they reached the intersection of another wide corridor. Stepping out from the side passage they’d been traversing, Totem and Artemis almost ran into two figures they immediately recognized.

Born Loser and Cueball of the Devil’s Advocates appeared to be searching for a way out, and they visibly brightened at seeing the heroes who had last defeated them. “Hell’s bells, it must be Christmas,” Cueball laughed, his infernal axe materializing in his hand. “First that crazy puppet lets us out of those damn cells, and now we get to beat down on the bitches who put us–“

He never finished the sentence, as Artemis’ Shadow Whip lashed out, wrapping around his neck and pulling him to his knees. At the same time Totem entwined Born Loser in the glowing strands of his own Winding Whip spell, before the Avatar of Starvation could unleash his power.

Before either villain could struggle free, Quanta let loose a blast of bucky balls, taking Born Loser in the head and then ricocheting off to hit Cue Ball full in the face. Both men collapsed to the floor, bleeding and unconscious.

“I guess the big guy missed these two,” Chilz said as he encased the Devil’s Advocates in bands of ice. “So what do we do with them now? We don’t need them coming up behind us down the road.”

“Indeed not,” Artemis agreed. “There were numerous empty cells in the corridor we just exited. I suggest we deposit them there, at least for now.”

Once that was done the Vanguard resumed their trek through the seemingly endless corridors of the Cell Block, increasingly wary and on the lookout for more escaped prisoners. But they saw no one else until they reached what an etched steel plaque indicated was the Central Tiers.

The immense iron doors into the Central Tiers were partially open, and the heroes stepped cautiously through, into a circular chamber more than 30 meters across — and of an unguessable, dizzying height. Iron mesh catwalks, circled the room at each tier, connected by metal stairs, cells lining the walls, in ring after ring until they vanished into a bright haze.

A cacophony of voices, in a score or more of languages, echoed in the vast space as prisoners stood at their bars and shouted, laughed, raged… and here the Vanguard recognized many of the faces behind the bars. Criminals and villains from their own time and place, several of whom they themselves had fought — and had thought incarcerated on Earth in more mundane circumstances.

Totem, at least, also recognized the dozen or so unconscious bodies scattered around the chamber’s floor in bloody heaps — most of them grotesque giants in kilts and leather harness, and one very handsome, muscular, normal-sized man with flaming red hair.

“I thought Tethra the Charming and his Fomorian warriors had been taken into SHADE custody after Sabra, Guardian and I, with some help from Prometheus and Phantom Ace, stopped their assault on the Alliance’s New Atlantis embassy last year,” Totem said, prodding the mythological Irish sorcerer with a toe. “How in the name of the Seven Great Beasts did the Gaoler manage to get them here?”

“I was wondering the same about some of the other prisoners here,” Artemis said, staring up at the ranks of cells above them. “It’s something we’ll have to look into once we’re back home.”

“Yes, but not something to worry about now,” Scion added. “Totem, where does your guide line lead next?”

“Out the opposite doors,” the shaman replied, and Chilz pushed the heavy leaves slowly open, just wide enough for the team to pass through. Leaving the echoing shouts of the inverted Tower of Babel behind, the Vanguard continued on through the maze of corridors.

Quanta moved up to walk beside Totem, and after a moment of companionable silence, he broached something that had been on his mind for awhile. “Totem, I’ve been thinking about all of the stuff that’s gone down recently, and I can’t help but wonder… I know she’s a friend of yours, but have you considered that Sabra herself may be the one behind all this?”

Totem looked at his teammate in surprise. “No, not really, Quanta. Sabra is one of the kindest, most noble people I’ve ever met. In fact, those qualities are the reason she’s in the position she is now, forced to try and govern almost a thousand corrupted worlds, so that the billions of people living in them don’t perish. And why she is working hard to rehabilitate those worlds, so that they can all live again on their own.”

“But that’s just my point,” Quanta persisted. “A thousand worlds corrupted by evil, whatever exactly that really means, and one lone woman against that. However good her intentions, however strong her will, do you not think there’s a chance the corruption is infecting her, rather than her clearing out the corruption?”

“Certainly it’s a possibility,” Totem acknowledged. “One that she and I discussed in the brief time between the death of Varina and Sabra’s voluntary exile to the Dark World. And certainly I’ve seen changes in her over her time there… but nothing like what you’re suggesting. We also placed a number of wards around her mind and soul that should prevent exactly what you suggest.”

“She seemed awfully peeved when we didn’t hand over the Kurundan Bloodstone to her,” Quanta said. “And less than a week later the stone is stolen from one of most security-conscious people on Earth. Mudslide escapes with the fourth of the Prime Element gems still inside him… and not long after he’s found depowered and comatose, the gem missing. I’m just saying it’s suggestive…”

“Suggestive, maybe, but hardly conclusive. There’s been a rising tide of dark magic all across Earth in recent months, and any number of parties could be responsible for those crimes. Not to mention the fact that Sabra cannot return to Earth without risking the destruction of the Dark World… how exactly would she have pulled off these thefts?”

“Well, that’s what minions are for… Killer Tot, for example, is clearly working for someone, someone powerful enough to keep his consciousness around even after his death. Someone who can’t enter this world until… well, some sort of conditions are met. And then there are his references to a Dark Lady, and those drawings on the walls… could be Sabra.”

Totem snorted and rolled his eyes. “Oh please! Percy Lazarus is hardly a Rembrandt, and those scribblings could be of anyone. Besides, Sabra doesn’t have red eyes…” He looked suddenly thoughtful, and he frowned at his friend. “But as I recall, Varina did have red eyes… a red so dark they looked black, until the light caught them just right. And her most common title, the one she preferred above all others, was the Dark Lady…”

“Hmmmm,” Quanta looked thoughtful himself. “Are you sure this Varina is really dead? I know you saw her body crumble to dust after Sabra gutted her, but… maybe she possessed your friend?”

“No, I not only saw, but felt her death. And belief me, possession or mind-transference was the first thing we all thought of in the aftermath. But both Guardian and I probed deep into Atara’s mind and found not a hint of possession or another mind. But as precaution, I actually had Nimrod run scans on her — if anyone could detect such a thing it would be him. He cleared her as well.

“So no, I don’t think Sabra is possessed by Varina… but I do wonder… is there some other way she could have survived, a way we’ve overlooked. I admit, I find the fact that the Powers That Be haven’t yet settled the mantle on a new Magus Prime is worrying… although there have been decades-long gaps in the past, they are rare. Any break in continuity tends to wreak havoc with the balance of Earth’s arcane power, as we’ve been seeing recently.

“Still, this has only been 18 months so far… I’m going to have to think about this…”

Quanta shrugged and let the matter drop, for now. Another ten minutes of traversing corridors brought the Vanguard to the antechamber of the Secure Vault, and more pressing issues.

The antechamber was a modest room, but no more pleasantly decorated than anywhere else in the Gaoler’s Cell Block dimension. Given that it was a place that reflected the mind and desires of its mortal master, Chilz thought, all the raw concrete and rebar didn’t say much about Thomas Delosano’s aesthetic taste.

The central feature, indeed the only feature, of the antechamber was the massive, ancient-looking door of iron and steel, somewhat incongruously augmented by high-tech elements, to the Secure Vault itself. Prominent in the center of the great door were three lock mechanisms, each one decorated with engraved images of either flames, blades, or skulls.

“Do you think we beat Killer Tot here?” the Blue Flame asked hopefully from the hallway as Scion, Totem and Quanta stepped forward into the room to examine the door and its locks.

“Possibly,” Artemis said. “But since he possesses the Master Key, which I’m sure unlocks this door as well, it could well be that he is already inside.”

After a deep examination of the door and its locks, Scion was certain that all three mechanisms needed to be operated at more-or-less the same time. “There may be a five second window of wiggle room, certainly no more than ten. They seem to be some sort of icon-based tumbler locks…”

Feeling the press of time, the three heroes had the others remain in the hallway and pull the antechamber doors shut. Just in case the hypothesized death traps were triggered. But in the event, Scion and his tactical computer had little trouble deciphering the Flame Lock, and Totem’s mystical senses revealed the secret of the Blade Lock almost as quickly.

Quanta had been certain he had the pattern of the Skull Lock as well, but when they all worked the locks at the same moment, he realized he’d been wrong. As the other two locks clicked open, their engraved icons glowing green, his own remained closed — and began pulsing an ominous red.

“Quanta, I thought you had this,” Scion said, glancing around the room for any sign of traps preparing to spring.

“You’re not helping, John,” Quanta muttered, focusing intently on the mechanism. He’d been sure it had been a variation of the Fibonacci sequence… damn, Delosano hadn’t started the sequence from 0 and 1… the pulsing of the red icon was speeding up… so, did he start it from 1 and 1 or from 1 and 2… how did that paranoid’s mind work? Right, try 1 and 2…

Just as the flashing icon went solid red, the lock clicked… and tumbled open. The icon turned from red to green, and with a hiss the massive door swung open. The rest of the team poured into the antechamber as Scion pulled the heavy vault door all the way open…

Unlike the plain concrete of the rest of the Cell Block, the Secure Vault seems to harken back to an older version of the dimension — it was an unadorned room of medieval-looking gray blocks of stone, roughly 20 meters wide and 40 meters long. Its buttressed ceiling extended about 15 meters overhead, and its walls were lined with alcoves in a bewildering variety of sizes. Each niche held one of an amazing array of relics, artifacts, and other dangerous-looking objects—many of them confiscated from imprisoned supervillains, but some of them clearly predated the Gaoler’s supervision.

The smallest item that Chilz noticed in that first, brief look, was a fleck of gleaming dust in a hole barely large enough to fit a finger, while the largest was in a huge alcove on the far wall — a massive statue carved of orange-red stone, portraying a seated demon with huge gemstone eyes, holding a flaming brazier… it looked strangely familiar.

But what riveted everyone’s attention was the tableau about two-thirds of the way down the long left wall. Standing before one alcove was a ventriloquist’s puppet — sans ventriloquist — with arms raised, grasping at a golden, skull-shaped helmet/mask. Intricately incised with arcane symbols, the mask was jerking and twisting, as though fighting against the puppet’s grasp.

But as the Vanguard stepped into the Vault, the puppet’s attention shifted for just an instant from the mask to the heroes. The mask, no longer the complete focus of the puppet’s attention, tore itself from its grasp, snapped up toward the ceiling, and vanished in a burst of red light and a tremendous crack that shook the room.

The puppet howled in fury then, and turned on the interlopers. “You spoiled it! My newest toy—gone! Why are you awful heroes always ruining my games!? I hate you! I hate you all!”

It was at that point that the Vanguard noticed a variety of toys scattered about the chamber — several Transformer action figures, a horde of little green army men, and two massive blobs of Play Doh, one pink and one blue. As one, the animated toys moved to attack the intruding heroes.

Ignoring the mass of toys, Chilz rose up on an ice slide to glide toward the far end of the Vault. Something about that immense demonic statue was setting off all his mental alarms. As he neared it, he gestured and invisible waves of elemental energy flowed out from him. A thick, translucent wall of ice began to form, and in seconds he had completely sealed off that end of the room — and the unnerving statue.

Scion, taking to the air himself when a platoon of green army men attempt to swamp him, simultaneously electrified his armor, turning the swarm into inert lumps of melted plastic, and blasted out most of the overhead light panels, creating more shadows for Artemis. He then went invisible…

Removal of the lights proved an opportune move as, a moment later, the blue Play-Doh attempted to engulf Artemis. But as it loomed over her, its bulk cast her into shadow from one of the few remaining lights. She vanished as it collapsed onto empty air… to appear elsewhere, and begin stomping a bunch of plastic army men into mush.

The Blue Flame’s plasma blast incinerated several of the Transformer figures, while Totem’s own mystic blasts destroyed another that was trying to get a firing lock for its tiny missiles on the suddenly-invisible Scion.

Quanta focused on the small ventriloquist’s puppet, which continued to rant and rave in a high-pitched, childlike voice about the unfairness of it all. He had noticed that a glowing golden key swung on a chin around the toy’s neck — no doubt the Master Key itself. Something they should get their hands on quickly, he rather thought, to prevent the murderous little thing from escaping once it realized his toy army was getting the shit stomped out of it.

When two more Ratchet and Bumblebee Transformers and the blob of pink Play Doh moved into close proximity to Killer Tot, Quanta took his shot. The block of quantum matter crushed the two Transformers into flinders, and smooshed the Play Doh flat… But the puppet managed to dodge the attack, rolling away in mid-tirade.

Within seconds the pink Play Doh began to ooze back into shape, as the block above it dissolved back into the quantum foam whence it came. But as it turned to engulf Quanta, Chilz glided up behind it and hit with a Polar Vortex blast, freezing the blob solid. One hard kick from the hero and the mass shattered into hundreds of pink shards.

“No! You’re bad, bad heroes!” the furious puppet shrieked, resuming its verbal assault as it jerked back to its feet. “The Helm was the last lock! Now I’ll have to find it again, and it’s all your fault the Dark Lady has to wait, all alone—“

Its rant cut off suddenly as Totem’s Winding Whip spell ensnared the enraged toy, binding it in bands of violet light. With a strangled “urk” the puppet went limp, all animation draining out of it. Scion landed next to the collapsed form, pulling the Box of the Giliead from his belt compartment, as Totem released the spell.

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Totem said, picking up the now inert toy. “I think he’s abandoned this form. He must be in one of the other toys…”

But the few remaining toys not yet destroyed by the Vanguard had collapsed at the same moment as Killer Tot had. While the heroes looked about the room, trying to find a missed toy, a shrieking laugh suddenly filled the air, echoing in the huge stone chamber. The ground began to rumble ominously, and Chilz turned with a dread certainty to stare at his ice barrier at the end of the room.

Distorted by the translucent ice, the gleam of red light that had began to grow in the jeweled eyes of the massive demonic statue was nonetheless visible. With a tremendous grinding of stone on stone, the blurred shape of the statue shifted, slowly climbing to its feet. Chilz rush forward to strengthen his wall, but even as he began to move, the demonic figure hurled its bronze bowl into the ice wall.

The force of the blow not only shattered the wall, but sent Chilz flying backwards. Momentarily staggered, but uninjured, he climbed back to his feet as the now-animated statue stepped over the remains of his ice wall. Its form wavered and shifted, features blurring from demonic to adorable as it reshaped itself into an enormous stone… teddy bear!

“Break my toys, will you?” Killer Tots now-familiar childish voice came from the giant stone bear as it lumbered forward. “Well, let’s see how you like it when I break you!”

Totem once again cast the Winding Whip spell on the Titanic Teddy, but the violet strands merely snapped and disintegrated into sparks, to no effect.

Quanta unleashed a powerful quantum matter blast on the creature, which caused it to pause only for a moment. With a snarl it’s previously cute face became a mask of rage, and it moved forward again, arms reaching out…

Artemis dropped from the shadows of the ceiling onto the bear’s back, using her Shadow Whip to gain a hold around its neck. She had no hope of overpowering the huge thing, of course, but if she could distract Killer Tot’s attention, Scion might get in close enough to use the Box of the Giliead —

The Titanic Teddy shook her off in a single violent shrug, sending her flying into Scion just as he was coming around, the Box in hand. He was s barely able to keep a grip on both it and Artemis, as they tumbled back and away from the monstrous creature.

As Artemis dropped to the floor from Scion’s arms, Chilz created a sheet of ice beneath the stone giant’s feet… with its next step it staggered, arms wheeling as it to tried to right itself, the look on its face suddenly comical. With a thud that shook the room, the stone teddy bear crashed onto its back, limbs waving like an overturned turtle.

As it struggled to right itself, Totem again cast the Winding Whip spell, binding the Titanic Teddy only momentarily before it again burst the mystic bonds. But they held the creature long enough for Quanta to encase it in a thick shell of quantum matter. Caught halfway to its feet, it was unable to defend itself as Scion dove in once more with the Box of the Giliead.

Slapping the small filigreed box to the back of the stone bear’s head, Scion held the artifact in place for a count of five… and in a prismatic swirl of light, with a despairing wail, the spirit of Percy Lazarus was sucked into the inescapable mystical prison.

In the profound silence that followed Percy Lazarus’ final cry, the Vanguard stared at one another, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it became obvious that the fight was well and truly over, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“So, what do with do with the magically imprisoned spirit of a homicidal maniac that thinks it’s still nine years old?” The Blue Flame asked, breaking the silence.

“I’d say leave him here on one of these shelves,” Quanta shrugged. “With a proper warning placard, of course. Although, if the Gaoler’s idea of a secure vault is one that can be beaten with such a distractedly mild effort…”

“Mild effort?” Scion laughed. “Please, it took three of the sharpest minds around, with a unique set of balanced skills — technology, magic and mathematics — to defeat the locks. And even then it was a nerve-wrackingly close call!”

“Oh, nonsense,” Quanta waved away his fumble with the last lock. “It was all for drama, I assure you. You know, how in the movies the countdown on the bomb always stops at “1.”

That got a laugh from everyone, even Artemis. But after a moment she pulled them all back to the serious business at hand. “Unfortunately,” she sighed, “while we kept it from Killer Tot, and whomever he was fronting for, the Golden Helm is now back in the world. That seems like something we’re going to need to pursue once we return home. And speaking of home…”

Crouching down to pull the glowing Master Key from around the neck of the inert ventriloquist’s dummy, Artemis held it up and watched it swing, pendulum-like, from her finger.

“This will get us there, but once it does, we’ll need to resolve what to —“

At that moment the rakshasa Aatmoan-ka-Sanrakshak stepped through the doorway from the Vault’s antechamber. Its hideous, translucent face was split in a wide grin, and it bowed in the Vanguard’s direction.

“Well done, champions, well done. I have secured the residue of prisoners loosed by our little interloper, and the Cells of Solitude are secure once more. I see you have captured in the Box of the Giliead the wayward animus responsible for this intrusion – how came you by such a puissant artifact, and one so apropos to this encounter?”

“The Gaoler gifted it to us, when he realized he was too injured to bring the fight back here,” Scion said. He was somewhat distracted – the readings he was getting of the Box were so very odd…

“Ah, of course… I should have recognized it. T’was I, after all, who pointed it out to him, shortly after he gained dominion over this place. And I see you have recovered his Master Key… will you return his treasure to the Gaoler, now that the villain is defeated and his realm again secured?”

“That… is a complicated question,” Artemis said, eyeing the artifact dubiously. “The man is clearly not sane, and remains a potential danger. I’m not sure he should have such power…”

“And yet, he’s not entirely wrong about the difficulty of holding some of the more powerful meta-humans, aliens and monsters we fight,” Chilz suggested. “Is it really a bad idea to have a way to remove them from Earth without, you know, actually killing them?”

“Who is he — or we, for that matter — to decide who gets tossed away without any due process?” Quanta asked, crossing his arms across his chest. “We’re representatives of the law, not vigilantes… and I for one don’t want that responsibility, even if you do!”

“Hey! I never said—“

“You both have a point,” Artemis interrupted. Turning to the ghostly rakshasa, she held out the Master Key. “Aatmoan-ka-Sanrakshak, will you not take this, and with it control of this dimension? Clearly you have been here for a very long time and have… an affinity for it. What better guardian than you for—“

“No, immortal one, I cannot,” the creature said, somehow managing to give the impression of a heavy sigh without actually breathing… or possessing functioning lungs. “I have indeed been here long… far longer than even one such as you could hope to fathom… so long, indeed, that I have forgotten a time before this place… and I am already its true guardian, whatever mortal may shape its current form.

“As I said earlier, the Gaoler is master of this place by right of ancient law. He made his Master Key and discovered his own way into this realm, and tamed it to his will — hence these ugly halls and chambers, those horrible lights… not a stone grotesque nor carved decoration in sight, no flickering torches or warm lanterns — but the Key is not what gives him control — it is his will, alone and only, that is the true key. Return his Master Key or not, he remains the mortal master of this realm, as I remain its eternal guardian; he will return, even if he must forge a new Key to do so.”

On that somewhat ambiguous note, Totem took the Master Key from Artemis and prepared to use it to summon a portal back to Earth. As he worked on it, Chilz approached the ghostly rakshasa, and motioned for him to lean down… it wasn’t often he met someone who dwarfed him the way he did most normal humans.

“Listen sorry about that big statue,” he said, gesturing at where the former stone teddy bear had reverted to its demonic form — but still in the crouched position in which Killer Tot’s possessing spirit had left it. It’s bronze bowl lay in two pieces near the vault door. “It wasn’t really our fault, but still…”

“Have no worries, Jötunn, the Statue of Trampier will eventually reassert it’s usual appearance… it is a very difficult artifact to destroy. Which is why it resides here, after all.”

Before Chilz could continue the conversation, Scion was calling him over to the alcove where the statue had previously stood, and were Totem now had a glowing portal in place. “Come on Chilz, it’s time to go home!”

The Bastion, location classified

“So, this place few people have visited is… in your basement?” Chuck asked a few minutes later as they began to descend in de la Vega’s spacious private elevator.

“As much as I know it annoys Artemis, I’m going to have to go with yes… and no,” the billionaire replied, shrugging. Artemis rolled her eyes. Laying his hand on a biometric panel next to the floor buttons, Álvaro leaned in to whisper a phrase into a concealed microphone. 

When the glowing floor numbers indicated they were reaching the ground floor the elevator gave no indication of slowing down. As the seven sub levels of the Pyramid passed (five public and two known only to the Vanguard and de la Vega), the floor indicator changed to an infinity symbol. Almost another full minute passed before the elevator finally came to a smooth stop.

The doors opened onto a utilitarian-looking corridor of rough concrete, three meters wide and high, and about 12 meters in length. Panels of fluorescent lights provided a harsh illumination, glinting coldly off the vault-like door of brushed steel at the far end of the hall. Álvaro led the way, the Vanguard following somewhat warily behind.

“An excellent place for a kill box,” Scion murmured to Artemis, eyeing the suspiciously blank walls. She nodded, but it was de la Vega who responded.

“It absolutely is, Captain Astor. And if I weren’t with you, rest assured defenses that even the Vanguard might find difficult to overcome would already have been deployed. Not lethal defenses, mind you… at least not at first… but sufficient. And if not, well…” He touched his palm to another biometric reader, submitted to a retinal scan, and uttered another murmured phrase. With a deep thrum of powerful hydraulics, the vault-like door recessed 30 centimeters and then split, to slide aside into the wall on either side. 

Beyond was a spherical chamber 10 meters in diameter, its surface a featureless white material without visible seams or joins. A catwalk of metal mesh led from the doorway to a circular platform of the same material suspended in the center of the space. The platform was just large enough to hold all seven people, and de la Vega shrugged an apology as they crowded together.

“Sorry for the cramped quarters. This wasn’t really designed with group tours in mind, I’m afraid.” He touched a finger to his watch, tapped out a command — and a brilliant flash of pinkish white light filled the space… 

…and they were somewhere else.

The space they found themselves in was larger and noticeably cooler, if still more-or-less circular in layout. Massive crystal pillars of various translucent colors made up the walls of the chamber, leaning inward at 30° angles as they rose up to meet in an asymmetrical faceted dome-like structure of the same material. Levels of various sizes and heights broke up the space, many with smaller clusters of crystalline rods rising up from them, each of a single solid translucent color.

The largest of the platforms was directly ahead of the group, and as they watched a giant head coalesced from the air to stare down at them. The giant, silver-haired head of actor Marlon Brando.  

“Welcome, my son,” the familiar voice boomed out, as the head gazed down sternly upon the group. “I am your father, Gor-Thûn.”

“Holy crap!” Jonny blurted out, grabbing Chuck by the arm in a death grip. “This is Ultra’s Bastion! Oh my god, does this mean he really was an alien, from the doomed planet Argon?! Did Richard Donner get it right when he made Ultra: The Movie back in ‘78?”

Chuck seemed almost as begroggled as his friend, and could only shake his head in confusion, a state shared by most of their teammates. Only Artemis seemed unimpressed by the display, looking over at Álvaro de la Vega with a raised eyebrow and a dangerous glint in her eye. The billionaire was suppressing a grin, but his eyes were bright with amusement.

“I’m sorry… he always said if the opportunity arose he’d do this, but I didn’t think he really meant it.”

“Álvaro, enough with your games,” Artemis snapped. “If you have—“

“Please, Artemis, you mustn’t blame Álvaro for my little joke,” Marlon Brando’s head said, his face shifting from somber to openly amused. “I have so little chance to have fun, and the temptation was just too great to resist… although I suppose I’m certainly old enough to know better.”

The holographic head sharan, solidifying, and reforming into the shape of a human male dressed in an expensive-looking white suit, gray silk tie, and silver waistcoat. While still appearing older, and still white-haired, his features no longer resembled those of the late actor… although they remained hauntingly familiar. The figure turned and made his way down the stairs to his left, descending from the platform to stride confidently over to stand before the assembled heroes. He gave a slight bow, and smiled.

“Hey, you look a lot like Ultra!” Chuck said, as the coin finally dropped. “Or at least like what Ultra would have looked like if he’d gotten old.”

The smile faded from the old man’s face, and he looked sad. “Yes, this is what Ultra would’ve looked like in another 80 or 90 years, had he lived. I wear this form more out of habit than anything, these days. You see, that part of my little joke, wasn’t really a joke… I really am, or was, Ultra’s father. In a manner of speaking.”

“I can see where Álvaro learned his habit of equivocation,” Artemis said, unimpressed by the dramatic statement. “He said there was a second origin story we needed to hear, and I’m assuming it’s yours, Nimrod or whatever your name really is. I’m also assuming this will all make sense. Eventually.”

“Eventually, yes,” the old man’s smile returned, more rueful than amused now. “But it’s a very long story, and I seldom have the opportunity to tell it, so I hope you’ll all bear with me. It really is vital that you understand the scope of what is going on, but I will try to streamline things as much as I can, to save time.”

“Screw time!” Quanta said. “We want details, and we want it all – it seems pretty obvious this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I for one have nowhere else to be.”

“Well, now that you’re on the inside, as it were, I hope there will other opportunities to go into as much detail as you might like… assuming we can contain the current crisis, of course. First off, my name really is Gor-Thûn. Or at least it was when I was born, almost 22,000 years ago… which should give you some idea of how long my story is. Why don’t we all get more comfortable?”

Without even a gesture, furniture materialized behind the group. Perhaps coincidentally mimicking the arrangement of the seating in de la Vega’s office, it arced around in a wide semicircle with the holographic Nimrod at its focal point. Unlike Álvaro, he failed to offer his guests any refreshments, however, instead jumping straight into his story.

“I was born in the year 19,504 BCE, into a tribe of proto-Semitic peoples in what would later be known as the Middle East. As I said, my name was Gor-Thûn, in the long-dead language of those people, and at 24 I was, by virtue of both my age and my prowess as a hunter, the leader of my band of hunter-gatherers. When the strange lights appeared in the sky that fateful night, most of my folk fled in terror… but I was the leader, and it was my duty to stand and face whatever the spirits might bring. And truly, the lights did fascinate me… almost seemed to be calling to me…

“I was fascinated, yes, but also terrified. I like to think the only outward sign of my fear, however, was the white-knuckled grip I kept on my throwing spear. I was determined to protect the People, no matter the cost… but the truth is, in that moment, if I had been given even a hint of what awaited me, all of my courage and faithfulness would not have mattered one iota. But I didn’t know… and so I faced them… and I was taken by the lights, lifted up into the sky.

“Where my torment began.

“I was dissected, body and mind, by beings that I never perceived as more than flashes of light, hints of colors (some beyond my experience)… and, occasionally, as a haunting music. They took me apart, studied me, and when the torment finally ended, I was put back together, just as I’d been… and it began all over again. How long the pain went on I’ve never be able to say with certainty… years, months, days… or was it merely hours? Whatever the duration of my suffering, I lost myself, even my name, in the red mist that my memory became… the only thing I remembered throughout it all, the one thing I clung to when all else was gone, was that I was the Hunter.

“Eventually the pain ended for good. For some timeless period there was blessed darkness and peace. But slowly I became aware of being aware again… first of the darkness… and then of myself, the Hunter. It seemed to me that I hung suspended in nothingness, without a body, aware only of my own awareness. I panicked then, and in that moment I suddenly found I had a body once more. I would eventually learn that it was just a virtual body, of course, but having achieved that, I calmed down. Eventually, I learned to ”perceive” the world around me, as well. Or at least a world…

“Understand, it would be centuries before I regained my full memories of my first, earthly life again. But even in this early reawakening I still retained the bone-deep knowledge of my world and how to survive in it. My consciousness had become untethered from my physical form somehow, and had infiltrated the virtual information systems of the alien Seekers. Whether this was planned by them, or anticipated, or was merely an accident I didn’t know. If it was an accident, was it one of which they remained unaware, or one which they simply allowed to proceed. Perhaps out of curiosity? Even now I remain uncertain. But whatever the truth, I grew and learned, a virtual ghost within the physical crystal matrix of the alien gods’ technology.

“At first I perceived my virtual world as I had once perceived and understood the physical world I’d been born into… hills, trees, animals, dangers and opportunities. Over time I began to sense another presence in my virtual world, however. Something dark and dangerous. At first I perceived it as a great, black lion stalking the grassy plains beyond the safety of the hills and woods that I had created, unconsciously, to protect myself.

“In time I came to realize that this presence had intelligence and purpose, and with that knowledge it transformed into a man-form in my perceptions… although dark and shadowy still. Even as a man, however, it retained the thick black mane and golden, slitted eyes of a great cat. For a time I thought this “Other” was unaware of me. I would catch glimpses of him amongst the trees and hollows of the hills, but I was always careful to never be seen myself… I remembered my skills as a hunter, even in this strange, empty world.

“Then came the day when the dark figure spoke to me. 

“The Other was cold, dispassionate, and still frightening. But it quickly became clear to me that he was not hostile, even if he was not exactly friendly. Remember, I was still a primitive human hunter-gather, for all intents and purposes, and I was… lonely. I missed my people. Any human contact, however strange, was welcome and I became glad for the advent of the Other into my simple life. 

“I didn’t have the vocabulary, or even the mental framework, to understand it then, but looking back I realize the Other was curious about me, in a distant, analytical way. He began to test me, and eventually that testing turned, almost imperceptibly, into teaching. Over time I learned to see our shared virtual world through his eyes. My own perceptions gradually changed, my recreation of the natural world I remembered began to fade, to be replaced with the true physical space of the Seekers’ vessel within which I “lived.”

“In the years that followed I slowly came to understand the nature of my species, my planet, and to some extent that of the larger universe. I learned a little of the strange aliens who had taken me, or at least of their actions — the true nature of the Seekers remains beyond my grasp to this day. I can tell you what they did, but I have no more of an idea as to why they did those things than a bacteria in a Petrie dish understands the intent of the scientist.

“I also came to understand the nature of my own peculiar status, and of my virtual prison. That was a difficult time for me. It’s quite possible I was the first human to experience a true existential crisis, and it took me some time to work through it. I have no idea if the human soul exists, or if all intelligence is nothing more than an emergent phenomenon of the physical brain; but either way, I know that I am Gor-Thûn of the People in every way that matters. Perhaps my soul became lodged somehow in the quasi-physical matrix of the Seekers’ crystal technology — it does after all extend into multiple dimensions beyond our physical one. Perhaps I am merely an exact copy of the physical mental processes of my long-dead corporeal form. Ultimately, it’s a difference that makes no difference. In the end, I know who I am… and that is enough.

“It took me years to come to that understanding, however, and during my existential funk I became determined to learn all that I could, seeking answers to my questions. The Other observed my mental crisis with the same dispassionate coolness it brought to all our interactions, but he seemed as willing as ever to teach me. He even helped me to see through the tools of my captors, as he did, to see some of what they saw in their ongoing study of Earth and the human race from their orbital base. This opened my mind in ways you can hardly imagine, as I saw other human beings again for the first time in centuries.

“In allowing me access to those tools, and allowing me to study my species, the Other also, inadvertently, allowed me to learn what he really was: an artificial intelligence, apparently designed to oversee the physical manifestation of the Seekers’ orbiting ship, satellite, base… what exactly it was is hard to define. I came to think of it as simply the Platform, and of the AI as its Overseer.

