The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 01-21-22
Revised 01-24-22
Revised 01-27-22

Edited by Christopher Leeson
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Chapter 19

BLACKBIRD

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

William Blake
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With effort, I calmed myself and inquired, "You're from Aladdin, right?"

"From where?" he answered.

"Please! I know what an Aladdin van looks like."

"Well, that’s more than I know," he gave back.

"Can the comedy, fella. We work for the same people. Maybe you've heard the name 'Eden Blake'."

He frowned. "Eden Blake?! Well, if that doesn't.... We were just heading for your house."

"Why?" I asked ingenuously.

"There was an energy spike – maybe something solar. Ground zero was Canoga Park. When Colonel Smekes found out that one of his people – y0u – lived close-in, he called for an on-site report. When neither your cell phone nor land line would pick up, he sent us out to check on you. What did the impact feel like?"

"I didn't feel a tickle. But an energy strike might explain what happened to my son Gus."

"What do you mean? What happened to your boy?"

"He turned violent, like he'd gone out of his mind. He was angry at everybody, even homicidal. When he started tossing around world-class magic, I grabbed Evie and ran. We were looking for a safe place when we saw your van."

“You should have called in for help!”

“I didn't have my cell on me, and where can you find a public phone in this day and age?”

"Well, if the lad has magic or not, I don't think we’ll have trouble taking him in."

I glanced to see who else was in the van. They were uniformed Aladdin field operative, but I didn’t see any familiar A-Team faces among them. The team was elite and was always held back until some heavy-hitting was needed. They wouldn’t have been sent on a minor errand like Tunney’s.

"Easy, Wrath," I admonished. "It's my son we're talking about, not some super-criminal. He's just a grade-schooler. Something took hold of him and now he can't help himself."

"I'm with you, ma'am. But how do you know my code name is Wrath?"

Sharpen up, Lukasz. You're making mistakes.

"Well, you've heard about me. I've heard about you, too."

Tunney glowered. "So there was a leak. I guess the suits aren't half as good at keeping secrets as they think they are."

I hurriedly changed the subject. If he asked me who had done the leaking I’d be in a tight spot. "I'm worried. Gus had a total personality change. With that much anger and that much power, even a police station wouldn't be a safe refuge. Remember that precinct-house that got trashed in the Terminator movie?"

He nodded. "Street cops aren't trained to face down ultras, but we are. You and the little girl can ride with us."

"Yes, by all means take Evie, but as for me...."

"Why not you? You can't go home; that's the first place the boy'll look."

"I know the risk, but maybe if I went to him alone he wouldn't feel so threatened. We might be able to talk reasonably." I didn't actually believe that, but I needed privacy if I was going to be meeting with Strike and the other ultras.

"We were sent to find you and we did. But that youngster of yours has to be made our new priority. For the little girl's sake, you have to accept our protection. When we meet up with your son, you’ll get your chance to talk him into surrendering quietly."

"What do you plan to do with Gus?" I asked, as if I didn't know.

"We’ll get him some medical attention, of course."

Yeah, by strapping him down and letting mad scientists experiment! But, under the circumstances, digging in my heels would have made me look suspicious.

"And if the lad does come looking for his family," Tunney went on, "that's good. It will save us the trouble of finding him."

That was a cold statement. I had to be very careful while handling these people. Bending and breaking laws means nothing to a good Company man. "So Evie and I will be your Judas goats?"

He opened the van door and stepped down to the pavement. "Mrs. Blake, you know how the Company works and you know what it expects of us. Besides, you have to think about the boy's own welfare. If he's got ultra powers and using them violently, he’s going to provoke someone to start shooting at him. We've got to act fast and take the little fellow out of harm’s way."

I knew he was right. The Canoga cops were going to be jumpy tonight. They had actually tried to gun down Lauren a couple times.

He went and opened the side door of the van, inviting us to take a passenger seat. "Come on now; you and the tyke should get inside. That's an order."

I raised my chin. "I'm not sure protocol lets your grade give my grade orders, mister."

He grinned. "Whatever the pecking order, we’ve got an important job to do, and you two are obviously in danger. This is one hell of a time to start arguing about protocol."

That was another piece of logic that I couldn't reasonably dispute with. If I was going to come off like someone who had nothing to hide, I needed to go with the flow, and then slip away from these Aladdin people as soon as possible.

The red-garbed ultra helped Evie and Mr. Paws to a seat. I followed them in. The vehicle held five agents besides Wrath. All of them, except the driver, were wearing body armor like a SWAT team. They were also toting an impressive array of weaponry in the vehicle’s carrying racks. The soldiers met us with discerning eyes and stony silence. The woman among them and one of the men gave us reserved nods of welcome, but neither let out a word.

