The Ties That Bind, Part II: Father Knows Best

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…