“Their plan failed, but any chance of us surprising them is gone. We finish this and we do it now. I know you have to live with the consequences of what happened here tonight while, win or lose, we don’t know what will happen to us. Like the woman said, do what you feel you need to, and so will we.” She finished, and walked over to me.

“Do you know which way?” my friend softly asked me.

I nodded, and Cape lifted us up in flight, as we soared towards where a scared young girl waited for rescue.

Welcome, true believers or not, to the last and final installment of my epic, first, full length novel Heroes of Justice. It has been one heck of an experience. I owe so much to all of you who offered encouragement and help in the 18 months it took me to complete this thing. The list of those whom have helped at one time or another is a long one; Janet Nolan, Hope, Jamie, Sephrena Miller, Catherine Linda Michel, and of course the wonderful Holly Happy Hart. My spouse the ever understanding Paula was always accepting of my strange rants about plot, fights, powers and the arcane world of gaming. My the good Lord always bless gamer chicks!!!! Now dear friends, wherever you are, pull out your character sheets, the holy dice of the deities of your choice and lets get started. Game On!

Heroes of Justice: Part 4

Prologue:

Blight bowed before his Master, acknowledging the commands he had just received. Sparing a glance at the woman beside him still writhing in torment on the floor, he took sadistic pleasure in seeing the arrogant woman, who sought to supplant him as the Master’s favorite, brought low.

As if mere sexual favors could replace the bone deep loyalty Blight had given to the Master who had lifted him from the slums of Lifkosia on the island Cyprus. Living in abject poverty and treated with scorn because of his disfiguring birth defects, he gave the man who took him from that hellish existence a slavish devotion, a fidelity that had been repaid many times over with gifts that would tax even the generosity of the gods. All it took was a complete lack of morals and compassion for any living creature but that for his Master.

His long years of service had been amply rewarded. He now had everything he had once lacked. The body he now wore was the very example of physical perfection as well as having great wealth and influence. It was sad that the previous owner hadn’t shown the Master the proper respect. He’d paid the price for his mistake. It would be interesting to see if the fool was the self-made success he’d claimed to be. Blight had heard that life was hard for teenage girls on the Ivory Coast, and doubted she would make good on her boast.

Now the potential payoffs for the Master’s most recent endeavors may well exceed anything the once poor deformed Greek ever could have imagined, but as fate would have it, an old enemy had returned and threatened ruin on the eve of the Master’s greatest conquest. No matter how much blood might stain his hands, Blight was determined that his Master would at long last achieve the success that was only his just due.

Dismissed, Blight rose, calling Blip, the teleporter to him. The empty headed mutant was lost in her own private world as usual, but her talents made her useful enough to put up with her eccentricities. Leaving his rival struggling to recover, he strolled into Blip’s rainbow hued arch. For a breath he was in that strange fantasy world that existed only behind the rainbow swirls of Blip’s eyes, but then stepped back into the real world in far Japan.

Taking a deep breath of Nagasaki’s night air, he oriented himself where he stood in the Memorial Park. With a purpose driven stride, he headed towards the centerpiece of the park, the Shrine.

***

Heroes of Justice: Old friends!

As always after the holidays it was a pain to get back into the swing of things. We had a full schedule again, with my flight lessons; Anza’s studying to prepare for medical school; not to mention our marriage to plan.

That part was simple. During our prolonged engagement, we would keep a journal, going over the things we liked and wanted, as well as those we could leave out. The reason for that was we weren’t even sure what world we would end up on, assuming we both survived. The journal was for when we did know more and could make better plans.

The other stuff was just extra straws piled high on the camel’s back, along with our continuingly learning more about staying alive in our new profession. Yep, we were genuine card carrying superheroes. Wanna see the cards, or the secret handshake? No? Okay, the cards were a gag Reid printed out, but we really were working towards finding and locating a criminal organization.

Although we did have a leg up after discovering how to use the knowledge and the skills of the characters whom became our avatars, we also had a staff of teachers ranging from an unnamed secret society of Chinese assassins to SAS instructors, not to mention this world’s version of Capt. Americana teaching us the finer points of the path of the hero.

The recovery time after the holidays gave Dee a chance become more accustomed to us and let us find out more about her. We all got a little teary when trying to explain about our engagement to her, and we found out her memories of the outside world were limited to those of a 10 year old boy! That rat bastard had used recordings of his own memories on his accelerated grown clones, and had used the same ones for her!

Dee assured us that she was happy being a girl, but having the memories of a boy was a little weird for her sometimes. Tell us about it! After explaining what had happened to us she didn’t have any problems understanding. We all shared a cry and I think that helped bond us together as a family, if an unusual one by anyone’s standards.

It took a few weeks, but with Doctor Lee’s advice, Anza was able to use her TK to help with Dee’s scarring. Even Cape and I were able to help some, using its ability to transmute stuff. Under Dr. Lee’s exacting supervision pushing her to expand her limits, Anza was able to actually heal some the damage. Don’t get me wrong. Dee will be bearing her scars for the rest of her life, but while she will get a double take now and then, it wasn’t anything like that Frankie Cruger, horror movie-like visage she once had. That, almost by itself, turned Dee into another girl, nothing like the shy thing always hiding behind me.

We even caught her happily running with the pack of the Chang’s great grandkids, out of breath and dodging trouble like all children do. She did still have her black times, and Anza and I had her as an uninvited guest in the middle of the night more than once. That’s okay, because we knew she was healing, and it took time.

The Major humored her and let her train some, but plainly told her if she tried anything before he thought she was ready he would ground her until he was old and gray. With his bio-energy what-zit, that could be a very long time. Anza and I also made that clear to her, since we more or less acted as her parents. I even promised that if the Major agreed she was ready, I would help with her supersuit.

Not to give the wrong impression, the bad guys, like always, were still causing problems. Every large city has more than its fair share of normal folks willing to do harm to one another for a few bucks, or out of passion. After all you can’t save the world every day, don’t you know.

The Syndicate was still making themselves known too, but more like with training exercises than missions trying anything specific. The Colonel and I came up with that explanation after looking over their patterns. It made perfect sense. Why bother building and maintaining training areas when you can use the real thing? Of course, that is, if you don’t mind the ordinary Joe and Mary getting underfoot, and ending up injured or worse.

The only real action we saw happening was the ULTIMATE supersuits getting in a few scuffles with those so-called larceny training missions. It was obvious that Reaction Team One outclassed their foes considerably. On the other hand, their opponents were easily identified as primarily ex-free agents who’d been forcibly recruited into the Syndicate ranks.

We rarely saw the faces of those we thought of as the Syndicate High Command. Big Red, Ripper, and Patience, who was at least their tactical commander and maybe more. It was scary to see just how many were now a part of the Syndicate. Although many weren’t in our weight class, being out numbered three or four to one is never a good thing.

You would think that with Team One on the job they would be filling up their temporary confinement facilities right? Wrong. They would arrive at the crime scene and smash a few of the newbie baddies. Then the rest would grab their fallen buddies and hightail it as fast as they could. Then Team One, all ready to finish the job, would be ordered to stand down.

I’m not kidding! They were operating under strict, what are called, Rules of Engagement, which state what you can and can’t do. Hell, even when you’re allowed to shoot back! So while Team One was gnashing their teeth, ULTIMATE Strike units in their dropships flew off to intercept the bad guys.

The bad guys, seeing they were being followed from the air, would run inside and lose their pursuers before the troopers riding inside could deploy and get to them. It would have been funny if it hadn’t happened so many times.

The stated reason for forbidding Team One to give chase was concerns about collateral damage. You want to see collateral damage? I had an office chair that was a little too close to the Major, the 3rd or 4th time this happened. He wadded it up like a wet paper towel in pure frustration. It wasn’t a total waste I suppose, because I did get a much nicer chair in exchange, and I did learned just how colorful a stream of metaphors an SAS Colonel (retired) can produce.

Anza has been giving me a little grief about some of the Britishisms that have been creeping into my speech. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time around our SAS Colonel, but after such an educational experience I couldn’t help but take notes!

For me, the political situation was entirely too much like some of the stupid stuff that went on in the Military during the Cold War years, during Vietnam and beyond. The politicians tried to take direct control of military actions, instead of leaving it to the military people who knew what they were doing. They couldn’t understand they had two choices and not three. Settle your problems with politics or use the military to do it. Trying to mix the two just gets more people killed, and more than likely doesn’t solve your problem either.

No, I was way too young to have seen it, but when I was in the service, many who had been there were retiring. Just like any group of old soldiers, they made sure the greenhorns, like me, knew enough to tell a bad policy from a good one. An important lesson, just in case we needed to protect ourselves from our duly appointed leaders. A very sad lesson for those who had pledged to defend their country.

A lesson, I’m sure, that wasn’t lost on Team One right now. I plotted the location and circumstances of their last skirmish, while as always, looking for patterns. Wheels within wheels, effendi! We’d narrowed down our suspected locations but the trouble was the bloody thing kept moving around. Did I just say Bloody? Maybe Anza is right and I have been spending a mite too much time around our dear English Colonel.

Be that as it may, before we moved, we had to be positive. We were wanted by ULTIMATE after all, and a simple costume change would only go just so far. Before blowing our cover we needed to be as sure as we could. Once revealed, it was certain ULTIMATE would try and prosecute our group to the full extent of the law. Sure as hell none of us wanted to end up in their bureaucratic retentive grasp.

Pushing myself back away from my sticky note festooned, framed monitor, I stretched. All work and no play makes Misty a dull girl! I checked on Dee who was studying in her own cubical. We’d found her IQ was up there in the hard to measure area and, after four years of having almost nothing to do but use the base’s teaching programs, she was well into college graduate territory. Except, that is, for anything resembling current events and culture. The sciences, classical literature, and particularly computer sciences, she excelled in.

The computers had been programmed by Doctor Vole, and so reflected his prejudices. He had omitted much of popular culture and contemporary history. It was hit or miss if she knew anything past 1982, where her second hand taped memories stopped.

There’s story there too. The Warders, after they’d captured the base and faked destroying it, had brought in a computer wiz from another team to reprogram it and its robots. What he missed was, there were a lot of computers down there, and a lot of stuff was hardwired into them, and couldn’t be changed.

He did reprogram most of them, but the whole effect made the blasted network a bit eccentric. Maybe not an AI, but it sure had it’s own way of doing things. Don’t worry, it’d never done anything life threatening, but it certainly caused some interesting situations from time to time. After tracking down the sub-unit that handled the education stuff and fixing a few things, it was now catching her up on the holes in her education.

Touching her shoulder, I smiled as she looked up at me with two eyes. Replacing an eye was something beyond all of us. That is except for Morgan. Somehow she grew a crystal resembling Dee’s eye. That freaked me out, since it was like those pictures of Doc’s growing ears on the backs of mice sort of thing.

The thing was almost an exact match to Dee’s normal eye, but since the socket had shrunk they had to work a little to fix it. Afterwards, that made her face look a lot more normal. What we didn’t figure on was that Morgan’s gift was a living crystal.

Somehow it had connected itself to her muscles and acted like just a living eye. I mean you could see the darn thing focus, for goodness sakes! Anza said it was just a case of Dee’s mutant genes helping her recover.

She was a natural athlete and had a passion for baseball. With two eyes again Dee needed to relearn how to use depth perception. To help her, I started playing catch with her. That started yet another line of training for me. Seeing me playing catch with Dee one day, the Major stepped in and demonstrated the correct way to throw. What can I say? It’s not my fault I throw like a girl now. We were all having a good time when he pushed us over to the firing range.

It was a tunnel dug into the hillside that was covered in baffles and absorbent safety materials. He walked over to a large basket of shots used for shot putting. He picked up one of the heavy metal spheres, and, holding the thing like a baseball, threw the thing down range as if it had been shot from a cannon!

Both Dee and I grabbed for the hearing protection headsets, just as a ringing BOOM! rattled our teeth. No, he hadn’t broken the sound barrier, but he could throw the damn thing just as fast as any professional baseball pitcher for the big leagues could. Look at it this way. Would you want to be hit by a 16 lb. shot traveling at 90 mph/145 kph? Just for your information, that is about the same as an old fashioned, black powder cannon from the Napoleonic era.

Grinning, he handed me a shot, but it was way too big for my hands. I gave him a look and handed it back to him. Not disturbed, he took that one back and handed me another smaller one.

“This one is a woman’s standard at 8 lbs. The one I threw was male standard at 16 .lbs. Go ahead and pitch it as fast as you can.” he encouraged me.

I’d never been very athletic, but that had all changed, along with everything else. There was a satisfying crash and I grinned back at him.

He just handed me a basket full of the things! Great! I should’ve known I wouldn’t be let off the hook so easily.

“Mystery, you are an able hand to hand fighter, but you don’t have anything capable of shooting back when someone is shooting at you. I thought about weapons, but that doesn’t play to your abilities. Thinking about how you can shape stuff with your Cape, I’m thinking it should be easy for it to scoop up and shape balls for you,” he explained while pitching to Dee.

Keeping my face straight, I was thinking, “No sir, Now that I’ve gotten rid of those I don’t want’em back!”

“They are an easy, simple shape and not as hard as other things to learn how to throw such as stars, knives or others. I want you to continue to play catch with Dee to build control, but also here at the range to increase your power. With practice you’ll be able to disable without serious damage or,” glancing back at the range, “have the firepower of a small cannon if you need it.”

He also gently talked Dee into using her powers while we were here. She was afraid of them since one of her fellow clones had nearly killed her with them. The Major pointed out we had plenty of protection for shooters and observers here at the range. The most telling point he made was, if Dee wanted to be sure she never hurt someone with her powers, it was best to learn how not to, rather than deny them.

It was a strange thing to watch, almost like watching someone walk into a laser light tunnel. Then, BLAM! it met the rock wall of the hill! A torrent of rock chips flowed around her as she walked about 6’ into the rock face.

Looking at that person sized tunnel, I glanced back at the huge railway tunnel we used mostly for storage and realized that Doctor Vole himself had to have made it. The damn thing was big enough for a train or truck to pass though, and nearly a mile long!

That was a turning point for her, I think. We did practice, with her making tunnels and Cape making baseballs from the chips. Pitching and catching was a lot more fun when it was play, rather than simply another thing to train at! But that wasn’t on the agenda for today!

Working together, Dee and Reid had convinced the base computer to fabricate a flight simulator of the Major’s baby, Fifi, his F8U Dragonfly. So before I ever got into the plane, I practiced taking off, flying and, of course, getting it back down on the ground in one piece.

Then had followed actual flights, sitting in the back seat, which had a full set of controls, learning what to do in all different kind of emergencies. A thorough instrument flying class had followed, with more flight time. I’d already had exposure to this with the classes taught by Reid and Will, but the Major was a big believer in being thorough.

Now after all of that, today was solo day! He watched me as I walked down the preflight list and registered my flight plans with the local control tower. I had learned a secret during my training. The Major was not the technically illiterate old fart he pretended to be. His old warbird might have been restored to near original condition, but the avionics, aviation electronics, were just as modern as Reid the Chopper’s, if tastefully hidden.

I don’t know if I can tell you what it was like. The Dragonfly was designed to almost hover, as well as being able to race away at a top speed exceeding 500 Mph. The only reason it couldn’t break the sound barrier was compression problems, because of being propeller driven. The structure was so compact it was seriously tough, and could take punishment that was nothing short of astounding. Maybe other planes had to worry about the wings ripping off, but not this one.

It was like the best experience you ever had on a roller coaster, magnified by, I don’t know, a lot! I could well understand why the Major was so fond of this plane, even though I understand he owns several other types. You could pull G-forces in this one that only modern military fighters could rival. I didn’t dare really push things on this flight, but I had a blast anyways.

All too soon it was time to put this horse back in the stable. Taking off wasn’t tricky, because it really just floated right off the ground. Landing back inside the quarry was a little harder, but mostly it was a head game. The landing field just looked small. Pull up the angle of attack of the two turbo-prop engines and you almost had a helicopter. They wouldn’t go completely vertical, but the 15 degrees they did rotate, let me land as gently as a feather.

In my world they had never made it into production, but I think, because they had here, it pushed along acceptance of the tilt-rotor concept. They are fairly common here and even had variants like those dropships. Back home they were just starting to be produced, but still were viewed suspiciously by the conservative flight community.

My own little flight crew was waiting for me with congratulations and hugs. Anza and Dee just giggled when the Major revealed he was a certified flight instructor, and handed me my license! I know my jaw hit the ground! Will and I were still trying to figure out how to sneak me out to take the tests so it would be valid in my secret ID. WOW, I hadn’t even seen this coming!

Then if that wasn’t enough Anza handed me a gold envelope. Raising an eyebrow, I opened it to find an invitation within. Pulling out the expensive card, it was an invitation to witness the official engagement of Duane Moors and Rebecca Newton. It was to take place Friday at the Moors estate.

There I was with my mouth open again. I had to take a second to remember that Duane Moors was Tom’s alter-ego here. Tom was getting married? Twitch, twitch. Tom actually sent us invitations? The Moors estate?

Everyone got a good laugh at my expense. Of course, since I more or less was our intelligence officer, I would have to be the last one to know. I did have the excuse along with everyone else, that we’d been pushing a huge work load for months that would’ve exhausted a normal human within days. Training, studying, investigating, flying, preparing for a marriage, oh my! No wonder a few things had slipped by!

The Major wanted to know all about this woman, but since that was one of the things I’d had let slide, no one could tell him very much. I think he’d come to regard all of us as his kids, so to speak. Well, with the exception of Morgan, that is. Oh gosh, they weren’t going to surprise me next, were they?

He went off to find the Colonel and Mr. Chang, who were our counter-intelligence folks responsible for making sure that spies only found out what we wanted them to. Meanwhile my family filled me on what I’d missed while flying about. It seems that Tom had continued running his security business on the side. With so much unrest in the city, private firms like his were doing land-office like boom business. He’d parleyed his original funds into a nice nest egg in a very short time.

The Moors estate was the mansion he and Mark had been given, back when we first arrived. He had kept it up and used it as a bachelor pad. As for this Rebecca Newton, Anza had pumped Mark for information. You better get rid of that dirty thought before I have to hurt you!

She and Tom had met soon after we had started our training here at Halflington. At first, only on the Saturday afternoons we had off, but soon they were seeing each other regularly. Tom had proposed to her on Christmas, which accounted for his good spirits back then. Only recently had she accepted. As for his being engaged back home in our world, it seems he’d decided that life here was an improvement. There, he was just an owner of a one man car repair shop. Here he was a successful businessman, well on his way to that first million. All that is according to Mark. As for Miss Newton, we found a whole lot about how good looking she was, but damn little about what she was like. Argh! Men!