Evie wriggled up against me, intimidated by the fiercely-caparisoned warriors. I put my arm around her and touched her cheek. It was so easy to forget that this appealing girl wasn't my own Evie.

The driver now spoke up. "Wrath, we've just intercepted a police call. There's a flying ultra burning down the Canoga Park Elementary School, and -- get this -- he's doing battle with Hardcase!"

My heart did a double-flip.

"Take us there fast!" the team leader ordered. Looking back at me, he said, "Elementary school? Does that sound like something your boy might want to do?"

"Maybe. I --"

Words failed. He would, indeed. This version of Gus had been lonely and ostracized, bitterly resentful of the way that the school -- and even the students – had treated him after his physical change.

"Ow, Mommy!" Evie blurted. "You're squeezing too hard!"

I let her go and stared off into the darkness beyond the headlights. Somewhere out in this haunted night, my son was locked in a duel against one of the world's most seasoned ultras. Would Hardcase realize in time that he was up against a mere boy of twelve?

Gus versus Hardcase?

What next?

The world really had gone insane.

#

Ironically, Hardcase had been one of Gus's -- my Gus's I mean -- favorite heroes. He’d boasted that he had all of the man's collector cards and was always nagging me to buy him every Hardcase action figure as it came out. But the boy now seemed to hate everyone -- especially those that he formerly loved -- and would probably murder Hardcase in cold blood if he got past the ultra’s guard.

How hard would Hardcase fight back? I hoped that he had gotten enough information from Strike to understand who he was up against.

Hardcase -- Tom Hawke – had an impressive reputation, but he and I were not well acquainted. One difference between this local Hardcase and the one back home was that the local boy had quit the UltraForce in anger, seemingly because the team wanted to work closely with Aladdin. Hawke was against it and I couldn’t blame him.

"If Gus burns down the school, where will I go on Monday?" Evie suddenly asked. "Will Gus hurt the people at school?"

I hugged her close. "Easy, Button. The school is closed at night. If there’s a janitor or somebody else inside it, we'll just have to pray that he’s able to get away in time."

She looked into my face. “I think I should pray now, Mommy.”

“That's a very good idea,” I said.

She placed her fingertips together, her head bowed. To set a good example, I did likewise, but it was hard for me to find prayer words with so many sirens sounding off. If Gus had been responsible for the arson, it was an act much worse than anything he had attempted to do in the other timeline. Back then, he had been kept busy, first fighting Mantra, then fighting Lauren, and then chasing after Evie, seeking to recapture my dead body and make sure it could never be revived. Then he had done battle with Coven and was knocked out. My intervention here, so far, had allowed an even darker tableau to play out.

#

The two-story school building was blazing furiously. Emergency crews were still deploying and the first-responders were breaking the windows with water jets. Sensation-seekers had crowed around and were pressing against the emergency cordons. Our van slowed to a roll and our driver started honking, warning the jostling crowd to get out of the way.

A policeman flagged us down and demanded identification. Wrath shoved some sort of document at him -- which had to be phony, seeing as how Aladdin was a secret agency. The ploy did the trick and the uniformed man backed off. Just then, a bolt of green energy from above hit the turf with a sizzle. Looking up, I made out a stubby, manlike shape outlined by an emerald luminescence.

My fists tensed. Now that we had found Gus, I needed to know where Hardcase was.

"Stop here," Tunney ordered our driver. The vehicle turned into the curb and its tires bumped it with a bounce. Wrath was the first out, with four of his heavily armed teammates clattering after him. I whispered to Evie, telling her to remain inside the van. “If I don't come right back, stay with the nice policeman and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then I dashed off in the wake of the other Aladdin agents.

I knew that the anti-ultra hit squad was determined to capture my arsonist son. I hoped that Hardcase could evade them, too. They disliked the ultra as much as he disliked the Company. I doubted that Wrath would order an assassination, but how trigger-happy were his accompanying agents?

When no one was looking, I ducked and rolled under a television news van, flashing into my alternate hero garb before exiting on the other side. Hardly anyone on Earth had ever seen me wearing my black outfit and any local observers who saw me in it wouldn't know who I was -- as long as I avoided performing Mantra-type actions. I again made my escape by ghosted away through the subsoil, coming up a couple of blocks away. Without my magically-charged, burlesque-style golden armor being worn, I would be rendered less powerful than usual. But I needed to avoid appearing as Mantra in front of Aladdin agents, since the Company thought they had Mantra in lock-up. If they saw me tonight, I hoped they’d write me up as an unknown ultra. If anyone asked, I would call myself “Blackbird.”

Ignoring the noise, the flames, and rising smoke, I stayed on the alert for Gus’s reappearance. So long as I remained under-powered, the boy could probably crack Blackbird's best defenses like a chocolate Easter egg.