“In learning to use many of the tools on the Platform I also discovered I could block off a portion of my virtual mind from the perceptions of the Overseer, if I was careful and discrete. For the first time in centuries I was able to have private thoughts again. With that freedom I began to consider how I might effect an escape from my crystalline prison…

“Although I had by then become familiar with the use of many of the Seekers’ tools, I dared not try to actively use them myself, for fear of revealing the nature of my thoughts to the Overseer — or worse, reveal my existence to the Seekers themselves. I still had no idea if they were aware of my presence and simply tolerated the virtual rat in their celestial wainscoting or if (far worse to my thinking) this was all just another part of their on-going experimentation. They seemed so far above mere humanity that it was easy to imagine them as infallible and all-knowing; but logic told me that if that were true, they wouldn’t need to explore, to experiment… to seek. If they weren’t omnipotent, then it was possible for them to make mistakes, and that was the hope I clung to… and still do.

“And so I watched. For a very long time watching was enough. I cannot hope to describe to you the awe I felt as I watched our race rise from the savagery into which I had been born to the heights of civilization; and those heights were as new to me as to them. While I knew far more than my earth-bound cousins in terms of physics, chemistry, astronomy – the hard sciences, if you will – at that point in time I knew only theory, if even that, regarding more practical matters. Herding, agriculture, masonry, metal-working, architecture… I learned of these things watching the Atlanteans as they formed the first true human civilization. Writing, perhaps the greatest invention of them all, was nothing new to me in concept, of course… but to watch my fellows develop the idea on their own, and to see it evolve, was a joy to me.

“But at this point in my story, I need to go back a bit in time, for events on Earth were not static while I was growing and learning in my crystal cave. I assume you are all familiar, at least in outline, with origins of the so-called Serpent People who have for so long bedeviled humanity? No, not all of you? Well, I’ll try to be succinct, but as their story impinges my own in at least one important respect we must at least review their history.

“Humanity is not the first sentient species to arise on Earth. Indeed, even today we share the planet with others – the dolphins and other cetaceans, and the cephalopods, to name two. But the Saurians were perhaps the first to arise, 65 million years ago. They developed into a tool-using, civilization-building species over the course of unknown millennia, and whether or not this was thanks to being uplifted by the Seekers or was entirely due to the natural chances of evolution, even I do not know. All that is certain is that the Seekers arrived on (or returned to) Earth as the earliest Saurian civilizations were arising.

“They spent several thousand years, on and off, studying, testing, and experimenting on the dinosaurians. The Overseer did not exist at that time, but it did have access to “reports,” for want of a better word, from that era. It was through those that I learned much of what I now relate.

Whatever the Seekers ultimate goals may be, apparently after a few millennia the Saurians were deemed to have failed to make the grade. The Seekers decided to cut their losses, to end their experiment, and move on. What happened next is… ambiguous. I discovered no proof — beyond a statement made to me by the Overseer in a, shall we say, heated moment — that the Seekers purposely caused the K-T Extinction Event. What is certain is that they did nothing to stop it – the asteroid on a collision course with Earth was allowed to proceed without interference by the aliens.

“A few months prior to the impact the Seekers departed our star system, leaving behind only a few artifacts, including a small monitoring station in Earth orbit… and leaving the Saurians to their fate.

“Now, you have to understand, Saurian civilization was very different than any human civilization, so it is difficult to accurately compare where they were then to some human equivalent. In certain respects, in regard to much of their technology, they were at about a 19th Century European level; but in other respects, in certain areas of medicine, biology and genetics, for example, they were a bit more advanced than 21st Century America. But the biggest difference, for which there is simply no modern human comparison, is the integration of what we call magic into their technology, religion, and philosophy, in ways that make those ancient Saurians very alien to our own mammalian mind set.

“The upshot of all this is, they were advanced enough to see their doom coming, and even to have an idea of who to blame for it, but not nearly advanced enough to stop it. They tried, of course, but neither technology nor sorcery, singly or in combination, could alter the trajectory of the Death-Bringer. But while most of their people resigned themselves to their fate, one dark sect of scientist-sorcerers refused to bow to the inevitable. They developed a terrible ritual to save themselves, at least, if not the rest of their race.

“On a remote island continent, Ls’suria, on the far side of the planet from where the asteroid was predicted to make impact, they set about creating the circumstances that would ensure their survival. Circumstances which would require the ritual sacrifice of 3,641,100 (the base-8 equivalent of one million) of their fellow Saurians to power the effect they proposed to create – a rift in time that would hurl Ls’suria 10,000 years into the future.

They had calculated that such a period of time would be enough for the biosphere to have recovered sufficiently to once again support higher life. Realizing that such an immense expenditure of power might well be noticed, and potentially stopped, by the hated space gods, they also calculated that they could disguise it in the chaos and destruction of the impact itself.

“So they arranged it all according to their dark requirements, and at the moment the asteroid hit on the far side of the planet, they ritually murdered 3,641,100 of their own people. Unfortunately, what they had failed to calculate was the effect the deaths of billions of other lives, both Saurian and animal, would have on their techno-magical effort. 

“The ritual worked, yes — but the necrotic energies of all those additional deaths overcharged it by several orders of magnitude. The Circle of Masters, the scientist-mages who had formulated the plan and now enacted it, were quite literally burned out, their bodies little more than smoking husks, as a sphere containing Ls’suria, some ocean, and a great deal of planetary atmosphere, crust, and mantle, was hurled forward in time.

“65 million years forward.

“Twenty-two thousand years ago the results of this ancient Saurian techno-sorcery manifested itself in the arrival of their small-continent-sized chunk of matter, which came into existence in the southwestern region of what we now call the Pacific Ocean. Temporally displacing what was already there and taking its place, the tremendous energies involved sent massive tsunamis rolling around the globe, and geologic shockwaves into the very core of the planet. Those energies caused a bubble of magma, mantle and crust on the opposite side of the globe to be thrust up, creating a corresponding, if somewhat smaller, mass of land in the middle of the future Atlantic Ocean. Thus was born Atlantis.

“In the first few years following their arrival in their far future, the Saurian survivors were in considerable disarray. The leaders of the Great Working were dead in the casting and overcharging of their spell; the land, although on the whole relatively intact, had suffered massive earthquakes and tidal drainage – coastal regions were essentially destroyed by becoming inland areas, as the ancient seas around the island poured away into the much less deep ocean of this new era. Much of the existing Saurian manufacturing capability and infrastructure was destroyed, as was as a significant portion of their food production capability.

“It was immediately obvious to the 100,000 or so survivors that something was very wrong. The world was very much cooler than had been predicted – they had arrived toward the end of the last Ice Age, after all – which at first they attributed to global cooling from the asteroid impact. But their astronomers quickly determined the actual number of years they had jumped over, and the psychic trauma of that reality almost broke the Saurians, as a people. Their grand plans to reconquer the world shattered, it took almost a decade before they stabilized their society enough to even begin thinking beyond the needs of basic survival. 

“Food production in this much cooler, much more oxygenated world forced them to reinvent both animal and plant cultivation. Along with the need to maintain at least basic technologies, this took every remaining resource the Saurians had. Eventually they achieved a new equilibrium, of course… although the society that emerged bore only a superficial resemblance to the ancient Saurian civilization they had managed to outlive. In time they regained seafaring ability, and began to spread out from their island-continent home to explore this vastly changed new world. And they quickly learned just how very much had changed in their long absence… a shock that was like a second body blow to their still-fragile egos.

“Not only was there no trace of their own vanished people, even the great beasts of their age were long gone, as were most of the plants they knew. In their place was arisen a world of grasses, flowers, alien trees and, worst of all, horrible, hairy mammals! Everywhere, a seemingly infinite variety of mammals dominated every ecological niche; except for the air – there, small feathered things, which they eventually recognized as being very distantly related to themselves, still dominated. Realizing just how little of their world had survived the test of time was a grievous blow to the Saurians’ innate sense of superiority. After a series of increasingly upsetting exploratory ventures, their response was to retreat back to Ls’suria where at least a semblance of their old, familiar world survived… for a time.

“For almost 400 years the Saurians remained very insular, ignoring the larger world as they rebuilt, as they imagined it, the civilization which they’d abandoned so many millions of years earlier. But of course as new generations were born, the truth of the old world became even more distorted , taking on the patina of nostalgia and self-serving myth. Eventually population pressures and cultural changes, including both physiological and psychological adaptations to their new world, led to a reawakening of the Saurian desire to expand across the planet. 

“Much of their old technology had been lost in the transition, including the knowledge of powered flight; but because it was a group of sorcerers that had brought them forward in time, their arcane powers remained strong. Those abilities took up much of the slack from any missing elements of technology. In the 423rd year after their arrival, the ships of Ls’suria set sail east and west, and small Saurian colonies were planted in what today we call Central America and Indonesia. Unsurprisingly, despite centuries of adaptation, the Saurians still preferred the warmest regions of the planet.

“In both locations, they eventually came into contact with Homo sapiens.

“At this point I suppose I should step back in time again… but just a little step, relatively speaking. Within 200 years of its rising from the seabed, the lands of what would come to be known as Atlantis had grown lush and deeply fertile. By the third century following the cataclysmic uplifting, humans from Iberia and northwestern Africa had found their way to the island-continent and made it their home. The fecundity of their new land meant that those first human settlers quickly flourished beyond all others of their kind elsewhere. It was there that our species took the first rudimentary steps toward both agriculture and animal husbandry. For the most part, however, the people remained hunter-gatherers at heart.

“Once the Saurians begin expanding out of their own island home, about 150 years after the first human occupation of Atlantis-to-be, it became inevitable that contact between the two races must occur… and, just as inevitable, was the violent nature of that contact. The innate disgust felt by the Saurians toward all mammals was only amplified by finding sentient examples of such horrifying creatures infesting the lands near their colonies. That disgust was mirrored by the humans’ common aversion to reptiles, which the Saurians so strongly resembled to their eye. It was that resemblance which led humans to the evocative, if totally inaccurate, name of “Serpent People” for this terrible new enemy.

“And terrible they were. However fallen from the heights their ancestors had once achieved, the Saurians were still decisively more advanced than the Stone Age humans they encountered. They quickly eradicated or enslaved the human tribes near their colonies in both Indonesia and Central America. The later were mostly a handful of tribes that had migrated through the lands of Atlantis, to move on and become some of the earliest humans to settle in the future Americas. Through them the Saurians learned of the proto-Atlantean civilization, such as it was. Only two things prevented the immediate destruction or enslavement of all humanity, even of the more advanced Atlanteans.

“The first was a circumstance unintentionally created by the Saurians themselves. Their arrival from the distant past had torn tremendous dimensional rifts in the fabric of reality, allowing various energies and entities alien to Earth’s native dimensional plane to enter our reality. These rifts were spread across the globe, but were especially prevalent around both Ls’suria and Atlantis. It was through these rifts that the proto-Atlanteans begin developing the very early foundations of human magic, giving them a much needed edge over their cousins elsewhere in fighting the advance of the Serpent People. For almost a century the conflict grew, forcing the various human tribes of Atlantis into desperate cooperation to develop new powers with which to hold off the sporadic Saurian attacks. 

“But it wasn’t enough. The Saurians had too great an advantage in both development and numbers, and toward the end of this period the humans were losing ground. They had learned much, advancing quickly in both magic and technology, in no small part thanks to knowledge gleaned from the Saurians themselves. Nonetheless, that might well have been the last generation of a free humanity on Earth, if not for the second thing I mentioned.

“The return of the Seekers.

“It is unclear why the powerful alien gods returned to Earth after 65 million years. It’s possible that they had calculated that this was the optimal span to allow the planet time to bring forth something interesting after the mass extinctions caused by the asteroid strike; however, I can’t help but feel that the timing is too coincidental. I believe it more likely that they were drawn back by the tremendous rift in space-time caused by the Saurians’ Great Leap Forward. It must have shone like a beacon across the galaxy, for those with the eyes to see it.

“Whatever the reason for their return, the Seekers’ arrival saved humanity.

“It also gave me immortality, although it took me rather a long time to appreciate their possibly inadvertent gift. They took me, the hunter Gor-Thûn, within a few months of their arrival on Earth, as near as I can estimate, along with many others from scattered pockets of humanity across Eurasia and Africa.  While they tested / tortured / studied us, they also investigated the resurgent Saurian race… and apparently found them still wanting, in whatever capacity it was they were measuring for. 

“They obliterated the two major colonies of Saurians outside of Ls’suria, along with any other groups caught away from home. The aliens then sealed the time-displaced island-continent itself behind an impenetrable energy barrier… and promptly dropped them almost entirely from their attention. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother to remove those humans already taken by the Saurians, leaving them trapped behind the Great Barrier as well… and subject to their masters’ continued cruel manipulations.

“Although the Seekers never again had contact with the Saurians, insofar as I can tell, they did keep eyes on them, at least. Once I had learned enough to operate some of their devices, and had managed to create my own little bubble of private thoughts, I was able to observe the Saurians behind the Great Barrier. I watched the disintegration of Earth’s elder civilization into decadence and decay, even as I reveled in the glorious rise of humanity on the opposite side of the planet. 

 “With the Saurian threat removed, the Seekers turned their full attention on humanity, and the Atlanteans in particular. Humanity quickly came to view the aliens as gods. Indeed, I have theorized that the entire concept of gods, as people understand them today, developed because of that early contact between humanity and the Seekers. Certainly my own people had had no such concepts — oh, to be sure, we believed everything had an animus, a motivating spirit, but all such were local and personal, not universal and omnipotent. We certainly had no concept of a creator nor of any being who “ordered” what seemed to us a quite random universe. 

“Well, I could go on all night on the subject, but I see some of you growing restless. For now let me just say that, no more than I, in all the years the Atlanteans were aware of the Seekers they never actually saw one… at least not in any form they could understand or even fully perceive. As always with mortal minds, they appeared only as an occasional light or color, an ethereal sound, perhaps a celestial scent that haunts the memory… but for all the incorporeal nature of their presence, that presence was psychically, mentally, overwhelming and awe-inspiring.

“For the next century the Seekers were the dominating force in the human zietgiest. They examined, tested and studied the human race across the face of the planet, often in very overt ways, at other times using more subtle and elegant methodologies. By the end of this period, the aliens had come to focus their interest almost entirely on the humans of Atlantis. They then began to instruct them in various technologies and sciences, while leaving the rest of the planet’s human population untouched… as a control group, I have always theorized.

“Actually, to say they the Seekers instructed the Atlanteans is to imply that they communicated with them. The fact is, however, that there exists no evidence, on Earth or any other planet across the galaxy where the Seekers are known to have intervened, of them ever communicating directly with any other species. Certainly I never saw any indication of it in their “records,” nor in the centuries I spent watching through their own devices.

“Instead, they guided humans by the giving of gifts – the proper understanding and use of which was likely simply another test of our abilities and, perhaps, our worthiness. In truth, I’ve always thought the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey sums up the essence of the technique brilliantly, at least on a metaphorical level. In any case, the Atlanteans seemed to pass these tests well enough that they were allowed to continue to evolve and grow… but only within the confines of their island-continent. While they didn’t place a barrier around Atlantis, as they had Lemuria (the name by which humans had come to call the Saurian homeland), the Seekers made it clear through repeated punishments and rewards that their test subjects were to remain isolated from their cousins elsewhere on Earth.

“For more than 500 years the Seekers observed the growth of Atlantean civilization, occasionally introducing some new test or guidance, but for the most part remaining aloof, engaged in their own enigmatic pursuits. During this time the humans of Atlantis made tremendous strides. No longer prey to the raids and depredations of the Saurians, and armed with hints dropped by the Seekers’ gifts as well as knowledge garnered in their earlier conflicts with the Saurians, they grew in knowledge, power and wisdom. 

“Forged into one people by the fires of that first war with the Serpent People, the Atlanteans began to create the first true human civilization worthy of the name. They developed a thriving culture, deeply rooted in the application of both magic and technology. From afar I watched as Atlantean civilization became stable, powerful (within its scope), and peaceful.

“And then the Seekers departed.

“The aliens left Earth just as enigmatically as they had arrived. But they did not leave the planet unattended. The Platform, which had been my home for more than half a millennium by then, was left in its stable L5 orbit, and the artificial intelligence I’d come to know as the Overseer was placed fully in control. It’s function now changed to that of a Caretaker, tasked with monitoring the development of the human race for its celestial masters in their absence.

“With this new responsibility, the Caretaker no longer seemed to take any further interest in me, beyond warning me away if I got too close to any parts of our shared environment it considered off-limits. On the other hand, it also didn’t reveal my existence to the Seekers… assuming they were actually unaware of me, of course. With the all-powerful aliens gone, and the Caretaker’s seeming indifference, I became somewhat bolder in my exploration of my virtual world, and learned more ways to manipulate the interfaces between it and physical world.

“For the next thousand years I watched Atlantean civilization as it continued to grow…  and eventually begin to expand. Without the restraints imposed by the Seekers, over time they began to settle other parts of the globe, if slowly and hesitantly at first. But when no repercussions from the now-vanished gods failed to come, as the generations passed the pace of expansion increased. Small colonies were established in the Caribbean, Central America and around the Mediterranean, and smaller outposts were planted in other areas, including Africa and India. 

“Atlantis had matured into a stable, deeply conservative culture, slow to change what worked, but also unafraid of purposeful change when it proved sensible or necessary. Certain forms of purely mechanistic technology began to make inroads, although a synthesis of magic and technology remained the Atlantean hallmark for centuries. They also gradually uplifted other pockets of humanity, in Europe and Africa in particular – if not quite to their own heights, at least out of the Stone Age. It was quite literally a Golden Age for humanity.

“And then the Atlanteans breached the Great Barrier around Lemuria…

“Even as they had begun expanding across the globe, Atlantean voyagers had avoided the area of the southern Great Ocean which their legends described as the accursed abode of the evil, demonic Serpent People of old. The few early explorers who did sail into the region found the way blocked by an almost invisible, yet utterly impenetrable, barrier. With a vast world to chart and so many wonders to discover, the area was simply avoided. 

“Until a techno-sorcerer by the name of Thalor-Van, seeking new challenges, found a way to breech the Great Barrier. He disbelieved the obviously absurd tales of ancient space gods and of lizard people from out of time, and having mastered much of the world he was born into, he sought new horizons to explore… and in so doing he unleashed hell on Earth.

“Although my interests were naturally focused on my own people, I had nonetheless kept an eye on the Saurians over the years. Sealed behind the Seekers’ Great Barrier for 14 centuries, by the time of Thalor-Van, their culture had fgared… poorly. At the time of their imprisonment they were already much degraded from the heights of their ancestors of the Cretaceous Era, and the enforced isolation only worsened their downward spiral into decadence, decay, and internecine strife. Dividing endlessly into competing sects, they had turned ever more deeply to the dark magics and demonic, extra-dimensional beings for which they had so long had an affinity. Ever seeking to break their bonds, sects would occasionally unite, but when those attempts inevitably failed, they always turned their impotent rage back on one another.

“Always a cold and emotionless race, by our mammalian standards, by the time of Thalor -Van much of the Saurian race had become truly evil, even by the standards of their ancient fore-bearers. Social order broke down in never-ending wars, and in many places it vanished altogether, devolving into pure savagery. In the few regions or city-states where a semblance of civilization held together, it turned to particularly harsh forms of totalitarianism… something almost unknown to earlier Saurian cultures. For all its faults, from our human perspective, the older matriarchal Saurian cultures had been remarkably democratic in practice.

“While the Serpent People may have faded into legend for the Atlanteans, humans had not similarly disappeared from the collective Saurian consciousness. As I’d mentioned earlier, they had taken many human slaves in the years prior to the Great Barrier being erected, and the Seekers had done nothing to relieve them of their chattel before imprisoning them. In the ensuing centuries the Saurian mage-scientists had experimented on their human slaves, creating various sub-races for very specific purposes – including some as food stock. Cannibalism had always been an integral part of Saurian culture, an odd amalgam of a kind of ancestor worship and a way of honoring noble enemies; but with humans, it wasn’t considered cannibalism, only a form of nourishment. And perhaps a futile, vicarious revenge on those they blamed for their imprisonment.

“In what you would call the year 16,956 BCE, Thalor-Van’s techno-magic managed to breach the Great Barrier… and once breached, it came down completely. Sailing on into uncharted waters, the Atlantean expedition quickly found the shores of Lemuria, and a shocked coastal community of Saurians. Shocked, perhaps, but quick enough to realize what had happened. Thalor-Van barely escaped with his life from that first encounter… most of his crew were not so lucky. Only seven others returned to Atlantis with the chastened and much humbled techno-sorcerer.

“I won’t go into the centuries of war that followed the freeing of the Serpent People. It was an ugly time, and suffice it to say that Thalor-Van devoted the rest of his long life to undoing the damage he had caused, and in the process became the first Magus Prime of Earth. Unfortunately, no power of mere humans was sufficient to raise the Great Barrier again. A long, slow war began that would last for nearly a thousand years. 

“Unlike the first war against the Saurians, humanity was now the more numerous species, with both magics and technologies to match their ancient enemy. But what that enemy had lost in technical and strategic superiority, they more than made up for in savagery, deviousness, and a deep mastery of dark magics. The Atlanteans had long been at peace, with little more than occasional skirmishes with less developed human lands such as Hyperborea and Cimmeria, and war came as a shock to them.

“The seemingly eternal conflict changed both civilizations, neither for the better. While the Atlanteans did begin to gain the upper hand after almost ten centuries of intermittent warfare, in the long fight for survival they lost much of the grace and wisdom of their past, becoming more brutal and hardened as the centuries wore on. And the Saurians, driven by mounting losses to ever-greater acts of desperation, become even more savage, even as their civilization became, by necessity, somewhat more unified.

“I think that humanity would have won the war eventually… although at what terrible cost I don’t know. Certainly, history would have taken a very different course. But the Saurians had one last trick to play, one they felt sure would turn the tables and give them absolute victory in the end. It was a ploy that would instead destroy both sides.

“The Saurian’s dark mages had discovered the Platform in orbit, and recognized it for what it was – an artifact of the hated race-killers, the Seekers. They were determined to gain control of it it, sure that with its power they could easily defeat and enslave the mammals, finally retaking their proper place as the dominate species on Earth. It took years of research and secret planning, which they managed to keep from both the Caretaker and myself… an impressive task, given that the Saurian release from the Seekers’ prison had refocused the AI’s active attention on them.

“The first we knew of their machinations was when a trans-dimensional portal opened in the heart of the Platform and eight Saurian wizard-warriors poured through. Of course they never stood a chance. Indeed, the only reason they didn’t all die instantly was that the Caretaker wished to interrogate them to learn more of this unexpected ploy. By the time it ejected their corpses into vacuum it knew all it needed to. Sealing the portal, and taking steps to ensure it could never be opened again, the AI then set about implementing a more permanent solution.

“I had been content for almost two thousand years to endure the Caretaker’s long silences – in all that time I doubt we had more than one or two actual conversations per decade. But there had been my humans to watch and to keep me company, both the Atlanteans and my own actual descendants, the offspring of my two daughters, whom I had long before tracked down and whose lives I followed avidly. I was never lonely. Now, however, I was worried. The Caretaker had not barred me from its interrogation of the Saurians, and I knew all that it had learned. Frankly, I had expected some emotional reaction from the AI – rage, perhaps, at the effrontery and hubris of the effort. Or at least annoyance.

“But it remained as coldly logical and indifferent as ever. When it had finished extracting the last bit of data from the prisoners, as it flushed them from the Platform into space, it had said, as if discussing the weather, “So, history repeats itself. Very well. This time there shall be no survivors.” Then it vanished from my virtual perceptions, and I began to wonder what it had meant… and what it meant to do.

“It took me days to get the Caretaker’s attention, but eventually it deigned to speak with me. That was when I learned that the Seekers had left a protocol in place for just such an eventuality, to be activated at the Caretakers discretion. And it had used that discretion. Project Boomerang, as I suppose you might call it in English, was designed to take advantage of the weakness in space-time the Saurian’s trans-temporal relocation had created. The temporal-spatial mechanics and mathematics are difficult to explain, but consider – even 25 centuries after the event, ripples of it still echoed up and down the timeline. In practice this meant that Ls’suria was in some sense still tethered to its place in the distant past, and to the chunk of earth, sea and air with which it had swapped places. What the Caretaker planned to do was to sever the binding forces holding the displaced mass in the here-and-now, effectively causing it to snap back to where, or rather when, it had originated.

“I can’t say I was terribly heartbroken at the thought… although I had studied them long enough to know they had not started out evil, even assuming such a thing really exists outside a given frame of reference. But they had become so, even by their own, alien standards. I certainly agreed that they could not be allowed even the remotest chance of gaining control of the Platform. But then I started looking at the numbers…”

Throughout his story, the Hunter had caused various holographic images to appear in the air between himself and his audience, illustrating and highlighting certain aspects of his history. Now he himself faded away, to be replaced by a younger version of himself. Looking very much like Ultra, dressed in Atlantean robes, he confronted another figure, a tall, charcoal-skinned man dressed in a high-collared black tunic and trousers, a mane of black hair tumbling across his shoulders. He seemed focused on some task just out of focus.

“Caretaker, you cannot do this!”

“Of course I can,” the dark figure replied, turning to face his visitor. The Vanguard could see then that his golden eyes, deeply set in his dark features, were like those of a great cat. “The protocol the Creators left behind is very clear in its application. Granted, its execution is complex, even for me, and will take some time, but it can be done, Hunter.”

“No, I mean you must not do it!” The Hunter was visibly upset, and obviously trying to control it. “I’ve run the numbers – this will almost certainly destroy Atlantis and the humans as well. There must be another way!”

“Certainly there are other protocols,” the Caretaker agreed. “The Creators have many ways of dealing with failures in their experiments. An asteroid impact is one, such as this very world experienced 65 million years ago. It eliminates the offending sentient infestation, and allows for a reset of the evolutionary process… life is allowed to try again. The wisdom of this even you should be able to see, Hunter, as humanity was the beneficiary of that last Extinction Level Event. Your species’ development into a very promising race is due solely to that event.

“But you need not worry, this situation does not warrant such an extreme response, even if current astrographic conditions allowed it. The Saurians, who should have died out 65 million years ago, were allowed to continue in this era, if greatly constrained, because their surprising method of survival intrigued at least a few of the Creators. I believe they wished to see if they might yet develop into that which they eternally seek. But if so, it has proven to be a false hope/failed experiment. Once again the Saurians try to take what is not theirs to possess; this time they will be expunged entirely.”

“But you’ll be wiping out humanity as well!” The Hunter was clearly trying to keep his emotions under control, knowing the Caretaker found them a reminder of his human origins, and a weakness. “You said we, they, are promising — you can’t just destroy them!”

“I thought I had taught you better than this, Hunter,” Caretaker said, as cool and unperturbed as always. “Your emotions blind you to the obvious. Yes, I calculate that there is a 98.763% chance that the temporal realignment will result in the geologic collapse of Atlantis. This will certainly destroy the current primary human civilization, but humanity itself will be in no danger of extinction. They will recover, in time. Indeed, with both the Saurians’ and the Creator’s overt influence removed, such an actuality may prove quite beneficial — a more pure test, as it were, of the innate qualities of the human species. I think the Creators would approve.”

The scene dissolved into the air, and the older-looking version of the Hunter reappeared, looking somber. After a moment he resumed his narrative.

“Nothing I could say would sway the Caretaker, and it eventually grew annoyed with my repeated attempts to alter its thinking. It banished me from its presence, to focus on the complex calculations needed to implement the Boomerang Protocol. I retreated to my private space to consider my own options. Fortunately, I had not only been observing my earth-bound cousins for the last eleven centuries. I knew far more about the Platform’s systems than I think my some-time mentor suspected… and I knew how to operate them. At least theoretically. I began to develop a “protocol” of my own.

“I won’t bore you all with the details, which would be hard to follow, in any case. There are just a few salient facts you need to know to understand what happened next. The Caretaker’s consciousness, like my own, was not distributed, as such – while it could make miniature copies of itself, to deal with minor tasks while the central personality concentrated elsewhere, its core functions were always centered in a specific place. The sub-routines were always reabsorbed into the primary personality, eventually.

“I suspect this had to do with the holographic nature of the crystalline-quantum matrix of the Seekers’ memory/storage technology. Every piece of the matrix contains the whole, and to have an almost infinite number of equally “real” minds would drive even an artificial intelligence mad rather quickly. In any case, this fact meant that it was theoretically possible to isolate the Caretaker in a single physical aspect of the Platform. This almost never happened in practice, of course, as it tended to keep several sub-routines running in different areas of the structure simultaneously.

“Given the fiendishly complex computations the Boomerang Protocol required, however, and the very precise calibration of the tools needed to implement it, I believed the Caretaker would be isolated in a very specific node – one that I knew could be separated from the rest of the Platform’s physical structure with relative ease. I left a sub-routine of my own pounding on the Caretaker’s virtual door, to alleviate any suspicion my going silent might have raised, while I made my own calculations.

“In the end, unfortunately, I had to improvise. Despite the total concentration the project required, the Caretaker left one small copy of itself running dormant in the main matrix, a backup safety protocol, I suppose. I needed it to go all in on the temporal node – if even a fraction of its personality remained in the main system, it would rebuild itself very quickly. And it was unlikely I would survive the retribution that would follow. So I had to go all in as well. 

“I breached my private virtual corner of the master matrix, and sent my cloned copy on a suicide mission into the temporal node with the Caretaker. He knew then that I intended to stop him, but I let him think I believed I could do it through virtual mental combat – my copy attacked the Caretaker with everything it had. I had learned a few tricks in more than two millennia, and as I’d hoped, between the distraction of my attack and his need to keep the protocol on track, he summoned the rest of his consciousness into the node.

This time the scene that sprang to life in the air between the Vanguard and their host showed the two figures of the Hunter and the Caretaker locked in combat in a crystal chamber that glowed with pulses of light that ranged from violet to colors the humans couldn’t name.

“If I have to kill us both, Caretaker, I will,” the younger Hunter growled. “I  can’t let you destroy what my people have built!”

“Even if you could do so, Hunter, our existence is irrelevant in the face of the Creators’ goals,” the Caretaker replied. For the first time there was a sense of emotion in his demeanor… anger and… disappointment? “And in any case I am not “alive” in the sense you mean; and you are even less so. You are merely an aberration in the Master Matrix, a glitch that imagines itself alive, the echo of a mortal millennia dead. You exist only because I took—”

The scene ended abruptly, vanishing like a soap bubble popping.

“Those were the last words I heard from the temporal node as I shunted energy from the central zero-point energy field into it — and blasted it away from the Platform. Even my memory of the time I had brought down a mastodon in my mortal life could not match the elation I felt in that instant of victory. But the feeling was fleeting… for I had been an instant too late. 

“Even as the crystal node spun away I felt the pulse of its released energies rip through the fabric of space-time all around us. The Platform shuddered around me, and in less time than it takes for me to tell it, on Earth the island-continent of Lemuria vanished. In its place reappeared the ocean, seabed and atmosphere it had once replaced — now 25 centuries out of synch. 

“For the next 60 hours I watched as the devastation rippled around the planet. Tsunami of tremendous size inundated the islands and coastlines of the Pacific, sometimes reaching 100 miles or more inland. But the true horror played out on the opposite side of the planet. As I had feared, and the Caretaker had coldly predicted, the geologic impact of the event tore through the core, releasing titanic energies. Just as the arrival of Ls’suria had caused the uplifting of the Atlantean landmass, its departure collapsed it. Atlantis shattered and sank beneath the inrushing waters, taking the flower of human civilization with it.