One of my best friends is getting hitched to some woman who, for all I know, is a gold digging bimbo? I don’t think so! Firing up the ole computer, I did a records check. That came up with her driver’s license picture. Ok, she was attractive, and had no violations, except for some parking tickets. Her high school records showed her as an unremarkable “B” student hadn’t been involved in any school activities.

Her parents were professionals who had saved their nickels and dimes, and had become well off due to hard work. She had gone to college and majored in business. Now, working as an junior executive, she’d gotten a mention in the local papers.

Heck, I even checked the ULTIMATE database, and was surprised to find her there. She was listed in the least powerful category, an Alpha, putting her in the better, stronger, faster category, but not enough to go leaping over tall buildings. Nothing special as far as mutants go. On paper, a good match for Tom.

I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t find out much, but I guess we would all learn more when we met the future Mrs. Moors on Friday.

Friday, March 21st, a date that will live in infamy! Just another day, right? First of all, the Major had suggested that Tom move the party here to Halflington. The security was better here and, if something did go wrong, help was nearby.

Tom responded, very reasonably, that the invitations had already been sent out, as well the services, such as of the caterers, arranged for. As for security, he had a number of his own employees who, while not up to the Chang’s standards, were good for anything short of a full assault.

Finally, Tom told him this would make their relationship look more like the cover said it was, of client and contractor. Although he appreciated all the hard work the Major had put in to get us ready, he wanted to make it on his own, so to speak. That was why he, Mr. Roland, hadn’t been invited.

The Major, being a big hearted guy, just stuck out his hand and said he’d no problem with that. He did, however, want plenty of pictures, and to meet with this young lady at some point in the future.

Tom returned the handshake, and that was that.

Don’t you believe it! Morgan was four kinds of mad! It took us half the day to convince her not to burn Tom in half, quarters, and than sauté what was left. She considered the slight an insult to the Major, and wanted blood.

Anza and I passed each other a knowing look. “Yep she’s got it real bad alright.!”

The two of them had that talk we urged them to, and of course, that hadn’t decided a single thing. They were still mooning over each other and doing that ‘suffering in silence’ thing. Speaking as the empath, and mate of the telepath, their silence wasn’t anywhere near quiet enough!

After convincing Morgan that boycotting the party at the last minute wouldn’t help the Major any, we started our own preparations. Of course Cape had a ball dressing me up. We had kept my true ‘blond’ look, to help foil anyone still looking to collect on that damned most wanted reward poster.

We both went with dressy suits, suitable for work, or after work activities. The reason for that was because we were out in the public eye, and Tom, being in the security business, was a possible target. With that outfit Anza could wear her supersuit underneath. Me, well, because people had come to expect us to be a matched set so, why not?

The other problem we had, was Dee. She wanted to come along, don’t you know? Tom and she got along well together for some reason. He was the big brother she never had, and he spoiled her rotten. I wondered just how much she’d had to do with Tom softening his stance against Anza and I. With all that said, she wanted to go in the worst possible way.

We really did try to explain it to her. One, she didn’t have an invitation. Not because she wasn’t wanted, but because this was an adult event. Two, it was too dangerous, since it was out of Halflington. Three, she still didn’t have a valid identity, although we were working on it. Any cop could shoot her and, under the current laws, he would probably get a medal! We had to reassure her that it wasn’t because of her appearance, about which she was still shy. When we got her identity problems settled we would treat her on the town, but not tonight.

We watched her as she stomped off to her room to pout, still angry. Don’t you just love teenagers? It’s either that or strangle them!

Normally, of late, when we went to something like this, Mark would be driving us in LIMO, but tonight he was already out and about. Just like old times, we were back to the incredible Flower-Power mobile. We had the top up, because it was a chilly March night, and let’s not forget our freshly done hair, courtesy of Lin, who was a stylist as well as a deadly commando.

Morgan was riding with us, in girlfriend mode, while Will was driving his un-enhanced pickup, with Morgan’s Harley strapped to the bed, just in case, mind you. Maybe that should be a ‘comparatively’ normal truck. He, and the guys, had been tinkering with it for a while now, and I had the funny feeling that, in no shape or form, was it remotely street legal anymore, but all of that was hidden under the hood. Considering the same went for our other rides, I won’t tell if you won’t!

It wasn’t a huge gala, but big enough to strain the parking facilities. The last time we’d been here was when we ran to the quarry to hide from everyone who was chasing us. It was kind of strange to be coming back.

We pulled up and demurely handed the keys to the valet. I was starting to feel uneasy and not sure why. It was a strange feeling, sorta like having a head full of cotton. Cape didn’t seem to be picking up on anything specific, but was keyed up as well. Back to the old dog analogy, its hackles weren’t up but it knew something was wrong.

Even mentally conversing with Anza took effort, “Love, there is something around here making Cape and me restless. I don’t know what, but keep cool.”

“A stirring in the Force is it?” She sent back with a mental giggle. “Sorry love, I couldn’t help myself. I feel it too. I’ll let everyone else know by mental-radio, but Tom, you know, can keep me out.”

Mentally, I replied “I’ll find him and sneak a phone call to Halflington to update our status. This could be just something minor. We don’t want to overreact and blow our cover.”

I was walking into the main hall when I saw someone that made me do a double take. With a swift move I moved up the stairs before she could hide. Dee!

“What are you doing here, young lady?” I demanded, in a no-nonsense tone.

I was adding up the things that could go wrong tonight, and it was coming closer and closer to something I didn‘t want to think about too much!

“You don’t understand, Misty! I just had to come! I hid in the trunk of the beetle. I sweet talked the anti-intrusion software into not saying anything,” she pleaded.

Giving her a good look, she was wearing one the dresses she’d gotten for Christmas. From the looks of it, she’d had it in a bag and just changed upstairs. I really didn’t want to know how she got up there so fast to change.

I sighed, “Dee, there is something not quite right here, OK? It could mean trouble, bad trouble”

Her expressive eyes got larger, “Really?”

“Really! Now, I’m looking for Duane, and I want you to stay close, understand? This is serious, so no more games.” I tried to impress upon her.

Making myself use his cover identity of Duane, instead of Tom to keep in role, I headed towards where I thought I’d seen him, with Dee in tow.

We just cleared the crowd when I saw him and, for the first time, Rebecca Newton. She was smoking a cigarette, and for me, that was one strike against her. I’d had smoke blown into my face a time too often as a child, and had to kick an addiction I never began when I first got here.

Misty had been a smoker, but I wasn’t. Either because of not having developed the habit to go with the addiction, or maybe because of my physiology, withdrawal, while unpleasant, hadn’t been too hard. None of that had made me fond of people who pretend to be smokestacks.

Walking up to them, there was something else about her that bugged me, almost as if she was familiar somehow.

Tom/Duane smiled as he saw us, but raised his eyebrows at Dee.

“Hi, Duane, we have a party crasher. You remember my niece Deirdre? Oh, Hello, you must be Rebecca. Duane has told us so much about you.” I gushed, laying it on a little thick.

Duane introduced us, “Becky this is Misty. She works for Mr. Roland as a special assistant. Of course I remember Dee. She spent the winter holiday up at Mr. Roland’s Mansion.”

“I’m so glad to finally meet you. Duane has told me what good friends you’ve all been to him.” Rebecca replied. “Duane it’s alright. I remember when I was young and wanting to sneak into parties too. Just remember no alcohol! Excuse me, I need to visit the powder room.

I froze. I knew that voice. The question was, from where?

Stepping close to Tom/Duane, I told him quietly, “There is something up. I don’t know what but I don’t like it.”

He gave me a stern look, replying “Don’t overreact. There are a lot of people here tonight, and some of them are business rivals. It’s natural to be picking up some animosity.”

“Duane, I swear that I want this to go well for you. All I’m doing is warning you that something doesn’t feel right, OK?” I told him. “I’m going to let everyone else know about Dee’s party crashing.”

Smiling again, “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” Calling out to someone else he knew, he left us.

Dee touched my arm, “Everything is going to be okay, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is! We won’t give it a choice. Behave or else,” leading her towards the backdoors outside where so long ago Will had wrenched it right off its hinges.

We’d just made the doors when I saw Anza hurrying towards me.

“Misty we’ve got trouble I can’t mind-touch any of the gang without pushing. It’s like something is giving me resistance, like jamming or something. I didn’t try to touch you because I don’t want to give away any clues to whoever is doing this,” Anza gave Dee a cold look. “Young lady, I don’t know why you’re here, but we will talk about this later.”

“I found Morgan and she’s looking for Will and Mark right now. Did you find Tom?” Anza said with her dark eyes looking for trouble.

“I found him, but he is convinced we’re overreacting, to use his words.” Just then my eyes found Rebecca as she lit up another cigarette. ‘Urk, she must be a chain smoker.’ As I watched the smoke wreath up around her, my brain put two and two together and got, Oh Shit!

Clearing my throat, “Anza, look over at the restroom. Do you see that blond smoking over there? That’s Rebecca Newton. Now, does she remind you of anyone we might have met when our bare bottoms first got here? Think hard dear.” I directed, with no doubts at who she was.

Anza followed my direction and I heard her mutter, “No freaking way! Tom’s fiancée is that anti-gravity stripper bitch?”

She grabbed my hand, “She looks different, but thank Gawd for eidetic memories. Her mannerisms are exactly the same.”

Right. Anza and I were sure, but convince the rest of the gang on just our say so? We needed more proof, and I knew just how to get it.

“Luv, you look after our stowaway, but make sure you keep me on Punked Camera with your phone so you don’t miss the show.” I started walking towards little Miss Trouble.

I heard Anza give a muttered curse as Dee giggled. However I was busy with something else.

“Okay,” I thought at Cape. “Hand it over.”

Cape gave me the most innocent feelings back. I swear it was pretending it had an angelic halo. Not that I believed that for one second. Cape may be one of my best buddies ever, in that same way a beloved dog or cat can be sometimes, but I had learned a few things about it since that fateful day I had appeared stark naked, in a strip club dressing room.

The symbiote attached to my central nervous system is loyal and playful, as well as being a fashion guru and protector. Cape is also a kleptomaniac. Unlike a dog, who can play catch, it will try and take things that don’t belong to me, or it. Cape lets me catch it mostly, but sometimes it doesn’t.

You see, like that dog, Cape holds grudges, but unlike that dog, it can’t bite or bark. So Cape counts coup by taking something valuable from them and, although I might take the item from it from time to time, it always takes it back.

Thinking hard at it, “You heard me, now. It’s important.”

A small rectangular shape fell into my hand.

I gave soothing thoughts at my miffed Cape as I neared my quarry. She was still smoking and, stopping beside her, I directed Cape to drop the object at our feet.

Looking down, I said, “Excuse me Rebecca, but did you drop that?”

A little disdainful, she glanced down. Her eyes widened as she bent down to pick up what I’d pointed out.

Rebecca Newton’s head jerked up, and she gave me a stare of pure hatred, for there, in her hand, was a classic Ronco Lighter. In fact, it was the very one that Cape had snatched from a certain obnoxious witch from Twin Peaks, all those months ago.

She grated out at me, “You’re the bitch that stole it from me.”

I smiled at the angry woman who‘d broken her cover, “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re ranting about dear. Thank you, you’ve told me everything I needed to know.” Turning on my heels, I left as fast as was diplomatically possible.

Polar ice ran down my back as I started to put together all the pieces; the weird PSI interference, a disguised mutant with underworld ties who had a close relationship with my friend, and most of all, us, out in the open without our usual support. I flipped out my phone and felt an icy shiver as I saw the red flashing warning “No signal. Possible jamming”.

Anza and I exchanged a look. ‘That’s it, we are so out of here!’ Not bothering with going back inside, we headed for the backyard gate at a near run.

Anza was furious cursing, “That rat bastard set us up!”

Hurrying to the outside back gate, worried about Dee in all of this, I knew she was talking about Tom.

Dee wanted to argue, but my gut was telling me we were running out of time real fast!

A blurred green image of Mike materialized in front of us, “It’s a trap! Get out of there!”

No shit Sherlock! Cape twitched violently in warning and I threw both of my companions to the ground as a roar thundered overhead! Mike’s image popped like a soap bubble, as the mansion’s windows exploded inward!

Even as we were hitting the ground, Cape had me armored. Its voluminous folds covered my friends as Cape transformed the glass, shaping it into baseball size projectiles.

Anza’s clothes melted away as she changed into her new red and gold uniform. I gained my feet and, looking up, I saw the dropships, stolen from ULTIMATE, dropping a horde of black suited mercenaries upon us, even as their onboard weapons raked the windows of Tom’s mansion with gunfire and rockets.

There were at least a dozen figures hitting the ground in the backyard, dropping from the ships above. They were a little surprised that anyone at all was back here, much less a pair of supersuits. Using Cape’s tailoring skills, we had changed my outfit to look like a kind of powered armor with, of course, a large cape. Hoping to give Anza some time to get Dee the hell out of here, I held out my hand, “I wondered when you all were going to get here, shall we dance?” as I slipped on my visor.

Back at our first fight months ago at the Mall, Cape had acted like a CIC, and had picked out my targets for me. Today, all of the hard work we had both put in started to pay off. We weren’t two working together, but one being.

I fired off the first two glass cannon balls that Cape had slipped into my hands. Glass is dense, and I am very strong and fast, so I’ll pass on the damage report as the first two goons fell. What I will tell you, is Cape and I went though the rest of these guys like a chainsaw though a bowl of Jello! Cape snapped out streamers, pulling pins of grenades still attached to the troopers, while others were triggering magazine releases, disarming their weapons. I used my flight to dart among them, using every striking point I had. Fist, elbow, knee, head butt, all taking out their targets, if not in one blow, then another was on the way before they’d even hit the ground.

With Cape to coordinate the two of us, I twisted some of them around so they shot their own comrades, while using others as shields as their grenades started cooking off. I caught a few stray fragments, but the armor stopped it cold.

A few of the guys in the backyard were still moving a few seconds later, but I didn’t think they wanted to play any more. World War Three was going strong inside, and above the mansion, but outside, I was of more use. Already, any support they were expecting from the backyard wasn’t going to happen. A few of Duane’s guests had already found the backyard was an escape route, and were beating feet to get as far away as they could get.

Glancing up, I saw their dropship support was busy at the front of the mansion. The reason why became clear, as a Lexus sedan flew up like a rocket, smashing into one of them, sending it pin wheeling out control. I couldn’t help but wince as it tumbled into a neighboring house, its rotors cutting though the roof like a giant electric knife.

Well, I knew where Will was! Running to where I had last seen Anza and Dee, I passed a half dozen black clad figures with dazed looks, who had their hands up, walking down the street. Yep, she’d come this way!

Rounding the corner, I skidded to a stop. It took me a moment to take in the scene. There were burning cars and bodies all over the place. Some were in the black assault gear of the bad guys, while others were in business suits, I guess from Duane’s security agency. Angry pock marks from the guns and rockets of the dropships scored the entire front.

A ten foot tall Will, in his Renegade hero regalia, had the remains of a car with which he’d been intending to bring down another dropship in his hands. A group of bad guys covering behind another car, had blown it to bits, using all kinds of beams, arcs, and stuff. The two remaining dropships were firing rockets and pouring in gunfire on him!

Esperanza, seeing our friend in trouble, was TK screening him, while she and Dee hid behind a car that was beginning to look like Swiss cheese, from being too close to him. I charged into the five blasters. They didn’t even know I was there until I grabbed the arm of one guy who was blasting away, using some kind of glowing green shit from his hand, and shoved it into his neighbor’s gut.

His scream of agony seized the attention of the rest of them. I’d learned a few things about dealing with people shooting at me point blank, from my fight with the Warder Enigma, and that Gun-Fu of hers. With Cape’s ribbons tangling them up, I managed to put one more down, and got glowing green energy boy to blast another of his buddies. Mr. Electricity figured out that fighting me hand to hand was a really bad idea, and backed away.

Raising his hands, he shouted, “Burn Baby, burn!” as they crackled with power.

Levitating, I grabbed the car frame, hoping it would help conduct most of the charge away. A brilliant flash nearly blinded me, despite my visor!

“Hey, nothing happened!” I gasped as he fell to the ground!

The reason why was soon plain, as Conductress landed lightly. her red hair flying wild from the static as she digested her most recent electrical meal, “Yum!”

Warders! I looked up as Black Hawk smashed the pilot’s canopy of one of the dropships. The swordswoman, Alara, rappelling from the Warder’s V-22, was dicing up another group of Mercs, while Wraith was having her way with yet another group of those damn black-suited goons with the guns. I began to wonder just how many of these bloody guys there were.

Renegade staggered from the barrage, bleeding from attacks Anza couldn’t stop. He scooped up a burning wreck, and clipped the last dropship as it fired on the Warders. Question and Enigma raced for the front door of the mansion.

I checked to see if Esperanza had Dee somewhere safe before starting for the front door myself. Dee was with running away with a group of other refugees. Esperanza was simultaneously protecting them, while implanting commands in the pursuing bad guys to surrender. Good enough for me!

Turning around, I barely had time to slam myself onto the floor, as the entire front of the mansion blew outward into the street! Question pin-wheeled out of control as he flew out, like a victim of a major league batter!

Looking up, I saw a tall brown haired woman in red and silver, with a huge silver mallet in her fist, who, in her follow though, looked like a pro-golfer, having just rung Question’s clock. Patience! Oh my! They did bring out their big guns! She’d been the one to bring down Man Mountain, on that long ago day, at the Battle of the Mall.

The fight was coming to us!

I yelled, “Renegade! I need an assist here!”

I tried a sliding tackle, but she nimbly leaped over me. Cape’s warning let me roll out, as I almost got creamed by her mallet’s return stroke. I closed in, using my training to strike at every vulnerable point within reach.

It was like punching the granite walls back at the Hole, and did about as much good. With my speed, and Cape’s warnings, she couldn’t hit me, but damn she was tough! I just couldn’t hurt this bitch! Then Renegade smashed into her!

I almost gasped as her shiny mallet transformed, quicksilver fast, into a shield that stopped his blow that could have bought down entire buildings. She shield smashed him in the face, but my grabbing the damn thing, as it flowed retransforming back into a mallet, upset her balance.

Patience yelled to her troops, “Recall, Plan Delta! We are leaving!”

I got a backhand in response from her that, despite my blocking, stung like mad! Bloody hell, this bitch was strong!