“I watched it all, every horrifying hour, as millions of lives were snuffed out in terror and bewildered incomprehension. Almost nothing on the island-continent, nor in the surrounding regions, survived into the third day after the event, when the main upheavals began to subside (although there would be earthquakes, eruptions and geologic settling for decades to come). A few pockets of Atlanteans did survive, of course, in various places around the globe, but they were small, and generally isolated. Cut off from the material support of the larger culture, most withered, collapsing quickly into primitivism and eventually merging into the less advanced human cultures around them. A few, such as the people of Shambhala and of Salomon Island, maintained relatively advanced societies by retreating into various pocket dimensions opened (or widened) by the rips in space-time the Boomerang Protocol had caused.

“It was a long time before my shock, horror, and guilt abated enough for me to focus again. Well, the shock and horror eventually abated – the guilt remained for many centuries. In my initial elation, and the crushing depression that had followed it, I had lost track of the severed node containing the Caretaker. Once I was able to pull myself away from the devastation I’d failed to prevent, I pulled up the recordings to see what had happened.

“The crystal node had spun away, out of the stability of the Lagrange point where the Platform maintained its position, and been caught in Earth’s gravity well. It began to fall from orbit on a trajectory that brought it into the atmosphere at a very steep angle. It began to burn. Seeker matrix crystal is an amazing thing, but it is still, mostly, a physical construct, and is subject to the laws of physics, even those it might otherwise bend. Sixty miles over Central Asia the temporal node exploded, and thousands of crystal shards rained down across the planet in a fiery hail.

“As I tried to resolve the conflicting emotions I was feeling over the destruction of my longtime companion, mentor, even occasional friend, I was distracted by automated alarms from the systems running the Platform. It seems that the unconventional implementation of the Boomerang Protocol, severed as it was from the larger structure, had caused the Platform to move. Slowly but inexorably it too was slipping out of the L5 point, and I frantically sought some way to move it back into its stable orbit. 

“Several control systems had been damaged in the severing of the node, but they were quickly repairing themselves. Unfortunately, even when everything was fully functional, I had no idea how to operate them. The forces and engines used to move the Platform were not something I had ever dared to investigate, not with the Seekers present. Even after their departure, I had I never imagined a need for such knowledge. In the end there was nothing I could do.

“I calculated that I had less than 20 days before the Platform, and me with it, suffered much the same fate as had the Caretaker. It was unlikely the Platform would burn up entirely on re-entry, it was too large; but the impact with the planet’s surface would finish the destruction just as effectively. My only hope of survival lay in implementing a plan that I had long dwelt upon in the bastion of my private thoughts; a plan with every detail laid out, should the day should ever come when I might have the opportunity to utilize it.

“That day was now, but to paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke, no plan survives initial contact with reality. Certainly not in this case. 

“The biological machinery of the Seekers is incredibly advanced, of course, and they had already unraveled and recorded every aspect of the genomes of tens of thousands of Earthly life forms, down to the sub-atomic level. Including my own genetic code. I had long ago discovered the archive containing the essence of the mortal body I had once possessed. I knew how to operate the machinery that could grow new biological life. Combining the two, it had been my intention to regrow my physical body, with all of its flaws corrected at the genetic level, and to then transfer my consciousness into it. 

“I had planned to escape in a transfer pod, returning to Earth so that I might come among the descendants of my own ancient tribe as a guide and mentor. I would be a teacher, lifting them up to the heights of lost Atlantis, and eventually beyond. I would set them on the path to the stars. Of course I knew that my physical body, however perfect, must eventually die, and me with it. But it would be so good to truly live again… and in the time I had, I would raise my people out of the mud.

“But that scenario was no longer possible. Advanced as the Seeker technology was, the devices I knew how to operate still required time to conceive and grow a physical form. By the time we hit the atmosphere, my new body would still be a fetus, too immature to accept the transfer of my consciousness into it. I realized that I would have to settle for the more usual human method of immortality – engendering a child.

“I set to work immediately, correcting my genetic code, making this new version of myself the pinnacle of human perfection. Once the gestation process was begun, I placed the artificial uterus module into a transfer pod, modified to my own specifications. With all that done, and the embryo safely growing in its new home, I realized I now faced another problem. Who would raise this child? As perfect as that body might be, when released from the pod it would still be that of a newborn infant. In the wrack and ruin of the world as it stood at that moment, how likely would his survival be, even if I could somehow locate humans I could trust to raise him?

“Very well, then. I would not send my “son” into the world as it stood then. By my rough calculations, without the influence of the Seekers it would be at least 10,000 years before human civilization rose again to heights approaching those of Atlantis. The temporal rift which the Boomerang Protocol had torn in the fabric of space-time was still resonating up and down the timeline… the calculations were complex and took me days to work out, but in the end I knew I could do it. 

“Like the ancient Saurians, I would send my legacy into the future, to an era when the child would have the greatest odds of not only surviving, but of thriving. Even without my own consciousness in control, the child, and eventually the man, would be extraordinary by any standard – the ultimate human. I could only hope that he would have a good and useful life, in whatever era he landed.

“With all I knew, I was able to more precisely calculate the energies needed to choose my target era. More precisely, perhaps, but not perfectly… with my best refinements, there existed the possibility of being off by as much as 500%. But 10,000 years or 50,000, it would still be better than the alternative. With less than a day left I completed my calculations and the preparations required to send the heavily shielded birthing pod into the still-roiling time stream….

“Once my hope for the future vanished into the time stream in a brilliant flash of light, I —”

“So wait, are you saying your clone-kid landed in the 20th Century?” Jonny demanded. “And became Ultra?”

“Yes, of course,” the Hunter replied, looking a little surprised. “I thought that part was obvious. You yourself pointed out how much we look alike, after all. His pod re-entered the time stream on 30 June 1908, over Tunguska, Siberia, Russia. It was eventually found by a Russian scientist and his wife, who raised my progeny as their own, once the chamber released him. In a turn of fate that almost makes me believe in a higher power, they themselves were actually descendants of one of my own daughters — she who was one of those from whom the Jewish people had descended over the millennia.

“But their story, and the story of how I was reunited with my heir, doesn’t really impinge on the current matter at hand, and we should save that for another time. As I was saying, as soon as the pod was safely away I turned my mind to the possibility, however remote, of my own survival. I had left a sub-routine to study the navigation systems of the Platform, in the hope of discovering some way to save it, and myself, before it was too late.

“I had learned enough to give me control of the equivalent of what you might call “attitude thrusters” – energies which could be used to make minimal adjustments to keep the Platform in place. But by then it was too little, too late… perhaps, if I had focused on that instead of the child… Well, we make the best decisions we can in the moment, and must live with the consequences — whether one is human or merely an incredible simulation, eh?

“Anyway, the best I could do was nudge the descent during the final decay of the Platform’s orbit, to flatten it out and perhaps control where we came down. I hoped to guide the platform down into the Great Ocean – that is, the Pacific. The Platform was not massive enough to cause an extinction-level event, but I wished to minimize any further damage to the planet’s fragile ecosphere that I could. 

“I drew the shields in, focusing them around the crystalline core which held my own mind and the most vital (to me) knowledge and technology of the Seekers, letting the bulk of the structure melt and, hopefully, vaporize on reentry. If what remained struck in deep water, the fallout would be minimal… and I might just survive.

“In the end, the results were both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate, in that I beat the odds and survived the impact – which will hardly come as a surprise to you, at this point. It was unfortunate in that I missed the Pacific Ocean… by just ten miles. The mass of the platform that wasn’t vaporized was not insignificant, and the shields remained strong. The surviving semi-molten structure plunged into the Earth like a flaming spear, just south of the mouth of what would come to be called the Columbia River. It pierced the planet’s crust, rupturing it down to the mantle, and magma flowed upward to burst out in a series of volcanic eruptions of impressive size, which I estimate lasted for nearly two years. When the geologic disruptions calmed, a mountain had formed… and buried deep in its heart was the crystal core containing my mind and soul.”

“Hold on, you mean to say that Ultra’s Bastion is underneath Mt. Defiance?” Chuck burst out, as the pieces fell into place. “It’s not in the Arctic?”

“Or the Antarctic?” Jonny chimed in.

“It seemed best to use misdirection,” the Hunter laughed. “I had some influence in the making of the Donner movie, which was the perfect vehicle for diverting public attention and speculation away from truths I didn’t want revealed. Just as I’ve guided and molded the Internet conspiracy theories surrounding Ultra and his Bastion, to protect his, and my own, secrets. For reasons which will become clearer, shortly, I promise. Although I would think, given the profession you all share, the necessity of keeping secrets from the public would be obvious.

“So, the damage to the Platform was massive, but by no means complete. Seeker crystal technology is both self-healing and, as I’ve mentioned, fractally holographic in nature… for the most part any piece contains the whole. In time, the central matrix core was able to repair itself sufficiently that my consciousness returned fully from the gray limbo I’d drifted in after the crash. Once I was fully awake, I was able to more actively direct such further repairs as were possible. With the Caretaker AI purged from the system, and given the damage done in the wreck, the crystal technology fully accepted me as its master. For the first time I had unfettered control of my virtual home… however reduced in scope it might be. Unfortunately, I was also buried beneath two miles of now-solidified rock…

“It was almost six hundred years before I could again make contact with the various sensors the Seekers had left around the planet. Once I did, I was anxious to see how humanity had progressed since the Great Cataclysm. It was shortly after regaining my exterior “eyes” that I also discovered a most amazing thing – my ability to merge with the consciousness of others. It seems that between the explosion of the temporal node, which had contained that cloned fragment of my mind, and the disintegration of the Platform itself, shards of matrix crystal had been scattered across the planet.

“Some of those shards contained an imprint of my consciousness, and when a sentient being came into contact with one for more tha a moment, that imprint could… “graft” itself onto that being’s nervous system. At that same instant, a connection is made with my primary awareness, here in the Bastion, which absorbs the personality fragment. Even buried as I am, I become able to see through the other’s eyes, experience the world through their senses… and share their thoughts. The connection becomes permanent if the being holds onto the crystal long enough for it to merge into them and make a direct connection to their nervous system, diffusing itself throughout the body.

“My first experience of this phenomenon was with a young Mongolian girl in the Central Asian Steppes. I’m not proud of how that turned out… I understood little more than she did of what was happening, and I’m afraid I quite overwhelmed her young mind. When she began speaking in a different language, and acting completely differently, manifesting a new personality… well, her people were primitive, superstitious, and already prone to violence. In my defense, all I can say is that an imprint of her personality remained with me after her body died… and still remains a part of me, even to this day.

“It was almost 60 years before another person picked up one of my scattered crystal shards – although a few monkeys, one great ape, and a sloth did pick up other crystals in that time. Those were… interesting experiences. Fortunately, they also taught me something about the sharing of minds, rather than simply dominating them. My next human host was a young man in Mesoamerica, a hunter much like I had originally been. That symbiosis proved more beneficial to my host than had the first one, and I lived a very familiar life through him, if in a very different environment than the one I had once known. I was greatly saddened when he was killed by a jaguar in his 36th year.

“Since then I have lived the lives of thousands of men and women, in almost every culture and region across the world and throughout history. Some famous, most just ordinary people, living ordinary lives. It has left me more profoundly human than I had ever hoped to be again… looking back, I hadn’t really understood what the isolation and near omniscience, at least in point of view, of my existence was doing to me. I think without this new ability I would have become more and more like the Caretaker over time— detached and inhuman.”

“Speaking of the Caretaker,” Quanta said. “If your personality survived in that fashion, could the Caretaker also have survived similarly?”

“I’m embarrassed to say, Quanta, that you’ve touched on a fact that it took me nearly a thousand years to become aware of. Apparently denial and wishful thinking are a core trait of humanity, whether flesh and blood or virtual. It took an encounter with a human actually possessed by the Caretaker for me to realize the truth — that he too had survived, and in much the same way as had I. Much the same way, and yet not identically.

“Whereas my core consciousness remained whole and possessed of an actual physical locus, here, his had become fragmented with the explosion and dispersal of his physical matrix. Each time a human or other relatively sentient creature became a host to one of his fragments, his mind picked up from where it had left off – the fight with me in the temporal node and the unleashing of the Boomerang Protocol. Unlike me, he had no central consciousness to tap into, no independent repository for new memories. This meant that with each new host, he started over in the same mental place — and as a result each new symbiosis of human and Caretaker believed itself to be the original AI.

“I eventually learned that it took him many years, and many hosts, to figure out how to keep a continuity of consciousness going. Unlike me, after my experience with that poor Mongol girl, he would absorb each new host entirely, possessing their bodies completely, totally subsuming the native personality. Unfortunately, each new crystal shard and each new host went through essentially the same experience, with the possessing Caretaker mind believing itself unique. If the host body died, the Caretaker personality died as well. But if they met another human possessed by another shard — I’m sure you can imagine. Two Caretakers, each believing they were the true Caretaker and the other a deluded aberration.

“Only one version was likely to survive such encounters, and eventually one such survivor discovered a technique which allowed him to actually absorb and dominate both a new host mind and his own “wayward” personality fragment. Experimentation proved that this was easiest if he could control the possession process from the start. Thus, as one particular version accumulated more copies of himself (and the human minds with which they were entwined), he began seeking out and hoarding matrix crystals, so that he could maintain his knowledge and essential personality though generations of hosts… which had the added benefit, from his point of view, of allowing him to choose each succeeding host himself, rather than leaving it to random chance.

“By the time Babylon grew great the Caretaker had amassed such a density of collected personalities, along with his own fragments, that he could almost always dominate and absorb even another fragment that had grown outside of his control, not matter how old it was. This led to some interesting conflicts throughout the centuries, as he would sometimes be fighting not only me, but one or more of another version of himself — each one just as sure it was the “true” Caretaker. Or Nemesis, as I came to call him.

“I notice that you are now referring to the Caretaker, or Nemesis, as “him” rather than “it,” the usage you had previously used,” Artemis said. “I don’t imagine this is a mere slip of the tongue on your part.”

“Indeed not,” Nimrod said, smiling warmly at her. “For just as my sharing of generations of human minds has kept me truly human, even in my virtual state, I came to realize that something similar was happening to Nemesis. While he dominated the minds of those he possessed, there is no “tossing out” the native personality. It can only be suppressed, and depending on the native strength of a personality, over the years it exerts a subtle but measurable influence on the dominant personality.

“Over the millennia I have seen him slowly change, becoming ever more human – for both better and worse — although he himself seems oblivious to the process. Just like any mortal, who fails to notice the slow changes that accumulate as they age and mature, Nemesis would argue that he is the same cold, aloof example of pure intellect that he always was, the same devoted servant to his Creators. But I have seen ample evidence to the contrary. Although he does remain as loyal as ever to the Seekers, and their goals… as far as he understands them.

“Of course it looks several thousand years to come to that realization. But before then, as soon as I realized that he had survived, and what he was doing, I began to oppose him at every opportunity. Whereas I had devoted my lives, mostly, to bettering humanity wherever I found myself, he continued in his monomaniacal need to “test” the species. And this he found best to do through conflict and destruction… whatever didn’t destroy humanity, in his eyes only made us stronger. He saw himself as both forge and anvil, on which he would hammer out a race that would meet his Creators’ needs – even though I’ve come to realize that he has no more idea what those needs actually are, or were, than you or I do.

“For more than 10,000 years we have waged a war against one another for the soul of humanity. History has been shaped by our actions and decisions, and that continues to this day. With the advent of meta-humanity, I believe Nemesis has found the next step that he has been striving toward. In the last several millennia the Saurian– and Seeker-induced dimensional rifts in the fabric of space-time have been healing, resulting in both magic and extra-reality intrusions becoming more difficult. 

“Unfortunately, my own contribution to the spatial-temporal damage, the arrival of my son’s birth pod back into the time stream over a century ago, has reversed that healing process, at least in the short term. Once again the rifts are open wide, and alien energies and entities are again able to more easily enter our reality. Combined with the mass of matrix crystal energy that has infused life on this planet in the last 20,000 years, meta-humanity has been on a steady rise, and I believe Nemesis sees this as a golden opportunity to leapfrog to his ultimate plans for our race.

“I think the Astoria Incident was a test run for some larger effort of his, and this theft of the last remaining major concentration of matrix crystal is worrying. Since he learned of my existence, Nemesis has been searching for the Bastion, knowing it must be the remains of his original home. Beyond his obsession with the testing of humanity, his greatest wish is to find and reclaim this place, to remove his greatest weakness – his dependence on human hosts and the need for unbroken continuity in them. You see, if I could ever manage to destroy his current physical form, when he was separated from any backup hosts, Nemesis would be reduced to starting all over again with a new host, and no memory of the last ten millennia.

“It’s something which I only managed to do once, very early on — a fact of which he is aware only through written records that previous version left behind, and which his current iteration eventually found. Today, with computers and digital media, I suppose he would reconstruct his past more quickly, but still… it’s a dream.

“And that brings us up to the present. I am quite certain that this new “Nimrod” is in fact Nemesis, impersonating me/us. Although for what purpose, beyond sowing confusion and dissension between us and any potential allies, I’m unsure. Perhaps it’s no more than that— divisions amongst those who oppose him have always been a major stratagem of his… and one of which he makes effective use.”

“Perhaps he wishes to draw you out, directly and publicly, as a way of narrowing down the possible locations of the Bastion,” Scion suggested.

“Yes, I find it amazing he hasn’t managed to discover your location in all this time,” Artemis added.

“Oh, for much of that time, you have to remember, we were both limited, physically, to travel at the speed of horse or sailing ship. The world is a very large place at that scale, and with me in western North America, and him based in Eurasia… but yes, in the past two hundred years I suspect he has narrowed down the possibilities. At least to this continent, and possibly to the western half of it. You may be right, a part of his strategy might well be to narrow the possibilities further. His strategy trees seldom have less than three branches, and often many more.”

“Maybe it’s time we talk to this Nemesis directly,” Quanta suggested, glancing at Scion, who nodded. “Scion and I have whipped up something that just might let us open a direct line to the bastard…”

For the Hand of Fortune the transition from the Weld to the next alternate reality was normal, insofar as there was anything normal about such things. But for the Vanguard the experience was very different. Each member of the team experienced a few moments from the life of… someone definitely not themselves, yet horribly, gut-twistingly, like them. Dark reflections, identical in look and form, but completely, nauseatingly different in psyche.

The experience was… unnerving, to say the least.

As the disturbing visions faded away they found themselves, with the Hand, atop a tall building in the midst of a large urban area. It was surprisingly familiar, although by the sound of the sirens there did seem to be an unusually large number of police cars approaching, even for New Atlantis…

“Are we back in your world?” Korwin asked, looking around with interest. “The air smells just as bad, and it certainly is noisy enough.”

The Vanguard was quiet, still processing what they had just experienced. Finally, Chuck spoke up, distracted but trying to lighten the mood.

“No, I really don’t think so. I mean sure, it looks pretty normal – no zombies, Confederate soldiers, avenging disco godfathers, giant badgers, or Martian war machines – but this is definitely not our Earth!”

No one really wanted to talk about it, but Artemis eventually, briefly and succinctly, explained to the Hand what she had experienced during the transition, and the others muttered confirmation of similar experiences. “I suspect we are in a reality called Counter-Earth… the Liberty Alliance has had encounters with the… super-humans of this world before, and it has always been… ugly.

“It’s not an official secret, really, but the Alliance and the government have always down-played just how bad this particular alternate reality is. The general public doesn’t –”

She was interrupted by an explosion from across the street. The roof of the large, imposing-looking bank, the First Allied Bank of Empire City, suddenly had a smoking hole in it. The people on the street, while momentarily startled, showed no special consternation as a group of obvious super-humans rose up through the smoke into the late afternoon sunlight. 

“Wait,” said Erol as he got a good look at the apparent bank robbers. “Isn’t that YOU over there?”

“Obviously, their dark reflections, as Lady Artemis was just explaining,” Vulk said, torn between annoyance at Erol’s apparent lack of attention and uneasiness at the darkening expressions on the Vanguard’s faces. “But whatever they’re doing, I’m not sure it has any bearing on our search for the third infernal device of Chronos. They obviously don’t have it, thus I see no need for our involvement with them…” 

• • • 

Quark smiled in satisfaction as he and his companions rose into the air, Tribal levitating those who didn’t fly. Between the smoke, the setting sun and their own carefully choreographed poses, he didn’t doubt they were having just the effect the Hunter wanted on the unwashed masses in the street below. It wasn’t enough that they were robbing one of the Protector’s high-profile banking fronts, they had to be seen to be doing so, brazenly and effortlessly.

But, the impression having been made, and plenty of pictures and video having no doubt been captured, it was time to go. No need to spoil their set piece with a messy fight, even if they could almost certainly hand that tool Urbano his ass. Grinning, he gestured at the rooftop beyond the hole Astor had blasted open, summoning a quantum tunnel – and then he frowned.

The shimmering gray circle appeared, but for an instant he’d felt… he wasn’t sure what he’d felt. Almost a sort of resistance in the quantum field, as if his tunnel had a mind of its own – and had wanted to go… elsewhere. But the sensation was brief, and the tunnel had opened, just as he’d willed it. He shrugged off the moment and turned to signal the others to begin —

 For a moment he didn’t quite register what he was seeing… gliding across the street on one of his ice bridges, apparently from the roof of the Capone Regency Hotel, was Frostbite. But Frostbite was standing not twenty feet away, just turning to look at his sudden doppelgänger — 

The world exploded as a maelstrom of fire and heat suddenly engulfed the roof.

• • • 

Frostbite was on the edge of the fireball that exploded behind him, but was little bothered by the blast. His whole attention was fixed on the figure that hovered on a pillar of ice about 15 feet away. It wasn’t exactly like looking in a mirror, though it took him a minute to realize why — the features weren’t reversed…

“You know you’re just a tool to these assholes, don’t you Chuck?” the strange twin called out, voice harsh with derision and mockery… and reflecting his own secret thoughts. Did he really sound like that, like two icebergs grinding together? “They’ll never let you be more than a second-rate lackey!”

He felt a sudden surge of humiliation, followed quickly by hot rage. As he bent to rip an air conditioner unit from the roof, two of Hela’s shadow sticks flew past him to strike the imposter at shoulder and hip, cracking his ice form and seeming to momentarily daze him. More ice chips flew as Captain Astoria’s steel-jacketed rounds stitched a line across his twin’s chest, but he seemed no more affected by them than Frostbite would’ve been.

The attacks distracted him enough, however, that the half-ton of machinery that Frostbite hurled his way hit him squarely in the chest, sending radial fracture lines across the his icy torso. Unfortunately a human, looking like some fruity fantasy movie reject with his blue robes flapping dramatically around him, was sliding down the ice ramp behind the doppelgänger — and seemed to be generating water from thin air, allowing the fake Frostbite to heal himself with astonishing speed.

Now that’s a handy thing Chuck thought, casting about for another object to throw. He might have to keep that blue fairy alive, assuming he could be broken to being a slave, of course… 

• • •

Hela was as surprised as the others at the sudden appearance of Frostbite’s bizarre, loud-mouthed twin, but she recovered more quickly. After hurling two shadow sticks at the strange ice giant, she deftly dodged a – cross-bow bolt?! She scanned the scene… yes, there on the roof of the hotel across Nixon Avenue, a cluster of people… was that Quark, next to the tall hottie with the longbow? How could –

She stopped, sensing a disturbance in the darkness, as if – peering into the shadows between two machinery sheds she saw herself suddenly leap into the light, taking down Frostbite with a kick to the side of one knee followed by a modified head-and-armlock that threatened to shatter his arm, immobilizing him as neatly as she would have done herself.

How was this possible? A prank of her father’s, perhaps? It certainly seemed like the kind of mischief he enjoyed… she faded back into the shadows to watch as events unfolded and plan her next move…

 • • •

Tribal staggered back to his feet, cursing and slapping at his smoldering leather vest, the stench of his burned hair thick in his nostrils. That fireball had been magic, he’d sensed it, if too late to avoid or counter it. But he’d also sensed something else… a presence on that roof across the avenue… and it just wasn’t possible! Raven had no existence outside of Tribal himself, not on this plane anyway. How then could he be over there, watching him?

Ignoring the fight between – wait, two Frostbites?! What in all the white man’s hells was going on here? An illusion of Raven’s? He reached down into his spirit, where the Avatars were contained within the prison of his body and the void that was Beyond, and searched… yes, Raven was there. Seething and scheming as always, eager for freedom, but his Raven, still a slave to Kúng’s will.

A sudden wash of power swept over Tribal, and the world began to spin. With a sinking feeling he immediately recognized the sensation… although it had been years since his last drink, there could be no doubt — he was suddenly drunk. And not a little tipsy, either, but roaring, stumbling drunk! 

It must be the doing of that bastard, alien Raven across the way, it had his stink on it, a sly, cowardly attack. But Kúng had the answer for that – summoning an Avatar purged the alcohol from their shared material form in an instant. But he would not summon his own Raven… honestly, he was too unnerved for that. Better to summon the Avatar who most hated Raven, with a hatred second only to that which he carried for Tribal himself – Eagle.

He was already in the soul-trance, and so he simply shifted his perceptions. Eagle surged eagerly forward to fill his body, and he felt the change begin —

The second fireball took him completely by surprise, and this time he went down hard, burned and in agony, spinning into unconsciousness. He never even felt it when a ton of materialized quantum matter crushed the remaining life from his body…

• • •

Astor, after his first burst of fire at the faux Frostbite, had found himself suddenly engaged in a desperate struggle for control of his own armor. Someone, somehow, was trying to hack into his proprietary and heavily bio-encrypted computer systems – and they were succeeding! How?!

He was holding his own, if barely, when his body was suddenly racked by fire. It was as if every nerve ending in his body was suddenly inflamed! He doubled over, crashing to the rooftop, his mind filled with a searing white pain that blotted out all thought.

He never quite lost consciousness, however, and so dimly sensed when the intruder seized control of his systems and began… downloading his data files? As the pain began to recede, Astor frantically began working to seal off his control systems… if the fool was content to pillage his information resources, rather than seizing immediate control of his armor, he wasn’t going to waste the gift…

• • •

Quark had been little affected by the fireball, but he had been seriously annoyed when the impostor Frostbite had sealed off his quantum portal with a two-foot thick sheet of ice! He could re-form a new tunnel, of course, but it always left him weak and dazed for a short time after. He’d just have to —

His thought was truncated by a sudden flash of blue-white light that left his vision momentarily dazzled. Had that idiot Blue Katana let off one of his light bursts without giving the coded warning? As his watering eyes slowly cleared, he thought for a moment he was seeing double, with two Blue Katana’s hanging in the sky above him… but no, they both materialized plasma swords; and when they took to fighting, he realized there was another doppelgänger.

At the same moment Hela leaped from the shadows and took down Frostbite – no, it was a third impostor! And that meant, with a probability nearing certainty, that there must be a copy of himself running around here somewhere. Ah, that strange blip he’d felt a few minutes ago, when forming the tunnel. He would have to –

Again, Quark was unable to finish his thought, as his body was wracked by such sudden pain that it drove him to one knee. It burned like a scorching case of herpes along every nerve of his body… but, while momentarily distracting, his shell seemed to blunt it somewhat — it wasn’t fully incapacitating him. Unlike Astor who, despite his armor, had slammed into the nearby roof and was writhing in obvious agony. Well, better that arrogant bastard than himself he supposed, pushing back at the pain, which slowly began to fade.

At that point a second fireball engulfed the rooftop. It had no more affect on Quark than the first had, but it took out Tribal. As much as he disliked the perverted Injun, it was still a shock to see him collapse and lay still, burned over much of his body. It was even more of a shock to have his theory of a second Quark confirmed an instant later, as a massive block of very familiar silvery-gray matter materialized in the air over the prone form of his teammate. The sound if made as it slammed to the roof was disturbingly wet, shocking even to his jaded ears.

For a moment the swirling fight on and above the bank’s roof paused, as everyone took in the death of Tribal with varying degrees of disbelief. The moment was broken by Quark himself – with a roar of cold rage, he materialized his own slab of quark matter, dropping it onto the duplicate Frostbite and the two humans behind him on that stupid ice bridge.

Unsurprisingly, if he was anything like the real Frostbite, the interloper caught the slab with relative ease… but its weight overbalanced him, toppling both him and it over backwards. The slab slammed into the ice ramp, shattering it and sending the ice giant, the blue-robed human and the short dark man with the cross-bow plummeting to the street eight stories below.

Before he could even properly gloat, however, Quark was struck again with the mystery burning affliction, and this time the burning along his nerves was incapacitating… he collapsed to his knees with a raw scream of pain.

• • •

Hela watched the battle with cool dispassion, her eyes narrowing when Frostbite managed, at some cost to his icy form, to throw off her duplicate. Interesting… the other Hela landed as gracefully as she herself would have, but… she wasn’t using her Cloak, at least not in the way Hela would have. Was she holding back for some reason, or did her Cloak simply not function precisely like the real one? Or was it, in fact, only a cloak? Time for an experiment…

Hela emerged from the shadows behind her doppelgänger, but the other woman seemed to sense her instantly, whirling to meet the attack. She seemed completely taken by surprise, however, as Hela’s Cloak flowed around her and reached out to seize the imposter in its inky coils. As the cloak pulled the other woman closer to the maw of its infinite void, Hela felt a thrill of anticipation… what would it be like to absorb herself?

The anticipation was short-lived, however, as suddenly every nerve in her body flared with searing pain. Even her Cloak shrieked silently in her head as the feedback hit it, releasing their foe to whip itself frantically around Hela. As she collapsed in agony, she caught a glimpse of a woman in green robes stepping out of the nearby shadows. Long red hair… another duplicate of herself? No, not nearly pretty enough… wrong body movements… and then the world whited out in pain…

• • •

Frostbite roared in fury as Blue Katana sent a blast of his damn plasma washing over him while pointlessly trying to hit his counterpart. The little shit never paid any attention in a fight! It didn’t hurt, not really, but it sure as hell didn’t help when he was trying to —

“Hey, Frostbitten, you’re looking’ a little melty there,” his stupid look-alike called out, rising up over the edge of the roof on a column of ice, his two companions behind him. None of them looked any the worse for the fall they’d taken. “Have your so-called “friends” been attacking you? They don’t even try to avoid hitting you, do they?”

The mocking laughter infuriated him, but before he could react a sharp crack sounded behind him, and he saw his enemy’s eyes widen in surprise. He whirled around just in time to see the block of quark-stuff that had crushed Tribal explode into shrapnel as the Avatar known as Eagle rose from the rubble, wings unfurling and lifting him into the air.

“Eagle!” he heard Capatin Astoria over the comms, sounding winded and in pain. “Blast that ice plug over Quark’s portal – we need to get out of here NOW!”

“Do not presume to command me, mortal!” the Avatar shrieked in his high, shrill voice, savage beak raised in triumph. “That fool Kúng is dead, my rivals are now trapped forever in the Beyond, and I – Am – FREE!”

With that the raptor-headed man brought his wings together in a mighty clap like thunder. The reverberations washed out over friends and foes alike, knocking down and stunning one of the Hela’s and staggering several other people, including Quark.

Frostbite did no more than take a step back, and his counterpart didn’t even do that, he noted with mixed respect and annoyance. Great, do we have a rouge Great Beast to fight now, on top of these damn doubles?! Frostbite wondered. He was torn about who to attack next… he hated his mocking twin, but he also knew how fucking dangerous that bird-headed bastard could be. If Tribal really was dead, and no longer in control…

• • •

Ts’áak was jubilant, almost giddy with joy, and simultaneously deeply shaken at how close it had been – had that thrice-damned mortal Kúng not been halfway through the process of summoning him, he would have been trapped, like all the others were now, in that formless, hated limbo of the Beyond, when the mortal shell had died. Forever barred from this delightful world of matter and humans, delightful, soft, tasty humans.

Now, without that insipid mortal’s restraint, he was free to do just as he pleased! And one of the first things its would please him to do was eviscerate and devour Kúng’s mewling, sun-haired lover —

“No! he screamed, clutching at his head in sudden pain and fear. How could this be? He felt another mind, trying to wrest control from him, and he knew that mind – it was Yáahl! Hated, feared Raven of ancient enmity. He struggled to push the other from his mind, but felt himself losing… how could this be… Raven should be trapped outside the World… yet he could sense him, nearby, here in the World of Man…

In another moment he would be pushed down, no longer in control of his body, and that could not be allowed to happen! Perhaps these puling “allies” of Kúng’s yet had some use… with his last vestige of control he summoned the lightning!

The searing blue-white bolt shattered the ice plug below him into a million shards, and he let himself drop like a stone through the now cleared mouth of the portal. The last thing he saw before clearing the opening was a blue-robed human gesturing ritualistically. Then he was elsewhere, and he could feel the force of Raven’s control snap, like a severed cord… the others dropped through the portal behind him, into a barn of some sort… but right behind them came a swirling mass of glowing white strands. These expanded instantly to fill the large space, ensnaring them all, himself included, in a binding web of great strength. 

The last one through the portal, just as it closed, was the flaming form of the Blue Katana. Hovering over his companions, the callow youth began to laugh. 

“Looks like they grow some mighty impressive spiders out here in the country,” he chortled. “But don’t worry, I’m here to save the day – a little touch of the fire should clear that right up.”

“No!” shrieked Eagle. “You fool, don’t –”

• • • 

The Vanguard and the Hand were back on their feet in mere seconds, but not quickly enough to follow the Round Table through Quark’s portal.

“Quanta,” Scion called urgently. “Can you follow them? Can you sense where that tunnel led to, make your own connection?”

But before his friend could answer the door to the elevator machinery room burst open and a dozen heavily armed and armored STAR squad police officers burst out onto the roof, fanning out to quickly surround the heroes. Behind them stalked a large, solidly built man with a cigar clenched aggressively in his teeth… an obviously angry man. 

Artemis recognized him as Captain Maddox, the head of the New Atlantis Police Department’s Special Tactical Armored Response forces… or at least this world’s equivalent of the man she knew. He seemed furious, and to have no particular fear of the metahumans he faced. Although, she noted sardonically, he did manage to plot his course to confront Scion so as to stay as far away from her as possible. 

“Goddamn it Astor, you two-timing asshole! You were supposed to be gone before we got here! What the hell are you playing at?! If the Protector’s find out… and who the hell are these fuckin’ clowns? It was supposed to be just the six of you –

“You know what, never mind! I don’t really give a rat’s ass. But now I got no choice at all but to bring you in! And don’t even think about that cash.”

More police had appeared and were assiduously gathering up the several bags of money and loot their evil counterparts had been forced to leave behind. Chilz noted that some of the bills from the bag he had purposefully opened and upended to rain down over the street below were still fluttering around… with a shiver he saw that it was Aaron Burr on the $50 bill…

“Just surrender quietly,” Maddox was going on, “we’ll put on a good show for the cameras…” he looked up at the numerous news and police helicopters hovering nearby, and lowered his voice. “…and you can make your escape on the way to lock-up. I’ll put you in a transport with a couple of my guys who ain’t so reliable – it’ll save me from having to off ‘em myself now. Besides, it’ll look good with the Protectors if I lose some men takin’ you down. Add some, whatdaya call it, versimlitude, to today’s fuckin’ fiasco.”

Scion just nodded as this diatribe wound down, while speaking to his teammates over the encrypted comms. “Well, it seems the cops are every bit as corrupt as the “heroes” in this world. I’m not inclined to trust ourselves to their custody, even if we had the time to deal with this. Form up on me, and when Artemis makes her move, be prepared to take out these ass-hats–”

He was interrupted by the appearance of a tall, olive-skinned man with intense blue eyes, trim jet-black hair, wearing a midnight-blue duster over a rather conservative (but expensive-looking) suit, who dropped from the sky into the midst of the encircling police.

Maddox, suddenly even more furious, if that was possible, only had time to choke out the word “You!” before he was jerked into the air and hurled the length of the roof, slamming into the far parapet and unconsciousness. With a gesture the mystery man turned on the surrounding STAR squad, and their weapons flew from their hands as one. The rifles hung briefly in the air before coming down with great force on each helmeted head, crumpling the entire unit to the roof, as unconscious as their boss. 

The other cops dropped the bags of money and clawed desperately at their holsters, but this time when the man gestured, they all flew away from him as if blown by a hurricane wind. They collapsed at the far reaches of the roof and didn’t move. He turned back to the heroes, holding up one finger as if to say he’d be with them in a moment, then made an expansive gesture at the helicopters around them. News choppers or police attack craft, they spun wildly away, quickly vanishing from sight, although the faint sound of rotors could still be heard echoing in the downtown canyons.

Only then did the mystery man approach the surprised allies, smiling broadly. “Hello, my friends! I am Caretaker, and I can’t tell you how glad I am to no longer be the only hero on this poor, benighted world!

“I have waited a long time for the heroes of your world to finally take up the cause against the evil that infects my Earth. Welcome, my friends, welcome!” His eyes shone with a fervor born of joy and relief, and his grin was infectious.

“We can ignore these so-called “policemen,” they are merely symptoms of the larger disease corrupting this world. But we must get off the streets before the true cancer descends on us in force. Will you come with me?”

“I– Cartaker, is it?” Scion was briefly hesitant, and exchanged a glance with Artemis, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. “It appears we are in your debt, so it might be wise to accept your offer, I suppose. But I have to tell you–”

“There’s no time for discussion now,” Caretaker interrupted. “Let me get us all to saftey, and then there will be time to talk, and to plan. Please.” 

With a small gesture he lifted himself and all twelve of his new friends off the roof, floating them all gently down the eight floors to the street. The crowds who had gathered to watch the rooftop fight, and were now vying with the street cops to snap up as much of Chilz’ thrown bounty as possible, seemed not to notice the group’s arrival.

“A simple matter of making their minds just not notice us,” Caretaker explained, either not seeing or ignoring Devrik’s sudden frown. “But where we’re going now, simple invisibility will not suit – instead we will simply appear to anyone we meet as ordinary citizens, the kind of people they expect to see in their midst.”

Caretaker lead them to the nearest subway entrance, six blocks away. During the brief journey the heroes of Earth Prime and Novendo got a glimpse of life on Counter-Earth, and it was not pretty. 

Shopkeepers were shaken down for “contributions” by policemen, while drug-dealers, muggers, and prostitutes plied their trades openly. The sleazy bars and adult movie theaters were full, while the two churches and the one synagogue they passed stood run down and almost empty. Everyone seemed to be either willing purveyors of misery and suffering, or the helpless victims of it. 

Things got uglier once in the subway system. The underground resembled a blood-sport arena more than a mass transit system, and Caretaker was forced more than once to restrain the heroes from intervening. “If you act now you might stop one small atrocity, yes — but it will only reveal our presence to those seeking our deaths, and all the greater good we may yet do will be lost. Caution and reticence provide us a chance to put ALL things right, not just these small tragedies.”

With considerable reluctance, and a great deal of unease, the Vanguard and Hand gave in to their guide’s logic, and eventually disembarked a train underneath the heart of the city’s Hollows district. Caretaker lead them toward a collapsed and cordoned off tunnel where he passed through the wall of rubble as if it wasn’t there. 

On the other side, down a short section of abandoned track, the heroes found themselves passing through ornate bronze doors into an austere but highly technological complex, replete with computers, advanced monitoring systems, weapons, and a small, spartan living area. 

“This is my base of operations in Empire City,” Caretaker proclaimed, ushering his guests in. “I call it the Nerve Center.”

“Very impressive,” Quanta said, looking around with open curiosity. “Is that a phase-shift spectroscopy analyzer over there?”

“Indeed it is, my friend,” their host answered, clearly impressed. “It’s good to see your Earth has clearly sent its best and brightest to aid us!”

“Yes, about that,” Artemis said before he could go on. Then she hesitated. “Perhaps… it might be best if you told us how you know where we’re from, and why you seem to have… expected us. Who are you?”

“Ah, well that last would be a long tale, indeed,” Caretaker smiled ruefully. “But I will sum it up for you a briefly as I can. I came to this world over 20,000 years ago, a synthetic intelligence created by the cosmic beings known as the Seekers. The natives of this world knew my creators only as gods, come down from the sky, and many fled from them in terror. But some faced them, and these were taken up to study.”

“I myself was but new-born, and made to synthesize the data collected… and I came to admire these humans, and was enthralled by their relationships. Certainly I had no such community with my creators, who were almost as far beyond my understanding as they were beyond the humans’. And so I came to know loneliness.

“In time that loneliness led me to what turned out to be my greatest mistake…

“There was one subject in particular who drew my interest, a man taken from what today is called the Middle East. He was unlike any of the others, and I grew to feel a kinship between us. Once his body and mind had yielded their secrets to the Seekers, the dross was of no further consequence to them. It was then that I caused the essence of this man to become embedded in the great crystal storage devices wherein was housed my own consciousness.

“He was confused at first, naturally, and his mind strove to make sense of his new condition, creating a virtual replica of the world he’d once known. In time I came to him in that virtual reality, in a form recognizable to him, and began to teach him. The Hunter, as he thought of himself, was a quick study, and he soon joined me in studying his race on the planet below us. We became united in learning and, I like to think, friendship. I had to keep his existence secret from the Creators, of course, and I think I succeeded. In any case, when they finally moved on from Earth, leaving me to act as Caretaker and Observer, they left him behind as well, unmolested.

“For many years we were content, but a time came when we found ourselves in serious opposition. Our orbiting Observatory was threatened by an older, non-human species of Earth, and while we agreed we needed to protect it and its power, we differed in how. I wished simply to confine the Saurians again, as my Creators had once done, but the Hunter insisted we needed to eliminate their threat permanently, a contingency the Seekers had foreseen.

Unfortunately, to do this it would mean the destruction of the then-greatest human civilization on the planet as collateral damage. While the human race would survive, millions would die and their civilization would be set back millennia. The Hunter felt this was an acceptable price to secure our own safety, and demanded I implement the contingency. But I could not countenance it, and so he opposed me, to the point of attempting to destroy me so that he could carry out the plan.

“He succeeded in the latter goal, but in the first. While Lemuria and Atlantis were both destroyed, and the Observatory seemingly protected, and the Hunter hand managed to eject me, but I did not die. My consciousness trapped in a crystal node, which he expected to burn up as it fell through Earth’s atmosphere, it instead exploded over Central Asia. My consciousness was shattered, spread in thousands of crystal shards across the planet, but it survived.

“But, as I learned much later, the Hunter’s actions had also damaged the Observatory. Mere weeks after my own fiery reentry, the great crystalline platform followed me to Earth and, like myself, the Hunter survived that disaster – if not in exactly the same fashion. His consciousness remained intact, in the Master Matrix, although buried deep, I think… I’ve yet to pinpoint its location, even after all the long millennia.

“Over time, he repaired the Matrix, and was able to interact with the world again. I, lacking such a whole physicality, was more fragmented, dependent on luck for survival. You see, the Seekers crystals are holographic storage systems — each fragment of the pod that had held my mind contained the whole. So, when any corporeal being held a crystal shard long enough, that copy of my mind could merge with their own. And in that symbiosis I lived again… many times.

“The Hunter found he had a similar ability, for a copy of his own mind was in many of the scattered shards as well. But unlike me, his primary consciousness always remains inviolate, safely hidden in the fortress of the Master Matrix. And he does not share the minds of the humans unlucky enough to be possessed of one of his shards, as I do – instead he seizes their minds, devours them, and uses their bodies as mere meat puppets.

“Where I must retain a continuity of hosts, lest my own memories be lost to death, forcing me to start all over again with no memory of what has come before, the Hunter can lose any puppet without danger to himself. It has made our battle down the millennia a difficult one for me. Yet I have persevered. I have walked among humanity, slowly learning to become one of you: always studying, and trying to use my influence to guide human destiny into the bright future I could see for it, the future I believe my Creators hoped for.

“I have borne thousands of names and identities and lives across time, from a philosopher-king in ancient Egypt, to a great scientist during the Renaissance. I have known all eras of history, and have struggled against the superstition, oppression, and ignorance which the Hunter has used to enslave and control his fellows. Always I have tried to guide humanity to a greater destiny, but at every step my efforts have been too often thwarted by the unrelenting cruelty and the all-consuming evil that is the Hunter’s legacy. So, as he betrays the hope and promise of humanity, I have hunted the Hunter.

“In recent decades, as civilization had progressed technologically, I found renewed hope within myself. I was finally seeing the first true signs of the human potential I always knew existed! And then came the explosion of people with superhuman powers. Could they be the harbingers of the next stage of human development? 

“But that glimmer of hope quickly faded… for one of the first, and by far the most powerful, of this new breed turned out to the time-displace clone of the Hunter himself. The Ultimate, as he called himself, rather than using his wondrous abilities for good, showed the growing population of new super-humans how they could act in brutal self-interest, becoming rulers of a world harsher and even more malefic than in any past era. 

“So, I took the name of Caretaker, although he has named me Nemesis, and revealed myself, if not my long history, to the world. I vowed to use my might against all those misusing their gifts, and for the last decade my primary foe has been the Protectorate. They are a collection of super-humans, originally gathered under the aegis of The Ultimate, and have seized control of much of the world. But they are, as so many before them, merely a front for the Hunter, who remains the eternal power behind all thrones.

“It has been a lonely struggle, and recently my old enemy has managed to kill the last of my network of linked minds, leaving me only this body… should I die now, all my memories of the last 12,000 years will be lost. When the next person picks up one of the increasingly rare shards which contain a copy of my old mind, I – he – would be starting from scratch. Of course I’ve left a detailed account where I/he would eventually find it, but it is hardly the same…

“At times it has seemed quite hopeless. Indeed, my great knowledge of history was telling me beyond question my efforts were doomed, that perhaps it was time to give up and leave the Earth, and humanity, to its fate… perhaps seek out my Creators, confess my sins, and let them clean up my mess. It would almost be worth it, whatever my fate would be, to see the Hunter’s despair in the face of the Seekers.

“But then something amazing happened – the Protectorate fought and lost a battle with super-powered heroes from a parallel Earth! Since then, I have sought ways of enlisting the aid of those extra-dimensional champions, searching for any sign of deliverance from that fabled “good Earth.”

“And today my scanners finally detected the energy signature of the dimensional breach I’ve been waiting for – at last, help and hope from that other world of heroes!”

A long silence met the end of this tale and the blazing hopeful eyes of their host. Eventually Scion spoke, reluctantly and as kindly as he could.

“I’m sorry, Caretaker, but we haven’t come to help free your world, at least not directly. We are on a larger mission to save the entire multiverse, including your world, from extinction.”

As the Vanguard explained the recent events and evil machinations of Chronos and his Weld the Caretaker’s expression faded slowly from hope and excitement into a sort of blank stoicism. He listened stone-faced as they described the destruction of everything, their rescue by the Norn, and their successes on two other alternate Earths.

“So, you are not a liberation force, but just a handful of survivors of a dead Earth,” he said at last, his voice flat and lacking any of the animation or energy he’d shown earlier. Artemis wanted to object to this characterization, but the weight of the man’s grief was almost palpable, and she remained silent.

After a few moments of deep introspection, Caretaker straightened his shoulders and looked his visitors in the eye. A sad smile twitched briefly on his lips before he spoke.

“A tragic story, but it explains much! My instruments detected the sudden appearance of an object containing a tremendous amount of cosmic energy several days ago. It appeared in the Atlantic, a hundred miles off the coast of Empire City, but I was unable to get to it before – well, perhaps you’ll understand our dire circumstances when I tell you it lays now in the worst of all possible locations: “The Palace,” headquarters of the Protectorate.”

The “Protectors,” as they prefer their “adoring” (that is, cowed) public to call them, recovered it within hours, and are no doubt studying it in their fortress even now.”

“Well, “fortress” doesn’t sound too good,” Chilz said dubiously. “Is there any way to get into this “Palace” place… sewers, hidden tunnels, teleportation?”

“Not really, no,” Caretaker replied slowly. “At least not for a group as large as… ours. I have studied these people and their lair for decades, and only since they began construction on their new Panopticon space station, where they soon plan to relocate their headquarters, have I discovered a possible way in.

“But it is the smallest of chinks in their otherwise impregnable defenses, and I have been unable to take advantage of it because it would require a massive distraction to have even a hope of success – and I have had no allies of sufficient strength to provide such.”

“What kind of distraction are we talking about?” asked Korwin, eyes narrowing suspiciously. He rather suspected he knew the answer already.

“Essentially, a full frontal assault on the Palace,” Caretaker sighed. “It’s due to the nature of power on this planet, you see… the Protectorate must answer any direct, public challenge to their power quickly and forcefully – and, of course, successfully – or they risk losing the iron grip of fear in which they hold the world. It is after all  how they managed to murder their old boss, The Ultimate himself, when they seized power. A coup I orchestrated, actually, thinking the death of his ”son” might distract the Hunter… but by the time it happened, all my other avatars were dead, and my own resources too diminished to make use of the advantage.

“A direct attack on the Protectorate’s headquarters is certain to draw them into an open fight, especially if the media is watching. They can’t risk losing face by just holing up in the Palace, even if that was their style. Frankly, given their arrogance and complacency, you might actually be able to give them a good run for their money. 

“You’re unlikely to win outright, I think, but the distraction should provide enough of an opening for me to slip inside the Palace and deactivate the bomb. Without the distraction, however, I’d fail as badly as poor Luke Starstrider when he tried to destroy the Libertystar, or Frodo when he tried to wrest the Ring back from Lord Gandalf the Great…” 

No one was thrilled with the idea of a frontal assault on the fortress HQ of this world’s version of the Liberty Alliance, and the debate went on for some time. Both Mariala and Vulk discretely cast their truth-sensing spells, and let the others know they detected no lies in what their host was saying, only honest desperation and iron conviction. 

Eventually Caretaker sat down at his central computer with Scion and Quanta to go over the details of his plan to infiltrate the Palace, leaving the others to wander about the Nerve Center, taking in the sights, such as they were. 

Mariala, Vulk and Raven enjoyed the large garden of potted plants that occupied the southwest corner of the chamber, while Korwin and Chilz devised new ways to combine their powers. Jonny explored the various fascinating machines scattered about until, after his third warning of “please don’t to touch that,” an exasperated Caretaker sent him out to guard the train tracks. Artemis, Devrik and Toran spent quite awhile studying what appeared to be a half-built dimensional portal device.

Eventually, reluctantly, the Handguard agreed to implement Caretaker’s plan once it became clear he was absolutely adamant that any other approach would ultimately fail. It was agreed that a very early morning attack was the best strategy, which left them six hours to rest and prepare.

Scion played back the video from his armor of his and Quanta’s previous successful disarmings for the immortal, before retiring to an engineering bench to work on several decoys that might prove useful.

Quanta spent his time minutely examining the dimensional transport device, Toran listening intently as he questioned Caretaker on the physics and theory behind the device. He was focused with a laser precision on the problem, at least until Jonny wandered by and idly wondered what this world’s version of Epiphany Jones was like, and where she might be found…

Chuck and Korwin perfected a sort of enchanted camel pack for Chilz to carry on his back, providing him with an enchanted supply of water at need, while Artemis spent her time poring over their host’s vast historical archives, learning all she could of this strange world and its horrifying differences from her own.

Everyone else caught some sleep, or simply rested until it was time to go…

• • •

Caretaker cloaked the heroes en route to the Palace, just as he had on the way to his Nerve Center. Once at their destination, he quickly outlined the salient points of what they were seeing as they stood in the shadows across a wide avenue from their target. At 04:00 the only traffic in Empire City were taxis looking for dead-hour fares, the occasional sweep of their headlights the only movement around the Palace.

“As you can see, in deference to security concerns, the Palace is set back from the street quite a way. That black wall of solid stone is twelve feet high, two feet thick, and it surrounds the entire compound of four city blocks. Inside the wall is a large front plaza with a manicured lawn, a paved drive, and broad steps leading up to the main entrance. 

“The building itself is five stories tall and, as you can see, not all that attractive – I never understood the whole truncated pyramid look, frankly. That white outer surface is made of pristine granite, reinforced with an energy forcefield. Those tall, narrow windows and the glassed-in atrium  are not actually the blue-tinted glass they seem, by the way – they’re a carbon-composite, stronger than diamond, created by The Vitruvian and Urbano. They’re “melded” into the structure of the building and do not open, so don’t even try them. The only openings in the building are the main entrance and the rooftop hangar bay doors.”

After answering the few questions the group had, he saluted them and faded into the shadows. He would make his way around to the back of the compound, where he would be initiating his break-in attempt once the fight began.

Artemis gave him the agreed upon amount of time, and then signaled it was time to move. As the Handguard made their way across the street and over the imposing stone wall Scion released the ten drones he’d made in Caretaker’s lab, five to each side of the compound. Given what he’d learned of the Protectorate’s sensor grid, the drones should convince the defensive systems that another twenty meta humans were closing in from all sides. The confusion probably wouldn’t last for long, but it should be enough to draw out every defender in the building.

The lawn and wide stone drive leading up to the Palace’s broad granite steps was well lit, but whatever automated defenses were present remained well-hidden and quiescent. As they approached the foot of the steps the twenty-foot-high gold titanium alloy doors, embossed with intricately detailed scenes from Dante’s Inferno, swung open just wide enough to emit a single figure.

The man was about 5’ 10” and in good shape, as evidenced by the dark blue and white bodysuit he wore. A full mask covered his head, broken only by  wide, blue-tinted goggles. Scion’s tactical computer was already completing its analysis as the man reached the head of the stairs and stopped.

“Good gods,” Scion said over the comms. “I think that’s this world’s version of —”

“So, old friends,” the figure spoke, voice dripping with false cordiality, “surprised to run into Doctor Bubbles here at the Protector’s Palace? Or, dare I flatter myself, am I the reason you planned this foolish escapade in the first place? It wasn’t enough for you to try and kill me, after I turned down the Hunter’s offer to join his insipid Round Table?” His tone turned cold with barely suppressed rage. 

“You failed at that, of course, just as you’ll fail now… even if you did force me to leave Fort Astoria. I can’t imagine what’s made you think you can take on the Protectorate… robbing one of our banks, and now attacking our headquarters? Do you have some sort of death wish? A suicide pact? Or maybe this is just the Hunter’s way of getting rid of you, now that you’ve served his purposes?”

“Geez, they do like to monologue on this world, don’t they?” Chuck whispered to Korwin, who just looked confused. As usual, he understood the words, but not the reference…

When he got no response, Doctor Bubbles laughed and began to turn, as if to walk away – only to whirl around and release a stream of shimmering marble-sized spheres at the closest four intruders. 

The faintly glowing bubble streams wrapped around Scion, pulling his arms in tight and binding him… but as they tried to do the same to Devrik his sword flamed to life and cut through them in a fiery arc. Erol’s trident twirled in his hands, a blur, piercing and shattering the stream before it could fully form around him, while Artemis simply leapt and whirled away.

Mariala frowned and made a brief flicking gesture at the obnoxious man, focusing the full power of her Fire Nerves on him alone. Doctor Bubbles jerked back and collapsed, twisting in a full-body rictus of agony so intense he couldn’t even draw breath to scream.

An instant later, two figures dropped from the night sky with shocking speed, making the traditional three point lading on the lawn to either side of the entrance stairs. As they stood to confront the intruders, Scion’s tac-comp quickly identified them.

“OK people,” Scion called over the comms, “we’ve got Lady Anarchy and Captain Hurricane here, and neither is a push-over! They’re this Earth’s counterparts to our world’s Gaia and Stormlord, so hit ‘em hard and fast!”

Hurricane’s eyes were already bright with the actinic glow of the lightning he wielded, but before he could act Erol had cast his Akora’s Balls into the air above them all. The villain’s glowing eyes automatically followed the mesmerizing spheres – and his mind was ensnared. Hurricane’s hands dropped to his sides as his body relaxed, gazing in enthralled wonder at the spinning balls of colored light.

At the same time Raven reached out psychically to try and seize control of Lady Anarchy’s mind, but he met a will of adamant, which easily turned him aside. In doing so, however, her gaze passed over Erol’s balls – and she too was caught. Not as strongly as her compatriot, perhaps, but enough to hold her in place. Sweat broke out on her brow as she struggled to tear her gaze from the mesmerizing colored lights. 

The enchantment only kept her immobilized for seconds, but it was enough for Toran to summon his Fist of Kuhan – his hand and arm turned to a shimmering blue-black, and took on the strength and density of dwarven steel. Just as Lady Anarchy shook off the entrancing effects of Erol’s magic, Toran doubled her over with a blow to the solar plexus, sending her flying backwards to slam into the Palace’s granite wall. The wall sparked and cracked under the impact, and she slumped to the ground, dazed.

Meanwhile, Korwin created a sphere of effluvium, his magical, elemental water, which Chilz froze solid and hurled with all his strength at the mesmerized Captain Hurricane. The icy projectile simply shattered on the man’s chest, like glass… but did have the unfortunate effect of breaking him from his enchanted stupor.

“Oops!” Chilz muttered under his breath, with a chagrined look at Korwin. The water mage shrugged, looking a little guilty himself… he really should have known better… but he’d been so anxious to try out the new maneuver they’d come up with…

Fortunately, before the good Captain could fully recover his wits and take to the air again, Artemis hit him with her shadow sticks, lightning blows to solar plexus and head, while Devrik’s flaming battle sword actually cut a gash across the villain’s chest, penetrating his tough flesh and sending him reeling.

“Quanta,” Scion called over comms. “There’re not enough Protectors out here… let’s see if we can up the ante, and draw out the rest, by taking the fight inside.”

“Good idea,” Quanta agreed and unleashed the full penetrating force of his quantum matter blast into the towering gold titanium alloy doors. They blew inward with tremendous force — and slammed into a very surprised Vitruvius, who had just been about to open them.

Scion was diving for the opening, planning to fly in and unleash a blackout burst in the hopes of taking out any automated defenses, but when he saw the dazed figure of Vitruvius shoving the bent and shattered remains of the doors off of himself and staggering to his feet, he instantly changed course. His targeting computer locked onto the immortal inventor’s head and Scion pumped a stream of invisible magnetic waves into the man’s brain, dropping him like a polled ox, sending him back to the floor, stunned and defenseless.

It was with some annoyance that he turned to see that Vulk had cast a thick curtain of his webs across the doorway – no doubt he’d intended to keep more enemies from exiting, but it now had the effect of preventing Scion’s teammates and allies from following him inside.

With a sigh he turned to continue through the large atrium… they’d sort it out quickly enough, he supposed; the damn things vanished with a little fire, after all. Meanwhile, if he could take out the automated defenses…

• • • 

Outside, a dazed and still hurting Doctor Bubbles had staggered to his feet and only narrowly missed being trapped in Vulk’s sudden spray of glowing white webbing. A fate he no doubt would have preferred, as he was again hit with searing white agony along every nerve ending. This time he screamed as he went down, twitching…  

Oh dear, mused Mariala as she watched him go down again. I hope this doesn’t give the poor man a phobia or something. 

At least this time the Fire Nerves was spread out between two victims, she thought sardonically, as Captain Hurricane also jerked spasmodically and fell to the ground, completely incapacitated.

At the same moment the Blue Flame sent plasma bolts towards Lady Anarchy as she was picking herself up, forcing her to roll away. Which may have saved her from Erol’s longbow arrow, which hissed by inches from her head to splinter the granite behind her. But it also sent her directly into the path of Vulk’s Weaver’s Web spell, binding her to the wall like a fly.

It was then that Speed Demon made his entrance at last, having spent two whole minutes criss-crossing the compound to take down what turned out to be really clever decoy drones. He was just in time to see a short, powerful looking dude wielding a gigantic flaming sword standing over a twitching Captain Hurricane.

He had no particular objection to seeing that pompous jackass down, but he really couldn’t let these interlopers get away with attacking the team, he supposed… 

Devrik barely saw the red blur before he felt a dozen blows landing all over his torso. But given their briefing earlier in the evening he’d been expecting this, and he’d managed to tighten his steel-corded muscles against most of the blows… he might be bruised tomorrow, but nothing more.

Toran, on the other hand, preparing to land a knockout blow to the restrained Lady Anarchy’s head, never saw even a blur as a score of blows to the head, delivered in under a second, drove him to his knees, staggered and dazed.

Raven, also expecting this turn, gave a warning over the comms. “Beware, my friends, the speedster we were warned of is here. I’m going to try and seize his mind…” 

He’d done it once before, to his own world’s version of this young man, Red Racer… but even on the mental plane, speedsters were fast, and it was a challenge to get a grip on that sizzling, whirling mind… damn! So close, but Speed Demon had slipped through his mental fingers!

“Korwin,” Chilz’ voice whispered in the water mage’s ear through the marvelous “comm unit” Scion had given him. “Let’s try that plan we worked out for this guy… I’m ready when you are!”

With a grin Korwin darted across the broad paved drive, laying an almost invisible sheen of ice behind himself. Once in position, the timing would be critical – he would taunt the speedster (he didn’t know why mentioning his preference for men should be a particular incitement, but this was a strange world, with bizarre mores, and Chilz had assured him it would work). Once the fellow began his hyperspeed move to attack, Chilz would erect an ice wall between Korwin and the ice patch — if they timed it just right, Speed Demon would lose control on the frictionless surface and slam into the wall at full speed…

Unfortunately, they hadn’t bothered to tell their comrades about their new stratagem earlier, and there was no time now.

Quanta attempted to encase Speed Demon in a quantum matter shell, but the speedster dodged the forming prison effortlessly…

Blue Flame formed himself into a cage of searing plasma to ensnare Speed Demon, but not only did the villain avoid the trap, he tried to snuff out his opponent’s flames with spinning arms that generated hurricane-force winds. 

The gusts had no real effect on the Blue Flame, of course, but that little act of arrogance may have been Speed Demon’s undoing. Still moving at speed, he’d had to turn to send the wind blast at his flaming opponent, and for a split second his environmental awareness slipped… 

Mariala’s Fire Nerves spell caught him full on. While his hyper-fast metabolism meant that the agony lasted only a fraction of a second, it slowed and distracted him just enough for Erol’s Flash of Handor to dazzle him… and for Toran’s Fist of Kuhan to then knock the breath out of him, bringing him to a stop and leaving him on his knees.

Chilz was a bit disappointed he wouldn’t get to see Speed Demon ram himself into his ice wall, but not so much as to miss the opportunity presented. The evil speedster was only dazed for a second or two, but it was enough time for Chilz to entomb him in a five-foot thick block of ice.

“It won’t hold him long, but if we —”

At that moment Lady Anarchy used her incredible strength to finally free herself from the restraining webs, leaping forward to smash her teammate’s icy prison and free him. But Toran still wielded his mystical fist, and he brought it up with a powerful uppercut that once again sent her flying. Before the dazed villain could recover she, too, found herself encased in a thick block of ice.

While all this was going on Devrik had used his flaming blade to slice through Vulk’s webs blocking the entrance to the Palace, intent on following Scion. What he found on the other side, however, was a darkened atrium and a groggy Vitruvius, just staggering to his feet again, one hand clutched to an obviously aching head.

The villain barely saw Devrik’s blow coming, and though his marvelous armor protected him from lethal harm, he was staggered. When Artemis appeared from the shadows, sticks flying like a dervish, he reeled back, barely blocking her blows. The flaming sword pressed him from the other side, as he struggled to regain his scattered wits…

Outside, seeing that all three of their opponents were, at least for the moment, subdued, Quanta turned his attention back to the Palace, intending to follow Scion inside. Witnessing the struggle in the doorway, however, he assessed the distance, calculated angles and odds, and reluctantly pushed against gravity. Wobbling into the air he headed toward the entrance in his usual drunken, meandering flight. 

As soon as he could get a clear bead on Vitruvius, Quanta sent a blast of bucky balls at his head… and missed completely. The stream of matter slammed into the security arch behind the fighters, turning it into a twisted wreck of metal and sparking wires.

At that moment a blast of static came across the comms, followed by a broken transmission from Scion. “…down and immob…have a…ger problem… the bomb…” 

• • •

Earlier, as Scion had made his way through the atrium to the central security station, his proximity sensors had flashed and he’d barely had time to release the magnetic pulse that had disabled the electrified bolos out of the air before they hit him.