Renegade, giving a grim smile, cut loose with his full strength, causing even her to fly backwards a couple of paces, shield or no shield.

I reached up to slam her into the ground to set her up for him, when Cape started screaming Red Alert! Hey, I almost made it, but a pair of large hands coming right up out of the street grabbed just one foot I was slow in moving.

The next thing I knew was darkness, as it yanked me underground! Panicked and blind, I fought, but it did no good, as it released me buried alive! Cape covered my mouth, keeping the unwanted stuff out and helping me breathe. I’d done this before, underwater, but never thought to try it underground. It was hard to move, but thrashing and flying I moved in what I hoped was in the right direction to get free.

Suddenly! A light appeared and I could move!

I fell in a filthy awkward heap inside a newly made tunnel, spitting and gasping to breathe, as a dirty girl in a torn skirt hugged me, Dee!

It had to have been Man Mountain. The bastard had spun me around upside down to disorient me. I’d been digging the wrong way to get out.

Hugging her back I knew we needed to get back to the surface, fast.

“Hold on Dee. We’re flying out!”

We zoomed up her rescue tunnel, which was almost 30’ deep. A little voice was telling me she was real lucky not to have hit any underground cables or gas mains, but at long last we flew out onto the street.

Looking up I saw a mob of bad guys charging right at us, like a stampede of buffalo!

I felt Dee holding on for dear life, and leaped upwards as Caped turned black to try to hide us.

“NO Capes!” I heard just as something yanked us down, hard!

Trying to protect Dee, I rolled as I was smashed into the ground.

Cape, trying to do the same, flipped her away from us, as a hand latched onto us, jerking me to my feet.

Patience! I recognized how much trouble I was in. I’d used everything I could think of to stop her, and none of it had worked. No more Ms. nice masked heroine, I did a double strike, meant to break both collar bones, a deadly punch into her throat, and lastly at her nose, with the classic death blow .

Just like with the mythical Mongo, all I did was make her mad! With a dribble of blood from her nose, she gave me a red eyed glare of hate, as that silvery mallet morphed into an enormous, nasty looking, serrated edged, sword. “Get the girl. She’s coming with us!

Lithely, I kicked with both legs into her midsection, but it did me no good, as she struck me with her oversized cleaver.

Pain clawed at my entire body as I rocketed backwards. I half remember some blurred images of startled looks on peoples faces, as I flew though a couple walls. The pain after I crashed, now that I remember all too clearly.

Dee! I rolled onto my back, groaning from the pain. Touching the burning area that reaching from my right shoulder down to my left hip, I clenched my teeth. Expecting to see blood, I was amazed to find only a tickle. Cape twitched weakly underneath me, and I knew I wasn’t the only one hurt.

I heard my phone ringing, so the jamming must have ended, but I was hurting too damn much to move.

“Misty where are you? Are you alright” Anza’s worried voice carried over our bond/link. I guess the mental interference thingie was over too.

Moaning I told her, “Just follow the line of holes though the walls. No, I’m not, to question number two.”

“Anza! They got Dee!” I projected back at her, as I pushed some debris aside.

“Hang on, I’m on my way.” her concern flowed over our link/bond.

I shoved myself up to examine our wound, Yeah that’s right, our wound. Cape’s welfare and health was as precious to me as my own, or Anza’s. Maybe a bit like the family dog that is a much part of the family as any human in it. Okay, more so, since this one shared my central nervous system, and who knew what else, but certainly no less.

The stroke that was meant to cleave me in two had left a ragged gouge that had some thin rivulets of blood running down my torso. Cape was slowly healing itself, for, as I watched, the armor started to once more become whole.

Using the damaged, hazardously leaning wall to help me stand, I was aware of a lesson here. I had tried to kill Patience. Driven by my desire to try and protect Dee, I had thrown everything I had at the Bitch. I staggered a few steps to where I could see fires burning. Patience had returned the intention, and came a lot closer to succeeding than I had.

‘She had made two mistakes though’, an icy thought burned though me. One, the bitch hadn’t made sure of the job. Yeah I know she’d been in a hurry, but there are no excuses for sloppy work. Two, she’d taken someone to whom I had given my word that I would love and protect them.

Anza landed lightly beside me, and I relaxed, wincing as I felt her TK cradle me.

“Oh, Misty love, you’re a mess,” she said, as she kissed my forehead gently.

With my link/bond to her I sensed her powers reaching into me, searching for damage, and the tingles where they eased the hurt.

Glazing up into her dark eyes, her face was just dirty and worried as mine.

“Hello Nurse,” I greeted her weakly trying vainly to sound flippant. “What’s going on now? Where are they now?”

Her eyebrows knitted together, “First of all you’re going to be fine. I don’t know how you stood with a busted shoulder, not to mention not one, but two, broken ribs with another badly bruised. Your own healing has taken care of the cuts and the other contusions.”

Shaking my head at her, I answered, “I didn’t ask that, and you are not telling me, is all I need to know.”

“I love her too, you damn idiot! You want to know what’s happening? Fine! ULTIMATE is on the way, and they ordered Question to stand down and not pursue. Tom, the Bastard, stormed off and left when Morgan confronted him with what we found out about his fiancée. The Syndicate Enforcers took off to the east, stealing whatever vehicles they could find, since we smashed up their rides.”

“With Dee,” I added.

“Yes with Dee, and a handful of other hostages, Damn you,” she cursed angrily at me.

Meanwhile she’d flown us back to the battle zone that had once been a prosperous upper class neighborhood. Shell shocked people stumbled from their wrecked homes, watching with wide eyes and seeing the bodies of mercenaries and innocents lying in the cratered street, as the fires illuminated the entire grim scene.

A few emergency vehicles were already on the scene, while others were starting to arrive. The guys, minus Tom, had retrieved our vehicles from the valets. It wouldn’t do for them to be to carefully examined after all.

Question was waiting for us as we landed.

“I’m sorry about the girl being taken, but we’ve been requested to not pursue,” Question told me, and even with his mask on, I could feel his sour feelings about the matter.

I closed my eyes, readying myself for what was to come, “You do what you feel you need to do.”

Anza, with her voice full of worry, said, “Please don’t, love.”

Sighing and shaking my head, “I have to. Too many others have already let Dee down. I won‘t be the next.”

I almost cringed at the hurt in her dark eyes, as she released her powers, letting me stand wobbly on my own.

Question looked from one of us to the other, “You’re going after her?”

I ignored him, seeking within myself the warm emotion I got when watching Dee smile, or when her face glowed with happiness. When we’d first met, I could only read her with my empathy upon touch, but we’d grown as close as sisters, or maybe as mother and daughter, could be. I could feel Dee’s heart and soul through my empathy with her, and my heart showed me the way I had to go.

Cape had been silent since our injury, but now I could feel its own agreement and support.

Behind me, I heard the ringing chimes of Lady Diamond’s crystalline foot steps coming toward us.

“Aren’t you going to try to talk some sense into her?” Question asked her.

“Why waste breath trying to give an order I know won’t be obeyed? Besides, I more than half agree with her. You and the Warders have done much for us, and we appreciate that more than you all will ever know. However, this entire mission objective was for us to find, and take out, the Syndicate headquarters with one sledgehammer blow, while operating in secret.

“I don’t know how our cover was blown, but it definitely was,” Lady Diamond pointed out, as she waved a hand at the carnage around us. “If Streeter was responsible for this I‘ll kill him myself. No matter how they knew, this was an all out attack to take us out. No way they would’ve brought this many for just an attack on a party. They knew. If not for your people, they might have succeeded.

“Their plan failed, but any chance of us surprising them is gone. We finish this and we do it now. I know you have to live with the consequences of what happened here tonight while, win or lose, we don’t know what will happen to us. Like the woman said, do what you feel you need to, and so will we.” She finished, and walked over to me.

“Do you know which way?” my friend softly asked me.

I nodded, and Cape lifted us up in flight, as we soared towards where a scared young girl waited for rescue.

***

Enigma walked to where Question was watching the self-named Chevaliers leave.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked indicating the five departing heroes with a toss of her head.

The tall masked man in red and white looked about himself at the catastrophe that had wrecked this neighborhood. This was the very kind of disaster he’d spent his life trying to prevent.

Looking down at his feet, he spotted one of the weapons the attackers had carried, an AK-47. One of the most common assault rifles in the world. Why mess with a classic, considering it did what it was designed to do very well? The problem was that this one was here in his town. Very deliberately he bought his foot down and, using his power, multiplied his mass till the stamped metal crunched like a empty beer can.

“Flack it,” he cursed. Hitting his mike, “George, this is Question. Relay this message to ULTIMATE for me, will you? ‘Request denied!’ You got that?”

“No problem, Mon! T’will be my pleasure!” replied the unseen, grinning Caribbean pilot.

“Attention all Warders, rally on me! We’re dusting off! You got that George?”

Raising an aristocratic brow, Enigma asked, “We hunt?”

Acknowledging their pilot’s reply, he turned to her, “Damn Straight!”

Her own shout of, “About bloody time!” was lost in the thunder, as their team’s V-22 dropped lower for them to board.

***

Colonel Geoff Stone grabbed his old mentor’s arm, “They’re too far away. Before you could get there it’ll be over.

Major Victory gave his former student a determined look, “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Reid, have the robots prep Fifi for an emergency combat launch, Code Omega.”

“Geoff, I have to try. This mission is coming apart, and I have to be there, not just for Morgan, but for the rest of them too,” the old hero said, grabbing the flight bag that Mr. Chang had materialized at the door with, and had held out for him.

The SAS colonel watched the door slam shut. With a muttered curse he snatched up his own Kit bag, that far too many years at being on the sharp end, had made him make sure it was always kept ready.

Mr. Chang, always the professional, asked, “And you sir?”

On the run as he hit the door, the Colonel yelled, “To the sound of the Guns! Reid, start turning rotors!”

Stepping outside, watching the two old warhorses run towards battle, he nodded his head, and a hand of black clad ninja-commandos joined the Colonel in his race to the Chevalier’s helicopter, which was already powering up.

He knew he was too old to go rushing off into combat, even as his heart tightened, concerned for those he’d grown to love like his own family, and the dangers they faced. Pushing the emotion aside, he opened his phone. There was still much he could do to aid them.

Heroes of Justice: With your Shield, or On it!

Cape had recovered enough to harden parts of itself to create a cast-like effect that made it a little easier and less painful to breathe, but not much. I heal very fast, but unfortunately not as fast as that Wolfie guy in the comic books, who heals nearly as fast as he can be harmed.

Concentrating on which way to go, I completely missed Mike riding beside me, sitting cross-legged on a green, glowing, flying carpet. I did the classic double-take, but somehow kept my mouth closed.

I yelled, “What do you want?”

“Are you crazy? You’re hurt, and Streeter has taken off!” Mike shouted back, over the wind.

Not turning my head, “I don’t care! They’ve got Dee, and anyone who gets in my way had better finish the job this time!”

Mike ducked around a wreck, “How about letting them catch up?”

Glancing behind me I saw Lady Diamond’s bike, Esperanza in Flower-Power and the boys in their pickup weaving in and out of the wrecks trying to catch up.

“Let’em try harder.” I said, looking forward.

Mike grinned, “I just knew you were going to say something like that. Here. This is for you.” he said, shoving a green box he’d pulled from nothingness, into my hands.

“This will get you back on your feet, but only for three hours. Then you’ll crash, big time. You got me?” He yanked his carpet around a light pole just in time.

“I got it!” yelling back at him over the roar.

“I’ll be around. Ciao!” Mike yelled back and then, in a green flash, he was gone.

I admit I felt warm and comforted, knowing my friends were with me, but it was Dee who was foremost in my mind.

With a banshee wail, a siren cut loose behind me from Renegade’s truck, and the roll-bar mounted lights started flashing red, blue and amber. When they’d had added that toy I didn’t know if it was a good idea, but despite my misgivings, the sirens were having a positive effect. People were getting out of the way, thinking we were some kind of emergency vehicles.

Looking down the street, part of me was wondering why I even bothered to try and track Dee with my empathy, when it was so easy to see the path the bad guys had left behind them. With a complete disregard for trying to fit in, they had driven their stolen vehicles like something from a demolition derby. You could see the path of wrecked cars and trucks that marked a trail even the blind could follow.

Anza had Flower-Power’s pedal floored, and I heard the whine of the turbo as she went airborne over dips in the street. I had only a vague idea of how fast we were going as she edged next to me. My top flight speed now was around 125 mph/200 kph, but Cape and I were pushing this as hard as we could.

They had at least a couple minutes on us, but unlike them, we had a mostly clear road in front of us. We had a lot of ground to make up, and we needed to do it fast. I saw one or two wrecks that looked if they’d been the ones we’d been chasing, but it appeared the bad guys had just hijacked another car, and continued escaping.

I was half afraid to look over at her. I knew how much I’d hurt her with my refusal to wait, because of my injuries.

Yelling over the wind at me, I heard, “Get in, you beautiful idiot!”

Okay, the idiot part meant she was still mad at me, but the ‘beautiful’ was pure love to my ears. Mindful of my injuries, I timed the bumps just so, to manage as smooth a dock as any NASA space shuttle pilot.

“What did Mr. Wizard want,?” Anza asked, as I turned back on my communicator.

“He was making a delivery,” I told her, as I unwrapped the box.

Inside, cushioned by green paper, was a old fashioned bottle that was, surprise, green. It had an cork instead of a cap and had a tag attached with a piece of string. Letting the wind rip the empty box and paper from my hands, I looked at the tag.

I had an hard time reading it in the flickering lights as we raced along, but it read, “Drink me!”

“What is it?” she asked, as we saw what must be our bad guys, since they were running without lights.

“Stimulant, I think. He said it’ll put me back on my feet, but I’ll know it in about three hours,” I explained.

We passed the first of the Syndicate henchmen, and it was funny seeing the looks on their faces as the two chicks in the pink VW roared by their stolen SUV. That didn’t last long, as they struck the barrels of weapons out and began blasting away at us.

With a sigh, I pulled out the cork and tipped up the bottle. Mike was a traditionalist it seemed. His potion tasted just as bad as it was supposed to be good for you. It was just plain nasty tasting, feeling, and, gagging, I fought to keep it down.

Anza was weaving dangerously, as bullets were bouncing all about us. “Are you okay?”

A warm glow swam over me, and I realized I didn’t hurt any more, “Yeah! Hold on! I’ll be right back.”

I hovered out and, let a revitalized Cape drag chute me right into their windshield, boots first. Passing though it, Cape and I let loose with a flurry of blows and crashed out of the rear hatch window.

Anza must have used her TK power to keep it from wrecking, because it just glided to a stop. I pulled up and accelerated to catch back up, as Lady Diamond and the guys were neck and neck with us, now.

Rather dryly, Lady Diamond yelled over the wind's roar, “Are you back with us now, or are you still trying to be the Lonesome Ranger?”

“I’m back,” I answered, biting back an explanation. There’ll be time for that later, but now was a time for speed. I pulled myself back into Flower-Power, knowing that Anza could push the car faster than I could fly. That is if it didn’t fly apart! She canna’ take it, Captain!

“Can you do that again Mystery? That seems the best way to take out these Tail End Charlies, with Esperanza playing short stop.” Lady Diamond asked.

“Yeah. Mike gave me some kind of potion and I’m feeling no pain. According to him the down side is, I got three hours before I auger in hard,.” That reminded to do something.

Reaching down for my phone, I set the timer for a vibration alarm in two hours and fifty minutes. I hoped that five minutes would leave enough time for me to reach something soft.

Unlike the last group that was surprised anyone was chasing them, the ones we were closing on had formed two columns that let them shoot back at us. The bad news was, I just wasn’t fast enough to overtake without taking some hits. Yeah, bullets mostly bounce off, but damn it, they still hurt!

We were still working out a plan, when a bolt of electricity arced from one of the SUVs to somewhere over our heads. With its power dead, the big vehicle rammed into a parked car. Looking over our heads we saw the Warders! Conductress was hanging out the open door, calling the vehicle’s electrical power to her.

This time Anza was ready, and used her TK to brake the drained vehicle before it could crash. Another truck load of Mercs soon followed. Ahead were the ones we wanted a limo, a sports car and a couple more SUVs as escorts.

Lady Diamond had gotten Reid to add the Warders to our communications network, something that, in hindsight should’ve already happened. We were still working out a plan when the unexpected occurred.

A pair of ULTIMATE dropships dropped beside the Warder’s V-22, while two more took up position behind us. Just for icing on the cake, another was in front with its rear ramp lowered, with Reaction Team One standing upon it.

“This is Lt. Colonel Benjamin Hostler! Since you ignored my request, you are ordered to stand down and land immediately! Do I make myself understood?” we overheard on our joined comm-net.

A pair of loudspeakers on the dropship ahead of us blared out, “Stop your vehicles at once! You are under arrest! If you don’t immediately comply, deadly force will be used!”

A vicious hard piece of anger started smoldering in me as I watched Dee’s kidnappers race away. There was no way in hell this was anything but a deliberate act to let them get away!

I was about to make some really pointed remarks, when Question beat me to it.

“Colonel Hostler you are interfering with a lawful pursuit of dangerous felons. WE have no choice but to assume you are being coerced, either by mental domination, or other means, since you are allowing them to escape. As to our allies, you don’t have the clearance or the need to know. So get out of our way or be moved! Question out!”

We got our answer, as a burst of gatling gunfire from a dropship tore the guy’s pickup into confetti! From the resulting fireball, a huge eagle like-bird flew upwards with a very pissed off, smoldering werewolf in its claws. Lady Diamond had her own problems, as a tornado of bullets from another dropship’s gatling gun was tearing up the street behind her bike. She was madly trying to avoid its deadly teeth as yet another fired at her.

Suddenly the fire stopped, as that dropship’s port engine exploded as a rain of hammer blows from four 20mm cannons shredded it. With a lurch, it slammed into the buildings lining the street, while its rotors lashed the street before crumpling into ruin themselves.

With a roar, a vintage F8U Dragonfly flashed though the remaining five dropships at over 500 mph. Major Victory! Damn if I didn’t feel like cheering or something. One of the two dropships dealing with the Warders went after him, while George, their pilot, banked violently, spraying decoy flares to avoid a missile fired from the other.

Team One leaped into fray as their brick, Number Five, landed with such force Lady Diamond lost control of her bike in the resulting mini-earthquake. Laying down her Harley in a shower of sparks, she blasted off a few beams at the big guy with seemingly little effect. Renegade dropped Wolfen on the dreadlock coiffeured brick from above, before transforming himself back his human form, 30‘ up.