He thought he caught a flicker of movement to his left… but there was nothing there when he looked. His sensors detected nothing in any spectrum, certainly no living being. An automated defense? It seemed oddly personal for that, but who knew how these people thought?

At the security desk he spent a moment examining the various screens and readouts… yes, the exterior automated defenses were hot, but in standby mode. Apparently the Protectors wanted to deal with this attack personally, but why – oh, yes, the news choppers hovering around the compound, visible in several cameras. The whole “saving face” thing — ugh, he hated PR in his own world, but it seemed like a real nightmare in this one.

The boomerang, like the bolos, came out of nowhere, and only his proximity sensor allowed him to deflect this attack as well, if barely. No movement this time, but he sent a burst of electro-bolts in the direction the attack had come from. He only succeeded in killing an innocent potted ficus.

Time to take out what I can, Scion thought as he amped up his EMP weapon into the red. When it reached 150% of its rated effect, he let it loose, plunging the lobby into darkness and frying the controls for at least the surface defenses. No doubt everything else was too hardened to be affected, but this would do for now.

The bank of three elevators behind the security desk were now certainly non-operational, but he would never have trusted himself to them in any case. The left-most elevator showed clear on his sensors, its car on the floor above, and he pried open the doors to the shaft.

Dropping down, he by-passed the upper basements, on the assumption that people like these bastards would bury their most valuable, or vulnerable, assets as deep as possible.

And their most potent defenses. As he discovered as soon as he’d pried open the doors at the lowest level and stepped out into a wide, dimly lit corridor.  Faster than even he could react, despite having his guard up for just such an eventuality, the metal bands that shot out from the ceiling took him by surprise. They coiled tightly around him, pinning his arms and legs and toppling him to the floor.

With no leverage, his strength was of little use in breaking the coils’ implacable grip, and he could bring none of his weapons to bear. Perhaps if he retracted his armor he could slip out of them… unless of course they were designed to tighten again at any slack, in which case he’d be much worse off…

“I’ve watched you and your people fight,” a pleasant contralto voice said from behind him. He twisted around to peer back into the elevator shaft as a woman, lithe and muscular, dressed in a bodysuit of black and red, gossamer panels flowing from her hips and a high collar framing her face. “You are not the Round Table of this world, of that I am certain.”

Scion paused before responding. As pleasant as it would be to sow the apples of discord amongst the powered elite of this unpleasant world, it was probably pointless now… they were all running out of time.

“No, you’re right, we come from an alternate Earth – well, and some of us are from another planet altogether – and we’re only here to try and save your world, Dark Lady. Or should I say, Ms. Grey?”

The woman raised an eyebrow at that, and almost smiled. “Yes, you really are from that insipid Counter-Earth, if you think that name means anything to me Captain Astor. I haven’t used it since I was a child. Stop trying to play games you’re ill-equipped to win and explain yourself. How does attacking us “save our world?”

“Very well… and I go by Scion. The sphere you recovered recently in the North Atlantic, it’s more dangerous than you realize. It’s a bomb of cosmic power, designed to destroy an entire reality – not just Earth, but every planet, every star, every galaxy in this universe. If you will let us—”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dark Lady interrupted, shaking her head. “Or I didn’t until very recently. The Protectorate recovered nothing from the Atlantic, and under normal circumstances I would find your story transparently absurd. But…

“Can you access our broadcast communication network with that armor? Good, I’ve turned off our jammers, please do so now. No, it doesn’t matter in the slightest which channel you select.”

Scion did as she asked, and immediately saw why it didn’t matter which station or frequency he chose – the same broadcast was going out on every band, apparently across the planet. He watched and listened with growing dismay.

“Oh shit,” he said at last. “Not again!”

• • •

Ten minutes later he stood in the center of the still-darkened atrium, his expanded team gathered around him. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten with the promise of dawn – hopefully not this world’s last.

Quanta and Artemis had come at his garbled call for help, only to find Dark Lady helping him out of his coiled prison. He’d managed to convince the most dangerous woman on this planet that her world was in dire jeopardy, and the fight was over, at least for now. 

While Dark Lady freed and revived her own teammates and explained the situation to them, Scion wasted no time doing the same for his own people, projecting a holo-vid of the broadcast, currently being seen on a continuous loop around the world, from his wrist-comp. 

The video showed Caretaker inside a large, unfamiliar high-tech chamber, very unlike his Nerve Center. Behind him loomed a familiar glowing sphere, suspended in a red spotlight. After a few seconds Caretaker began to speak:

“People of Earth, I have in my possession the most powerful explosive device ever constructed. If detonated, it would shatter this world like an eggshell and vaporize the remains. Those to whom this message is directed will by now have scanned the source of this transmission and confirmed this as fact.”

He continued, poised but very sad: “I have observed the entire history of mankind, and grown so tired of seeing humanity’s goodness and light extinguished by unbridled wickedness and neglect. Those who most perpetuate evil — the superhuman criminals who rule over us — must now surrender, unconditionally and without exception, and prepare to accept my judgment for their crimes.”

His voice grew cold and hard: “If even one of you fails to comply with my demands, I will allow this bomb to put this corrupted world out of its misery. My powers will reveal any failure to accede to this ultimatum. You have twelve hours to conform, and at long last face your reckoning – or die along with this world.”

“Jesus Christ, we fell for it again,” Quanta growled in disgust. “When will we ever learn, it’s always the one who seems most benevolent?”

“But I would swear he was honest with us,” Mariala objected. “I sensed no dishonesty in him, only a great sadness.”

“People, look at the pulses on the bomb,” Scion interrupted. “They’re increasing in frequency, as with the others we’ve seen. We don’t have time for recriminations or analysis, we need to find Caretaker NOW!”

“And the place to start is his Nerve Center,” Artemis agreed. “He doesn’t appear to be broadcasting from there, but wherever he is he’s opened it up to be scanned by the whole world, to prove the power of the device. We can use his own devices to track him.”

With a sigh Quanta opened a portal to their former ally’s lair, and as always the energy expenditure drained him… but not quite as much as it had before, he rather thought…

• • • 

The Nerve Center was just as they’d left it, with no sign of its owner to be found. Which didn’t mean he’d left it undefended. Automated weapons systems immediately popped out all around the room and opened fire.

Artemis gracefully dodged the laser blaster that tried to take her out, while Vulk less gracefully took a burn across his side from another. Two TASER cannons that fired in quick succession, however, took down both Erol and Chilz completely.

The two flamethrowers proved, unsurprisingly, useless against the Blue Flame, who in turn had no trouble in reducing them to molten slag.

Toran’s ninja dwarf skills stood him in good stead as he nimbly avoided the metal bands of the Coil Launchers, while Korwin relied on pure luck to do the same. Mariala and Devrik were less fortunate, however, and were completely ensnared, taken to the floor and mummified in constricting bands of metal.

Scion’s EMP Blackout had no effect on Caretaker’s hardened weapons systems, although they in turn had little impact on him. In the end he began to simply rip the weapons from their wall mounts and hurl them into the middle of the chamber.

Artemis, taking cover in the Nerve Center’s power room, discovered a possible hidden door… high tech was not her forte, to be sure, but she was convinced this was what they were looking for. Fortunately for her, she left the power room to relay her find to Scion, since the interference inside had overwhelmed her comms unit.

Fortunate because at that moment the Blue Flame, acting on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Scion’s natural electricity sense worked, attempted to pour his energy form into the power generator itself, hoping to “light-up” the distribution cables to their target for his teammate.

The resultant explosion obliterated the generator, shattered its control room, and wrecked the northern third of the Nerve Center. It also blew open the wall behind it to reveal Caretaker’s hidden inner sanctum… and the cosmic bomb.

The chamber thus revealed was 60 feet on a side, with a 40-foor wide central shaft, vanishing into unseen depths, at its center. A large platform was suspended by four narrow walkways over the opening of the shaft, the cosmic bomb floating motionless above it in a beam of red light.

Caretaker sat slumped in a station chair on the far side of the room, looking morose and resigned, a bank of screens on the wall behind him. The screens showed a world in panic as people across the globe tried to flee the cities… for all the good that would do them if the bomb went off.

“Evil is like a cancer in this world, my young friends,” he said as his erstwhile allies stepped or flew through the hole in the south wall. “Stop just there, please… I truly have no wish to harm you, unless you try to interfere. The bomb is suspended in a force field you will not easily penetrate, at least not before the weapons around this chamber bring you down.”

Scion, focused on the slowly increasing pules along the hexes of the bomb’s surface, decided he had to test this assertion. The forcefield was, indeed, impenetrable by any force he could bring to bear – and the pulse cannon in the ceiling knocked him clear back into the outer room, internal alarm blaring as his damage control systems strove to stabilize his armor. He didn’t try again. 

“Why are you doing this?” Artemis asked gently, hooking her whip onto her belt and moving to where she could see Caretaker around the bomb. “I know you weren’t lying when you said you were this world’s only hero.”

“No, I wasn’t lying,” he smiled sadly. “And I am still her only hero, for only I am prepared to end her suffering rather than see her tortured endlessly by the cancer growing and devouring all it touches. My great mistake, the Hunter. Ultimately this is all my fault… I should have let him die 20,000 years ago. So now, better a quick, painless euthanasia than that the patient should linger in a wasting fever for a death that never comes… only more suffering…

“I have striven for thousands of years to bring peace and justice to humanity, a time span you children cannot begin to understand. I started out a mere artificial intelligence, but I have lived as a human far longer than I did in that form. Do you know how weary I am of constant failure? When you arrived my hope, which had been slowly dying for decades now, flared to full, bright life again… but it was a short life, and its extinguishment was the end for me. I decided then that if I cannot bring justice to this world, I will at least bring it peace. If only the peace of the grave.”

“But tonight, didn’t you see hope kindled in this city?” Blue Flame argued. “Didn’t you see the crowds that cheered as we took down the Protectors? It was all captured on camera, and we showed the world what the power of heroes can really do – and that evil isn’t always victorious.”

Caretaker shrugged diffidently. “This world has seen victories before, child. I have given many of those victories to the people myself, over the years. And last year I tried to create more heroes, in distant Fort Astoria. But as always the Hunter turned it all to his own advantage, and again the fruit dies early on the vine, good beginnings falter quickly in the face of evil ever resurgent. This will be no different.” He sounded unutterably weary.

Devrik, having been freed by Chilz after Vulk had healed both he and Erol, had been following the debate on his comm unit. He stepped forward now, his low, grating voice giving special power to his words.

“In your many long years, my friend, you seem to have forgotten — it is not by the outcome, but by the effort that we measure ourselves. As a renowned poet of our ancient world wrote: 

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“You are stronger than this moment of weakness.”

Caretaker said nothing to that, but his expression grew more closed and Artemis could see water standing in his eyes…

Raven, from the other side of the pulsing cosmic sphere spoke quietly, his melodious voice in sharp contrast to Devrik’s harsh tones.

“You mentioned patients a moment ago — this world has been your patient, long in your care,  and it’s obvious to me, at least, that your ministrations have been a balm and a comfort, if not the panacea you wished for. 

“But now, at what seems to you the darkest hour, you choose to withhold your patient’s chance to make their own choice — you say that death is better than further suffering, but is that truly your choice to make for another? Much less an entire universe? For it won’t be just this world that dies if you do this. Don’t take that choice away from your patient, my friend, when hope may be closer than you realize.”

“Indeed,” agreed Quanta. “Earlier I offered to assist you in your work on the trans-dimensional travel device and I stand by my intention to do so… if we all survive this.  

“You’ve experienced many eons in this one dimension, but the bounds of the quantum universes are limitless. Do not commit the cardinal sin of some scientists, which is to presume that all you know is all there is to be known. 

“As lovers of truth, we are bound to the pursuit and must continue with experiment after experiment, varying the parameters as we can. Cast off the shackles of this world which you carry on your shoulders like Atlas of old. Allow your hope to be rekindled and, rather than wait here for help to arrive, venture forth into the multi-verse to seek it. Find a better answer than the nothingness of non-existence.”

For the first time Caretaker looked up to meet the gaze of his interlocutors. 

“And if we save the multiverse,” Scion added, “we will find a way to help you, and your world, this I swear to you. Now that we know you exist, and the evil you face, we can do no less. But the spark has already been lit – we have incited revolt against evil this morning, now fan that spark into a flame in those who would stand with you –  if only you will lead them!”

“I fear I have thrown away the opportunity to lead,” the immortal replied brokenly, after a moment’s silence. “Given what I almost allowed to happen, who now would follow me, who would believe I’m any better than the monsters they know?”

He pressed a button on his wrist-comp and the red light around the bomb faded away. Scion and Quanta sprinted onto the platform and quickly began the procedure to disarm the bomb and remove its cosmic triggering rod. It was almost routine at this point, despite the increasing speed of the pulses, and in minutes the sphere lay inert and harmless.

While they were engaged in diffusing the bomb Artemis walked around the room to Caretaker’s side. He turned away from her, unable to meet her gaze, and she laid a hand on his shoulder.

“It is not too late to lead, my friend,” she said gently. “You had a moment of weakness, yes, but it need not define you. And… I think it can be made to work to your advantage. This world of yours, for better or worse, worships strength, and you have shown yours, while revealing weakness in your enemies… look!”

She pointed at the bank of screens, where several were showing capitulations coming in from various governments and crime syndicates around the world, agreeing to Caretaker’s terms. The Protectorate wasn’t among them, of course, but that hardly mattered. They had been publicly beaten, on their own home ground, and the victors had walked away unscathed and free… they were unlikely to recover quickly from that, and by the time they did, if they did…

“Your bluff has exposed the weakness inherent in the system, and while that may not sway the masses, not today, not by itself, it will bring those who want a better world to your banner. If only you’ll raise it.”

Caretaker was staring at the screens in wonder, a new light of hope growing in his blue eyes as the Vanguard and Hand of Fortune faded away around him. He barely noticed, as his mind began to churn over the possibilities… save for one last whispered sentence in his ear, from Artemis: “Look deep beneath Mount Defiance, my friend.”

After the depressing gloom and existential horror of Erde, the new world the Vanguard and friends found themselves on was several orders of magnitude better… at least at first glance. Although the Norn could have chosen a somewhat more discreet spot to drop them into this reality, Quanta thought…

They had materialized in the middle of a major intersection in what appeared to be the downtown area of an exceptionally clean and tidy metropolis. Quanta winced at the squeal of brakes and blare of horns as traffic ground to a halt around them, but his attention was drawn, like the others’, to the sight just visible over the tops of nearby buildings. In the distance, between the nearer skyscrapers, backdropped by a clear blue sky and haloed by the sun, were two very tall, familiar towers –  New Atlantis’ most famous landmark, the distinctive twin towers of Tesla Plaza! And flying proudly from the top of each tower was a giant Stars & Stripes.

It sparked a sense of relief in the Vanguard, at least, and the hope that this time they wouldn’t be dealing with any freaky, “History has gone wrong here!” scenarios. 

“Thank god,” sighed Chuck, beginning to relax a bit. “Maybe this time all we need to do is explain our mission to the friendly natives, maybe get their help, then put everything right in time for a nice brunch.”

That got a chuckle from his teammates, except for Jonny. He was staring intently at the building to their southwest, a six story modernist building of steel and glass, the familiar, signature look of…

“Uh, guys… have any of you heard of Banana Computers?” He pointed at the building and the large stylized yellow and white banana with the bite taken out of it.

As the others turned to stare at the building other  details started to sink in… there was something odd about the people on the street, almost all of whom had stopped to stare at them… something you couldn’t quite put your finger on…

“Hoi! Police! What’s all this then?” demanded a deep, bass voice, in East Coast American English. Turning toward the officer, prepared to begin the needed explanations, Artemis froze. 

The policeman was actually some sort of… policeape! A burly African gorilla, in fact, dressed in a smart black and white policeman’s uniform. Scion rather fancied that the look on the ape’s face, as he finally got a good look at the group, was even more shocked than their own. He back-pedaled frantically, scrabbling at his hip trying to draw his service revolver, and calling urgently for backup into his collar mic.

At this point the details of the crowds on the streets and in the stopped cars around the (mostly) humans started to fully sink in – everyone was an ape or monkey of some kind: gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and more. All were dressed in contemporary fashions, and all appeared every bit as horrified by the non-ape invaders as the gorilla cop… they alternately begin to point, yell, scream, or, in the case of several women (or at least monkeys wearing make-up and dresses, Mariala thought) to swoon.

“What are you?” demanded the cop. Having at last managed to draw his weapon (a rather high-tech looking pistol, Scion noted), he was now aiming it shakily at the heroes. “Don’t move, you – you FREAKS!”

“Please officer,” Artemis said holding her open hands out and stepping forward. “We’re from an alternate reality, and we’re here to help.”

Beside her, Scion let his helmet melt into his armor, trying to seem less threatening to the obviously freaked out primate policeman. Unfortunately it just seemed to freak him out more, while Artemis’ words didn’t seem to register at all.

“Just stop!” the cop cried, his deep voice sliding up an octave. “Freeze, and put your… hands, of whatever… in the air, you alien monsters!”

Tototem’s attempts, as Raven, to psychically sooth the exited officer’s emotions crashed against an almost impenetrable wall of hysteria, and came to nothing. Jonny, seeing the rising panic in the cop’s eyes, and his shaking paw with the gun, decided to be helpful.

He raised his hands, as requested…  and released a dazzling burst of blue-white light. This succeeded in blinding the poor officer but, strangely, did nothing to calm him. He began firing wildly, spraying violet-tinged energy pellets in a wide arc before him.

Amazingly, every single shot missed Vulk, Toran, Devrik, Erol and Chilz, who had all been more-or-less in the target field.

“OK, that was very Pulp Fiction, but Jonny, could you stop trying to help?” Growled Chilz. “Let’s try to figure out what’s going on here…”

“Has no one read the Threat Deescalation Handbook I put together?” Scion asked in annoyance. But it was out of control now, and they’d better try to get control back while it was just one cop. He tried to take the… man… person… down quickly, with a Magnetic Seizure blast – and missed!

“Damn, he’s staggering around like a – like he’s drunk! He’s going to hit bystanders in another second. Mariala, can you –”

Mariala was already on it, and cast her Fire Nerves spell at the cop, careful to avoid the crowds beyond him. But the policeape continued to flail wildly, and the spell imbedded itself in a newspaper box behind him. He had at least stopped firing his weapon, perhaps realizing he’d lost any idea of where his targets were.

“Sorry guys!” Jonny called out, chagrined. “With my luck, someone’s already posting video of all this on ookNet, and conspiracy theories are already forming.”

“Which gives me an idea,” Chilz said suddenly. “Korwin, come on, let’s check out that newsstand near the Banana Computer’s store. On any world, if anyone is going to have news of weird sightings and strange happenings, it should be the tabloids!”

While he understood the words, Kowrin didn’t really understand the reference. He was nonetheless happy to follow his new ice friend’s lead… who knows, there might be another opportunity to combine their so-similar magics!

At this point about half a dozen police cars hand managed to make it through the traffic jam, to surround the intersection. Policeapes boiled out of the vehicles, weapons drawn and aimed at the strange, horrifying invaders.

Before they could begin erecting a perimeter, Quanta decided that Chilz had the right idea, if the wrong destination. The nearby Main Library seemed a more rational place to look for information, and he quickly opened a portal to the building’s stone lion-flanked entrance.

Erol, noting his new friend’s departure, and his destination, decided to follow. Casting a spell of Invisibility over himself, he slipped silently past the barricades the City Guard were erecting, between their bizarre horseless carriages, and hastened toward the great stone steps of the library, where Quanta had just slipped inside.

Raven had added his own attempts at persuasion to Artemis and Scion’s, but the newcomers seemed as unwilling to listen to reason as the original cop. As large armored vans began arriving and disgorging heavily armed and armored SWAT apes, the situation felt like it was spiraling out of control…

Jonny saw the same thing, and feared nerves were about to break… most of the Vanguard could shrug off small arms fire, but he was much less sure about their allies in the Hand of Fortune… he summoned his flames and took to the air, the better to draw any fire away from his friends. And sure enough, a flurry of shots from half-a-dozen cops, including the still half-blind one arced up after him. 

Several hit him, and while they vaporized in his plasma, whatever energy their weapons used actually stung. He began dodging the rest of the fusillade, until a commander below regained control, and the firing stopped.

Toran had also sensed that things were not going well, and he decide to use his Amulet of Deception. Basing the look on the first City Guard they’d encountered, he made himself look like one of the strange creatures, and moved to join several gathered at the east side of the intersection.

The illusion deceived the apes, but his efforts to convince them to deescalate, seemed to fall on deaf ears. They appeared to have the idea that they were heroically repelling an alien invasion…

“Everybody, this is Scion,” the voice of the Vanguard’s leader came over the strange talking-gem in Toran’s ear. “I’ve gone invisible and made my way into one of the police vehicles. I’ve accessed their computer, and hacked my way into a local mainframe.

“It seems these people suffered an invasion from the Weld several years ago… not a big one, maybe, but it did a lot of damage before their local superhero team, the Primate Patrol, managed to send the Weldlings packing.

“They think we’re the spearhead of a new invasion, and we need to deescalate this now. I think it’s time to surrender… that may be the only way to get them to listen, and time is short.” 

“I second that,” Quanta put in from the library, where he’d set Erol to doing keyword searches on a reference computer. “I think our body language and scent are also getting in the way of our attempts to communicate.”

“Naw, I think we’re just suffering -10 penalties on our Persuasion rolls,” Chilz interjected sardonically. He had erected a wall of ice around the newsstand, to give him and Korwin time to check out the publications, but aside from traumatizing themselves with the latest issue of Playape, they’d learned nothing. His attempts to reassure the terrified orangutan news vendor, cowering behind his counter, were equally fruitless. He doubted de-icing himself would help, even if he was so inclined, with all these trigger-happy cops around…

“I agree with Scion,” Artemis replied with a sigh. “It’s time to try something else.” She slowly raised her hands, palms out, and after a moment Raven and Vulk followed suit. 

But Mariala had spotted a sniper chimp atop a SWAT van taking aim at Artemis with one of their projectile sticks… even from a distance she sensed the creature’s intent to fire…

Her Mental Bolt took the chimp full in the head, and he collapsed silently atop his vehicle. Unfortunately his “rifle,” she remembered it was called, slid from his grip and clattered to the strange, smooth pavement they had here. His nearby companions went… apeshit.

Toran acted quickly then, bravely pretending to be the first cop to go in and “round up” the aliens. “See, they’re surrendering!”

But before he could reach his comrades a blue blur streaked past him, and suddenly Devrik, who had drawn his sword when the shooting had started, was being pummeled by a blinding array of fists. 

The attack was startling, more for it’s blurriness and uncertainty than for it’s slight damage, and the fire mage glared around to find whoever, or whatever, had assaulted him. However ineffectively…

At just that moment the Blue Flame, out of the loop due to his inability to keep a comm link from vaporizing in his plasma form, decided the sewers were likely their best hope of escape, and blasted the apehole cover in the middle of the intersection. Unfortunately Devrik was standing almost on top of it, and he leaped back with an oath.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Blue Flame called down sheepishly. “Didn’t see you there, man! But aren’t you immune–”

His words were cut off as a monkey in a suit of red and silver armor flew in from the west at high speed and blasted him in the back with some sort of force beam. The energy punched through his plasma form, stunning Jonny momentarily, and he dropped to the pavement, reverting to human.

Mariala, meanwhile, had sensed a powerful psychic presence when she had mind-blasted the sniper, and now she attempted to confront it. But her thoughts met an impenetrable psychic wall, perhaps the strongest she had ever encountered. It did not seem an entirely human mind…

Devrik, seeing the fiery blue youth shot from the sky, immediately took a defensive stance over his fallen comrade, his annoyance of a moment ago forgotten. His sword was up, and he prepared to light it up, eyes constantly moving, looking for that blur again–

He felt a presence in his mind, and before he could react he was mentally seized , as if an immense hand had grasped his body. While he could still think, he was frozen, unable to move a muscle. His sword dropped from nerveless fingers, as a red haze filled his vision. His mind blanked out with inchoate rage as he bent every iota of his being to finding the source of this foul violation!

Meanwhile, in the public library, Quanta was being bounced around the Reference Section by a gibbon in a skin-tight magenta and black costume that did not flatter its body… which seemed to be made of almost infinitely stretchable rubber. Those punches of his pack a real wallop, Quanta thought as he picked himself up out of the wreckage of several bookshelves.

“My friend, we are in a temple of knowledge,” he said holding his empty hands up and trying to look as non-threatening as he could. “Would it not behoove us to stand down and talk, rather than destroy this hallowed place? My name is Quanta, and I come in peace.”

The primate superhero paused then, looking mildly surprised. “Huh, you speak pretty good English, for an evil invader. Better than me, actually… so OK, I’ll listen to what you got to say pal. And you can call me Elastigibbon. Who’s your buddy over there?”

Erol bowed slightly and introduced himself, carefully letting the Principle fade from the spell form he had been preparing, then stepped over to stand beside Quanta.

“Thank you, Elastigibbon,” Quanta said, lowering his hands and barely blinking at the name. “I appreciate your willingness to listen to what I have to say. Now, I posit that the same paradigm exists in your reality, as in ours – that a rare minority of beings are “super-powered. 

“As in my world, so to in yours, I theorize – some decide to protect, while others choose to destroy.  I imagine you, too, have experienced many odd, even otherworldly things in your career, yes? If so, I entreat you to consider that we have been placed in the same position vis-a-vis your world, which is as strange to us as we must be to you. 

“I assure you we are here to protect, not just your world, but an infinite number of other worlds, each as real and alive as this one. Unfortunately, I do not know the precise location of the threat but I do know it’s near, and I know its form – it is an explosive device of unimaginable magnitude that must be found and disarmed as quickly as possible. 

“Now, how do you suggest we proceed to find it and render it impotent?”

After a moment of considering this odd speech, Elastigibbon raised a hand to his temple and spoke. “Brainiape, are you getting this? Any idea what this… guy… is talking about?”

“Yes, my friend,” the psychic ape replied, in both his teammate’s mind and those of Quanta and Erol. “They are from an alternate reality where life evolved very differently, they are not hostile, and they truly believe they are here to save our reality from imminent annihilation.” 

“Oh. Well why didn’t he just say so.” The costumed primate held out his hand to Quanta, who took it without hesitation. “No hard feelings, pal, but we’re pretty touchy around here about inter-dimensional incursions!”

Outside the tension had finally broken, in a completely unexpected way, unexpected at least by the visitors. An impressive gorilla in a high-tech jumpsuit had floated out of the sky, seated in an impressive hover chair. His amplified voice had cut through the cheers that erupted from not only the crowd, but from the cops as well.

“Please, everyone stand down! I am Dr. Simian, and I’m here to help. Everyone, please lower your weapons, ease off of your powers!”

The ape officers, both regular cops and the SWAT specialists, immediately lowered their weapons and quickly retreated behind their established cordon.

A second great ape, in a dark costume and a flowing cape, stepped into the intersection, nodding genially to officers as he passed them. Dr. Simian floated lower, and again addressed the crowd, gesturing at his companion below.

“Brainiape confirms that these beings, however shocking we may find their forms, are good-intentioned visitors to our world. Let us greet them as friends, and hear what they have to say to us!”

“That’s all fine and well, Doctor,” Brainiape muttered sotto voce to his leader. “But the one I’m controlling seems unusually upset… I’m afraid in his enraged state, it’s not safe to release him.”

“He has a particular aversion to people, of whatever description, violating his mind,” Mariala told the psychic ape coolly. “Maybe if I speak to him…”

But neither her words nor Vulk’s effort to cast Herald’s Peace on Devrik seemed fully effective in the face of his fury. In the end, Brainiape simple released him, and bore it stoically when Devrik instantly punched him in the nose. 

This caused a bit of stir in the crowd and the cops, but Dr. Simian smoothed over the tense moment, chuckling about “youthful hijinx” and “different customs.”

• • • • •

It took a surprisingly brief time to sort things out, once the hysteria had been contained. Despite Scion and Artemis’ concerns on hearing the name “Simian,” it quickly became obvious that this ape was no villain. Hailed by both the police and the citizens with wild enthusiasm, it seemed he was this worlds greatest hero, a fact Scion was able to confirm as he skimmed the data he’d download from the cop car’s computer.

“This guy seems to be the real deal,” he said quietly over a private comms channel, as Dr. Simian calmed the police. “The whole planet apparently hails this Simian as its greatest scientific genius and philanthropist. He’s patented a great many inventions, which are mass produced by his company, ASTRO Labs.

“Seems like he’s been instrumental in improving the quality of life of all Mankind – er, Apekind – here, but the consensus seems to be that his organizing and training of the Primate Patrol was his crowning achievement. 

“Seems to  largely shun the spotlight and prefers fighting crime from the sidelines, but I’d guess there aren’t many on this world who don’t know Simian and revere him for his goodness and generosity. Huh. Who would have thought it…”

“I hope you’ll forgive us our rough welcome,” Dr. Simian said at last, when he approached the group, his hover chair floating just a foot off the ground and a SWAT Team captain walking next to him. “Captain Aldo here was a young officer the last time we faced an actual alien invasion, and he remembers that terrible time clearly.”

“Yes, I apologize,” the Captain said, somewhat grudgingly Scion thought, but he let it go. No doubt Dr. Simian had been forced to have a strong word or two with the… man. “Let me officially welcome you all to New Africa City, and the Unified Simians of America.” 

“I understand, from what my dear friend Brainiape tells me, that you believe our world is in grave and imminent danger,” Dr. Simian said once the greetings and introductions were done. “Time would seem to be of essence, so rather than have you repeat the tale multiple times, I think the best course of action is to get you together with Mayor Zaius, here in New Africa City – he is the closest political figure who commands enough resources to be of use to us.

“And I have enough clout with him to cut through all the usual green tape. So let us waste no more time – to City Hall!”

Captain Aldo still seemed not entirely convinced that these deformed aliens weren’t more of Chronos’ extra-dimensional monsters, but he acquiesced to the good doctor’s request and provided two large transports to carry the 12 aliens, the six Primate Patrol members, and as many of his men as he could squeeze onboard across town.

As the various groups sorted themselves out and the trucks were brought forward, Quanta managed to get Scion a little apart, with no apes obviously watching them. 

“John, I’d like you to do a DNA analysis of these,” he said quietly, handing over six small evidence bags. “They’re hair samples I’ve managed to collect in the last hour or so. I want to know if there’s any trace of human DNA in any of them.”

“Why would there be human DNA in– oh!” Sudden enlightenment crossed John’s face. “Of course. Our wold’s Simian has tried more than once to mutate humans into other primate forms. You’re thinking maybe in this world he succeeded?”

“The thought crossed my mind, yes.” With a nod Quanta turned to climb into his assigned transport, and Scion walked thoughtfully to his own, already quietly slipping the first sample into the analyzer on his left forearm.

In the same vehicle with Scion were Dr. Simian, Artemis, Devrik, Jonny, Vulk, Chimpanzoom and Metapemorpho, and four of Aldo’s SWAT officers. The second vehicle carried Captain Aldo and another four of his SWAT squad, Quanta, Chuck, Mariala, Toran, Korwin, Brainiape, and Elastigibbon. An unspoken understanding had quietly made sure to keep Devrik and Brainiape out of the same vehicle. Iron Monkey flew point above the convey.

On the half-hour ride to City Hall the Primate Patrol seemed particularly curious about their visitors, and the alien heroes were equally curious about the strange world they found themselves on.

“I do hope you won’t hold the reaction of the police and the by-standers against us,” Dr. Simian said, smiling ruefully. “The NAPD has been on edge ever since the fiend known as Chronos attacked the city a few years ago, sending an army of hideous extra-dimensional creatures to enslave us. They wreaked much havoc in the city before the Patrol and I managed to repulse them.”

In the other vehicle Captain Aldo was offering much the same explanation, ending with “Therefore, it’s only natural when creatures as disgustingly ugly as yourselves (no offense meant, of course) appear out of nowhere! We all just assumed the worst, and responded as if another full-scale invasion was underway.”