Lucky us had escaped the gunfire, but now had three of Team One on top of us. Number Three, their blaster, cut loose with a sonic blast that Anza stopped with her TK screen. Number One, their leader and gadget master, fired something at us that hit Flower-Power and, in a arcing web of sparks, killed our power. Hey, I know I’ve complained about having a chick car, but that was our car!

Anza shared my feelings, as her eyes lit up with her anger. A psychic bolt struck Number One, who screamed as her nervous system was overloaded, right before she flew straight into a brick building with a resounding crash!

Meanwhile I was dancing again with Number Four, the former criminal with the golden hair this time. Half flying and half hanging onto our coasting, power-fried, Flower-Power car, I had a fight on my hands. Like me, she was a fast brick, and was just as tough to fight as Enigma, because she could change herself from a mist-like form, to one as hard as steel. She could also alter her size, and was making good use of it to give me a hard time.

I heard, “Mystery! Drop!”

Rolling to the ground, I saw a bolt of lightning fly over my head. Number Four spasmed and fell into Flower-Power‘s backseat in a boneless heap.

Conductress landed next to me, “Someone should have warned her, gold is very conductive.”

“Step lively,” I yelled, as I swung her out of the way of a blast of ultrasonics that pulverized the pavement where she’d been standing.

She fired another electrical bolt back at Number Three, but it went right though him. Damn another one of those ghosts!

I did my best to keep him busy, but with him ghosting out, I couldn’t lay a glove on him. The good news was, he couldn’t seem to generate one of his sound blasts unless he was solid, so it was a standoff.

From a corner of my eye I saw a squad of those power armor guys rolling on the ground, squirming like crazy as soon as they crawled out of their wrecked transport. I was wondering what was up with them until I heard Anza command them, “Ever have an itch you can’t scratch? Itch!”

I knew my lover had an evil sense of humor, but that? Shudder. No matter her methods, she’d kept the troopers off of us. Renegade, falling from above had pile driven Number Five so far into the pavement I think he ended up in the sewers. Wolfen was sparing with Number Two, Team One’s Martial Artist. The nunchaku armed ULTIMATE officer was doing a very effective job of keeping my snarling teammate at bay.

“Wolfen switch,!” I shouted.

He leaped towards me and I ran at him. Cape did our color shifting, chameleon thing again and Number Two, with his eyes fixed on Wolfen as he chased him, never saw what hit him as I came in from underneath.

A second later I made sure he stayed down for the count. Number Three, startled by the drooling snarling Wolfen in his face, never noticed the woman in white behind him who stepped into phase with him and pistol whipped him into unconsciousness. It takes a ghost to take another one out I guess.

The street erupted, sending both Warders flying as Number Five, covered in nasty and unmentionable stuff, came up out of the street! The cloud of steaming gases and the falling bits of asphalt, masonry, and piping gave the impression of an erupting volcano. Oh, and the smell! Man was he mad! Reaching down, he peeled up a sedan sized section of the street and sent it spinning at us like a huge Frisbee!

While I was leaping over that, Cape grabbed my attention, pointing at the dropship that had gotten into firing position. “Oh Crap! Incoming!” I yelled, as it sent a horde of rockets at us. It seemed as if the entire street burst into a hurricane of flying razors and fire! I threw myself upon the ground, seeking sanctuary.

Peering up into that hell, I saw Esperanza’s force screen covering Enigma and Conductress. Question, with his face shielded by an arm, just leaned into the maelstrom as if it was nothing more than a extremely unpleasant, driving rain. As Renegade tried to find something he could throw at the gunships, he got slammed backwards by another huge piece of asphalt and rock that came flying our way. Damn it, Number Five!

Another dropship joined the first, and damn, if it didn’t look like they were going to join the turkey shoot, Crap! We were getting hammered!

Lady Diamond’s voice crackled over our tactical radios, “Chevaliers! Cover-up and lay low! Wolfen draw those damn things towards me, down Cockrum Drive.”

Cape did its camouflage thing and I saw Esperanza showing her stuff by TKing debris about the little group sheltering with her, making them look like a lifeless lump. I couldn’t see anyone else with all the smoke and dust being kicked up. Must be too much crap in the air for Diamond’s Lasers. It was a tough call, having Wolfen play fox to the ULTIMATE’s hounds, but he was the best choice, given his nigh invulnerability to everything but silver that is. Here’s hoping none of those things have any onboard!

With a howl that cut though even the chaos of the explosions, Wolfen charged Number Five! Madly dodging the rockets and cannon fire, while leaping over the smoking craters in the street, he covered the distance in the span of only a breath or two.

Team One’s brick braced himself to grapple with the lycanthrope, but staggered back surprised when a manhole cover, sailed by the snarling Were, hitting him in the chest. With a ringing sledgehammer loud, the heavy steel plate pounded into Number Five, half-spinning him around. Question, after his near perfect discus throw, rolled away as the smoky trail of a missile flew at him from a covering dropship.

Wolfen pounced upon him and vaulted upwards at the strafing dropships, using Number Five’s face as a springboard! Both Dropships broke off as the slavering, angry Wolfen suddenly flew at them.

He didn’t come all that close to them, but Wolfen definitely got their attention. Caught in their rotor’s downdrafts, he spun out of control, landing in an awkward heap. Shaking himself as he healed from his fall, the huge canine’s ears perked up. Twisting around in the air to see where the werewolf had gone, the dropships found their prey.

Dodging the hurricane of cannon fire, Wolfen raced down the street with his tail tucked in tight, as yet another dropship joined in. Yipping in dismay, as the gunfire peppered him with hot shrapnel, he skidded, trying to evade them. I heard Lady Diamond order him to turn the corner, as bright beams shot out from same ragged masonry hole Number One had made in her uncontrolled crash. The intense rays severed the first ship’s rear fuselage. Half out of control, it hit the ground in a shower of sparks and skidded, as its deadly rotors whipped about.

I lost sight of the other two, but looked in the direction the long gone kidnappers had gone with Dee. However, I knew Number Five had to go down. He was trying to rally these guys, and we didn’t need that.

“Go!” Question yelled, as he passed me rushing Number Five. “We can take care of this. Don’t lose the trail. Look for Wraith!”

He swung around the big Team One brick, and rocked him backwards with a right. Renegade, charging, slammed him back into Question. Like a pair of cats, they played a game of bat the mousie with him.

Renegade added in his two cents, “Misty, we’ve got this. Do what the man says, Go!”

Anza was busy keeping yet another group of ULTIMATE troopers busy, trying to get at an itch that was all in their minds. Lady Diamond was busy trying to down the dropship still chasing the werewolf, and Major Victory was dog fighting more above us.

Closing my eyes and breathing in deep, I tried to reach out to Dee. Instead of that brightness that I knew was her, I felt a heavy cloudy feeling. This time I knew it was that damnable mental interference, or PSI jamming, as Anza called it.

Helplessly wondering what the hell to do now, standing in the middle of World War Three, I caught the sight of salvation. Above the twisting, turning, aerial battle of dropships, and heroes there was one solitary V-22 Osprey staying out of the action.

Hostler! That had to be his command ship. If there was ever any doubt that he was our traitor, they were all gone now, with the way he had let them escape. If anyone knew just where Dee was being taken, it was him. With a great leap, Cape and I rocketed upwards. We had a few questions for Lt. Colonel Benjamin Hostler.

His command V-22 broke off, going evasive as the pilots saw us. Given time, they could just out run me. I wasn’t going to give them the chance. The ramp’s gunner sent a stream of tracers and lead at me. I ducked under the ship’s fuselage, out of the gunner’s field of fire. Acting with perfect coordination, Cape whipped a ribbon up to the ramp. Lightning fast, I slingshotted upward, somersaulting into the VTOL. Seeing the gunner had remembered his safety gear, I simply tossed him off the side, letting him dangle by his harness.

I couldn’t help smiling as I saw dear Colonel Hostler. He, his staff, and the short squad of Power-Armor troopers, were being bounced around like a tennis-ball inside a dryer, as the command ship pilots yanked, and banked, trying to avoid the threat, me, not knowing it was just a little too late.

Cape had me anchored down nice and tight, using the same streamers it had pulled me in with. With all the extra communications gear, they only had room for five of those suits, but in theory they were the cream of the crop, there only to provide added security for their commander. They proved it by not even trying to use that formidable array of weapons they packed, because they were just as likely to fill their own ride full of holes as hit me, the way it was juking and jiving.

In a single mass they charged me. If they could get me off the ship, then it could bring its own weapons to bear. Five months ago that might had worked, but, sorry boys and girls, not today. I couldn’t help thinking of an one liner I’d read long ago. “Goons! And they’re all mine!”

The first reached me, and I stiffed armed him to arrest his movement, while more of Cape’s ribbons flowed to the bungee rope-like quick deployment system. These Power-Armor suits had cold-gas jump-jets that would help one survive a fall, but had a limited fuel supply, which was why they had the quick deployment system. Right now they were more than willing to take the fall to get rid of me. Hooking the static line to the suit, Cape prepared another, as I used a Aikido move to sling the hapless leading trooper off into the void.

While I’ll never be in Streeter’s class for speed and reaction times, I was more than a match for even a power-armor enhanced normal. With a twisting judo move, the next two followed the first. The fourth slid some kind of sword blade from his armor’s gauntlets. Cape wrapped around it, and I Aikido threw him out, with a twist. The last one, I just picked up and tossed out, like a bouncer at a nightclub. I glanced over the edge of the ramp at the dangling suits and gunner. Just as I expected, the pilots had finally noticed all of that aerodynamic drag, and that they had a visitor. Sooner or later the troopers would cut themselves loose, but that did give me a few seconds to do what I’d come to do.

Speaking of which Colonel Hostler had pulled his sidearm, and I saw two more crewmen who, I guess, were part of his support staff.

In a flash, I moved to them, “Colonel Hostler, tell your men to drop their weapons. YOU are the one I want to talk to, and you know why. I won’t harm them unless I’m forced. Which is it going to be?” I told him, looking into his eyes.

He flinched, but told them, “Put down your weapons. We don’t have anything that would hurt IT anyway. What do you want mutant?”

Raising an eyebrow, “Mutant I may or may not be, but the question for today is, is that worse than being a traitor?” Cape changed my supersuit back to my original, stylistic, medieval armor look. With a quirk of my lips I asked, “Isn’t it? Too bad for you, you stumbled into someone else’s official operation. Sting. You‘re it.”

I heard his staff gasp as I made my accusations.

One of his men sneered back, “The Mu-taint bitch’s lips is moving, she’s lying!“

He growled back, “At ease, Chief! We’re professionals. Act like it.”

I however, saw the truth in his eyes. What’s more, I could tell, from what I was ‘feeling,’ that he wasn’t going to tell me what I wanted to know anytime soon. That was bad, because Dee was being taken further away every minute.

Pushing though the foggy resistance of that mental interference, I used my bond/link to call my beloved. She had used my hands and eyes before, to aid a badly injured man and now I asked if she could read this traitor’s mind, using me as a conduit.

Quicksilver fast, we shared thoughts. It would reveal exactly where she was, to any who were sensitive. Right now, even her mental domination commands, such as that which incapacitated those Power-Armor suits, weren’t working any too well.

I replied that anyone with ears and eyes could see, and hear, the explosions. If whomever out there could overcome her, we were all screwed anyway, seeing how our careful plans had already come apart. She agreed, and for the first time, Esperanza unleashed her full powers.

Colonel Hostler jerked backward in fear. I wasn’t sure what he saw, but I heard my lips say. “Little man, its time for truth and consequences.”

Then the world came undone. The dam of reality broke loose, and I was dragged along, as my beloved ruthlessly drove into his mind. It only took an instant, but lasted an eternity. Just how long is a single instant of eternity? He did have some sort of protection for his mind, but Anza shattered it like a pane of fragile glass. If his protections had been weak, what laid in waiting within wasn’t. A dark, malevolent power awoke.

It was yet another of those things that defy the power of words to describe. I truly don’t know how to. IF I was forced to, the best way was to say what it wasn’t. It wasn’t another telepath using Hostler as a puppet. Maybe it was more a splinter of something black, and full of evil that had taken up residence in his mind, like a virus of the psyche. Whatever it was reacted like a pit of rattlesnakes when we dropped in. My lover and IT threw themselves at each other in wild abandon, like instinctive enemies.

Esperanza, and that twisty black nastiness fought a battle that, once again, was something I could never describe. Mystery, my role-playing character, had never been telepathic, only empathic. However, that fictional character had never fallen in love with a powerful telepath, or lived as I had the last few months. As they fought, I found I had free-will in this strange place in this man’s head. I knew what I wanted, and somehow I flew towards it. There it was! I had visualized it as a file folder, and there it was. I reached out for it.

No more had I touched it, when a tentacled, spiraling mass split off from whatever Esperanza was wrestling with. Like some primordial creature, it latched onto that file and fought to take it from me. It’s impossible for me to tell anyone how I did it, but I somehow I snatched what I wanted to know about more than anything else in the world, from within that file. Anza somehow knew I had what we sought, and pulled us free, even as that thing snapped at our heels.

Oh Gawd, my head hurt, but who was that screaming? Blinking away the pounding headache, the answers I had grabbed came to me. Pictures of a woman and child, and a sick worried feeling for them, along with an image of ship at dock, and a chained dog. Not sure what that meant, but it could mean his family was being threatened. The ship and dog were the clues I wanted.

Anza’s sweet voice said within my mind, “Are you alright? Did you get what we needed?”

Even thinking seemed to hurt, but I replied, “I got something love, and yes, I’m fine. The next time I ask for you to do that, you have my permission to slap me, hard!”

The VTOL shuddered, and I forced my eyes open past the stabbing pain. Hostler’s eyes were rolled back into his head, but his staff and the pilots were convulsing and screaming! Oh bloody hell! I had thought that thing in Colonel Hostler’s head had just attacked us, but the be-damned thing had hit the entire ship!

I leaped for the cockpit. Razor sharp claws, courtesy of Cape, cut his harness, and I pulled the epileptic ULTIMATE pilot free. Vaulting into his seat, my boots barely touched the rudder pedals. Argh, sometimes it sucks to be small! Scooting forward to reach the controls, Cape kept me from sliding by wrapping itself about me and the seat.

Scanning the huge bank of instruments in front of me, I was dumbfounded. The helicopter, and the old war bird I flew, didn’t help me at all at finding the information I really needed right now. Okay, back to basics, stick and rudder. I fought the controls to regain stable flight.

“Reid, I need assistance! Please respond!” I pleaded. Looking out of the cockpit windows, I could see the rotors were in mid transition. That is, neither in hover, or level flight. Okay. I need to get this thing into hover and land it.

“This is Reid. What is the nature of your emergency?” the AI responded statically though the interference.

‘That’s it. I’m not letting Reid talk Star Tripping with Anza anymore, dang it’. “Reid, I’m sitting behind the controls of an out of control V-22. How do I put this thing into hover?”

Reid was all business. “Affirmative, Center console. Just above engine throttles is the auto-pilot. Hit the engage.”

My faster than human responses were a life saver. “Affirmative. Auto-pilot engaged.”

The pitching V-22 eased into a hover, as I breathed a relieved sigh.

“Mystery. The system is designed to keep the aircraft in a stable hover while the troops are deployed. To land from this point … ,” Reid was saying, but Cape was urgently tapping on my shoulder. Looking behind me, I saw that Colonel Hostler had somehow regained consciousness and, as I looked, he snapped on the static line and leaped out, Damn it!

I only half paid attention the rest of Reid’s instructions, but it was enough to get the thing on the ground. The tricky part was making sure none those I had left dangling out the ramp, got caught underneath as I landed. But, of course, Hostler was long gone. At least this V-22’s crew would live to fight another day, maybe even against the right enemy this time.

In the distance, I could see the power-armor monkeys I had given the boot to were closing in fast. They could worry about the crew. I had wasted too much time with this as it was, but I knew where to start looking now. Yeah, chained up dogs and a ship at the port.

With a leap Cape and I soared toward where I hoped, with all my heart, I would find Dee alive and well.

***

With an audible rustle, his parchment dry skin crinkled as he smiled. His attendants, chained about him, turned their heads away in fear, at the sight of it. Normally he would take pleasure from their reactions, but right now he was very displeased. Dispelling the defensive energies that prevented those with second sight or their technical equivalents from tracking his minions, the chilling necromantic energies slithered and flowed back inside their pyramidal prison.

This was twice that Patience had failed him in this matter. Before the next step of the great plan could begin, this city’s heroes needed to be either crushed or turned. These newcomers had interfered with both aims. If that wasn’t enough, it seemed an ‘Old Friend’ had become involved. That, in itself, was enough reason to give them his full attention.

In this case however, the Dark Lord had also warned that these others would seek to stop the grand design. There were not many things left in the universe that he truly feared. The Dark Lord, and the power he had to send him back to the endless void where he’d been exiled to, was one of them.

He raised his skull like visage, hearing the sounds of his combat commander returning. The scent of fresh young souls was on the air, and he knew it was a gambit on her part, to take the edge off his anger. This time she would be quite mistaken.

The pleasures he’d taken in her humiliation and her ability to withstand injuries that would kill or maim any lesser being, had made her one of his favorites, but when her incompetence threatened to bring the Dark Lord’s wrath upon him, enough was enough.

Dear, loyal Blight, was standing at his side, just as he had all those many years ago, when both of them had worn different flesh. For his loyal service, he’d been rewarded with the body of a young god that hadn’t been appreciated nearly enough by its former owner.

That made him consider, not for the first time, maybe it was time for him to change shells as well. No matter where his essence was housed, his nature soon drained and used it up. It was true, Patience had an extraordinary resilient body and a truly amazing array of powers, but to be a weak woman? Not of the body perhaps, but weak just the same. Just witness her recent failures. He thought about taking Blight’s, but although it was young and strong, it was still only a normal human. It wouldn’t be sturdy enough to support him for long.

Still it was annoying to be encased in a dried out husk. Yes, the more he thought about it the more enthralled with it he became. Yes, he would be wearing female flesh, but he would still be himself. To be young again was a powerful lure.

It was true that events appeared to be coming to a crisis, and he knew only too well how his “Old Friend’s” mere presence could cause even the most foolproof plans to unravel. However, this time he did have the guest dear Blight had found and invited, to call on, if things truly fell apart.

Was it worth it to be young once more he mused? As always, there would be a short time of weakness, but the fresh souls that were coming would quickly re-energize him. To have a strong young vital body to participate in the coming battle, and to guarantee the victory over his ‘Old Friend,’ would indeed be a sweet drink of revenge for past transgressions.

***

As Patience climbed the steps, her heart nearly froze in her chest, seeing the Master’s ‘attendants’ cringing in fear. That was a very bad sign. Upon seeing the rictus-like smile on his face, her blood drained from her face, and she grew faint as he beckoned her to him.

Trying to keep her composure, her hand stealthy dropped to her Omni-staff. She was determined not go out without a fight, even one as hopeless as this would be. Praying it wouldn’t be needed, Patience slipped her weapon into her hand.

Looking up at her Master, her courage failed her as his terrible laughter began.

***

Heroes of Justice: Abandon Hope All Ye…

This time I tried to exercise a little more subtlety, and had Cape keep us in chameleon mode as I zoomed down the street. The sounds of battle were fading behind me, but I had to gain a little altitude, because I was starting to see normal traffic.

Nearing the docks and port area, I knew I had to be close. We had narrowed this area down as one of the likely areas for the Syndicate headquarters. I know its being near the docks is almost cliché, but it wasn’t an open and shut kind of thing. Based on our maps, where we’d plotted out every crime and sighting, the damn thing seemed to move around.

Like emerging from a bank of fog, I came out of that mental interference. With no obvious signs to follow, I was back to following my instincts, and my clues from Hostler. Closing my eyes, I used my powers to reach for Dee once more. With a sigh, I found her aura. Silly me remembered a quote I’d heard from somewhere “If you follow your heart you can’t go wrong.” Praying that was so, I followed where it was pulling me.

We had covertly checked out trucks and RV’s in the suspected area’s, but still hadn’t come up with a with even a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) to explain what was going on. This time I had a little more to go on, thanks to Colonel Hostler.

I seemed to be heading towards one of those large container ships. Not one of the huge seafaring monsters of the type, but still damn big. The area around it was fenced off, and it sure seemed to have a lot of activity. Problem was, I didn’t see any chained up dogs.

Considering this was the last stop before hitting the bay, I decided to circle around and triangulate. This had to be it, that is unless they’d taken Dee on a submarine! Nope. I told myself, this is it, as I slowly circled, keeping as stealthy as I could. Drifting closer, I finally was able to make out the vessel’s name, The Cerberus. Bingo!

Pulling away towards a local bar because it had the nearest crowd I could find, I flipped out my phone to let everyone else know. Not wanting to trigger that weird mental interference and radio jamming thing, I wanted to keep this short and sweet. Instead of reaching Reid, I got his voicemail. Not surprising. The systems were busy, I guess, with all the chaos happening tonight. Cursing under my breath, I left a message.

“I’ve located Pluto’s dog as an object of interest. I’m going to go to the wharf and take a look. Please hurry, if you don’t want to miss the beginning of the show.”

There! I’d sent out the news and was really hoping I was being overly paranoid. So far the bad guys’ only mistakes had been underestimating us. That was why I didn’t use the radio function, and didn’t use the ship’s actual name. Hoping I wasn’t screwing up by the numbers, I knew the next part was going to be anything but easy.

Being as careful as I could, I sneaked in closer, and soon saw that I’d hit the jackpot. Some of the dock vehicles were actually disguised, armored vehicles, and the guards were carrying military grade weapons and equipment. A casual observer might have been fooled, but not a trained one.

Sub-vocalizing, “Timer Check” I saw 2:00 pop up on my visor. Damn! I’ve used up an hour already. I still hadn’t heard from the guys, and couldn’t afford to charge in. Moving as slow I could to maintain our near invisibility, Cape and I boarded the Cerberus. There were huge stacks of those big sea/land containers on the deck, and I was completely lost as to where to go, until I saw some crewmen enter one, which was under guard.

I could have slapped myself. They were using the blasted containers as their base! Trucks were moving the bloody things around, and then reassembling them, back into their base. It seemed a little cumbersome, but it had sure confused us. I mean, it was all a juggling act, using paperwork, but it meant this was a huge operation. And here I was, all on my lonesome, with my team in now open defiance of the law, and even the Warders were in the doghouse.

Now the question was, how get in. I got my answer as Cape, yanking on a sleeve, pointed another form moving ghost-like, edging next to an ventilation system, Wraith? Soundlessly gliding over to where I had seen the Warder’s sneaky specialist. At least I hoped it was her.

“Wraith? It‘s Mystery” I whispered very, very softly.

Just as low, she answered, “Yes.”

Motioning me to the grill, she silently urged me to open it. I carefully used my strength to remove it as soundlessly as I could. Once inside and out of sight, we held a quick conference. The Warder team transport had dropped her off on top of the fleeing vehicles, before they had come to help us. The bad guys had simply evaded pursuit and disappeared, too damn many times. This time, Question had loaded the dice. After hitching a ride here with the bad guys, she’d hidden and then sent out a signal, showing our friends where she was.

Playing cagey, like me, she was keeping ‘radio silence,’ but was concerned, since she hadn’t heard anything from her team, either. I told her I had sent out a call too, but neither one of us was content to wait for the cavalry. Besides, I wanted to get Dee out of here before all hell cut loose again. Wraith agreed. Cape changed my costume into something more suitable for crawling around inside ventilation ducts, and we were off.

Wraith was even smaller than I was, topping out maybe 5’2”, and as lithe as a snake, but I had the advantage of my flight, so I could kinda drift in the center of the ducts. This was one of the first times I almost regretted being top heavy. As slim as I am, my breasts look bigger than they really are. Sure, every now and then they do get in the way, but regrets?

We’ve all seen those movies with guys crawling around in these ducts, right? Bull!, I’m a lot smaller than I used to be, and I’m telling you it was tight as hell! Guys may make dirty jokes about women’s ‘bumpers,’ but it isn’t any damn fun at all when they actually play the role.

We had to navigate a couple of sheer drops and climbs, but with me flying, and Cape acting as rope for Wraith, we did pretty well. It didn’t take long for us to get the idea that somehow, it was bigger inside this damn place than it was outside. This place was huge and had everything any mastermind bent on world domination could desire. Barracks, kitchens, weapon ranges, and, I’m not kidding, a sauna.

We knew we were heading in the right direction when the screams began. Both of us winced from the soul deep torment that echoed from within them. For me it was even worse being an empath. It hurt! I was forced to block almost every thing except for my ‘string’ leading to Dee.

Finding a vent, both of us peered out, half afraid what we would see when we did. The room looked if, somehow, they had put 3 of those containers together. The room looked just like a scene from that game I played back home, Demon Slaughter. You know, the throne of bones and skulls with ornate pools filled with blood? This one was set on a wide platform on top of a small twenty feet tall pyramid. The pyramid of skulls and bones was three tiered, with prisoners shackled to each tier, and it had these channels where their blood would run into the pools. A elevated walkway went from the doorway and circled around the pyramid. In front of the stairs ascending to the top was even a sarcophagus. The ugly, gray, metallic coffin just screamed that it was designed to keep something locked within. The thick bands that had bound it had obviously had been broken, oh joy.

What the game never had, was the stench of death, and that horrible metallic smell from the blood that kinda struck to your tongue. I’ve no idea why I didn’t start throwing up on the spot. Maybe it was Mike’s potion, but I’m telling you, both Wraith and I got very green.

Atop the throne was a corpse. I mean, there was no other way to describe it. The Thing had pale desiccated skin, with a thatch of bristle like hair. Like I said, a corpse dressed in a black costume with red highlights. The kicker was, of course, this one was still moving.

The screamer was the woman who’d nearly killed me, Patience. Her entire body arched backwards from the torment inflicted upon her, but some force wouldn’t let her fall. Next to her, the corpse had its hands upon her head and chest. Ill, nauseous colored reddish auras ran down its arms and flickered, as if in time with the beat of an heart.

Then, scanning down the walkway past that ghastly scene, I saw Dee! What shocked me was that Tom was down there as well. Not as a participant, as Anza believed, but handcuffed like Dee and the other hostages. The whole thing was such an apocalyptic picture, I almost forgot to use my phone to record what we were seeing! I never anticipated anything like this. Maybe a heavyset Barlon Mrando like figure reigning over a conference of Richard Tracey villains, but never anything like this!

Standing over the hostages, at the foot of the pyramid stairs, were the cream of the Syndicate enforcers, Big Red, Ripper, Man Mountain, and even Tom’s fiancé, among about 10 others. But damn it, I knew it, standing beside Mr. Undead up there, was that Greek bastard, Hyperion.

Even with my empathic shielding, Patience’s agony made me ache. With Dee in sight, I shut off even that link, for what was happening down there was just too damn awful and painful. We hardly knew each other, but Wraith and I found ourselves holding hands, and each other, as Patience’s screams of agony echoed in that terrible place.

I think I caught on, because I was so afraid that with whatever was happening to Patience, that Tom and Dee would be next. Even as her torture was building to a crescendo, damn if I didn’t see Tom slip free of his bonds. No one else saw a thing, for their eyes were involuntarily locked upon the grim scene being played out in front of them.

With a flourish, the corpse-thing ripped something from her chest that shone bright, even in that grim place. Patience’s body slumped to the floor, and I had no doubt she was dead, because I was sure that, that thing held what was left of her essence in its skeleton claws.

All watched as the bright shape writhed and fought helplessly, before it vanished into the black maw of that corpse-thing’s mouth. With a satisfied, skull toothed grin, it reached down and dragged Patience’s lifeless body into a horrible parody of an lover’s embrace. With a lurch, it vomited a ugly red worm of energy into Patience’s body and I couldn’t help but shiver as I saw her corpse begin to breathe.

Tom had other things in mind. He waited until even the Enforcers looked away, or closed their eyes in revulsion, and made his move. There was a table where all of the hostage’s belongings had been placed, and fast as a striking viper he nabbed his phone. Before they even knew he’d moved, he spun back around to the other prisoners.

My phone shook and rattled as he hit the panic button of his phone, “Mike! Get them the hell out of here!” He shoved his phone into Dee’s hands just as their guards were becoming aware that anything was wrong.

A bright green light flashed as a disk of green formed on top of Dee, and she vanished! Standing on its edge, like a circular door suspended in midair, another shell shocked young woman, handcuffed and numb from her abuse, was pushed into the disk by Tom, while a pair of arms reached for her from within it. The other hostages, after witnessing tonight’s dreadful events, decided whatever was on the other side of the green had to be better than where they were. They stumbled into it, fleeing the horrible events they’d just witnessed.

Ripper snarled and leaped at them, but Tom neatly judo tossed him across the walk into one of those obscene pools of red.

Crap! This was going down right now and I still didn’t have a clue where the cavalry was! Wraith had made herself visible, I think maybe to give me a friendly face to look at. I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was. Charging down there wasn’t going to change a damn thing. Right, time for a compromise!

Whispering desperately to her, “They’re fixated on Streeter. We can play guardian angel for him, unseen,” I pleaded.

When she nodded, a wave of relief went though me. I surged forward and forced the vent open. Wraith disappeared as she dropped to the floor, and I gave the metal a quick bend to keep the vent from falling as I replaced it.

The bad guys were trying to haystack Streeter, but catching a speedster is not the easiest thing in the world. What he had done was distract them long enough for Mike, using his magic disk, to steal all the hostages away, including Dee. With a wink the disk shrank and was gone before the baddies could follow.

I saw a pair of bumbling villains trip and fall, knocking over a third, and knew Wraith was busy. Seeing my old friend, Big Red swinging away madly at the dodging Tom, I couldn’t help sending one of Cape’s ribbons to give him a bump, which sent him stumbling and almost into Ripper, who was pulling himself up out of that grim red pool.

Me? I was hovering stationary near the wall where my camouflage was the most effective, and using streamers from Cape to disrupt things. Not that it needed any encouragement! Talk about a situation tailor made for an inveterate prankster!

But all good things must end. Our fun free-for-all ended as that nasty soul eating, cadaver thing stirred.

Hyperion knelt beside it, receiving orders I guess, then stood up. “Stop! Lord Corruption commands that the sacrifices must be returned! Blip, open a portal to the Warder’s headquarters, where the Master has informed me they’ve been taken. Ripper will lead. Persuader, Aerial, and I will deal with the speedster.

“Ripper, take all the Invincibles, and an entire company of the Black Guards. Destroy everything, but I caution you, the Lord’s sacrifices must be undamaged, lest you take their place.” the tall Greek commanded.

As far as I could see, that corpse wasn’t moving any too lively, pardon the pun, so I’m guessing Tom had done better than he’d guessed in disrupting whatever that thing needed to steal bodies.

The bad news was, a multi-hued, costumed woman had opened a rainbow colored arch, and bad guys were lining up to go into it. Tom was trying to get around Big Red and his Ex, but he couldn’t quite make it. Damn it Tom! Just punch the bitch out! For some reason though, he seemed unable to move.

Crap! They were sending a whole damn army after Mike and Dee!

Hitting my phone’s panic button, I broke my radio silence, “Heads up! There is a major strike force teleporting in to hit the Warder’s headquarters. At least a dozen supers and a hundred mercs, with orders to recapture the hostages, acknowledge?”

Mike’s voice sounded so damn good!, “A Dozen supers and a hundred mercs, I confirm. Chevalier’s are en route to your area. Keep tight and stay safe.”

While I had the chance, I squirted my report and pictures that I’d taken to his phone . As I watched Hyperion carry Patience’s corpse to that throne of bone I replied, “Wishful thinking, big guy. Mystery out.”

***

Mike yelled into the simulation camber’s intercom, “Company coming, and they’re loaded for bear!” He’d been using this room because it was one of the toughest constructed rooms in the Warder’s HQ, just in case something followed his enchantments back, following his off the cuff hostage rescue.

Talk about a total Fluster Cluck! For the past hour, ULTIMATE’d had the Chevaliers and the Warders pinned up here in the HQ after that little misunderstanding downtown. That bastard Hostler knew just how to play on his bureaucratic bosses fears, to get what he wanted. He had most of ULTIMATE’s resources sitting outside of their door right now.

Then a thought occurred to him, ‘What if?’

Reaching out with his magical senses, he felt the Syndicate teleporter’s door in space and time opening. Of course it was on the other side of the building from the mass of ULTIMATE’s armed forces, but with a little green earth magic to just alter the space time coordinates just a decimal point, Ta-da, it’s soup! Oh sure, he wasn’t supposed to muck with time, but it’d been really just an itty-bitty bit.

The explosion of gunfire and chaos he heard erupt outside gave him a warm feeling. Maybe he should feel bad about the ULTIMATE guys getting the short end of the stick, but he was sick and tired of them shooting at the wrong guys. That old saying was so true, 'Friendly fire isn’t!'

Welcome to the fight for justice, boys!

His own wards started singing, trouble was a coming, and Mike gave a look over his shoulder to make sure the hostages he and Streeter had rescued were out of the line of fire. The HQ’s support staff had hustled most of them away, but wouldn’t you know it, Dee had managed to avoid them.

“Dee follow the others! Trouble is coming.” Mike ordered.

Stubbornly, she shook her head, “I can feel them. It’s those two tunnel guys. You might need me to dig you out, like I did Misty.”

Damn if she didn’t have a point. Well, time to cash in on a favor.

“Right, stay well behind me. If anything happens to you, Mystery and Anza will kick my butt.” he motioned her behind him.

With a crash, both Ripper and Man Mountain tore though the heavily reinforced concrete floor, amid the hooting and howling klaxons and flashing alarm lights. Both of them being the low-brow sort, they had decided to throw away surprise, in favor of the fear factor.

Mike took a deep breath and prayed this worked. Pouring a prepared bottle of spring water onto the floor where it pooled, he knelt.

Unimpressed the two goons advanced on him. Ripper demanded, “Give us the hostages and we’ll make it nice n’ quick, pretty boy.”

Ignoring them Mike addressed the pool of water, as the flashing alarm lights reflected off it. “Lady of the Waters. I ask thee to grant me a boon of a weapon to defend the innocent, and stop those who seek to profit by injustice.”

The two halted in surprise as the image of an lady, beautiful beyond compare, seemed to rise from within the depths of a lake, despite it being just a spill less than a centimeter deep upon the floor. In amazement, they watched, as impossibly, the hilt of some sort of weapon followed. They looked at each other in befuddlement, recognizing it as a baseball bat?

Mike grasped the wooden grip and pulled it from the water. A rain of brilliant droplets followed its release from the Lady’s hand. Turning it to check the trademark, Yep, it was a genuine Louisville Slugger, except that no product of that illustrious plant had ever hummed with power like this one did. He didn’t need to see the additional runes branded on it, proclaiming its name, for it was legend, even if this was its first incarnation as a white ash baseball bat.

Bouncing it gently in a business like manner in the palm of his hand, he looked up, “My Lady, I thank thee for thy gift, and pray I may have the wisdom to use it wisely and well.” Standing, he stood ready.

Ripper, regaining his bluster, guffawed, “Little man, you’re going to stop us with a baseball bat?

Man Mountain joined in his companion‘s rude laughter. “How about we shove that bat up your …” but stopped when Mike joined in their laughter.

“Anytime you’re ready gents. Come get some!” Mike motioned to them, giving a grim smile.

With a roar that rivaled any monster of old, they charged the champion who defended a child. Old powers stirred, as ancient pacts long forgotten, but no less powerful, were honored.

Outside, a vicious battle was being waged. With no warning, their enemies had appeared right in the middle of their forces. ULTIMATE troopers battled Black Guard mercenaries, while the trained teams of the Invincibles fought their dropships and war machines. The Warders, once the ones under siege, now became ULTIMATE’s ally, as they sallied forth into such a battle as few had ever seen.

A war previously unseen had come into the open, lit by the fires of exploding aircraft and the bolts of death that slew friend or foe. One could, perhaps, forgive a participant or two for wanting to be elsewhere. Let’s say, that cozy castle that had been doing so well at keeping trouble at bay.

But even in the center of this whirlwind of destruction, the thunderous booms that shook the earth from the heart of the Warder’s citadel gave all pause to wonder what was causing it, and even wonder if just maybe they were better off out here after all.

Heroes of Justice: Cry Havoc!

I was half-expecting Wraith to sneak out though the arch before it vanished, but instead, I felt her beside me. It was her home under attack, after all, but she had stayed. With all of those enforcers about, we hadn’t had a chance to break Tom out, anyway. Maybe now, with just Big Red and the Greek, we could run for it.

Little Miss Witch the Ex?, Well, honestly, I didn’t think she would prove a problem. Well, you know what they say about assumptions making an ass of you and me. We found out all about that, as it got really hard to move!

I think we both thought the gig was up and that we’d been discovered. The truth came out when Tom’s Ex swaggeringly walked to where he’d been slowly forced down to his knees.