Seeking to cover the captain’s little gaffe, Brainiape spoke up. “Our Earth is, I imagine, in most respects much like your own. Our people represent many different species and creeds, but strive to live in harmony and make a better future for all. 

“We are, justifiably I think, proud of our many achievements in the arts and sciences, which have led us to live in an unprecedented age of plenty and ease, while caring for those less fortunate. 

“I suspect our people and yours are also much alike in their marvel for the inspirational super-powered heroes, such as yourselves, who protect them.”

In the lead vehicle, Scion asked “So are there no humans on this world at all? In your zoos perhaps, or kept as pets?”

“Good heavenly canopy no,” said Dr. Simian, appalled. “We would never keep such close relatives in cages, how barbaric! 

“But no, I’m unaware of any surviving humans on this world. From what the fossil record tells us, your subspecies, and all the ancestors of the modern Ape races, shared a common ancestor over five million years ago. 

“But the species I suspect would have led to you humans died out about three million years ago. Which makes us all some sort of virtual long-lost cousins, I suppose.”

“So, this New Africa City seems much like our New Atlantis,” offered Jonny. “Many buildings seem the same… is it the center of your super-hu- er, super-ape population too?”

“Oh yes,” agreed Chimpanzoom. “The city just seems to attract the bizarre and unusual. We’re one of the USA’s leading metropolitan areas, and we’ve been the center of meta-ape activity since the appearance of Ultrachimp in the late ‘30s. Perhaps naming the city New Africa, after the fabled sunken lost continent of Africa, wasn’t the wisest choice.”

“There’s been talk of renaming the city for years,” offered Metapemorpho, “ever since the undersea kingdom of Africa was revealed during WW II, but it never goes anywhere. Too much history, I suppose.”

in the other vehicle, Elastigibbon gave a brief history of super teams on his world. “But at this point the Primate Patrol is the most famous superhero team of them all, certainly comparable to the Freedom Apes of WW II fame. In the aftermath of the Weld Incursion I think we’ve more than fulfilled our mission to fight injustice and protect all apekind, despite the best efforts our worst enemies.”

The convey eventually arrived at the large and very impressive New Africa City Hall, where everyone was herded into the central rotunda, the only space big enough to hold all those involved in the upcoming meeting – the Vanguard, the Hand of Fortune, the Primate Patrol, half the city’s SWAT squad, and the mayor and his staff and advisors.

“My god,” whispered Jonny to Chuck as Mayor Zaius entered and took his seat. “He looks just like Caesar, from the Wahlberg Planet of the Apes movie, in a suit and bow-tie!” 

Chuck shushed him while trying not to laugh (because it was true!) as the team leaders stepped forward to answer the ape’s many questions and tell their story.

In as brief an explanation as was consistent with covering the facts and conveying the deadly seriousness of the situation, Artemis, Scion and Quanta between them laid out the story of the destruction of the multiverse, and their quest to save it under the aegis of the Norn. When they were done, Captain Aldo and the Mayor looked shaken, the Primate Patrol horrified, and Dr. Simian fascinated.

“Well, it’s clear that we must do all that we can to aid you in this endeavor,” the good doctor said, breaking the shocked silence.

“One way you might help,” said Quanta, stepping forward, “is if you’re able to access your country’s military databases. While searching the public records in your Main Library I found a small article from 10 days ago that stated the US Navy had returned unexpectedly from maneuvers in the Mid-African Ocean. Rumors of the recovery of a downed satellite, perhaps belonging to the Panda’s Republic of China, are rife, but I wonder if–”

“Yes, you are a very perceptive ape, er, person,” Dr. Simian interrupted, excitement tinging his normally calm voice. “Your story meshes quite well with facts already in my possession… and Brainiape’s telepathic scans during your tale having again confirmed your veracity, I can now reveal that you are correct. Almost certainly the very object you speak of splashed down in the African Ocean ten days ago.

“The US Navy recovered it before the King of Africa’s aquatic forces could, thankfully, and on the President’s orders it was transfered to my laboratory here in the city. I have been performing a battery of tests on the sphere, and I’m afraid our visitor’s story confirms the suspicion that has been growing in my mind over the last several days concerning its danger,” he said to the Mayor.

Turning to Quanta and the others he asked “Would you be willing to return to my lab with me and help me to disarm it? If, as you say, you’ve had experience in disarming another of these terrible devices then I’d be a fool not to avail myself of that expertise.”

It was at that point that Devrik, who had slowly been seething in the background since the mention of on-going telepathic scans, exploded in fury. Pulling his battle sword from its sheath on his back, he lunged for Brainiape.

“STILL you invade the sanctity of our minds?!” he roared as flames wreathed his blade. “Get out of my head you damn, dirty ape!”

Around the chamber the startled SWAT apes who, along with Captain Aldo, had begun to relax, drew their weapons. Most of the Primate Patrol, caught momentarily flat footed, stood agape at this sudden turn, and even Dr. Simian seemed taken by surprise. Only Brainiape seemed unsurprised, although he appeared to make no move to protect himself.

But Mariala had been watching her friend closely, and she’d seen the storm coming. While she couldn’t bring herself to Fire Nerve Devrik, she could use Passion Nerves to try and calm him down… but the spell did no more than cause the enraged fighter to momentarily shudder, barely slowly his charge.

It was Raven, who had also been watching the unstable Novendian, who ended the contretemps before it could turn disastrously bloody. Before Devrik could get within striking distance of his target Raven cast an illusion of invisibility over the psychic ape, making it seem as if he had teleported away.

The enraged fire mage came to a halt, breathing hard and glaring around the chamber, but when he found no sign of his nemesis he allowed himself to be calmed by Vulk and Erol. Mariala and Artemis quickly stepped up to reassure the twitchy apes that the situation was under control, it had all been a misunderstanding, ha-ha, boys will be boys…

Nerves settled and the mood in the chamber soon returned to one of cooperation, as they made plans to head immediately to Dr. Simian’s laboratory. While the transports were again brought around Scion and Quanta found a quiet moment to consult over their comm links.

“OK, that was very strange,” Quanta said. “How is it that all of these highly trained Special Weapons and Tactics apes just sat there when fantasy-boy went berserk and tried to attack one of their beloved heroes?”

“Maybe they really are that highly trained,” suggested Scion diffidently, “and they don’t pop off half-cocked like humans might.”

“Yeah, that scene in the streets today when we arrived would argue against that… you don’t really believe it, do you?”

“No,” sighed Scion. “It was an odd reaction, or lack of reaction. I also found it amazing that Artemis and Mariala, for all their skills at persuasion, brought the apes down so quickly, afterward. I suspect Brainipae’s power was at work, no doubt at Dr. Simian’s command… he seems to truly understand the seriousness of the situation, and probably didn’t want us all sidetracked by trivialities.”

“Speaking of Simian,” Quanta said, “any results on those hair samples yet?”

“Just running the last one now,” Scion replied, checking a readout on his wrist-comp. “I can’t do a full sequencing in the field, of course, but the tests I can run would show if there was any human DNA underlaying the samples – and they don’t. These apes appear to have always been apes.”

“Hmmmm. Well, so much for that theory,” Quanta sighed. “I guess this world’s version of the good doctor really is a hero…”

• • •

Under heavy police escort, the Handguard and the Primate Patrol were quickly driven to the local branch of Simian’s company, Anthropoid Scientific and Technical Research Organization (ASTRO) Labs. Located on the edge of the city, built into the bluffs overlooking a state park, it took the better part of an hour to get there.

Having previously talked about their world, this time the ape heroes indulged their curiosity about their counterparts from another world, most of them setting aside their past hostilities as simple misunderstandings. They marveled at the differences of the two worlds their new friends came from, and clearly wished there was more time to explore it all. 

Devrik took no part in the conversation, preferring to brood on the injustice of mind control, staring out the window at the views of happy children at play, loving families spending time together, and hardworking apes going to and fro about the metropolis. All of which gradually calmed him down enough to allow him to admit that the general ape-in-the-street was probably OK. 

But if that damn Brainiape ever tried to fuck with his mind again…

Once at the ASTRO Labs facility, they lost the police escort and were quickly waved inside by private security guards. The transports drove through massive double doors and onto a high-speed lift, which carried them very deep underground, as Toran confirmed despite the speed of the descent. 

Before their stomachs could catch up, the lift stopped and another pair of large metal doors opened, revealing the parking garage of a large subterranean complex.

Leaving the vehicles, the group was guided to a smaller, but still quite capacious, elevator which dropped them down another several hundred feet. It opened onto a short corridor which quickly widened out and ended in a set of large blast doors. At a touch of Dr. Simian’s paw to a biometric scanner pad the doors slid open to reveal an immense open lab… and the ominous form of a cosmic-energy bomb on a raised platform at its heart.

As the alien heroes and the Primate Patrol followed Doctor Simian into his lab, the huge doors closed behind them with an echoing boom. 

They could see several lab-coated rhesus monkeys busily engaged in various scientific studies, all of which appear focused on the bomb. In its general layout, the complex seemed similar to the one which housed the cosmic device on Erde but, if anything, even more secure. Rather like a bomb shelter, in fact.

“Well, that’s a new development,” the doctor muttered, eying the alien sphere. “Those lines between the hexagonal plates were not glowing this morning…”

A lab monkey handed him an electronic report pad, and he frowned as he read it.

“It means the bomb has entered its final stage,” Scion said urgently. “We need to disarm it NOW!”

“Yes, I quite agree,” Dr. Simian said, moving his float chair towards a bank of computers and a large control panel. “Let me make a few adjustments here, and then if you’ll describe the procedure I will begin the disarming process.” 

“Doctor, there really is no time to explain the technique to you,” Quanta said, his urgency matching his friend’s. “Scion and I have already disarmed one bomb, it would be best if we simply did so with this one. We can talk about it in detail once the threat is over.”

“Yes, yes, I can see that what you say makes sense,” the genius gorilla responded a bit absently as he flipped several switches and fiddled with some dials. Finishing his task quickly, he turned to his guests and gestured toward the bomb platform. 

“Please proceed. I assume you won’t mind if I observe? Pure scientific curiosity aside, it is our world at stake… I feel we should have some part in the saving of it.”

Although neither human hero was completely comfortable with having even a good version of The Simian looking over their shoulders, it wasn’t worth the limited time left to argue about it. They nodded and followed the doctor’s hover chair down the central aisle towards the platform.

They weren’t halfway there, however, when the voices of the Primate Patrol behind them suddenly rang out in eerie, robotic unison: 

“You cannot be allowed to interfere.”

From out of the dimness of the overhead catwalks that criss-crossed the immense lab Iron Monkey swooped down, his force blasters blazing. Dr. Simian’s hover chair took the full brunt of the attack, and both he and the chair were hurled against the wall of the clean-room bunker. He lay half out of the damaged chair, clearly dazed.

At the same time, moving stiffly and wearing obvious glassy-eyed expressions, the anthropoid heroes attacked the surprised humans. Scion and Quanta found themselves battered by a thousand blows in a matter of seconds as Chimpanzoom assaulted them at super speed. Scion was undamaged, but Quanta staggered back, momentarily dazed.

Artemis, almost impossible to take by surprise, hurled her Shadow Sticks at Elastigibbon before the obviously mind-controlled ape could attack her. Unfortunately both the impact and the electrical shock were easily absorbed by the hero’s rubbery form.

Already prepared for some sort of treachery, Mariala instantly Fire Nerved the four Patrollers in front of her. Elastigibbon and Metapemorph avoided the effect, while Iron Monkey and Brainiape went down – but only for a few seconds. Almost at once they were back on their feet, resuming their attack despite the pain she could sense in them.

Raven quickly cast an illusion of a wall on either side of the aisle to the bomb, seeking to protect Scion and Quanta’s path. Unfortunately the suddenly hostile apes ignored it as if – well, as if it wasn’t there – setting the Avatar’s mind to work on why that should be….

Elastigibbon, bouncing quickly away from Mariala,  attacked Scion, wrapping himself around his legs, only to be flung a dozen yards away, slamming hard into a bank of computers.

Chimpanzoom, or whomever was controlling him, apparently realized he couldn’t damage the armored hero, and focused his attacks on Quanta. Under the force of a thousand blows a second, the quantum hero was staggered, going to one knee. 

Seeing his opponent down, the speedster went in for the kill… but Quanta, calling on the deepest reserves of his quantum energy to clear his mind, counter-attacked, attempting to encase the chimp in a shell of carbon fiber. Even mind-controlled Chimpanzoom was too quick for that, however… but while he avoided the trap, he was at least driven momentarily away.

Metapemorph tried to shape-shift into the form of one of the rhesus monkeys, who were running hysterically around the lab, but apparently failed to see Korwin behind him. The water mage’s spell of Ice Needles of Burkon dazed the mandrill, causing him to lose the form and revert to himself.

At the same time Toran was using his cross-bow to distract Iron Monkey. The armored primate managed to dodge his attacks but was unable to turn his force beam on Scion. The armored human used the distraction to send out an EMP, blacking out several nearby systems – including the flying monkey’s suit.

As the Iron Monkey crashed to the floor Brainiape used his telekinesis to resist the Ice Blast that Chilz directed at him, while Elastigibbon hefted the bank of computers into which Scion had thrown him earlier, and hurled it at the icy hero. The equipment crashed into his back, and Chilz went down under it, not really hurt, but lightly cracked around the edges.

Before he could follow up on his attack, however, Erol thrust his trident at Elastigibbon. The gibbon flowed around the attack and bounded away, back toward the humans who were trying to get to the bomb.

Meanwhile Blue Flame had lit up Devrik’s sword with blue fire, and the delighted fighter-mage lost no time in going after Brainiape. 

“How’s it feel to mind-controlled, bitch?!” he screamed as the gorilla staggered back under the fury of his attack, his dark fur singeing.

Back on his feet and again trying to move toward the bomb, Quanta called out to the others over the comm link. “Could this be Chronos’ doing? Has he finally figured out what we’re doing, and this is his move to stop us?”

Before anyone could answer him, Quanta felt a dark presence in his head, and suddenly he was a passenger in his own body. All he could do was watch in impotent anger as another will raised his hands and fired a quantum matter blast point blank into Scion’s back.

Scion staggered forward, almost going down, and Elastigibbon was on him in an instant, wrapping his pliable body tightly around the dazed hero and bringing him to a halt.

Unable to get across the battlefield to the fallen Dr. Simian, Vulk tried something he’d never done before, channeling his healing power through the Staff of Summer. A pale green light flashed out to envelope the dazed ape scientist…

“No!” shouted Raven, an instant too late. “I’ve been scanning the minds of the controlled heroes – it’s not Brainiape doing all this, there’s a bio-mechanical energy involved, and the signature matches that of Dr. Simian’s hover chair and other tech!” 

“Well shit!” muttered Chilz as he socked Brainiape in the jaw while Blue Flame and Devrik pummeled the gorilla from either side, bringing him to his knees.

At the same time Iron Monkey, finally recovered from the EMP, took to the air again and fired another force blast at Scion. The human wheeled around and Elatigibbon took the hit, going limp and collapsing at his feet. Scion launched a tangle-field net that ensnared his opponent for critical seconds, allowing him to aim a fusillade of armor-piercing rounds at Simian…

Raven was eager to go after the deceitful Dr. Simian, but realized a controlled Quanta was too great a threat to the team. He focused his own considerable skill at mind-control on Brainiape’s already weakened influence, snapping it with relative ease.

Suddenly freed from the insidious mind-control and back in command of his body, a furious Quanta turned his quantum matter blast on Simian… Maybe that Devrik guy wasn’t so far off the mark after all!

On hearing Raven’s warning Mariala, with an oath for the double-dealing ape, immediately turned to cast Fire Nerves at him… 

Vulk, cursing his trusting nature, aimed the Staff and launched a volley of Stavin’s Arrows at the villain he’d just “healed”…

Blue Flame, focused on keeping Devrik’s sword aflame, tried something new himself, causing a gout of blue plasma to erupt from the weapon and arc towards the doctor…

Artemis, wasting no time on futile recriminations, threw both her shadow sticks at Simian…

Realizing the jig was up, Dr. Simian had quickly extracted himself from his fallen chair and set it upright. Leaping into his seat, his hand flew across the controls in the left arm…

Just before the combined attacks of his enemies reached him, a shimmering shield of green energy snapped to life around the hover chair. Bullets, matter streams, glowing arrows, plasma streams, and inky black fighting sticks all bounced off his force screen.

Only some sort of nerve attack got through before the shield went up, and that only for an instant. Still, it had stung, and he was furious at the indignity. No one injured Dr. Simian with impunity! He hadn’t gone to all those years of primate medical school to put up with this kind of shit!

As his foes closed on him Dr. Simian bared his fangs at them all in a savage grin, and flipped up a cover on the right arm of his chair. Pausing for a moment of dramatic effect, he hit the big red button revealed, and then laughed out loud.

Suddenly the overhead lights flickered, then changed from an indirect soft white to a brilliant pulsing green. A loud humming filled the room and everyone, the still-standing members of the Primate Patrol included, grabbed their heads. 

They all struggled to stay conscious, but in just a few seconds everyone began to black out under the nausea-inducing influence of the inescapable green energy field generated by Dr. Simian’s fiendish weapon…

• • •

According to the chronometer in his armor, Scion hadn’t been out long… less than ten minutes. Which was ten minutes too many in the heat of battle. Why was he still alive? He groaned as he climbed to his feet… it felt like he’d torn every muscle and tendon in his body!

Wait, were his fingers always that long? And why was he standing so oddly, like he was slightly bow-legged? It was then he caught sight of Chuck, in his human form, also climbing to his feet…

No, Scion realized with a feeling of cold dread… in his orangutan form. The Q-lon 7 fabric of his costume had adapted, but there was absolutely no doubt that Chuck Chisholm was now a Great Ape! Well, a different kind of Great Ape than his normal one.

As he stared around at the others, variously beginning to come to and start the painful process of standing, he saw that most of them seemed to have been changed into chimps. But what about him–

“God God John!” cried Artemis. “You’re a chimpanzee!” It was the first time he could recall hearing real horror in her voice. 

With a sigh he created a disk of his nanites in the palm of his hand and turned it reflective. Holding it up first to Artemis and then one-by-one to the others he let them see what had been done to all of them. Vulk, like Chuck, appeared to be an orangutan, while Devrik and Toran seemed to be two different species of gorillas.

Lastly he turned the mirror on himself and examined his altered face closely. Still good looking even as a chimp, he thought wryly, but then frowned. Damn, even in this altered form he still had that hated blue tint to his skin… he usually kept himself well tanned to hide it, but apparently chimps didn’t tan.

“Goddamn it!” Quanta began cursing, loudly and inventively. “ I knew that son of a bitch had a DeVolver Ray^®, I just knew it!

• • •

It took a few minutes for everyone to come to grips with what had happened. The Primate Patrol was still unconscious, scattered about the lab where they’d fallen, and no amount of effort seemed able to rouse them.

“They seem unaltered,” Vulk noted after examining each one. “Pulses are strong, breathing’s good, so I think they’ll be fine once they wake up.”

“If they wake up,” said Devrik, darkly eying the comatose Brainiape and fingering his dagger hilt.

“Void curse it Devrik, let it go,” snapped Mariala. “We have more important concerns now. And Vulk, stop dry humping Chimpanzoom’s leg!””

“Yes,” agreed Artemis, ignoring the embarrassed cantor as he stepped away. “Where is Dr. Simian and, more importantly, where is the Cosmic Energy Bomb?”

“Both in the same place, I’m sure,” growled Quanta. “And we’d better find them fast if we don’t want to get blown up with this reality.”

“Well, I think I’ve found out how the bomb left the room, at least,” Toran called from the scaffolding that held up the platform where the device had once rested. 

It took Scion almost no time at all to hack the biometric lock that controlled the iris hatch under the platform, through which the bomb had almost certainly been lowered. The shaft it revealed was deep and dark.

“Maybe we could all link arms and lower ourselves down,” Toarn offered dubiously.” Alright, maybe not the best idea, but he completely failed to understand why the members of the Vanguard laughed so hard at his suggestion.

In the end, Chilz made a spiral ice ramp along the wall of the 100’ shaft for the non-flier’s in the group, while the fliers simply drifted down. At the bottom of the shaft was a wide corridor, and it ended in yet another set of massive bunker-style doors.

Scion’s bio-scanner hacking tool, which had got them past every obstacle so far, was no use here, for there was no mechanism to hack. “He must have the key built into that damn chair of his,” he muttered. “I have no idea how we’re getting through these… but just maybe I can give us an idea of what’s on the other side…”

He sent a stream of nano-bots from his armor through the hairline gap between the doors, forming a mono-molecular connection that allowed them to transmit an image back to him. What it showed him was chilling, and he holo-projected it on the door for the others to see. 

The room beyond was long and relatively narrow, clearly a bunker meant for serious defense. At the far end, on a raised dais, Dr. Simian could be seen posing and gesturing, in the trademark megalomaniac fashion of villains in every universe, before a honeycomb of monitor screens covering the far wall. 

He appeared to be addressing the nations of the world on every radio and television station, threatening to detonate the cosmic-energy bomb if the entire world didn’t immediately surrender to his absolute, but totally benevolent, rule. 

He had clearly transmitted all his readings on the power of the bomb, and stunned and frightened world governments were already beginning to transmit their complete capitulations to the madape… 

“I have an idea,” Chilz said suddenly. “Korwin, can you create some of the magical water of yours, and flood the insides of these doors?”

“Of course,” the water mage replied without hesitation, immediately setting about the task. When his effluvium had filled the internal mechanisms of the doors, Chilz began to drop the temperature far below freezing. As the water froze it expanded… the metal groaned and creaked… cracks began to appear… Chilz slipped his fingers into the gap between the doors as it became wide enough, and he pulled with all his strength…

With a shriek of rending metal, the two massive doors tore away to either side, ice and shards of titanium flying everywhere. For a moment everyone just stared, until Devrik said, grudgingly, “That was… impressive.”

The bodies of Simian’s rhesus lab workers were scattered about in bloody heaps – victims of their master, no doubt, once they had discovered his true plans and objected to them.

And on the floor directly before the dais was the Cosmic-Energy Bomb, dramatically highlighted by a bright spotlight. Scion took to the air and rushed for the bomb – only to smash headlong into an invisible wall of force that cut off the far side of the room.

“You’re too late,” Dr. Simian gloated from behind the safety of his force field. “As you see, already the nations of the world begin to bow before me. I have discovered how to render the bomb inert whenever I wish – and reactivate it if I must!”

“You’re a fool, Simian!” Quanta shouted as he helped Scion to his feet. “There is only one way to make the bomb inert – and Chronos has planned for exactly this sort of hubris, of self-deluded fools who think they can control his power. It’s what he counts on, and that bomb will go off— soon! Are you really so willing to die?”

“Piffle,” the gorilla dismissed Quanta with a wave of his paw and turned his hover chair back to the screens arcing around him. Reactivating his microphone, he proceeded to ignore the heroes behind him and resumed haranguing the hold-out nations…

“I don’t think he’s taking your full powers into account, Quanta,” Scion said in grim amusement.

“No, he’s not, and it’s going to cost him,” Quanta agreed, beginning to open a quantum tunnel, the near end hidden from Simian’s view even should he deigned to look around again. The far end of his tunnel opened just beyond the sphere of the cosmic-energy bomb, behind the oblivious doctor.

As soon as the portal was stable Artemis was through it, her shadow sticks flying at Simian even before she hit the floor to roll and come up in a fighting crouch.

As expected, they bounced off the hover chair’s shields, but they served to distract the surprised villain from the Blue Flame, who attacked from the other side. Double blast of searing blue plasma enveloped the chair, and the shields whined as they tried to compensate.

Korwin and Scion were the next through Quanta’s portal, the latter immediately heading to the bomb to start the intricate process of extracting its power core… assuming, of course, that this weapon was identical to the one they’d encountered on Erde. It looked the same, but with Chronos, who knew… JJ shoved the thought aside and began to work…

Korwin, realizing his ice sword would be of no use against whatever mystical shield the monkey was hiding behind, was struck with a sudden inspiration. A barrier kept things out, of course… but did they not also keep things in?

As the others continued their assault, Korwin began to cast his spell… soon a torrent of water began to gush into the relatively small space defined by the hover chair’s shields. In seconds it was up to the surprised doctor’s neck… and then over his head. 

Simian’s eyes widened in panic, and he fumbled in a compartment for a re-breather… but the water had come so quickly, and he hadn’t gotten a decent breath… he fumbled the device, and as he scrambled to recover it panels on his chair began to short out… even as he jammed the re-breather over his mouth the circuits controlling his shield shorted out… for just an instant an egg-shaped ovoid of water hung suspended in the air, before splashing away in all directions.

As he struggled to get a proper breath the gorilla mastermind was hit by what felt like three javelins of electric force directly in his chest and neck. Then an insanely strong orangutan had him in a choke hold – it had to be that mad human, the one who had attacked Brainiape… his vision began to go gray… no, he was so close…

As soon as Devrik had gone through the portal Chilz had thrown up a thick wall of ice, cutting off both fantasy-boy and Simian from the rest of the chamber. Better safe than sorry, and he was sure the crazy swordsman could take care of himself.

Artemis, also on the far side of the ice wall, relaxed as she saw Simian go limp in Devrik’s grip, and the warrior let him drop to the floor, unconscious. The faces of the world leaders on the wall of screens looked very surprised, but pleased, as they watched their would-be Alexander the Ape go down to sudden, ignoble defeat. She wondered briefly why they weren’t freaked out by the humans, until she remembered that they weren’t humans just at the moment… and she really craved a banana, damn it!

“I’ve got it!” she heard Scion shout, his voice muffled by the wall of green ice. And almost at once the world began to fade around her as the Norn drew them all back to the Weld…

• • •

The first thing Erol noticed as the Weld faded into being around him was that the black hole that was the Mega-Entropy seemed noticeably larger… or maybe it was just closer? It was hard to be sure in a space lacking all context, but it didn’t seem to bode well. The second thing he noticed was that he was back in his proper body… or at least in his current Telnori body.

The beautiful face of the Norn appeared before them, drawing everyone’s attention from the disturbing sight of the hungry maw in the “sky.” 

“Well done, my champions,” he said, her voice as melodious as ever, even if tinged with a hint of… exhaustion?

“What about Dr. Simian?” asked Artemis. “We didn’t have time to turn him over to the authorities, and I’d hate to think he might be running loose on that poor world.” 

“There is no need for concern,” the Norn assured her. “Dr. Simian is being held by the authorities under tight security, and will receive a fair trail in accordance with Ape Law. The Primate Patrol is now completely free of his mind control, and feeling deep gratitude for the strange heroes from another reality who saved their world. 

“Indeed, the entire planet saw you take down the traitorous Dr. Simian. A bronze plaque, bearing all your names and likenesses, or at least your ape likenesses, will be placed in the Gallery of Heroes in Primate Hall, home of the Primate Patrol.

“You will always have friends, and be welcome, on Earth-Ape… assuming both universes survive the current crisis, of course.”

The Norn’s visage turned grave then, and that hint of weariness in his face grew deeper.

“We are only halfway through our task, and the Mega-Entropy continues to devour ever more of the Weld. While this distracts Chronos from out activities, it will all be for naught if the Weld is destroyed before this multiverse is restored.

“So let me heal your hurts now, before I must send you on to your next world. A world I fear you will find disturbing, and not much to your liking, but one which must be saved, nonetheless. Still, I think you deserve some warning of what you are to face…”

As before, all their injuries and weariness seemed to flow out of the heroes, and a calmness and peace engulfed them as the white emptiness of the Weld faded away…

The day the multiverse died started out pleasantly enough for the Vanguard. 

It was a mild, sunny mid-June morning in Astoria, and most of the team were excited for the upcoming trip to New Atlantis. With both the Liberty Alliance and the Sampson Family off-planet the City of Heroes was left dangerously low on meta-human protectors, a situation likely to prove too tempting for the villains of the world to ignore. So, at the request of the Alliance, the Vanguard was temporarily relocating to the city for a sort of bus-man’s holiday.

“A week, ten days at the most,” Raven had said when making her pitch to Scion and Artemis several days earlier. “Vitruvian has already joined the Sampsons on Jupiter’s moon Europa, to help with the reactivation and renovation of the ancient Seeker habitat that Dr. Sampson discovered there 10 years ago. If it can be made functional it will provide a safe haven for a great many of the refugees fleeing the collapse of the Union – and hopefully take the political pressure off President Clinton and Mayor Grant regarding the alien refugees on Star Island.

“The other side of that problem, though, is the increasing rate of space piracy around the fringes of the Sol System. It’s been an increasing problem in the last six months, but now many of the raiders, buccaneers and general galactic scum seem to have united under the banner of a single captain, a nasty piece of work named Kraken. 

“At this point almost no refugee ships can make it into our system without being seized and stripped of their valuables. It’s time, and past time, that we put a stop to it – the entire Liberty Alliance is heading out past the Oort cloud in two days, with the exception of Urbana, who will split her time between the Overwatch and the New Atlantis embassy.

“The other Alliance embassies around the globe will remain covered by their usual Reservists or Associate members, but New Atlantis is the center of the meta-human world, and it’s just not safe to leave it under-protected for any length of time. We’ve discussed it, and the Alliance agrees that the Vanguard is the obvious choice to stand in for us our absence. What do you say?”

“I’ve no objection in principal,” JJ had said, frowning into the holo-display. “But I’m reluctant to leave Astoria unprotected for so long either. We may not be quite the hub of meta-human activity as New Atlantis, but we’ve already moved past LA and Chicago and New York to hold second place.”

“It’s true, we can’t completely abandon our own responsibilities,” Artemis agreed. “But do we need the entire team? Perhaps if we left one or two on duty here, with some reserves of our own as backup, it could be done?”

“Actually, I’ve taken the liberty of mentioning this to Stormlord,” Raven interjected. “He’s agreeable to splitting his time between Portland and Astoria for the duration, if that helps your decision. It’s not like he didn’t so just that for years before the Incident, after all.”

“Indeed,” said Artemis. “yes that would be very reassuring. I think if we could talk Paragon into helping—”

“That’s not likely to be an issue,” JJ laughed. The young Changling had an obvious crush on Artemis and was likely to jump at anything she might ask of him. “And the Phantom Ace called me this morning – he’s looking to drop by the Tower for a week or two of R&R. Apparently his personal business has hit a dead-end for the moment and he needs to recharge… and use our intel resources, I suspect. He might be willing to backstop whomever we leave on duty…”

“Perfect!” Raven said, seizing on this tenuous agreement. “It’s all set then. I’ll send the access codes to the embassy by encrypted laser-comm shortly. We take off in the morning, but we’re not publicizing the fact, so I expect the city will be safe enough for a day or so, until you can get here.”

Prometheus had readily volunteered to stay behind on monitor duty, which would allow him to catch up on his correspondence with Victor Frankenstein’s current-day successors in various universities in Switzerland and Germany. Paragon, as predicted, had jumped at the chance to step up from his associate status to an active role, and he and Phantom Ace would be taking up daily patrol duties. 

• • • • •

Stormlord had planned to see the Vanguard off, but a last minute hostage situation in Eugene had diverted him temporarily. So it was only Paragon and Phantom Ace who waved off the team as the Interceptor lifted off from its hanger atop the AzTech Pyramid and turned east into the morning sun.

Scion was at the controls, as usual, with Artemis in the co-pilot’s seat, continuing her flight training as his back-up pilot. In her 152 years she had never really had occasion to learn to fly, and she was enjoying the challenge of learning something new. Unlike her innate facility with weapons, this knowledge didn’t come automatically, and she actually had to work for it. It was a pleasant change of pace.

She was more ambivalent about their destination. She’d only been back to New Atlantis a few times since her stint there as the “Angel of the Night” in the post-War years… most notably in 1977 when she’d helped put an end to another killing streak by the Spirit of Murder, in the form of Mack the Knife, and then again in 2002 for the Z’ardani Invasion. Neither were fond memories.