“What? Not trying to crawl away are you? That’s a change from when you were trying so hard to get into my pants. No snappy comebacks snookums? You see, I lied about being only a minor mutant, and not having any powers. I used to only be able to control gravity about myself. I worked as an Exotic entertainer with the stage name of Aerial, because I danced in zero-gravity. But then, all that changed, after making a teensy weensy little deal. I now have full control of my gravity powers.” she sounded every bit as unpleasant as I remembered her to be.

Red faced and fighting to breathe as she was crushing him, he tried to reason with her, “You don’t have to do this, Becky. I never would’ve asked you to marry me if I thought you were the type of person they think you are. Let me go. Together we can try and make things right. … Becky?”

Kneeling by him, as he fought to keep from being pressed flat onto the floor, she caressed his face, “Sorry, Duane. Maybe if we’d met before all of this happened, but once you sell yourself to the Master, you’re his, now and forever.”

Walking down the steps of the throne, Hyperion took off his jacket and loosened his tie. The Greek shrugged as he hit the edges of her G-field, but a crackling crimson field sprang to life about him, protecting the tall shipping tycoon.

Poor Wraith was trapped just like Tom, pressed nearly flat to the floor. Me? It’d taken every last bit of strength Cape and I had to just keep myself from stomping as I neared them. That was good, because it made me move slow enough I was virtually invisible, but bad, because I got the idea that once Mr. Greek reached Tom, something unpleasant was on the agenda.

I beat him there, but not by much. Not having the time or the power to do anything fancy, I fought to raise my arm above her and, aiming carefully, let it drop like the cast iron ingot it felt like.

Her eyes widened right before I struck. She must’ve she seen me because I was so close. There was a splash of blood, and simultaneously, she and the G-field dropped. I thought I might’ve killed her, but I didn’t have a choice at the time.

Tom collapsed along with the field but, that lasted only a split second, as he jumped up and checked to see if she was alive. From his expression, I gathered she was, but at the time I had bigger problems.

Patience corpse’s voice rang out, “Blight, it appears we have some uninvited guests. Please don’t be rude. Introduce them, won’t you?”

That damn Greek answered to the name like a well heeled dog. His nauseous reddish energy field pulsed, throwing St. Elmo’s fire about all in that grim place. The damn glowing stuff clung to everything. Yes, even those of us trying to remain unseen. Wraith and I were revealed by our glowing outlines.

Cape, reading my mind, re-armored us in our original medieval style costume again, as I reached down to help up my friend. Both of us were keeping a close eye on Big Red and Hyperion.

Tom whispered to me, “What took you so long?”

Together, we edged back to where Wraith, still trailing St. Elmo’s fire, waited warily. I didn’t have a clue as to what the Greek’s powers were, but they seemed to involve neutralizing others abilities. His energy field let him ignore Aerial’s gravity increasing thing, and had let him find Wraith and me. That put her at a serious disadvantage without her invisibility gig.

I whispered back to him, “I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque. Mike says the Cavalry is on the way, but why don’t we beat feet away from these dudes in the meanwhile?”

Hyperion’s voice rang loud, “My lord, it is one of the interlopers, and Wraith of the Warders.”

“Going somewhere dears?” spoke the cadaver thing up on the throne.

If I’d still had balls they would’ve looked for somewhere to hide. Cape’s alert center had passed red alert and was headed to plaid! It told me, in no uncertain terms, that the animated cadaver was a really, truly BAD thing. We had about much as a chance of taking that thing out as a moth taking out a bug zapper. It ate living things.

The corpse thing directed the Greek, “Blight, please dispense with them. I need amusement until my servants return with my sacrifices.”

Wraith, trying to shake off the distracting red flickering glow clinging to her, joined the two of us, apparently approving our plan, “That sounds like a very good idea.”

Hyperion bowed his head in acknowledgment, “As thou wish, my lord.”

All three of us were still backing away as the two of them came closer.

“How does a three count and a rush for the doors sound to you two?” Tom asked in a whisper.

I think we both nodded, for no way in hell were we going to take our eyes off Big Red and Mr. Greek advancing towards us.

“Three!” Tom and I breathed, and turned, sprinting for the exit. Wraith cursed something in Chinese behind us, and was close on our heels.

We hadn’t gone half a dozen steps before Cape started pulling in warning. In that weird way that time seems to slow, I saw the only way out, begin to fill with a sea of assault suited guards, armed to the proverbial teeth.

I didn’t need to turn around to just know Big Red was smiling. The three of us slowed to a stop, and I couldn’t help but remember a line from a movie about a small group of soldiers about to be rushed by untold thousands of blood thirsty natives. “May the good Lord make us truly grateful for what we are about to receive.”

“Misty, I’ve been an Ass. I’m sorry,” Tom said softly, as we slowed to a stop, staring at the really, truly between a rock and a hard place we found ourselves in.

Wraith and I both turned to face him with disbelief on our faces. I hadn’t known the Warders were aware of Streeter’s failings, but it was plain the two of us were thinking the same thing. He was apologizing? We were just so doomed!

“Tom your timing sucks, but apology accepted. What say you two take out the storm-troopers, and I’ll have tea and crumpets with these two?” I asked. Geez, Anza was right. I’ve been spending way too much time around the Colonel!

My plan was simple. Streeter was still stripped to his waist, and without his toys. Wraith, if she stayed away from Hyperion, might have a chance against the hired muscle, even without her invisibility. With luck, they could fight through, while I played rear guard. We knew where the real threat was, and I was the only one who might be able to do anything to stop them. Well, a girl and her Cape anyways, that is.

They rushed the line of guards, and battle was joined in a roar of gunfire, shouts and screams. Turning around, I suddenly had my hands full, because while Big Red might be a little slow, he wasn’t stupid, if you know what I mean. His all too familiar big red boot to the face somersaulted me though the air. Twisting about, I landed, cat-like, on my feet.

Wiping the stinging sensation from my mouth, I jeered, “Hello, sugar. Miss me?”

Both of them started after me, but Big Red held up a hand. Hyperion, seeing his companion’s desire, graciously nodded and folded his arms in repose, while keeping an eye on the mayhem developing behind me.

“You really should have accepted my offer. Finding and penetrating this room truly proves we could have accomplished extraordinary things together. It is a shame that it had to end this way, alas.” The big guy in red shook his head sadly.

That’s when I figured out he had to be using some kind of power field, or maybe even pheromones. Persuader, known to me as Big Red, was one of the bad guys we didn’t have a lot of information about. Whatever it was, it was distracting, and, I suspected, particularly so to women. He was about to get one hell of an surprise, because it wasn‘t going to work this time. My mental protection was much stronger than before, and Cape could help by screening what I was breathing.

We took each other’s measure and, as soon as I saw a glimpse of doubt in his eyes, I moved. Can’t say for sure what made the difference this time; Months of hard training, being better integrated with Cape, or just me being stronger and faster now. This time it was him eating my red boot for a change.

Giving me a wary look, he pulled himself to his feet.

Not wanting him to get smart and invite the Greek to our little shindig, Cape and I gave him just the cutest curtsy.

While I was taking care of old business, I still noticed what was going on at the top of that obscene pyramid. That cadaver thing up on the throne had started feeding in some way, on those poor unfortunates manacled to its sides. The more that died, the more animated it got. I didn’t need Cape to tell me that this was not a good thing.

Big Red, his masculine pride in a bind, came at me with a combination of kicks and punches.

Cape floated me above his fury, and precisely I put him back on his butt, while Cape tangled his feet. We landed with a thump on his midsection, and started whaling on him. With his head flat on deck, and taking the full force of my strikes, I was seriously ringing his clock!

Big Red kicked himself free with a huge effort, and vaulted to his feet. Anyone else would have been thrown away from him, but not me.

My personal combat style looks very much like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster. That’s simply because I can fly. I can use all four limbs for striking and blocking. My months of training had let me refine this under the tutelage of Mr. Chang’s mysterious, un-named, secret Chinese clan of martial arts masters. I might look like some Hollywood starlet using wirework to perform impossible acrobatic maneuvers, but in reality, it gives me the most priceless advantage in any fight, surprise.

Instead of being thrown away from him, I curled myself into a ball, and just spun in the air like a top. Big Red stood there, shaking his head, trying to clear it, not expecting me to still be right there in front of him. Straightening my leg, and twisting on the axis of my spin, I hit him with the great grandmother of all roundhouse kicks.

His head snapped around, and even I felt the shock of the impact all the way to my teeth. Big Red half spun about before he slammed back into the deck. I risked a quick look at the mayhem Streeter and Wraith were inflicting on Mr. Corpse Thing’s goons. That was an almost fatal move, as Big Red might’ve been down, but the big guy was not out.

Persuader grabbed a handful of Cape and yelled! “NO CAPES!” With a flick of his wrist, the big man in red whipped it around, aiming for the bulkhead. The look on his face was priceless when I didn’t go anywhere! it was just like pulling on a toilet paper roll, and it failed to tear, as Cape had given and stretched, robbing Big Red’s blow of its power.

Unfortunately for him, he was the second to use that derogatory line, and try that tonight. Big Red had barely enough time for a double take, as Cape wrapped itself around his arm. With arm wrenching crack, Cape snapped back into its normal length, playing crack the whip just like the big guy had intended, but with him, rather than us, crashing into the bulkhead! This time, Persuader just oozed, unconscious onto the deck. Goodnight, Gracie! I felt like crowing, as my own personal boogieman went down. However the sounds of the furious fight going on at the doors killed that idea real fast like.

Giving a glance at that battle, Tom had appropriated a katana from some unlucky guard, and together, he and Wraith were carving their way out. They both had cuts and bruises, but like the old saying goes, ‘you should see the other guys.’ There were more than a dozen fallen bodies about them, and only some of them were in need of immediate medical attention, if you know what I mean. The good news was, the way out was almost clear.

Not surprisingly at all, the Corpse-thing was having none of that. With a crash, the doors shut! The baddies in black leaped out of the way, and looked as unhappy as we were about being on the wrong side of them. Looking back behind us, the thing moving Patience’s cadaver waved a hand, and a loud clanking from the doors let all know they were dogged shut, Shit!

“No, no, no! You must not leave so soon. You are so entertaining! I simply must insist you stay for dinner. Blight,” it said, addressing the Greek. “Why don’t you seat our guests? Your men can assist, unless they would rather take their place,” it said, waving at the tiers around the throne that now held only the bodies of the dead.

The remaining dozen and a half or so goons took a good look at their fallen comrades, and then at that horrible figure atop that pyramid of bones and blood. As one, they screamed and charged. Oh man, this just gets better and better. I’d been eyeing the Greek, but up to now he’d been content to let Big Red and his men do the fighting.

Just than a huge explosion rocked the ship! ‘Knock, knock. I think my friends are calling!’ As everyone else fought to remain standing, I took the opportunity to slide tackle Hyperion, and damn near took myself out doing it. The pain that ripped though me when I hit that vicious ruby luminosity of his was enough to cause me to see spots, even though I did take him down. Okay, important safety tip. Don’t touch the Greek!

“Mystery, this is Diamond. We’re on the way!” Morgan’s beautiful voice promised, as I rolled away from Mr. Hyperion with every nerve in my body burning.

“You'd better save that for me,” Anza’s presence told me, overhearing my thoughts.

Thinking back to her, “You don’t know how good it is to feel you with me again! Yes, you’re beautiful, and so much more, but right now, we have a big problem, so please don‘t take too long.”

Sub-vocalizing, so everyone on our tactical radio network could hear, “We have the demi-lich of doom and a Greek level boss down here. Bring help, a lot of help! We’re in full retreat, so hurry!”

The aforementioned was already on his feet, so Cape and I levitated off the deck. Cape scooped up some of the fallen guards’ equipment and made me some baseball sized missiles. I decked an overly ambitious guard goon, but I didn’t let my eyes leave the Greek as he began slowly walking our way.

“Now that isn’t very friendly, turning down the Master’s kind invitation,” he said, stepping into thin air as if it was solid.

‘Oh great! He can fly too, but ha, too late sucker.’ I let fly with a fastball at him that was dead on target.

Hitting that nasty, reddish energy field of his, my projectile exploded into a haze of rusty dust!

He smiled saying, “Come now. Nothing lasts forever. Whether just losing the will to live, or just worn out, everyone dies. The Master has gifted me with the power to hasten that fate. Why fight entropy, little one? It is meant to be.”

I had been using my body to shield Streeter and Wraith as they struggled with the dwindling number of guards, as that way I kept Hyperion’s attention, but he was getting too close. I was a lot more maneuverable than he, and flittered away, out of his reach. I sent him a couple more fastballs, hoping maybe one with little or no metal in it might get though, but no such luck. Some of the shots disintegrated, while others just slowed and melted. They did keep his attention away from my team mates, but that was about all.

The cadaver up upon old bony top was starting to grow a little impatient, but the sounds of battle outside let me know that help was on the way. Streeter was limping, and Wraith wasn’t looking any too good either. If that wasn’t enough, that damn Greek was getting too bloody close!

Just when I didn’t need anymore bad news, “Mystery, this is Mike. I’ve been busy but Dee and I are fine. Just looked at those pictures you took. The key to this whole thing is to destroy that pile of skulls and bones. It’s a kind of magical storage battery that’s keyed to a really nasty ritual. Be careful when you bust it. We’re talking about undead battery acid, and the worst possible toxic waste you can think of mixed together here. The direst kind of bad Juju!”

Dodging the Greek bootlicker at the last possible moment, “Boy you’re just full of good news, aren’t you?”

Mike’s tired voice replied, “I’m all out of good news. The Warders and ULTIMATE are up to their necks in troubles with those party crashers you sent our way. Hell, I’m told the Air Force and the Army are on the way, and for all I know, the Navy and Marines are too. I’m still helping the Warders clear up a little rodent infestation. When I settle that unfinished business, I’ll be on my way, but until then, you and the rest of the Chevaliers are on your own.”

When it rains it pours. Out of the corner of my eye I saw old gruesome weakly lift itself out of its throne and start chanting, I think in Japanese. Who says all those hours of watching Anime was wasted?

Meanwhile, my teammates had finished off the last of the guards, and were trying to open the doors. The sounds of battle inside the room died away, but the ones outside were not only still roaring strong, they were getting closer, thank you very much!

Cape started hitting the panic button about the same time Streeter just had to say it, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

No one could miss the grating sound that gray, metal coffin lid made when it began sliding off that wonderful center piece, in front of that cheery rustic pyramid. Streeter and Wraith gave each other a look, and frantically went to high speed, trying to figure out a way to open those damn doors. The falling lid made a tremendous loud bang as it slid off, hitting the already busted bands that had kept it shut. At the same time, a radiation warning started flashing in the upper corner of my visor, just as an emaciated hand reached up and began pulling its owner out of the coffin, Oh Crap!

“Mystery to all Chevaliers. New undead bad guy on the field! Heads up! It’s radioactive, whatever it is!”

That’s when I got the exceedingly horrible, bad idea. Hyperion and I had been steadily gaining altitude, and were nearing the ceiling. All the while I’d been looking for something that I could whale on him with, that didn‘t just fall apart. When Mike called, I’d glanced down at the pyramid stack of bones in question. There, next the remains of the husk the corpse-thing had shed, was this bright silvery wand, Patience’s shiny weapon thingie! ‘Hey, didn’t I see it morph into a shield tough enough to stop one of Renegade’s haymakers?’

“Enough of this!” Patience’s cadaver demanded. “My dear honored guest, I have freed you from your decades long imprisonment. Please honor our agreement and eliminate this student of your old enemy. Do you not see the his symbol upon her breast?”

I didn’t have a clue what it was talking about, so of course I glanced down at myself. Cape had added a small, golden, Greek Omega symbol to our supersuit, that was just like the pin the Major had given us at our informal graduation. I can’t blame it, for Cape was just as proud of completing the Major’s school of hard knocks as I was.

Being a little busy avoiding Hyperion’s spirited attempts to seat me for dinner, I hadn’t given whatever was crawling from that coffin a whole lot of attention. What I did know was that it was radioactive, and hotter than hell. Now, however, seemed a good time to find out what was going to be trying to kill me next. Damn, but my dance card was getting full!

It was a very well preserved mummy that just looked kinda dried out, and didn’t look to have decayed much at all. Japanese style robes covered a uniform of some kind underneath, but I couldn’t tell much else. Besides, it was moving, and had a pair of miniature blazing, sun like orbs for eyes. Cape didn’t like it, and I can’t say I did either!

The Mummy raised its hands, and streams of fire shot from them like a flamethrower! I dodged, and the flames splattered, hissing against the wall. Cape hugged itself to me as the flames just missed us, while the little blinking radiation warning on my visor went nuts!

I made a dash for escape before Hyperion and the Flaming Mummy of Doom pinned me in a corner, but a hail of fiery bolts made that moot. The stench of burnt paint and metal didn’t help the aroma in here at all, but Cape helped by providing thicker breathing aid, in the form of a scarf across my face, so I could even breathe at all in here. I knew I needed protection, and the memory of how Patience used that silver rod of hers to protect herself was still fresh. Desperately twisting in the air, I dove for the top of that obscene throne as fast as I could, dodging the mummy’s flaming ack-ack coming up at me. Cape protected me from most of that hail of deadly radioactive fire, but despite both of our efforts, we got burned. Just glancing hits, but bloody hell, they still hurt!

In a diving roll, I snatched up that rod of quicksilver, thinking, begging, ‘Please help me and Cape. We need a shield.’ To my amazement, it worked it! A large, shiny, round shield flowed out from the silvery wand just in time for a fistful of scorching hot blasts to bounced off of it, splattering small globes of fire everywhere.

Peering over the shield’s quicksilver edge I saw that the Asian Mummy from hell didn’t care for that at all. I ducked behind the shield as a literal river of incandescence thundered up at me. Even though I was fighting for all I was worth, it still forced me back, my feet skidding on stuff I didn’t actually want too think too much about, but more importantly, it was pushing me back towards where Patience’s possessed corpse waited with hungry eyes.

Still, most of that superheated, ravaging, stream of destruction reflected off and almost nailed Greek boy. No such luck, but caught in the edges, he fell smoking, while the rest of that fiery torrent blew a big hole enough for a truck, clean though the ceiling!

Suddenly the firestorm was stopped by a roar of gunfire. Streeter had stripped a armored vest full of ammo and an assault rifle from one of the unconscious thugs. He was pouring bullets into Ole Flaming Doom, while Wraith was slinging shurikens in a steady stream, like she was dealing cards. The problem was, they weren’t doing much good. Everything they sent his way was bursting into flaming, molten gobs that never seemed to hit him. About the only thing it did do was start to slowly burn those Samurai robes away, as he heated up. Oh yeah, and get his attention.

Both of my team mates dove for cover, as more fire shot at them, hissing and splattering like hot grease as it missed. Streeter never stopped firing. He’d moved just enough not to get hit, and slammed another magazine home, even as the spent one was still falling to the metal grate flooring. Wraith, using acrobatics, nimbly kept from becoming a crispy critter while stopping to search the still moaning guards for more things to throw.

Looking back at the corpse thing holding onto its throne for balance while reaching for me, I remembered all too well how it had sucked Patience’s life dry. Talk about being between the Devil and the deep blue sea! ‘Let me see. Death by radiation poisoning, or having my soul devoured?’

I took a running start and, using my flight, guided a good old fashioned shield smash right into Ole Flaming’s noggin! Yay for foolish youthful wastes of time, running around in padded mail armor, and bashing fellow nutcases and friends in the Society for Innovative Anachronisms!

You want to know how hot he was? Hot, Damn hot! Just like a blast furnace. Thank Gawd Patience’s silvery thingie didn’t melt, and Cape was fireproof! Even so, I was adding to my un-nice collection of burns. At least I had some kind of protection. Streeter and Wraith didn’t have any at all. It was debatable if I had any either, since Cape was, thank goodness, likely partially biological. I was really, really hoping, like the advertisement for those shade’s, Cape did provide thermo-nuclear protection!

My bash had knocked him sprawling onto the metal walk. The area where he fell began to glow and soften in the extreme heat coming off of him. I had to use the shield just to get close. He was so hot, the wavering heat made it hard to see. A loud clang rang off the grating as I swung, and missed striking him.

I was so close now, I could see his robes hadn’t so much burned, as just crisped into charcoal. His uniform, that had been hidden underneath, was made of a fibrous, glassy stuff, that my geekdom bank of trivia told me, almost had to be asbestos. The red and white colors told me something else I didn’t really want to know.

He came to his feet and blasted off another rain of fire at me. Flinging up my borrowed shield I blocked it, but almost lost my legs when he sprayed more fire down low. Thank Gawd for Cape’s warning!

The only liquids nearby were those stinking pools of blood, but I had to come up with some way of cooling this dude off. I tried to knock him off the walkway, but he sidestepped me rather neatly. His abilities, the uniform, and the radioactivity were starting to add up. I was afraid I knew who this was, or maybe better, who he had been. If I was right, we were in big trouble. How do you stop someone who stopped not one, but two nuclear bombs?

A ringing boom shook the doors!

Streeter and Wraith barely had time to roll out of the way before the doors blew in, hanging half-off their hinges. There stood Renegade! Hallelujah! The cavalry was here!

***

General Marvin “Buck” Lee, U.S. Air Force, shook his head. Why did he have to be in the hot seat, tonight of all nights? All hell was breaking loose in New Riverside. He was getting reports of open combat between superheroes and ULTIMATE enforcement units. Contradictory information had ULTIMATE deliberately letting criminals escape, and attacking the heroes instead. Hell, one report even had ULTIMATE laying siege to the Warder’s headquarters.

Early on, ULTIMATE had all but demanded he send jet fighters to shoot down someone in an ancient aircraft from the Korean War for Gawd’s sake, who was ‘harassing’ their operations. According to his intelligence section, they had lost at least five state of the art Dropships so far, to this fifty year old flying antique. What’s more, whoever he was, he was one hell of a pilot. Each dropship had been crippled by careful bursts of cannon fire. There was no doubt in the General’s mind that the mystery plane could’ve caused a whole hell of a lot more of damage, but the pilot was doing the best he could to limit the destruction. Now this …

He stared at the message his communications tech had just finished decoding. It had taken them longer than expected because they had to do some digging to find the protocols, because it was so old. No matter how old it was, the executive order was still active and on the books, signed by the President of the United States. The order was simple. The bearer was to be rendered all possible assistance, period.

If he waited for the clarification from the National Command Authority, more lives could be placed into jeopardy. It was clear the situation was in a dangerous state of flux. He remembered an adage from his War College days, “When in Command, command.”

General ‘Buck’ Lee picked up the phone to order his pilots to assist a man, on orders that had originated from Harry “Give’em Hell” Truman.

***

Major Victory pulled up from his strafing run, leaving a trail of destruction behind him. Fires were burning all about the Cerberus. They’d known the Syndicate had been well financed and organized, but no one had expected an army, complete with armored vehicles and heavy weapons.

He took a second to review his messages. The ever efficient Mr. Chang had liaisoned with the military, and Colonel Stone, with reinforcements, was inbound. A quick reply to the Air Force directed them to help the Warders and ULTIMATE at their citadel, while another one directed Colonel Stone to the Cerberus.

Mike had relayed Mystery’s report, and the Major opened it while looking for more targets of opportunity. He’d been multi-tasking since before it’d been a word, but what he saw caused him to lose concentration. It couldn’t be! His eyes locked onto that gray, lead coffin. He himself had laid Rising Sun’s body within it. Years later, when the Japanese government had requested their hero’s body be returned, he’d been present at the ceremony at the Nagasaki Memorial Shrine.

That someone would desecrate the Shrine angered him, but if something down there was raising the dead, then the Chevaliers would need all the help they could get. If something had Rising Sun’s powers, it put a whole new spin on the situation. The problem was, the congested dock offered no place to land, but he had faith in the old girl. She’d get him down in one piece.

Mystery’s voice reporting, “Mystery to all Chevaliers. New undead bad guy on the field! Heads up! It’s radioactive, whatever it is!” made it urgent he get down there now.

Making a banking turn, he lined up ‘Fifi’ on the Greek freighter. “This could get just a little tricky” he thought, as he began his descent.

***

Heroes of Justice: Dead Heroes

Ripping one of the doors the rest of the way off its hinges, Renegade slung it at the Mummy of Flaming Doom. The door turned white hot and literally splashed off of him, leaving him unharmed, with blobs of molten metal glowing all about him and me.

Esperanza, carrying Diamond, flew in through the gaping hole in the roof which was still dripping molten metal around its edges. On her way in, lasered the still smoldering Greek, who was just getting to his feet, while Anza’s eyes flashed as she mind blasted him as well.

Panting from the heat of standing too damn close to a nuclear furnace, I warned the girls, “Don’t let him touch you! That red glow is some kind of disruption field.

Lady Diamond’s lasers deflected into a harmless rainbow of lights, and while the Greek staggered, he didn’t fall from Anza’s painful brainstorm attack.

Wolfen, in half-wolf form, ran in and skidded to a halt just as Renegade tore off the other door. Hearing my warning about what was going on, Wolfen had picked up a machinegun from topside and, guiding the belt of ammunition, fed a steady stream of tracers into Hyperion.

I shield smashed the Flaming Mummy-thing again, but had no more luck than the first time. A tower of flames from it sent me flying away, but Cape flared out like a drag chute, stopping us. Not letting up, we flew right back at it. I had to keep its attention on me, because at least this quicksilver stuff offered some protection.

At least I was keeping it busy until the others finished with the Greek. The problem was, as I stole a glance, they were having one hell of time trying to do that! Wolfen’s hail of machine gun fire didn’t do a bloody thing, as some sort of weird shit happened to the bullets. Melting, rusting, falling apart, or some of them just dropped to the deck, covered in frost, not being able to touch him because that damn, bloody, radiant stuff shielding him was proving a problem.

Anza’s brainstorming attacks were doing something to him, but not enough to put him down. Even her telekinesis wasn’t able to reach him. Everyone else was busy keeping out of his reach, while he was trying to get near enough to the one person who was able to harm him.

Most of my attention was taken up by trying to stay alive. Thank Gawd we’d caught this thing right after it switched bodies, because that seemed to have weakened it. For the most part it was content to let its underlings do the fighting.

“Mystery! Head’s up! We’re getting nowhere down here. Everyone else, attack the pyramid while I keep Hyperion busy, and you do the same with the Mummy,” Morgan sent.

Will skipped forward like a prizefighter and sent a massive fist into the mass of bones. The crashing boom made the entire ship shiver!

Pay dirt!, Mike was right about this thing being important, because both Greek boy and Cadaver thing went berserk! Up on top of the still shivering pyramid, the cadaver threw its hands into the air. Power was arcing off of them like a lightning from a overcharged, exploding Tesla coil. With a sickening moan, all the bodies that lay dead all about the tiers stood up, shaking off their manacles! A rattle of gear behind me made me aware that the guards Streeter and Wraith had cut their way though were also rising from the dead. Bloody Hell!

While I was busy watching everyone else, Ole Flaming Death spat a wad of fire at my feet. Cape gave me the extra second I needed to leap up free of the inferno, but although the blast slagged a huge hole in the grate, it was only a feint.

The blast furnace hot, jet struck me hard enough that, even with the marvelous silvery thingie protecting me, the vibrations struck me so hard it made my teeth hurt! Bouncing off my shield, it burned another huge gaping hole in the roof. The explosive concussion sent me flying backwards, while Cape and I fought for control.

Lady Diamond actually managed to grapple with Greek boy and was slowing him down, even though hand to hand wasn’t her forte. I don’t know how she stood the pain, unless it had something to do with her being crystalline.

Wolfen, Streeter, and Wraith tried to fight off the zombies from the door, while Renegade was fighting to keep from being buried by the ones coming down from the pyramid.

Anza was sending enough mental lightning between Hyperion’s ears that, by all rights, his brains should be leaking out by now. He was slowing down, but even with Diamond doing everything she could, he still forced Renegade to break off his attack and dance back.

Oh, this was so not good! I tried to help Renegade, but half a dozen zombies brought me down. It took a second, but Cape and I threw most the things from us. Ripping one in two to get it off me, I could see the others were having the same problem. There were two or three dozen of the disgusting things. The zombies were strong, and the only way to stop them was to tear them to pieces.

Renegade threw one against Hyperion, where his nasty red field just blew it to zombie dust. Knowing a good thing when they saw it, everyone began trying their hand at zombie pitching! But no sooner were we winning against the zombies, than here came more hot stuff from our favorite Mummy!

Throwing the last zombie from me, I barely got to Renegade in time to block a stream of sizzling fire aimed at his back.

He grunted, “Thanks” as he threw a pair of undead into the blazing cornea of Ole Flaming Death, where they flared and burned like they had hit a giant bug zapper.

Panting hard, I sneaked a fast look around and saw that Streeter and Wraith were on their last legs. The electronics in my visor had packed it in because of the radiation and heat, so I had no way of knowing just how much time Mike’s patented magic potion had left. Our rescue party wasn’t looking a whole lot better. Then, even more black clad guards charged in to defend their boss with gunfire and whatever else was to hand. Oh this was so not looking good!

Slinging a broken zombie from me, I charged back at the Undead Flaming Thing from Hell. Smashing it with the shield wasn’t working out too well, so trying something new, I asked the quicksilver thingie for a quarter staff by picturing it in my mind.

My bumbling around in my youth, whacking others with foam padded rattan swords and other sorts of weapons, had made it clear that it takes a lot of practice to become decent with them. A staff however, is much easier to learn, but harder to master. The part I was interested right now was the reach six feet of quicksilver could give me.

With a shimmer, it flowed, even as I used every bit of leverage and strength I had to bring it down on its mummified head. Strange energies arced and played over my borrowed weapon, as a massive wave of fire stole my breath and blew me backwards.

Its head snapped around and it nearly fell from the fire blast riddled catwalk. Half hanging off the edge, it clawed back itself back onto the grate. The important part about this was, the zombies trying to dog-pile Renegade were blown right off of him. Score one for the good guys, even if he was missing his eyebrows now!

I was still smoldering myself, and trying hard to breathe as Cape air-braked us in midair, just before crashing into a bulkhead. I was covered in sweat and burns, and Cape wasn’t much better, with a decided ‘wilted’ look.

Everyone fought to keep their footing as another crashing shudder passed though the wounded Cerberus. Damn it! Ole Flaming Death had kept his footing and was raising a hand to blast more fire our way, this time at Wolfen, as he and the others fought the newest wave of black clad goons.

Flipping in the air, I kicked off the wall like a swimmer doing laps. I threw up the staff, thinking, “Shield please!” as I rocketed back across the room.

The deflected, ravaging jet of fire arced over my friends heads, making good and bad guy alike dodge the falling, white-hot blobs, as I rammed the Mummy of Flaming Doom. He fell forward, rolling almost off the walkway, but aggravatingly enough, once more caught himself in the nick of time. I bounced on the sagging metal grate twice before landing in a heap, as the intense heat boiled my life away.

I could no longer deny who Ole Flaming Death over there really was. His carbonized robes were completely gone, and the red rays of the sun of his asbestos uniform was revealed on a field of white, Rising Sun, fallen hero of the Japanese Empire.

Watching him come to his feet, I felt my heart raise up within my chest. Coughing in the hideous heat, blood specks flew onto my gauntlets. I knew I was going to die here. Cape and I could barely stand, and even if we did defeat him, it was likely I’d already taken a lethal exposure of Rads. Game over, folks.

I took a deep breath and pushed myself to my feet. My faster reflexes always made combat seem to slow to where it seemed I had all the time in the world. Now it was different somehow, as if every breath was precious, and each remaining moment was meant to be treasured. In that strange state, looking beyond Rising Sun, I could see Wraith had fallen. Streeter stood over her, half-staggering while he and Wolfen fought the mass of guards and zombies tying to kill them.

Turning my head, I saw Lady Diamond was fighting Hyperion tooth and nail, despite the pain his protective glowing red energies inflicted upon her. But he was bleeding from cuts from her razor sharp nails even as he pounded her right back. Meanwhile, Esperanza was feeding Diamond’s pain and agony right back into his brain, but still, the big Greek stubbornly refused to fall.

Renegade had called on his Grizzly Spirit, and had grown to his full twelve feet height. Standing beside those enormous vats of blood, he’d reached down and was trying rip the Pyramid right out the deck, but the zombies that’d been blown off of him had charged right back. He was covered in the undead things, ripping and tearing at him even as he shook himself trying to get rid of them. No matter the pain, my friend was refusing to relinquish his grip, knowing that this thing he grappled with must fall, or all would be lost.

After what seemed an eon between each heartbeat in that hyperawareness, Rising Sun was still just turning in slow motion to face me. I took the opportunity to look up to where that Thing sat wearing Patience’s Corpse. It was laughing. It was laughing at us. The death that Thing had surrounded itself in was so thick in here you couldn’t ignore it. The lives it had destroyed. The destruction and fear it had caused for whatever purpose, just to fuel that pyramid necromantic battery thing. And it was laughing?

A tiny spark burned within me, but it wasn’t not anger. If I had to die, then this cause was a worthy sacrifice. All of my life I’d been fighting myself. Unable to deny I was never going to fit into the cookie cutter life that society mandated, I’d found relief from reality in the realms of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Maybe, just maybe, rather than dreaming my life away, I’d been preparing for this moment all along. I determined that my death not be in vain. The longer I kept Rising Sun’s attention, the better the odds my friends could bring down this monstrosity. I settled my borrowed shield back into guard.

Cape gently guided my gaze upwards to the opening blasted in the ceiling of this abattoir throne room. Falling into this Hell was the glowing figure of an angel. Corny as it sounds, yes, I really thought it was an angel.

With a ringing clang, Major Victory landed, slamming onto the badly damaged walkway. He wore the same flight suit we’d first seen him in all those months ago. Rising Sun had only begun to raise his arms, preparing to throw more flames at me, when the disintegrating catwalk, near final collapse from the Major’s landing, caused him to fight to remain standing instead.

Major Victory met my eyes and looked at Lady Diamond and Esperanza struggling with that Greek bastard, and back again. A clear message that I was to help them. He would take care of this.

I was still blinking away the image of angels floating down from heaven, when he spoke. His voice sounded clear and understandable, even in the midst of that incredible din and roar of battle.

“Kagututi, the War is over, my friend. Please don’t make me do this!”

The Major added something else in Japanese, but Rising Sun shook his head. Not so much as if in denial, but as if he were confused.

Then that old Corpse thing had to ruin things by yelling something angrily in Japanese!

Whatever it was, set Rising Sun’s eyes blazing like novas, and he charged forward!

Major Victory met the others charge calmly, as the two them collided! A strange, bluish-green, concussion wave like effect, rushed outward from them. The Major’s bio-energy field! Normally it had just been a kind of visible aura. Now it shone in a blinding glory that shielded the two old war heroes from the sight of mere mortals.

Still in that weird hyperawareness state, I could see that Cadaver had focused all of its attention upon the Major. Strangely, Hyperion too had taken a double take at the Major dropping in. Interesting, but I had no time to wonder what it all meant.

Repressing a chest deep cough, I centered myself, concentrating on my foe. Croaking at my teammate, “Diamond, break, break, break!” I threw myself though the air. The bright silver shield flowed back into the quarterstaff on our journey, and I swung the shiny staff for all I was worth, at Hyperion.

Lady Diamond, for all that she was living crystal, was not superhumanly strong, was a lot stronger than a woman her size had any right being. Less effected by that defensive pain thing screening him, she‘d been buying Esperanza the time she needed to pound him with her mental abilities. It was only the entropy-whatever-it-was that protected him, because he wasn’t superhumanly strong either. He was a big, strong, healthy human male, but that had been enough to fight her off.

Lady Diamond twisted away from him as my staff bent with the force of my flying charge. Finally able to touch him with something that didn’t just rust or melt away, it still wasn’t the finishing blow I’d hoped for.

Passing though that pulsing crimson screening power of his, the silver staff resisted its best efforts to destroy it. A strange wave after wave of different destructive forces attacked the quicksilver rod. Frost, heat, dust formed upon it, as it passed though the pulsing reddish glow. None of it stopped my overhead strike, but it did rob it of much of its power.

I hit the ground and folded like the proverbial deck of cards, my hands and arms stinging from the impact. Mr. Hyperion the Greek, rather than have his brains splattered across the bulkheads, had instead just fallen to his knees. I had managed what no one else had.

Then, as he knelt, stunned and shaking his head in confusion, that red glowing stuff that had been protecting him disappeared.

From my ground eye view I saw Esperanza use her TK to throw the Greek Bastard against the bulkhead now that he was vulnerable. I’m not sure what she did, but whatever it was, he didn’t stay conscious long. I really don’t think he was going to be abusing anyone again. Like I’ve said before, don’t piss off the telepath.