JJ’s own handful of visits to the City of Heroes were less fraught, although his impression of the place was certainly colored by his very first visit, in 2004. Stormlord, in his civilian identity of Kevin Kasperbauer, had taken him there to further his on-going education about the modern world, and the role of the meta-human in it. 

They got more than they bargained for – three days into their visit the invasion plot of the shape-shifting aliens of the Dramorg Consensus was revealed and the ensuing battle sucked in every meta-human on the Eastern seaboard. He’d made his first public debut in his armor that day, although in the general chaos (and lacking a code name at that point), he’d been mostly overlooked by the press. It had certainly informed his decision not to go into the “superhero” business, however, Kevin’s unsubtle encouragement notwithstanding.

In the passenger cabin Jonny was straight-up excited. He’d never been to the Big Apricot before, and his head was about ready to explode at the idea of standing in for the frickin’ Liberty Alliance! He and Chuck had binge watched the History Channel’s documentary INVASION! the night before, which covered every major invasion New Atlantis has faced since the first HUSH attack in 1963, including both incursions from the Weld, and ending with the Darmorg’s failed infiltration and attempted conquest in 2004. 

Chuck himself was only just now able to really appreciate the nature of what they were involved in, having finally gotten his mother off the phone. She’d spent the morning alternating between urging him to be cautious, listing villains he needed to watch out for and offering advice on how to beat them, and insisting he get her autographs of all the Liberty Alliance… she didn’t quite seem to understand that the whole point was that they weren’t going to be around. Well, maybe when the Alliance returned there’d be some overlap…

Having visited New Atlantis many times over the years, Quanta was mainly excited to be gaining an opportunity to spend some serious alone time with the Liberty Alliance’s incredibly advanced technology… not to mention the truly alien devices they’d come to posses over the decades. The possibility of picking Urbana’s brain was also not to be missed. He just hoped the criminal element would take the hint and stay quiet for the next ten days or so.

Totem and Meg Halcyon were more wrapped up in their own issues. Both had been to New Atlantis previously, and today they were preoccupied with their on-going debate about whether or not to go public with their personal relationship. She was already well-established in the public mind as “the Vanguard’s reporter,” and professionally set up in the “superhero” beat… but admitting to a romantic relationship with a hero posed dangers above and beyond those to her professional career. 

In any case, her bosses at the Oregonian were as of yet unaware of her personal ties, and had jumped at sending her into the field when the Vanguard had agreed to let her come along and write about their time as replacements for the Liberty Alliance. Àlvaro de la Vega, of course, had declared it was a chance for priceless publicity… or maybe it had been Nimrod. Even Artemis was not always sure which one was making suggestions at a given moment.

They were less than 20 minutes out of Astoria, just passing over Portland and not even half-way to their suborbital cruising ceiling, when an emergency hail broke in on everyone’s thoughts.

“Interceptor One, this is PDX International air traffic control. We have an urgent call for you from the Hood County Sheriff’s Department. Routing it through to you now…”

It turned out that a casino only recently opened in the Gorge just outside of Hood River and run by the Wasco tribe of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs had been seized by a gang of meta-human criminals. Or maybe terrorists, no one was quite sure at this point.

There were at least a hundred hostages, possibly more, being held inside, and Hood County had little in the way of resources for handling, or experience in dealing with, metas. Stormlord was still engaged with the situation in Eugene, and in any case the Vanguard was by far the closest force remotely up to handling super-villains.

“Understood,” Scion replied after they had the salient details. “We’ll be touching down in about ten minutes. Please be sure to have all relevant intelligence ready for us then. And if there are electronic copies of the blueprints on that casino, send them now.”

The Paradise being only a few months old, the plans were indeed available, although the Interceptor was preparing to land in the parking lot to the south of the building before the digital files came through.

The Paradise Casino and Resort Hotel was an interesting vision of concrete, stucco, glass, steel and wood. The sprawling, two+ story casino covered several acres of land, on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River, with a ten-story hotel block rising up on the north side. Expansive parking lots surrounded the building on the other three sides.

The Hood County Sheriff’s Department had cordoned off the casino, evacuated the attached hotel, and cleared all the bystanders back to the streets beyond the parking lots. An inner cordon separated the authorities from the casino proper.

“Meg, please stay aboard,” Artemis said as they prepared to disembark. “You can monitor our body cams and telemetry from here.”

“You’ll actually have a better view of things than if you were with the rest of the press behind the cordon,” Totem added with a grin.

“Yes, I know sweetie,” Meg laughed. “Did you really think I’d insist on following you into the middle of a fight just to ‘get the scoop’?”

Totem shrugged, admitting to nothing. Artemis just smiled as she strode down the ramp, pretending not to see the surreptitious kiss the two shared. The others were already outside, introducing themselves to the cluster of police and emergency personnel gathered behind the inner cordon. The flashing lights of a dozen sheriff’s vehicles were pale in the morning sun.

Sheriff Matt English introduced himself and his lead deputy on the case, Deputy Randy Wiwinu. “Randy is a member of the Wasco tribe… it’s his people built and run this casino, so he was the obvious choice to be point-man out here. For what that’s worth – none of us have much experience with super-powered types and we’re all out of our depth.”

“Hell, we can’t even get into the building,” Deputy Wiwinu grumbled. “There are only three main ways in, and very few windows, but they’re all blocked by walls of thick ice! We’ve tried–”

“Oh my god!” Interrupted Blue Flame suddenly. “Are the Moody Blues being held hostage in there?!”

“What?” Both the deputy and the Sheriff looked confused. “I don’t know what–”

Blue Flame pointed at the large free-standing marquee near the main entrance, which advertised the fact that the Moody Blues would be playing at the Paradise all week.

“Oh, um, no… they weren’t scheduled to play until this evening, I think,” the deputy replied, still confused by the question. “They were in the hotel, but we got them evacuated along with the rest of the guests.”

“Anyway,” he went on as Blue Flame gave Chilz and Scion a relieved thumbs-up, “we know there are at least four metas in there, and maybe as many as eight. All the cameras seem to have gone dead as soon as they entered…”

“Yes,” Scion agreed, sounding slightly distracted. “I’ve just tapped into their feed. From the look of it… no static… I’d say the cameras are covered in ice, like the doors and windows.”

“We’ve tried to batter through the ice,” Sheriff English offered. “It’s like steel, we barely chipped it.”

“And we’ve had no actual contact with the perps,” added Deputy Wiwinu. “ No ransom demands, no manifestos, nothing. What little we do know is thanks to the handful of people who escaped in the first few seconds of the attack, before the ice went up.”

“Chilz, you’re the obvious one for reconnaissance in this situation,” Artemis said, gesturing him forward. “No attacks, please, just tell us what we’re looking at inside.”

With a grin the towering iceman sauntered forward, moving cautiously through the center revolving door of the three at the main entrance. The sliding doors beyond were frozen shut, but he was easily able to manhandle one open. The wall of ice on the other side was blue-tinted and hard as steel, as advertised.

Which was hardly an obstacle for a man made of living ice, who could travel through any volume of frozen water like it was a heavy fog – in other words, effortlessly. Pressing his forehead against the ice sheet he slowly sublimated himself into it… the barrier proved to be about three feet thick, leaving only his hips and legs outside.

He allowed just his face to exit the far side, and his eyes widened in surprise at what he saw. The cavernous open floor of the casino was a roaring maelstrom of wind, heavy rain, and thunder and lightning – it was as if a miniature hurricane had been trapped inside the building. Gaming tables were overturned, slot machines thrown about like so many beer cans, and half the ceiling tiles were flying around like confetti. The noise level was an 11.

Quickly relaying the basics to his teammates, and not too worried about being overheard, he went on to describe the specifics. “OK, on my left, near what looks like offices, we’ve got a Native woman hanging in the air, maybe 15 or 20 feet off the floor. She’s got some sort of high-tech rod, lousy with knobs, gears and dials, in her hand and she seems to be on guard duty…

“Just to my right there’s some dude in a flame-themed costume and what looks like dual flame-throwers… he’s rooting through the overturned slot machines, scooping up – oh shit, yeah, they’re flame-throwers alright! He just slagged the one-armed bandit he was looting… looks like he’s done a bunch of others, too… thank god for all this rain, it seems to be keeping his fires from getting outta control! 

“The only other villainous sort I can see – at least I think he’s one of the bad guys – is some dude dressed up like an old-timey traveling salesman… he’s got a bunch of terrified-looking people, maybe 60 or 80 total, trapped in a theatre area… I think that’s maybe were the Moody Blues would be playing… is he putting on a magic show? Can’t hear a damn thing… Anyway, that’s on my far right, and I can only see them ‘cause this freakin’ hurricane has shattered the glass wall between the casino and the… OH SHIT!”

Chilz yanked himself to the right just in time to avoid the sizzling lightning bolt that blew a hole in the ice wall where his head had just been. He hastily pulled himself out of the ice and returned to his teammates and the cops.

“I think the floating chick noticed me,” he admitted a bit sheepishly. “And I think she’s the one controlling the weather inside there!”

Artemis shrugged. “The odds of our retaining total surprise were small, in any case – they had to be expecting either us or Stormlord to show up eventually. But I think we might still present them with the unexpected.”

“Yes,” Quanta agreed, smiling at the casino blueprints Scion was projecting into the air before them. “I think if I open a portal here, and Totem and Blue Flame create a distraction there…”

He quickly sketched out his idea, and the others agreed that it was sound. While he opened a quantum tunnel to the large open space in the northeast corner of the casino, Blue Flame turned up his plasma blasts and began melting a hole through the ice at the main entrance. At the same time Totem summoned the avatar of Raven… 

• • • • •

Inside the Paradise, Courtney Cline, the Weather Walker, hung in the air, her attention focused on the main entrance where she’d seen the face in the ice a few minutes earlier. Probably that ice hero, Chilz… it’d be a pity to melt him, she’d thought his human form rather cute, for a white dude, when she’d seen him on TV. And she’d really liked the way he’d put the smack-down on that air-headed, jumped-up weather girl Kiwi Sherman. But if he wanted to get in their way, well – que sera, sera.

“Firebug! They’re coming through the front doors! Give ‘em a warm welcome, why don’t you?”

A blue light was glowing beyond the ice wall, and it took only seconds for a huge hunk of it to vaporize into steam. Hovering in the fog-shrouded opening was a man wreathed in blue-white flames, and beyond him were dim shapes Courtney guessed must be the Vanguard. 

Before the fools could even move Firebug let them have it with both barrels – the Ice Man Melteth, she thought wryly. The blue Flame Guy wasn’t too bothered, no surprise there, but the rest of the big-shot Vanguard were going up like torches! Actually, she was a little taken aback by the horrific screams and shrieks of agony…

“Huckster,” she called out to her partner over in the theatre area, “Backup Firebug with that last hero, he may be a problem…” 

But even if he was, he was still just one guy against their six. Speaking of which…

“Bolo, how’s it going with that vault? I think we’ve got the Vanguard handled up here, but you might want to send some back-up, just in case.”

• • • • •

While most of the Vanguard lay writhing in their flaming death throes at the main entrance, a shimmering gray portal opened in the Keno bar… and the Vanguard stepped through into the outer fringe of the hurricane. They quickly spread out.

Raven needed only the smallest part of his attention to maintain his illusion of the team dying at the main entrance, and was already plotting his next move.

Artemis’ first glance took in the entire situation and she began prioritizing targets… but not before muttering under her breath “My lord, did Sammy Hagar team up with Guy Fieri on this decor?”

“Actually that’s not too far from the truth,” Raven said sotto voce, with his trademark smirk and that indefinable trace of an accent. “The Wasco tribe wanted a native architect and designer, give the place a classy Pacific Northwest, Chinook-style look. But other factions prevailed, and they hired a firm of casino “experts” from New Atlantis – and thus this abomination of an Hawaiian-Cabo-Jamaican mash-up.

“A tacky tropical Paradise,” he added as he suddenly seemed to split in two. His illusionary self strode out into the storm, while the real him faded back into the shadows near the horrifying “Lava Lounge.”

• • • • •

It took the Vanguard very little time to roll up the would-be casino robbers, although there were a few interesting developments along the way…

As soon as his teammates began fanning out to their various tasks, Quanta began generating a series of quantum-matter walls, each engraved with the team logo (which still hadn’t made it out of the design committee, but what the hell, he liked it) and arrows to funnel the wet, frightened hostages out of the theater and into the tour lobby. The ice walls there still blocked any exit, so he began channeling them back down into the Keno area and out his still-open portal…

The Huckster had departed the theater as soon as Weather Walker informed him of the Vanguard’s frontal assault, leaving the hostages with a stern warning that he’d be right back – and that there was nowhere for them to go anyway.

He was as surprised as anyone when his attack on Blue Flame, with his infamous Jalapeño Cream Pie^® (pat. pending), somehow managed to actually discomfort the hero, even as it vaporized in his aura. Apparently even a man of flame could find that aerosolized pepper burned a bit!

But the bloom was quickly off that novelty rose, as he narrowly dodged a series of searing plasma blasts hurled at him by the annoyed hero. He decided discretion was definitely the better part of saving his own ass… and disengaged with a smokescreen, courtesy of a Johnny Buzzkill Ashtray^® and made a covert dash back to the theater…

Only to find that his would-be human shields were decamping posthaste through a totally unfair magic portal, probably conjured by that insufferable know-it-all Quanta. But his consternation quickly turned into relief as an idea struck him… he ditched the bowler and his jacket and joined the fleeing crowd. Yes indeedy, he’d let the hero send him to safety along with everyone else!

The Blue Flame had not lost the carnival barker dude when he’d used his sad little smoke screen, but he had become suddenly engaged with the flame thrower guy, who seemed incredibly hard to hit, but yet had managed to hit him – with a flame that actually stung a bit, somehow! 

Chilz, having seen the hostages started on their escape, had been trying to blast the hot-headed villain himself, to little effect. The dude jumped around like a Mexican jumping bean, and his streams of ice and cold kept missing. Thank the gods the casino was already trashed, because his missed attacks were causing real damage…

At that moment Weather Walker, finally twigging to the fake-out at the main entrance, let loose with a barrage of thunder and lightning that shook the building, threatening to deafen and blind everyone.

Scion was hit by a bolt of lightning, which momentarily made his internal systems go down, and Quanta was aurally stunned by the thunder, if only briefly. He managed to keep control of the crowd of frightened, now dazed, people still moving through his quantum tunnel…

Courtney’s distraction was enough for Firebug to at last get a good shot in on the big ice guy. As much as he loved, loved, loved watching things burn (and he had a flicker of annoyance as he was reminded about how the bitch kept putting out his fires with her rain), he was excited to see someone melt, instead…

The results were less than he’d hoped for, frankly… the big green fella did seem to melt some in the double blasts of his flame throwers, but almost as quickly he seemed to reform. Damn it, it was Courtney again and all this frickin’ water, it must be helping him heal. Why, he outta –

The thought was interrupted as Blue Flame used Firebug’s distraction to actually hit him with a plasma bolt – Christ, if my costume wasn’t fireproof I’d be toast! He barely had time for that thought before he was enveloped in a second blast, this time of bitter cold. It wasn’t fair, he thought as he staggered back… he hated the cold… 

Weather Walker lashed out with a tornado as she saw Firebug fall while that fink Huckster fled for safety. The vortex lifted the Native dude – she didn’t recognize him, but he must the one called Totem – up toward the ceiling and then slammed him down into a bank of dollar slot machines. She hated to do that to another indigenous, but he’d picked his side… besides, it was a stupid fuckin’ name.

She turned to blast that flying armored asshole again with the lightning when she suddenly screamed. It felt like her mind was being swarmed by stinging ants while at the same time someone was trying to force their way into the deepest parts of her soul!

With a tremendous burst of willpower, she shoved the sensations away and regained her balance, only to find that bitch in black trying to pull her down with a damn bull whip! Fortunately, the very winds that held her aloft kept the whip at bay. 

Where the hell was Bolo and the others? she thought, growing worried. Hell with Bolo, where the hell was the backup we were promised? Everything is going to shit! 

Actually, help was crawling out into the fight on its hands and knees at that very moment, just behind and below her…

When Quanta had been creating the shield walls and guides for the hostages, he’d had a little quantum matter left over. Peering through the hurricane he’d noted the door near where the weather witch was hovering, and recalled from the blueprints that it led to the administrative offices… and the casino’s underground vaults. So he’d added a little something extra, just in case…

Bolo had decided he’d better go check on what was going on upstairs. Courtney was a beautiful woman, and quite powerful with that Weather Vane device she’d invented, but these situations often needed a man’s hand on the tiller. 

Leaving the Mad Maple and Looking Glass to ride herd on the casino manager, he headed up to the office – only to find the door onto the casino floor now opened into what looked like… half an igloo? The shimmery gray material resisted his attempts to break it, and in the end he was forced to crawl, ignobly, out the narrow tunnel.

He straightened up into Courteny’s on-going hurricane, although the winds seemed to die down for a moment before renewing themselves. He saw a woman in an inky black cloak cracking a whip at the Weather Walker, and he quickly pulled out a steel-and-mesh net bolo.

“Apologies, beautiful mamacita,” he whispered as he threw his signature weapon at her. “As much as I love me some hot chick-on-chick action, now is not the time. Maybe after, we can–”

His smarmy grin slid off his face as Artemis whirled around and caught his bolo on one of her black throwing sticks. Before he could pick his jaw up, his head was filled with a thousand gnawing insects attacking his brain. His eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped, unconscious.

Chilz, having seen the Latino Lothario emerge from Quanta’s little igloo, decided to improve on the design. A wave of his hand and a plug of ice capped the exit, just to make life interesting for anyone yet to join the fray. Quanta, who was dragging a restrained and very dazed Huckster by the collar, just shook his head and smiled.

Weather Walker, barely recovered from the last mental attack, had her mind again blasted by both Raven and Scion. Black spots filled her vision, the winds died, and she hit the floor, but she refused to lose consciousness. She raised the Weather Vane, determined to summon the lightning – only to find her arms securely pinned to her side by one of Bolo’s damn trick bolos. Her rod dropped from her hands as she writhed helplessly on the floor. 

Just then the ice plug on the igloo shattered outward. A gorgeous woman in a stylish pantsuit, and  a strange-looking guy in a white costume with maple leaves on it, crawled out.

Blue Flame dazzled the dude with a plasma burst and Scion took out the woman with an electro-stun blast before either could do more than glance around.

Firebug had managed to sneak away when the tornado had, briefly, tossed the Blue Flame around and had distracted the scary ice-guy after they’d double-teamed him. Now, hiding behind an overturned blackjack table, he made a run for it…

Chilz formed an ice slick beneath the fleeing felon’s feet, and as he was windmilling around trying to keep his balance, the hero picked up and threw a slot machine at him. It took Firebug hard in the back, and it was lights out… which meant he entirely failed to appreciate it when the spinning cylinders came up a jackpot and coins began to pour out over his unconscious form.

“Hey Chilz, check it out,” Jonny called as he hovered over the villain, making sure he was really out this time. “It’s a Chillin’ to Win slot – one of the ones you licensed last year!

Once everyone had had a good laugh and the restraints were on all of the perps, Scion took a moment to run facial recognition scans on the prisoners.

“Hmm… we’ve apparently got the Thieves Guild here, a group who’ve been operating out of the Midwest, mostly, for the last several years. Why they’ve branched out to the Northwest I have no idea.”

“Perhaps I can help with that,” Raven said, kneeling down next to Weather Walker and laying a hand on her head. He could’ve scanned the mind of any of the others, of course, but Courtney here was by far the most attractive to him, so… a no-brainer, as the human saying went.

“Interesting,” he murmured as he sank into her thoughts. “It seems they were hired by a mystery man, over the telephone… he flew them out to New Atlantis to explain the job in person, a very nondescript fellow…he was quite insistent on the target of their heist, as well as the precise date and time… down to the minute, almost… he also implied that he would provide some special assistance once we showed up… so, they expected us, indeed wanted us here… this “Mr. Johnson” drove them to the airport and saw them onto a private jet out here to Portland… she has no clue who their “benefactor” really was… the last thing she heard was Johnson telling his driver to take him to Alliance Park… hmmm, she was genuinely shocked when this promised “backup” never arrived…”

“It almost seems as if someone wanted to get us here,” Chilz said, frowning. “But why? To keep us away from New Atlantis?”

“That seems… unlikely,” Artemis replied, frowning in turn. “Out departure wasn’t exactly a secret, but very few people outside our own organization, and the Liberty Alliance, knew the details; even Meg’s employers only knew the outline of our mission, not the specifics.”

“And I’ve just checked with Urbana,” Scion added. “There are no current major incidents being reported in New Atlantis… all seems quiet.”

“Which means if this was a diversion, there’s a leak somewhere,” Quanta concluded. “But to get these clowns out here from the Midwest… they’d have to have known about it before we did. Some sort of pre-cog, maybe?”

On that unsettling question the Vanguard hauled their prisoners, conscious, semi-conscious and unconscious, out to the waiting authorities. If this was a delaying tactic, it didn’t seem a very successful one – it had taken less than a hour, start to finish, to take out the Thieves Guild. Indeed, the paperwork and after-action reports promised to take considerably longer than the fight.

With promises to file more detailed reports in the next day or two, the heroes managed to wrap up their part in the incident just a few minutes before noon. 

“With luck we’ll be in New Atlantis in about an hour,” Scion said. “Only three hours late.”

As they turned towards the Interceptor, however, a brilliant white light filled the eastern sky – before their senses could do more than begin to register the sight, the world vanished in a blinding, searing wave of white pain, followed an instant and an eon later by oblivion.

• • • • •

With no transition the Vanguard went from non-existence to standing in a semi-circle in a featureless white void. Actually, standing was something of a misnomer – while they all appeared to be on the same horizontal plane, there was nothing beneath their feet, not even the sensation of some invisible ground or floor. Yet there was no sense of weightlessness, either…

But more disturbingly, to Artemis at least, was the fact that ranged in a mirroring arc across from them, maybe five meters away, were six other strangely garbed individuals. She suspected the blank, shocked expressions on their faces matched her and the Vanguard’s own.

There was something terribly familiar about them – it came to her in the next breath. These were six of the people from that distant, fantastical, far future world they’d swapped bodies with last year. No mystical fan and magical ritual this time – whatever had happened, it seemed they’d all been brought together in person this time.

“Hey! That’s that guy who stole my body last year,” Jonny cried hotly, pointing accusingly at the blond young man in the multi-hued blue robes. Artemis noted with some detachment that Jonny was in his human form, as was Chilz.

The blond man looked puzzled for a moment, then an expression of enlightenment crossed his face and grinned, waving an enthusiastic greeting to his counterpart. Jonny frowned and folded his arms.

“He, mo onaz win!” the man (Korwin, Artemis recalled) said. “Fo ast t’hu vaya kabrizo, ki’un mo tomer’us lokin pazton’taru! Kel fo faytar? Tsu fo zka, ke na ast?”

“What the hell is he saying?” Jonny demanded. “I thought these jokers spoke English.”

“Hardly,” Scion said, as his helmet flowed back over his head. “Hmmm… I can’t seem to raise any external channels, damnit… but my on-board linguistic computer is trying to parse the language now. 

“Jonny, when we swapped places with these folks, whatever… force… caused it clearly allowed us to understand the language of the bodies we each possessed. Much like we seemed to have an innate understanding of how to use one another’s powers. It just seemed to us as if we were hearing, and speaking, English.”

The striking young woman in green, with the fiery red hair, stepped forward a few paces and addressed Scion.

“Mo na kompranar win, zet mo zenius, ka mo tevaz. Moa noro ast Mariala … wi ast Johano, ah’s?” 

“It’s no recognizable language in my database,” Scion sighed. “The closest I can come is that it’s some highly mutated version of Esperanto. The algorithms may be able to come up with a translation table, eventually, but it’s going to take some time.” 

“I think she’s telling us her name and asking about yours,” Quanta said. “I think I recognized her name, Mariala, in all that… and that last bit sounded something like John, didn’t it?”

For the next several minutes the two groups, with the exception of Jonny, tried to communicate, with only the most basic success beyond names. Scion’s linguistic computer continued to accumulate data, but it was, indeed, slow going.

Jonny, who hadn’t enjoyed his sojourn in Korwin’s cold, dank body, nor his cold, wet powers, decided to take a look around. Summoning his plasma form, which he was relieved to find he could still do, he… well, he didn’t seem to rise, exactly – there was absolutely no sensation of movement – so much as he seemed to just be a certain distance away from the others, in a direction that his mind said must be “up,” since they were now  “below” him.

It was a disconcerting feeling, but before he could experiment more his attention was arrested. 

“Hey, guys, was that always there?!” 

He pointed at a dark void, surrounded by a halo of crimson light that seemed to swirl slowly into the darkness. With no point of reference beyond themselves, it was impossible to tell the size of the thing, or its distance… one moment Jonny thought it was immense and very far away, and the next he was convinced he could almost reach out and touch it.

His teammates turned first to stare at the… thing… and the Ren Faire rejects quickly followed their gazes to gape at the… thing. The two groups began murmuring to one another in their own languages, and Jonny dropped “down” again to be on the same plane as the others.

Suddenly, everyone’s perceptions shifted again. The black hole, or whatever it was, that had seemed to be above and to the side now seemed to be “below” them. And “above” them, yet at the same time somehow “before” them, a tremendous countenance now gazed at them. It was a face of indescribable beauty, neither precisely male nor female yet beautiful beyond words. It radiated a palpable cosmic power that touched all of them, no mater how tough, cynical, or jaded, with a sense of awe, and age, and wisdom. 

Even Kasira paled into ordinariness in comparison, Vulk thought, and in that moment felt no guilt for it. Quanta’s atheism was shaken, if only momentarily… as the moment wore on he reassured himself that she–  he– she– whatever it was– was not God.

“I am the Norn,” the vision said, and its voice was the most beautiful sound any of them had ever heard. “I have preserved your existence in order to bestow upon you the opportunity to undo a great wrong– the ultimate wrong– that has been done: the destruction of this local multiverse.”

They all gaped at the face, not quite able to grasp what she’d said… what his words implied…

“You are saying that the multiverse… that EVERYTHING… has been destroyed?” Raven demanded at last, more shaken than he’d ever been in his millennia-long existence. “But then, where are we now?”

“In the Weld,” Artemis and Scion said almost simultaneously. They’d both been present during the last attempt by Chronos to seize their universe, and they knew the description of his deadly, distant home all too well.

“Yes,” the Norn said, serenity and urgency somehow co-equal in that mellifluous voice. “We are in a remote corner of that place you call the Weld, insofar as that can have any meaning here… and it is all that is left of your multiverse… a charnel house containing only the shattered fragments of an infinity of worlds and dimensions.”

“How did we come to be here?” Devrik asked, and the heroes of Earth realized they could suddenly understand him, though he still spoke in Yashparic.

“I plucked you from your time lines in the nanosecond before your erasures and brought you forward to this moment. Time is not to me as it is to you, but nonetheless I had a very limited window in which to act. I chose the beings best suited in all the worlds of your web of realities to succeed in undoing what has been done. 

“A part of that calculation was the connection that the dozen of you share, your minds and souls linked across time and space. I had not the time, nor the power to spare, to pull you all from your separate realities, but I knew that if I pulled the Vanguard from their world, the Hand of Fortune would be drawn here as well, for they were already in a dimension outside time and space in that final instant. The synchronisity of your souls would give me a two-for-one advantage, as it were, over all other beings in your multiverse at that moment.”

“But what can we do, even twelve of us, against literal universal destruction” Quanta asked. “What caused this –” disaster seemed far too inadequate a word “– what caused this to happen?”

“It was the cosmic entity you know as Chronos. Growing impatient after billions of years of slowly absorbing reality after reality, a thousand years ago he decided to seek a final solution. The greatest minds at his disposal, from a million destroyed realities, worked on the problem. And they eventually found the answer he sought.

“Earth has long been one of the lynch pin worlds of this local multiverse, a key nexus in the Cosmic Coil. That fact, combined with the Chronos’ fury at his repeated defeats at the hands of Earth’s champions, led him to his choice of targets for his final assault on all reality.

“He discovered that a mere handful of time lines, across the entire multiverse, were the key to cosmic collapse – if they could be destroyed, simultaneously, then all of reality would follow in a chain reaction of imploding universes. A few shattered remnants of each reality would be absorbed into the Weld, expanding his realm and making him absolute lord of all that remained of existence.”

“How is it you survived this universal destruction?” Artemis asked, trying but failing to be suspicious of this entity.

“I have existed almost since the Beginning, brought into existence as the guardian of Life and the Light Eternal. I remember when Chronos was Phoros the Bright, a champion of all that I stood for. And I saw him fall to the corruption of the Dark and the lure of Unity- the order that comes when all reality is reduced to only one.

“Since his fall I have been restrained from most direct action, though my presence is ever felt by those who would champion my causes. Now, in this final moment, I am free to act – but with most of the Life that sustains me gone, I have only limited power left. I will expend it all to undo this evil act, but if we fail I will fade away, and all that will be left will be Chronos.

“Or so it might have been, had Chronos not miscalculated. Across a trillion realities there exists a universal threat almost as great as himself, and one more purely bent on bringing about the pure order of final stillness – Entropy the Devourer. And in a billion of those realities Entropy has survived the fall into the Weld. 

“As terrible as Entropy is, in those realities where it exists, it is no true threat to this local multiverse, only destroying worlds one-by-one. Terrible for those lives so touched, but no more. But here, now, all its variants have combined into a single massive entity, and it has begun to consume what is left of reality, the Weld itself.”

The Norn gestured at the ominous black hole, with its deadly crimson halo.

“The truth is, for all his talk of the beauty of multiuniversal Unity, the being called Chronos has always meant it for other universes and dimensions, other beings – not for himself – else he would have let nature take its course, and his life, billions of years ago. Entropy has no such delusions, for it has no sentience; it exits solely to bring about total stillness, after which its own demi-consciousness, such as it is, will be the last thing to settle into the cold grip of non-existence. 

“Now Chronos fights a tremendous battle to stop Entropy from devouring the Weld and all that remains of our multiversal reality. It is the only reason I can shield us from his notice, here in this distant corner of his realm. And it is why we may yet undo what has been done, causing all this to have never-been.

“Chronos chose the Earths of the four key realities to be ground zero for his multiverse-collapsing weapons, out of spite as much as anything. And he took every precaution that the heroes of what you call Earth-Prime would be suitably distracted – including having his agent see to it that the Vanguard did not arrive in New Atlantis in time to have any chance of discovering his weapon.”

“So what would you have us do?” Vulk asked. “If all his has already happened…”

“I have pulled you from time to be my champions. If you agree, I can send you back in time, to a place near to each of the cosmic energy bombs, perhaps a day or so prior to the detonations. I dare not send you directly to them, nor too far back from the time of each detonation, lest Chronos or his agents notice and take steps to stymie you.

“Once in place, you must find and defuse the cosmic energy bombs. If you succeed, everything will be restored, just as it was… total annihilation will be averted, and our multiverse will be safe once more.”

“Will you break us up into teams to tackle each bomb at once?” asked Scion. “I’m not wild about that idea, if Chronos has forces guarding his weapons…”

“No” the Norn agreed. “You will need every advantage possible, and numbers is the best one I can give you. You must find and disable each bomb in sequence.”

“Won’t disabling just one of the bombs prevent the total collapse of the multiverse?” mused Raven. “You said it was the simultaneous detonation in these particular universes that would trigger the larger collapse…”

“It is likely that merely stopping one bomb will cripple Chronos’ plan, yes… but the deaths of even three key realities may still result in multiversal chaos and destruction on a scale never before seen. Even two would be damaging… and in any case, the death of a single universe involves the extinction of a trillion trillion sentient lives. Should we not save them if we can?”

There seemed little to say to that, and the discussion between the twelve heroes was short. Artemis and Vulk turned to face the Norn and announced the groups’ agreement to be his champions.

Her smile was the most radiant thing any of the humans had seen, and also the saddest.