My lover turned to the ravaging horde of zombies swarming a bleeding Renegade, and began tossing them off, as Lady Diamond’s lasers cut them apart in midair, like shooting skeet.

On cue, just like out of a James Fleming movie, ropes fell from the melted holes above, and familiar looking ninjas slid face first downwards, raining welcomed supporting fire upon our foes. As soon as they hit the decks, others took their places. Colonel Stone and the rest of his crew, using short controlled bursts from their MP7’s, came to the beleaguered Streeter and Wolfen’s aid. Professionally, they started pushing the goons out.

Renegade, free of his undead infestation, heaved upon that grim construction of blood and bones. With a whiplash crack, a pin securing it snapped, and the entire structure moved.

I could make out the cadaver pulling itself up in alarm, when the unstoppable force of Renegade heaved the pyramid upwards. It raised its stolen body’s arms, just it had before when it had called the zombies to life.

Lady Diamond’s lasers found it, and left charred slashes, but failed to stop it. I didn’t need to look, to know Esperanza was attacking it as well. Pulling myself up, using the life saving staff, Cape half-flew, half dragged me beside my shaman bear friend. Together, we pushed for all we were worth. Another pin sheared off, but that was good enough for Lady Diamond to spot the others. With a hiss she cut though the other pins like butter. As the pyramid jerked under its feet, we gave it another heave and the cadaver flew off the throne and, with a splash, fell into a blood red pool

A gore soaked hand flipped Patience’s possessed body from the pool. Dripping red spatters upon the deck, its eyes spotted Greek boy motionless upon the deck.

“Blight!” The Cadaver thing roared “You shall all pay for this!” With a shudder, one of the huge pools shifted, as it lifted one of the tanks above its head!

Grunting, Renegade threw his shoulder into that grim construction of bones, and staining, began to push it over. I don’t have a clue what it was made of, but it was a hell of a lot heavier than it should’ve been. With the last of my strength, I helped my friend accomplish the impossible.

Lost in its tantrum, the cadaver never saw it begin to topple towards it. At the last moment it must have seen what was happening because it tried to drop its burden so it could call that deadly power again. Renegade was faster, kicking with his feet to send the pyramid over past the point of no return. With a flash of lights the construction of bones fell upon its architect, hopefully crushing whatever un-life it had.

True to Mike’s prediction, flashes of energy that my over active imagination made into escaping souls, started exploding outward. Dodging the wild energetic bursts that were indiscriminatingly punching holes in the ship, everyone ran for their lives!

I made a half-hearted attempt to move, but had fallen to the deck when the toppling pyramid had passed the point of no return. All I could do was sigh when nothing seemed to work.

Someone grabbed me, and suddenly we were flying. From my strange perspective I saw everyone jumping for the ropes that our dear Colonel had provided for us. Reid, hovering above and being covered by more of our ninja friends, lifted us out, as more powerful explosions struck!

Grateful to have survived, the survivors tumbled off of ropes or the skids of the chopper, watching the colored lights explode forth from the slowly settling wreck.

I was so tired that it took me longer than it should have to figure out what that someone was trying to say to me. I was distracted, watching the beautiful lights explode forth from the still settling shipwreck. It was like watching a whirlwind of fireworks, as the spirits ascended, spiraling upward into the night sky.

“Anza,” I tried to touch her, but it was so hard. I wondered if she too, was seeing the ghost-like forms flying heavenward towards the stars.

“Beautiful,” I breathed. I felt someone pick me up, and I wondered how the ground had gotten so far away. Soft lights and warmth enveloped me, and gently I floated away into darkness.

Heroes of Justice: The only thing worse than a battle won …

I tried to open my eyes. Confused, I tried to sort out the vivid dream I’d had, from reality. A spirit of warmth and love had comforted me while I was foundering in a cold merciless sea. No matter how high the storm tossed waves had become, that spirit refused to abandon me.

“Shhh, wait,” a gentle voice told me, as a warm cloth cleaned the sleep that had prevented me from opening my eyes from them.

Anza’s face, still beautiful despite the tired rings about her dark eyes, smiled wearily at me. Feeling her joy though our bond/link, I knew she’d been that spirit in my dream. We spent a moment, lost in each others love, until real world concerns became pressing.

“We almost lost you back there. If not for the Major, and how strong that battle with Rising Sun had supercharged his glow, we ...” she couldn’t continue, choking.

I weakly took her hand. “None of that, love. You won’t get rid of me that easy.”

I had an IV stuck in one arm and a bank of medical equipment nearby, beeping. It took me a second to realize I must be in the old underground base medical facilities. Looking around I saw Wraith a few beds down from me with a bandaged Tom leaning on a cane keeping her company, as well as some of her other Warder teammates.

Dee was curled up asleep in a chair not far from my bed, and I couldn’t help smiling at our young daughter of the heart.

Anza sadly caressed my forehead softly, “I’m sorry, but you lost most of your hair. It’ll grow back. Your own rapid healing has taken care of most of the burns and contusions. Mike said his magic potion also kind of helped you, due to the nature of the spell. Something about the artificial nature of the vitality it lent you, meant that at least part of the damage you took wasn’t really to you. Don’t ask me to explain it. It’s magic! You still would’ve died if not for our dear Major dinosaur. His ‘glow’ was so amped from his battle, I’m afraid miracles are going to be reported around the docks for years.”

“Cape?” I asked, for it was as much a part of me as the rest was.

“Your symbiotic friend is fine, Luv. If you don’t feel anything right now, it’s okay. You were both in a healing, sleep-like state. You two took more than enough damage, as well as enough radiation to fry just about anything.”

I thought about that for a moment and asked, “So we won? I mean we did what we were sent here to do, right?”

Anza nodded, “Mike thinks so, yes. Before you ask, he told me he thought we were being given time to ‘Take care of Unfinished Business,’ before whatever is going to happen next, happens.”

Trying to grin despite the pain I said in my best English accent, “But I’m not dead yet!”

A fire of passion shot though my lover’s eyes as she retorted, “Don’t even joke about that, you minx! I came so close to losing you!”

I apologized to her. “I’m sorry Anza. None of this happened like we expected. Now all I want to know is, what is going to happen next.”

A tapping sound interrupted us, and I saw Anza stiffen. Tom, looking much the worse for wear, like the rest of us, stopped before us. His face was full of pain and, even as tired as I was, I could sense his turmoil.

Nervously he cleared his throat, “I know you two have good reason to hate me, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to run a sad story on you both, but you do deserve an explanation.” He said, pausing.

I nodded, and a rather unwilling and skeptical Anza did so as well, a moment later.

“My mom died before I had any real memories of her, so growing up it was just my older brother and my dad. He was an old fashioned type, complete with the ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ thing. More redneck than redneck, that was my Dad. Seems like he hated everyone not like himself. He was always working, or drinking, so it was my brother John who took care of me.”

Tom looked at us with tears in his eyes, “I loved my brother, but I found out the hard way, that he was ‘different,’ one day when I came home from school early. I hardly knew what gay was, only that it was bad. Somehow, Dad found out about it from me, and there was a fight. I never saw John again, but Dad beat me as if it was my fault somehow. After I graduated, I left home and have never been back.”

He closed his eyes, the tears running down his cheeks. “I could see the two of you were happier, and somehow a great weight had been removed from you. That was something I just couldn’t admit even to myself, because that would mean what had happened to my brother was also wrong. If that had been wrong, then it was I who had somehow given him away, who’d been at fault.”

Fighting the emotion within himself, my friend fell silent.

“Tom” I said softy in the silence. “I’m not a ‘shrink,’ but it sounds like you need to forgive yourself. There’ve been times I’ve wanted to kick you in the nether regions, but I’ll always been your friend. I forgive you.”

Anza’s voice joined mine, “Tom, I never asked or sought to become who and what I am. It’s simply the way I am, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I made the choices I did to preserve my sanity and my life. My family wouldn’t, couldn’t, accept that it was something that I had to do because I had no other choices.

“They disowned me, Tom. It’s one thing being treated with disgust by strangers, but another for it to be done by those you love. I made up my mind that if someone didn’t care for who and what I was, tough. I wasn’t going to roll over and die for no damn one, live with it“.

She paused, “I forgive you, but only on one condition Tom.”

He’d quietly wiped his tears away and asked, “And that is?”

I heard the pain in her voice, “Find him and tell him what you told us. We don’t know what is going to happen to us, but if you have the chance, please find what happened to your brother. Go to him and ask his forgiveness.”

I hugged her as the tears fell. Tom just nodded and walked away. My empathy knew he was feeling as broken up as my lover, but his damn male pride wouldn’t let him show it, MEN, Argh! Somehow, being stabbed in the back by his ex-fiancé had broached a barrier for him. Watching him leave, I hoped he would remember we were here for him when he needed us. Right now, I was fighting sleep again.

The Major, who was still glowing bright, and others, came to see me, as well as Dee, who was awakened by all that was going on. Soon enough though, being punched, sliced, cooked, and radiated caught up with me, and sleep won.

Heroes of Justice: Second Star to the Right … !

Location: Earth, March 19, 2007

I stood in the cool March afternoon, looking at the empty, yellow construction taped lot. Even after it been cleared, there were still signs of the burned building that had once stood here. A sign, leaning at a haphazard angle, proclaimed the new location of the Cosmic Forge, while another promised that a new office complex would soon begin construction. I forced my eyes past the one, lonely, sun bleached, plastic reef and flowers listing at an angle in the churned dirt.

It had all begun here. This was where we had departed the only world we’d ever known, and had stepped into a larger universe. Kicking and screaming all the way, perhaps, and don’t forget, confused, as well as baffled about what was going on.

We’d made discoveries. Danny and I had found love. There was no need for me to look for him because I could feel his presence as he snoozed in the car behind me. Well, we had left our hotel room much earlier than needed, and so it was our own fault for having so long to wait.

We’d awakened in Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, full of tubes and IV’s. Astounded, the doctors and nurses didn’t know what to make of all of us recovering from our comas at nearly the same instant. Of course, some of the guys had already been moved to private, or long term treatment centers.

At first I had wondered if it’d all been a dream, but almost immediately I felt the warmth and love from Anza, or Danny, the name matters not. It wasn’t as easy to talk to each other as it was before, but beyond a doubt, our bond/link was still there.

‘You’re lucky to have survived that freak electrical accident,’ we were told. Impossibly, Mike’s computer had overloaded and exploded, shocking all of us who were nearby. The fire that started, burned down the Cosmic Forge game shop, but Pete, Chuck and other brave souls, had managed to save everyone but one.

The shop was covered by insurance, and utility company records actually let investigators track the power surge right to the shop. An out of court settlement had provided medical care for us, and if used wisely, would mean we would never have to work again, unless we wanted.

My parents were shocked by the relationship between Danny and I. We never flaunted it, but we didn’t need to. When confronted, I just smiled and told them that you never know where you might find love. Fact is, we were both more than a little uncomfortable, as well as depressed for obvious reasons. For those among others, the last few weeks had been really unpleasant, but bearable just the same.

***

You see, we have a secret. Some might call it a dream, but not the six of us. Like the way it happens in dreams, none of us recalled just how we got there, but there we all were. We were still our characters, or avatars. Me, Anza, Morgan, Will, Mark, Tom and of course Mike as himself. It wasn’t just us, but Major Victory was there too. All smiled as he and Morgan quietly sought each others hands.

It was a friendly kind of neighborhood bar and grill. You know, the kind with pictures of past patrons, and memorabilia, covering the walls. We looked around at the pictures and trophies of past heroes and heroics, while the smells of appetizers cooking were rich upon the air, along with other scents…pleasant scents.

Sitting in a corner booth was a grandfatherly like, rumpled senior citizen. Before him was a chessboard, with a game upon it that had just ended. The black king had been toppled, signaling checkmate.

“Come my friends! Please, seat yourselves,” his old, but still rich voice greeted us.

We all gave each other a wondering look but, did as he asked.

I was a bit wide eyed, for I’d spotted what I swore was the Egyptian God Horus minding the bar, complete with apron. Anza and I were both a bit out of it, but I think we recognized that, now, finally, we would find out what our futures would be.

A waitress dressed in traditional Greek robes brought us drinks and, once again, dream-like was just what we desired, without asking for it.

“Although I must apologize for my servant’s misunderstanding your world, and your apparent Shanghaiing you, I must congratulate you on a job well done. However, all of you did signify that you agreed to the terms that were clearly spelled out.”

He held up a hand, “Please. I know you have questions, but first let me say my piece. You saved that world from the grasp of a being that would have used it as nothing more than a fruit, to be squeezed dry of everything that could prove of use to it, and then discarded. Thanks to you, that world now has a chance to find its own destiny."

***

A truck, pulling up next to where Danny and I were parked, pulled me from my wool gathering.

Will, grinning as he stepped out, drawled, “Should have known you two would be here first!”

We shook hands, and then I, throwing convention to the wind, hugged my friend.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to see you here today,” I told him.

Shaking his shaggy blond head, he disagreed, “Before what happened, most people would’ve called me a loser. I lived in my parent’s garage and, although I made decent money, there really wasn’t a future in it. Then, in a roll of the dice, with the odds quadrillions to one, I got a chance to live out my dreams. They say be careful what you wish for, but I got everything I ever wanted.”

With a little smile he continued, “Mr. Chang is going to have to get used to a new grandson-in-law. I love Lin, and this time away from her has only made me certain of it.”

I glanced down at my phone and saw it was about ten till one, and went to wake Danny. He gave Will a wide smile, seeing him, but we all turned, hearing more cars behind us.

Morgan was smiling as widely as the rest of us as we greeted him with handshakes and more hugs. His eyes were bright with tears, and I didn’t need a superpower to know they were tears of happiness and anticipation.

Mark had lagged a little behind him, but was no less enthusiastic in joining our reunion.

“You too, Mark?” I asked him. “I didn’t think you had a reason to want to return, since you’re so well off here. What’s the story?”

He blushed darkly at being the center of attention, but replied, giving a self-deprecating little laugh, “Heh, heh, Okay, maybe I don’t have anyone waiting on me to return, but all of you are my friends. If you go, what reason do I have to stay here?”

We got another good blush from him as we hugged him again, among more laughs from our gang of friends.

Involuntarily, all our eyes glanced down to check the time, while others looked, wondering if he would make it. No one had to say who it was our eyes kept looking for, even as we wondered if he was coming.

As it got closer and closer to the appointed time, we all stepped across the yellow caution tape and made our way to the center of the lot. I could feel my and Danny’s butterflies. Praying with every fiber in our bodies that what we had dreamed was true, we all remembered what else our abductor and benefactor had told us.

***

He’d said, “It is known to me that some of you wish to remain with the friends that you’ve made here, while others might want to return home. You were also taken from your world abruptly, perhaps leaving your goodbyes unsaid, as well as other unfinished business. I will return all of you to your home world, but one month later at the same time and place you departed the first time, a portal will open. Those of you wishing to continue in the service of Justice, and return to your adopted world, can then return.

“It is a troubled place, and the recent meddling of the Dark One and his minions hasn’t improved matters. I’ve been wondering how to best address those issues, and if you agree to return, it will be part of your duties to help as best you can. Call it a branch office if you would. You might be called away from time to time, but it will be your new home. Consider it a reward for services rendered, above and beyond the call of duty.”

His eyes turned to Major Victory, “Now, I understand you wanted to meet me, for there was something you wanted to ask of me. You need say nothing more. I know the loss of your family and friends has been difficult for you. What I would like to know is, do you feel the same now?”

For the first time since we had known him, our friend and teacher seemed at a loss for words. Major Victory’s eyes found Morgan’s and he then found his voice as he softy said, “No, as long as we’re together, I’d like to stay.”

The grandfatherly old man smiled, saying, “I thought that you might.”

He lifted his tankard, “Now, a toast.”

Self-consciously we all followed suit with our glasses, watching each others faces, remembering the trials we’d faced and overcome.

Our host’s voice rang out, strong and true. “To those of brave hearts, and selfless courage. To Justice!”

***

So here we stand. The five of us, waiting for lightning to strike again, and the impossible to happen once more. Our goodbyes had been said, and affairs settled. Each digit of the clock seem to take forever to change.

Intent upon the time pieces, we almost missed the sounds of one last car pulling up. Startled, we all looked at each other, and then at the late arrival, Tom. He was hesitating, as if unsure of his welcome. The driver, a man, with a family resemblance, was giving our friend encouragement.

Then the world turned green! A light appeared behind us, as a brightly lit disk opened like a window or door to another world.

I’m not sure who started shouting, but soon we all were all yelling for him to hurry! “Run, Tom! Hurry!” while all of us looked anxiously back at it for any signs of closing.

They embraced, and Tom opening the door leaped from the car running for us, then inexplicably stopped! He turned back to the driver and we all heard him yell, “Come with us. Come with me! You told me you didn’t have anyone here and about the mistakes you’ve made. Where we are going is a chance for an new start like no other! Come with me John.

Now was the driver’s turn to hesitate. Somehow our calls for Tom to run changed to both of them to hurry. Suddenly the brothers were dashing towards us!

Catching them, our eyes were bright, and all of us were grinning like idiots!

Our newest recruit tried to ask, “Is this alright ….“ but as one we cut him off.

“YES! The more the merrier!” Turning, we all grabbed hands, and breathlessly, together, we leaped into the green!

***

Officer Hill cautiously got out of his cruiser. The report had come in about a hour ago, of bright green lights, of all things. There were four cars and a truck parked in a recently cleared lot, and even stranger one of them still had its engine running with the doors wide open. If memory served, this was where that man had died when that store had burned down, just a few months ago.

He’d taken a look around and it had even gotten stranger. Officer Hill had done his share of hunting, so the still recently cleared lot made it simple to follow their tracks. It looked to him to be seven sets of prints, of running feet, but then, they all ended at the same point, in the middle of the lot.

Pushing up his hat he wondered just what had happened. All that came to mind was, maybe a helicopter could have lifted them out, but the question was, why bother? He was getting a strange feeling about all of this. Stay a cop long enough, and sooner or later you run into the unexplained. He had a feeling that this was going to be one of them.

On his way back to call in his findings, he stumbled over something, mostly buried. Looking down, it surprised him to find a book in one of those plastic baggie things collectors put comic books in. Amazingly, it looked to have survived the fire, water damage, and the bulldozers. He seemed to remember it had been a comic book shop, or something like that, here.

‘Maybe one of the guys back at the station will want it,’ he thought, tossing it into the passenger seat. Picking up his mike, to make his report, he was curious about what kind of a game would be named, “Heroes of Justice!”

The End!