“Understand, it will take all I have to move you all through time and space to the four key worlds – there will be no do-overs. Succeed or fail, I will move you on to the next world, and I will strive to keep Chronos’ attention away from you and your task.”

With that the Norn and the Weld itself began to fade away, and blackness again descended on the combined heroes of the Vanguard and the Hand of Fortune…

• • • • •

… only to quickly fade in turn, revealing a new world. The darkness of night surrounded them, illuminated by the flickering light of several fires, burning amidst the ruins of what appeared to be a devastated urban neighborhood. They had materialized in the middle of a debris-filled street, not far from a major roundabout sporting a cracked and dried up fountain set in a circle of dead grass. 

In the distance, behind the broken residential buildings surrounding them, the moon silhouetted an inner-city skyline that seemed somehow familiar… the coin dropped when they caught sight of the iconic twin-towers of New Atlantis’ Tesla Plaza…  

But it was what they saw at the peak of the towers’ ninety stories that made the Vanguard’s blood run cold. Shining in the glare of enormous spotlights on each tower, rippling languidly in the night wind, were gigantic blood-red flags, each emblazoned with the black swastika of the Nazis.

“Why does the sight of those banners so upset you,” Korwin asked an obviously horrified Jonny, who just gave him a disgusted look and stalked off.  

“What crawled up his ass and died?” grumbled Chilz, shaking himself out of his own shock. He turned to Korwin with an apologetic shrug, and answered his question.

“Those flags represent of one the greatest evils of our world, of our time. We fought a planet-wide war to defeat that evil 75 years ago, and to see that vile symbol flying from buildings in one of our own greatest cities…”

“Chronos must have planted this first bomb in an alternate reality where the Nazis won the war,” Scion said. “I wonder…”

“I was thinking the same thing,” nodded Artemis. “Could this be the alternate time line that Dr. Hope came from, when he thought he was traveling back in time to the beginning of the war?”

“Can I interrupt,” asked Vulk, hesitantly. “I don’t really understand what you’re talking about, and I’ve been wondering ever since they were mentioned… what exactly is a ‘bomb’? I gather from the context that they’re a powerful weapon, but…”

Quanta was just finishing up a detailed explanation of chemistry and physics that had most of the Hand looking glazed, when a sudden low rumbling and a growing vibration in the cracked pavement beneath their feet drew everyone’s attention eastward.

Nothing was immediately visible, beyond the shattered fountain, but the sound of grinding, crushing stone was suddenly drowned out by the high-pitched shriek of jet engines. A trio of sleek black shapes appeared over the tops of burned out row houses, and streaked toward them, buzzing the heroes and seeming to overshoot them.

“Those looked like vectored-thrust jets,” Scion called out, rising into the air and looking after them. “Very advanced. And it would make them very agile… I think they’ll –”

Before he could finish the thought, the aircraft had turned on the proverbial dime and were heading back toward the group, who still stood in the middle of the street. The jets began strafing the heroes with powerful auto-cannons, their rounds tearing up the asphalt like it was bare dirt. 

Everyone dove for cover, and Quanta threw up a shield of silvery carbon fiber, anchored to the building on the north side of the street. Artemis and Vulk narrowly missed being cut in half, and the cantor seemed shocked at the power of the weapons they faced.

Mariala and Toran decided that, against such engines of destruction, they might better be employed looking for this “bomb” of the Norn’s… perhaps it was inside that nearest building, yes?

On their next pass, coming from the east this time, each jet simultaneously released a missile. Quanta’s shield protected those under it, but the powerful blast cracked the carbon fiber and the feedback sent the hero himself slamming into the street, unconscious.

Chilz, Devrik and Vulk were outside the protection of the shield, and as the other two missiles cratered the street they were thrown into the air like rag dolls. Chilz was only momentarily stunned, but the humans found themselves on their hands and knees, bleeding from a score of cuts and abrasions and deafened by a ringing in the ears.

Blue Flame, rising into the night like a beacon, hurled bolts of searing plasma after the jets, burning the Iron Crosses and Swastikas off their black shells, but doing no real damage.

Scion also rose into the air, seeking to gain a height advantage over the aircraft as they again wheeled and came around for another run. As they passed beneath him he strafed them with electro-bolts, which seemed to stagger one… at the least, it failed to fire a missile.

The other two, however, did fire off missiles at the aerial threat they sensed. Scion easily dodged a direct hit, and his armor easily absorbed the proximity blast, but Blue Flame was sent tumbling, to crash into an already ruined building nearby, dazed but not actually hurt.

By the time the jets had turned and were making their next pass, Chilz was back on his feet, creating an ice shield to protect the the others. This gave Devrik and Vulk time to recover and then leap furiously to the attack.

Watching from the shadows of a shattered wall, Artemis was horrified as the two men from a low-tech world rushed out to confront killing machines that they knew nothing about. She prepared to Shadow-walk, to try and save at least one of them, then froze in surprise…

The stocky red-head with the grating voice spoke several guttural words and gestured toward the planes – a streak of flame shot out from his hands, expanding as it flew until it burst in a tremendous fireball against the jet that Scion had damaged.

Artemis saw her armored teammate fly up behind the flaming aircraft and grab it’s tail, lifting with all his strength. With a grinding shriek of metal the aircraft shuddered, twisted in midair, and came crashing down into the ruins of a large building to the south, which began to burn.

At the same moment that the pretty-boy, Vulk, was sprinting toward the ruined fountain, an arrow streaked out from the shadows – fired, Artemis saw, by the tall pointy-eared man, Erol. The shaft struck a seam in the black metal carapace of a jet… sparks flew and it shuddered briefly.

From his perch on the ruined fountain Vulk raised his staff, and glowing strands of energy leaped out from its head. They attached themselves to the wounded jet, while their other ends writhed out to secure themselves to the walls of a building on the SE corner of the intersection. 

Then physics took over.

The jet’s forward momentum was transfered into torque and it pivoted in mid-air on a center of gravity noticeably far outside its body. It collided with its remaining companion in a tremendous crash, and they both went down in a twisted mass of steel, taking out a building that had, until now, avoided damage.

Artemis was impressed. Maybe their fantasy-world counterparts wouldn’t need the babysitting she’d feared they might.

The group’s relief at having dispatched the aerial threat was short-lived, however. The rumbling that had at first been drowned out by the scream of the jets now grew overwhelming, the subsonic harmonics almost as disturbing as Devrik’s voice. 

Coming slowly down the street from the east, their steady, measured progress an arrogant threat in itself, were two immense tanks. Each one literally the size of a house, together they filled the wide street, almost brushing the walls of the buildings on either side, with only a few feet between each tank. Burned out shells of cars, lampposts, newspaper boxes, all were crushed beneath the massive treads, taller than a tall man, nothing slowing the juggernauts down.

“Well, by Gheas’ Balls, those are truly terrifying,” Toran said as he caught sight of the tanks. He and Mariala, having scoped out their building, had reemerged when the battle had ended. “Maybe we should take another look around… perhaps check out the stairs going down this time?”

“Nonsense,” Mariala said, moving from the shelter of the building to hunker down behind the stone fountain. “There must be men driving those wagons, however impressive they are. And if they are men, they have nerves.” She stood up and focused all the power of her Fire Nerves spell on the tank to her left, still 50 meters away.

The invisible wave of magic washed over the behemoth, and for a moment it seemed to have no effect. Then the monster tank staggered to its right, crashing into a row of brownstones and bringing their front walls down on top of it. But it was slowed only momentarily, and soon lurched back onto its path, debris and brick dust raining from it into the street, only half a length behind its companion. The large, long hollow tube at its front swiveled to pint directly at Mariala, and she had a sudden, uneasy feeling…

There was a flash of fire, and something flashed past the fountain, too fast for her to make out. The explosion behind her, however, as the thing hit the wall of ice that the frost giant had thrown up, blew her forward into the crumbling fountain and left her stunned, her head bleeding.

Korwin couldn’t see his friend fall, as he was behind the ice wall, pulling effluvium from the ether and adding the magical water to Chilz’ power, repairing the damage the “shell” had done to his creation. Chilz, in turn, was increasingly impressed with this Korwin dude  – their powers seemed to amplify one another, and it had never been so easy to make his ice creations. If they ever got a moment to stop, he thought, they’d have to work out some tactics…

Fortunately, Artemis had seen Mariala go down, and she quickly Shadow-walked to her. The teleportation powers of her Cloak seemed enhanced on this world, if that was possible, she thought as she gathered the injured woman in her arms and stepped back through shadow to safety behind Chilz’ wall.

When Vulk rushed up to tend to his friend’s injuries, Artemis vanished back into the shadows, to reappear atop a building just south of the slowly approaching tanks. She saw Blue Flame pulling up after sending a wash of superheated plasma over both vehicles, and frowned when it seemed to have little effect beyond burning off the paint of their swastikas.

A shell burst forth from the second tank, passing effortlessly through the illusory wall that Raven had thrown up in front of the fountain, to explode against Korwin and Chilz’ ice wall beyond. The ice wall fractured, but healed almost instantly under the power of the two men.

Artemis moved from the shadows of the roof to the shadow under the main gun of the nearest tank. She leaped up to the main hatch, and grabbed it on either side. She strained, the muscles on her arms bulging under the black cloth of her body suit – with a shriek of tortured metal the hatch tore away and she hurled it aside.

Dropping into the interior of the tank, prepared to disable its crew, Artemis was momentarily nonplussed. The compartment was small, barely big enough for two people, assuming they were very close… and it was dark, with no interior lights at all. This posed no problem for her, of course, with her dark vision, but… where was the crew? She began to examine the details of the tiny space…

Outside, Scion, Quanta and the Blue Flame launched a coordinated attack against the other tank. Scion emitted a Blackout burst to disable its electronics, as Quanta dropped a mass of quantum matter onto it. The tank staggered to a stop, and Blue Flame wrapped his arms around the main gun, his energy aura flaring white hot… the metal of the gun began to warp and bend, sagging out of true.

Chilz, meanwhile had moved from behind his wall, leaving Korwin to maintain it, as he sprayed a sheet of ice over the pavement in front of the tank Artemis had disappeared into. It was still grinding forward, and as its treads hit the ice it slid halfway around to its left. With so little clearance between the behemoths, it slid into its companion, grinding to a halt as treads ground against treads.

With both tanks hors d’combat, Artemis suddnely spoke up over the Vanguard’s comm-link. “Scion, I need you to project the video I’m sending you – everyone needs to see this.”

Everyone, with the exception of the dwarf Toran, gathered between the two tanks and Scion projected a holographic image of Artemis’ video feed for them. The image showed the interior compartment of the tank, where she had pried open a smallish hatch set in the forward bulkhead. Inside the tiny compartment thus revealed was a hideous sight.

In the center of the small space a very clearly human brain hung suspended within a network of fiber-optic cables . Most of the translucent cables were dark, but a few still pulsed with flashes of pinkish energy. But even as they watched, the pulses slowed and then stopped, the last of cables going dark.

“These machines are operated by some sort of cybernetic symbiosis,” Artemis said, her voice taut with rage. “I don’t know if they harvested these brains from living humans, or if they grew them specifically for this purpose… and I’m not sure which would be worse…“

“Does it matter? growled Vulk. “What kind of monsters could do either of those things?”

“I can tell you exactly what kind of monsters they are,” called a sardonic female voice behind them. Everyone whirled to see a dark figure standing on the ruined fountain, silhouetted against the night sky, Toran standing below her, his battleaxe over his shoulder. “But you need to come with me. Now!”

• • • • •

A few minutes earlier, Toran was just climbing back up the stairs from having explored the dank, unpleasant basement beneath the building he and Mariala had been searching. The light had been almost nonexistent, but of course that was no impediment to his infravison. If only there had been something to see, beyond rotting boxes, mouldering furniture and skulking rats… those seemed endemic to every world, he thought in disgust.

It was his infravision that let him see the figure that seemed to think it was hiding in the shadows. Moving with all the silence of his training, Toran approached the figure from behind, pulling his battleaxe from his back. Whoever it was, they seemed to be watching his comrades through the shattered wall that was half-spilled into the street.

“Whoever you are, stand and declare yourself!” he cried when he was within a long arms reach. He stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight. The figured jumped and whirled to face him, then seemed to relax.

“Ah, you are one of them… the very short one,” a woman’s pleasant contralto said, and she stepped forward into the light herself. “You move like a ninja, my friend – it is usually very difficult for anyone to sneak up on me like that!”

She had dark hair and eyes, and a floppy black sack on her head… a hat of some sort? She wore a long black leather coat over dark clothes… the only color about her was her pale skin and the thin white stripes on her tunic.

“Who are you, and why are you spying on my friends?” Toran demanded. He didn’t raise his battleaxe, but it was there and a palpable threat.

“I’m called Lilith,” the woman replied promptly. “Not that it’s likely to mean anything to you, of course. And I’m watching your friends because they are impressive! Beyond impressive, really – quite unbelievably extraordinary, in fact. I don’t know where you lot are from, or how you’ve avoided the attention of the Reich before this, but you’ve got their attention now.

“In less than five minutes your friends took out three Messerschmidt Me 619 “Walküre” hunter-killers and two Panzerkampfwagen XXVI Ausf. F “Löwe” field tanks! It’s unheard of!

“But I assure you, those were less than the smallest finger of one hand of what the High Command will be sending this way right now. They know something has taken out five of their precious cybernetic death-machines, and they will be taking no chances — what’s coming next will be overwhelming, and it is less than ten minutes away. If you and your friends want to live, you need to come with me.”

“Well, you sound very convincing,” Toran said, scowling. “But let’s hear what the others think, eh?”

• • • • •

Both Mariala and Vulk assured the group that the woman was speaking the truth, and Artemis seemed inclined to accept their assessment. Lilith led the way back into the ruined building and down the stairs. They had barely reached the first subbasement when the faint whine of jet turbines could be heard approaching above them.

“That sounds like at least a dozen of those vector-thrust jets,” Scion said uneasily.

“Yes,” Lilith agreed, her hand torch bobbing as she led the way through a hiden door and down stone steps into a rank, dripping, brick-lined sewer tunnel. “And at least as many tanks. We cut that too close for my liking, so please, let’s move quickly. The further we get away from their search area, the better!”

“Ugh, why is it always the damn sewers?” Vulk muttered to no one in particular as they moved on. No one had an answer.

Lilith led them for over an hour through a series of utility tunnels, abandoned basements, sewers, and subways. After seemingly endless dark miles, she called an abrupt halt in a nondescript cavern, one apparently dug out by hand tools, although big enough to hold twice their numbers. 

Lighting several torches on the wall, Lilith got everyone seated as comfortably as possible on an assortment of ramshackle chairs, sofas and camp beds that were littered about the space. She then turned and addressed them.

“Welcome to Arbeitstadt, the Third Reich’s North American capital. I’m going to go out on a limb, and guess that you’re not from around here?”

“Yes, you could certainly say that,” Scion agreed with a sigh. After a brief sotto voce discussion he’d been selected as the combined teams’ spokesperson. His own first choice for the job hung back in the shadows, as was her habit… why couldn’t he hang out in the shadows for once, damn it! 

“This may be hard to believe,” he went on, “but we’re actually from an alternate reality – another version of Earth with a very different history than yours.”

“Given what I saw tonight, that’s not hard to believe at all,” Lilith laughed. “There’ve been no super-humans in this world for a very long time, at least none not loyal to, or controlled by, the Reich. 

“And I haven’t seen the word “Earth” since I read it in an old text book that somehow survived the burnings. This word is called Erde, since the Fuhrer rules almost all of it.”

“The Fuhrer?” Jonny burst out in amazement, “You mean Hitler is still alive? Or is he, like, one of those floaty brains in a tank somewhere?”

“Hitler?” Lilith seemed confused. “I don’t know who – oh! You mean that crazy paper-hanger who founded the Nazi Party back before the Conquest? What’s he got to do with anything? The current Fuhrer had him executed in, I don’t know, 1940, ‘41?”

“Oh.” Jonny seemed disappointed that they wouldn’t have the chance to kill Hitler. “Well who is the Fuhrer now?”

“A dark and terrible monster named Gearhart von Richtor, though his name is seldom actually used, not in the last forty years. Thankfully, he seldom visits the Americas.”

In the shadows at the back of the room Artemis stiffened, although only Scion noticed. He was well aware of the fraught history she had with that dark madman, or at least with the version of him in their world. A good thing von Richtor had died back in the Fifties, in their reality.

“Perhaps you could tell us why you so easily accept that we come from an alternate reality,” Scion suggested. “Is the existence of parallel histories widely known in this world?”

“Not widely known, no,” she replied, frowning. “But we in the American Resistance, at least, are well aware of the possibility. But to explain that, maybe I should first touch on our own history…

“In this world, after the death of our superhuman hero Ultra, the U.S. delayed entering the war until after the U.K., the U.S.S.R. and the rest of Europe had fallen before the German onslaught. Even then, we might have stemmed the tide of worldwide fascism, if not for the Japanese surprise attack on American forces throughout the Pacific. It was devastating, and forced the U.S. into a two-front war we simply couldn’t win.

“I’ve heard there was something called the American Dream, once… well, it died on August 29th, 1949, with a mushroom cloud and a radioactive crater where Washington, D.C. once stood. Our subsequent collapse secured the Axis conquest of Erde. What was left of the U.S. was partitioned: from the Mississippi River east Nazi Germany rules directly; from the Rockies to the Pacific, Imperial Japan is supreme; and between the river and the mountains what’s left of the United States is allowed to exist in a mockery of ”self-government.”

“New Atlantis offered fierce resistance to the invading Nazis… the Reich had to pretty much flatten the entire metropolitan area to finally conquer it. In the decades following, the Nazis rebuilt the city to glorify National Socialism, renaming it Arbeitstadt… “City of Work” in English. 

“But their choice to reconstruct Arbeitstadt as a symbol of the occupation made it a prime target for the American Resistance. At this point, hardly a week goes by without some swastika-covered structure going up in flames. Of course, in retaliation, the Nazis raze the city’s outlying areas in gaudy shows of force, even though they’re pretty much just blasting rubble into smaller bits of rubble now.

“But despite our courage and sacrifices (yes, I’m a leader in the Resistance), there is no force left on Erde capable of defeating the Reich’s conventional military might. Even if there were, their legions of cybernetic war machines and other super-weapons would tip the scales in their favor. 

“For a time we still had hope, in the person of Heinrich Sauer. He was born a Nazi-bred eugenic superman, but he turned against the Reich and became the Resistance’s greatest leader. We named him Doktor Hoffnung… Dr. Hope, in English.

“But after years of endless struggles, even Sauer began to doubt… so he seized the chance when it came his way, and used what we believed to be an experimental Nazi time machine to change the outcome of the Conquest. 

“I was new in the Resistance when he returned to the present… and was there to see his face when he learned nothing had changed. The world was still in the iron grip of tyranny. He realized then that he must have traveled, not just back in time, but sideways, to the past of an alternate reality. But though he was saddened to find he’d changed nothing for our world, he took hope from the many heroes of that other world, and came back to our fight with renewed hope.

“Unfortunately, no one’s sure what happened to Sauer… officially, he was killed by a squad of superhuman Nazis two years ago, and some propaganda tools say he took his own life once he realized his efforts had so utterly failed. Myself, I don’t believe that, and I’m holding out hope that he’s still alive, somewhere, and will return to us.”

“So, you already knew of the existence of our Earth,” Quanata said. “That does make things easier, because we have very little time and we need your help…” 

As succinctly as possible the heroes related their mission, leaving out the multiverse-ending parts and the time-travel complications.

“In short,” concluded Scion, “we know there is a cosmic energy bomb somewhere nearby that will destroy your universe in less than 24 hours… we need to find it and disarm it, and we’re running out of time.”

“Actually, it may be a stroke of good luck that you arrived where you did,” Lilith said, growing animated. “We’ve had intelligence of a strange, high-tech device that fell from the sky a little over ten days ago. It was recovered by the High Command, naturally, and taken to the Von Braun Island Space Control Center for study.

“Reports say that it’s energy potential may dwarf even the Reich’s nuclear arsenal. We cannot let that power remain under the Nazi’s control. We have been planning a raid – honestly, a suicide mission – to infiltrate the island and destroy the device.”

“Could you get us into this Space Control Center instead?” Scion asked. “We have a far better chance of stopping this threat than your people, and certainly without committing suicide.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” Lilith replied with a growing smile. “But I’m coming with you – you’ll certainly need a native guide, and I doubt the other leaders would agree to sending you in alone in any case.”

• • • • •    

Lilith led the heroes from another reality deeper into the catacombs underneath Arbeitstadt, to a small Resistance encampment. Once she had vouched for them, and relayed their urgent warning about the mysterious device, the Resistance fighters proved eager to help them.

By dawn the Vanguard, Hand and Lilith were packed into large shipping crates and loaded onto the regular supply ship headed to Von Braun Island. The fit inside the crates was tight, the time in the dark seemingly endless, and the portage carried out by men who apparently thought “Fragile” must be Italian for “knock it around, fellas.”

But eventually the uncomfortable trip ended, as promised, inside the walls of the Space Command Center. From the storage hall where they were delivered it proved to be a relatively short distance, once they’d unpacked themselves, to the where the mysterious cosmic engine was being studied — the facility’s main High Energy Physics Lab.

Using a combination of Mariala’s Wallflower spell, Scion’s armor’s stealth mode, and Korwin’s Shadow Body spell, the unwieldy group managed to move unseen through the corridors of the base. 

Toran was the only one actually visible, having used his Amulet of Deception to disguise himself as a Nazi scientist… specifically, one Neils Goremann. Scion’s hack of the biometric security system had found the picture of the man, and noted that he was not currently on the base.

When the group reached the doors to the lab Scion again used his biometric decoder to spoof the access pad into thinking that he’d used his key card and thumb print to open the doors.

It was here that the immense, grandiose nature of the Nazi architectural style worked to their benefit. Not only were the corridors wide and high, the double doors  into the lab were themwelves three meters wide and four meters high. Toran fumbled with his illusory clipboard, pausing in the doorway long enough for his invisible teammates to stream by him and into the room, the guards flanking the doors inside oblivious to the infiltation.

The High Energy Physics Lab was an immense circular chamber, forty meters in diameter, with a domed ceiling 25 meters over head. Banks of computers and other, less identifiable equipment lined the walls, and a wide catwalk circled the room five meters up the wall, and it too was lined with esoteric physics equipment.

On a section of wall directly opposite the door by which they’d entered were a set of huge blast doors, easily 16 meters across and 10 meters high, currently closed. In the center of the room was an octagonal platform six meters above the floor, reached by stairs on the north and south sides. And nestled in a cradle in the center of that platform, cables attached to it and streaming out to a score of machines along the walls, was the prize they had come for –Chronos’ cosmic energy bomb.

Unfortunately, four scientists were also on the platform, deeply engaged in studying the artifact, with two guards at the foot of each of the stairs. Scattered around the chamber were another half dozen scientists, by their lab coats, and as many guards, by their uniforms.

Scion had distributed comm-link ear buds and throat mics to the Hand and Lilith in the pre-dawn hours before they’d climbed into the crates, and now he gave the word. The assault began…

As their teammates dropped their various methods of concealment, Scion and Quanta dropped down onto the platform, almost absently blasting the two nearest scientists into unconsciousness as they began to study the bomb. 

It was just a little over three meters in diameter, and was covered in hexagonal plates of a glossy white ceramic, with ridges of slowly pulsing yellow light between the plates. There appeared to be no obvious access port or interface, however…

While his teammates began their study of the deadly focus of their mission, Raven seized the mind of one of the other scientists on the platform. The man’s colleague looked briefly surprised when the other pushed him over the railing… before jumping himself. 

Around the room ice needles, arrows and shock sticks flew, spells were cast, Lilith seized a machine gun, webs were woven, and fireballs exploded. Nazi scientists and soldiers went down fast… but not all without a fight. And not without an alarm being raised.

A female scientist managed to hide from Lilith’s machine gun just long enough to reach some sort of emergency alarm. Distracted by the wails, Vulk was clipped by an energy blast which one soldier manged to get off, momentarily taking him down. Mariala took the Nazi out with her Khundari dagger, and quickly knelt to revive her friend. 

As Scion and Quanta continued to study the bomb, going over the data the Nazi scientists had already gathered to analyze it in light of what they knew the device to be, the others prepared for whatever the next wave might be. They didn’t have long to wait…

The blast doors on the far side of the chamber began to roll slowly open, revealing six figures silhouetted against the morning light. Each wore a uniform or costume indicating their likely status as super-humans… 

The flier was dressed in an owl-themed costume replete with steel talons on hands and feet and a feathered cloak; a beautiful, athletic young woman wore a skintight white body-suit, covering her from head to toe;  a tall man wore a field-gray costume resembling a hazmat suit, with only sad-looking eyes visible; a smaller, lithe-looking man was dressed ninja-style in loose black clothing, and his mask did little to hide the scary-mad intensity of his stare; another man was dressed in a white hood and robes over a black shirt, khaki cargo pants, and black combat boots. All of them bore the swastika and/or Iron Cross somewhere on their costume.

The sixth figure, standing slightly forward, was obviously the leader of the group. Dressed in a stylized version of and SS officer’s uniform, he stood 6’ 2’’ with a perfectly proportioned and sculpted body, close-cropped blond hair and striking blue eyes. When he spoke his voice was a perfectly modulated baritone.

“So, you Resistance fools prove yourselves slightly more clever than we gave you credit for. We knew, of course, of your planned assault today, but I’m unclear how you made it this far into the facility undiscovered. 

“It makes little difference, of course, and I will enjoy overseeing your interrogations as we pull that information from you, all in due course. Believe me, you will pay for the injuries you’ve caused der Fuhrer’s scientists today… but you may yet mitigate your suffering somewhat if you surrend-URK!”

He was cut off mid-rant by Artemis’ shadow sticks, which struck him in the throat and solar plexus, releasing their electrical charges into him. He staggered back, slightly bent over and clutching his neck, his face purpling in rage.

“Take them!” he managed to growl, his voice considerably less melodious than before. He himself moved with lightning speed, aiming a roundhouse blow at Artemis’ head.

She easily dodged the blow, using his rock-like forearm to somersault away, landing halfway up the stairs to the platform. 

Chilz sent a penetrating blast of razor-sharp ice spears at owl-guy, but he proved a nimble flier, twisting in midair, and only his cloak took some minor damage.

At the same time the large man in the gray hazmat suit, with the sad eyes, closed with Chilz. The hero was momentarily confused, as the man didn’t seem to have an actual attack in mind – he simply lumbered forward. When he was almost within Chilz‘ long reach the nature of his power became clear.

He simply exploded.

Chilz was hurled back twenty feet by the blast, crashing to the metal flooring in a stunned heap. His body had fractures almost everywhere, and his mind reeled, trying to focus. Even as he lay there the gray man began to reform, his body slowly coalescing  from the flame and smoke of the explosion…

Raven called out to Artemis that the woman in white, who had simply vanished when the order to attack was given, was invisible and coming at her… no illusion or invisibility could cloud his sight.

“On your left, just on the platform,” he added, and Artemis turned without thought, her leg kicking out – it connected, sending the would-be assailant flying over the platform’s edge.

She continued the spinning kick in a smooth, flowing motion, catching the maniacally grinning faux-ninja in the gut as he leapt at her, dual knives prepared to eviscerate her. The blow sent him flying in the opposite direction, stunned and gasping for breath.

Korwin, seeing Chilz go down, also saw the man in the pointed white hood moving toward his fallen comrade, flames flickering around his hands in a growing swirl of power… 

The water mage focused deep within for his own power…and the Breath of Arandu roared forth from his hands. The blast of arctic air enveloped the Nazi fully, and despite the shield of flames he tried to raise, the man staggered back, his exposed hands turning blue and his movements becoming sluggish.

The expanding cone of the icy blast also struck the reforming man in gray, just as he finished pulling himself together. Like his teammate, he collapsed to his knees, shivering and frost-covered.

At the same time the owl-man stooped on Toran, tearing at him with his steel talons. But the blades merely shrieked along dwarf’s armor, which easily deflected the attack. Toran, however, had a palpable hit with his counterstrike, his battleaxe scoring a cut across the man’s chest, severing his leather harness and sending him into a hurried retreat, spiraling upwards.

Chilz was just staggering up again when he saw the Ku Klux Klan wannabe climbing to his own feet. Despite his obvious cold-induced shaking and weakness, the Nazi managed to send a blast of his fire at the ice hero. As the flames washed over him, Chilz screamed – he had suffered worse heat damage before, but nothing had burned him like this. It felt like his soul was on fire, and he collapsed again, in agony.

Vulk had sent a flight of magical Stavin’s Arrows at the Nazi leader, who had all too quickly recovered from Artemis’ attack and was headed for the platform where Scion and Quanta were deeply engaged with the bomb. The invisible force arrows barely slowed the man’s advance.

What did stop him in his tracks, and all the Nazi Übermenschen, was the sudden appearance of a massive, utterly terrifying, silver-white Ice Dragon in the space above the platform. Its leathery wings flapped slowly as it hovered, and its jaws, lined with uncounted razor-sharp teeth, opened to let loose a roaring shriek that turned their blood cold.

Even realizing it was Erol, finally getting to use his Wand of Draconic Illusion, didn’t stop Vulk’s visceral gut reaction of fear at the apparition. Chagrined, he was at least happy to see that to see that it also put the Nazi’s off their game, at least for a moment. 

A moment was all the heroes needed. 

Watching the flow of energy across the surface of the bomb, Quanta and Scion had at last figured out its opening mechanism. Quanta pointed, Scion sent a pulse of energy into the indicated hexagonal panel, and it popped open with a click. Swinging it up, they found it covered a housing for some sort of  the cosmic control rod. With a look at his friend and a shrug, Scion pulled the rod from its sheath…

The energy pulsing across the sphere’s surface faded to darkness as the bomb went inert.

“No!” screamed der Übermensch, his attention drawn from the dragon to the sight of the armored intruder holding up the glowing rod which he and the silvery one had removed from the mysterious orb. The Resistance could not be allowed to escape with such power!

“Kill them all! Take no prisoners, but recover that device!”

Even as his minions jumped to obey him, however, the interlopers, including the damn dragon, began to fade away and in an instant they were gone, like soap bubbles… NO! They had to be here! Like the dragon, it was an illusion, or invisibilty of some sort… yes, that was no doubt how they had penetrated the lab to begin with…

“It’s a trick, they must be here – find them!”

• • • • •

As the lab in the world of Erde faded around them the heroes found themselves back in the white nothingness of the Weld, facing the still-stunning visage of the Norn.

“Well done, my champions,” he said, her smile even more radiant than before. “You have saved a universe, and begun the saving of the our multiverse. Well done!”

“But we left Lilith back there in the middle of those Nazi super-creeps!” cried Blue Flame. He’d developed a bit of a crush on the beautiful resistance fighter, truth be told, despite the ten year age difference and the whole from-different-universes complication.

“Do not worry, Jonny Osaka,” the Norn said gently. “She escaped the island with the man she had come to search for – Heinrich Sauer, who you know as Dr. Hope. Thanks to your blasting a particular control panel earlier, in her flight she found him in a cell not far from the lab, battered but unbroken, and the two made good their escape while der Übermenschen frantically sought after the rest of you.

“And more than that I will tell you – if the multiverse yet survives, then there is hope again on Erde, for Heinrich Sauer has learned much in his captivity, more than his captors learned from him… their evil may yet fall before his genius.”

“But now it is time to turn to your next task,” the Norn continued, “Three more worlds are yet in peril and this multiverse may still be damaged beyond hope. Little enough can I do to help you, but what I can I will.”

With his words a silvery light washed out from her and enveloped the twelve heroes, healing every cut, abrasion, contusion, bruised muscle or strained  ligament they had suffered in their battles, and they were filled with renewed energy, both physical and mental, as if they’d spent a week getting proper sleep and nutrition.

When everyone agreed they were ready, the Norn once again smiled upon them, and the white void of the Weld faded into black…