The air above the burning school was unbreathable and so I materialized a force capsule around myself, crafting it to serve as an air filter. Suddenly, I glimpsed the glowing outline of my deranged son. He was ignoring the excited firemen below and concentrating on something else, something below him.

"Look! Is that Mantra?!" someone shouted.

What I didn’t need was a blabbermouth! I cloaked myself under a dark mist to to foil the gawkers. It was then that I caught sight of Tom Hawke, darting around the hose-strewn ground, dodging from side to side like a ricocheting pinball. His fight with Gus was still in progress, but he looked like he was playing it defensively. The boy, all spleen and aggression, was shooting magical blasts at him, as if the world was no more than his private video game. I wondered how Hardcase could have stayed alive this long with no magic of his own. Could it be that the boy was going easy on his famous opponent because the thrill of fighting Hardcase was a dream of a lifetime and he didn't want the battle to end too quickly?

Nonetheless, Hardcase was formidable as a gladiator -- as strong as Hercules and able to jump about a mile. The ultra was on the ground, holding a four-foot-wide chunk of sidewalk over his head. My heart skipped a beat when he hurled it at Gus with all his strength. If I intervened, it might throw Hardcase off his game and let Gus take him out. What was a person supposed to do when he didn't want either of two combatants to be injured?

Fortunately, before the concrete weapon struck its mark, the youngster intercepted it with a flash of magic, pulverizing the concrete into a spray of sand and lime. The debris rained down on the fire-fighters below.

I had to stop underestimating Gus. My son had more than proven that he was appallingly good at being bad.

At that instant, while the lad's attention was fixed on Hardcase, I threw my mightiest burst of sorcery at his back – aiming to stun but not kill. It struck home and Gus tumbled earthward. On impulse, I dove in close, ready to do something if he couldn’t save himself.

Gus's changed his trajectory by sheer force of will and alighted feet-first. His wizard sight could see me through the mist and he raised his hands to strike. As quick as thought, incandescent bolts arced my way. They struck my force field a glancing blow.

#

That's when another cement projectile smashed into Gus's own protective shield, its impact startling the boy and spoiling his aim. "You're cheating!" Gus shouted at Hardcase. "Two on one isn't fair!" .

The peeved sixth grader launched himself into the sky, leaving behind a viridian trail of flame. Hardcase gave him chase with mighty leaps and I could have followed, but didn't want to force a decisive confrontation, not until my full backup of friends was with me. Anyway, the fire needed to be controlled. It posed a danger to our neighbors’ homes all around.

A bio-scan warned me that there were indeed living people inside the school building – firefighters, I thought, and maybe even trapped victims. I projected what amounted to large shells of force over the worst parts of the conflagration, aiming to strangle the blaze through loss of oxygen. Time was not on my side; to speed things along, I tapped the air inside the capsules to extinguish the flames more quickly. For a couple minutes, I maintained what was a mystical "death grip" on the combustion, until the fire started to go out.

But the effort had cost me a good part of the extra "umph" that I'd acquired through vampirizing Lauren. That would, unfortunately, make things harder down the road. My next move had to be to link up with Hardcase, and so I took off after his bio-trace – but warily. I didn't want one of the most formidable ultras on Planet Earth to mistake me for an enemy. As I drew close, I thinned my mist screen enough to let human eyes see “Blackbird.”

Alighting in front of the ex-movie star, I said, "I've been waiting for you, Hardcase." Aware that we were being looked at by bystanders, I added," We can't talk here. Can I carry you off to some place that's more private?"

"Okay," he said with caution – probably unsure of what to make of me.

The man let me take his hard mass into my arms. I negated enough gravity to make the two of us as light as helium balloons and then summoned in an air-stream to sweep us away from the smoke and steam.

Several blocks farther off, we alighted in some resident's backyard. When I released him, the ultra backed away. He was looking fit. Last winter, Hardcase had double-teamed with Prime to take on N-ME, and the latter had seared Hawke with flame. I had seen the man's whole body disfigured with burn scars – fire being the most effective weapon that one could use against him. Luckily, he possessed amazing healing abilities.

"T-Thanks," I panted, “for not swinging a hay-maker at me when I first dropped in."

He smiled tightly. "I always try to avoid hitting the prettier ladies. Anyway, I was guessing that you might be Mantra in disguise.”

“Good call,” I said. “I have to keep a low profile these days. While I'm dressed this way, you can call me Blackbird.”

He nodded. “A nice code name, Eden. Strike told me that this get-together was your idea.".

I did a double take. How in hell had he discovered my real name? My real inherited name, I mean. The Warstrike I knew would never have outed me -- not to anyone. Did this mean that Hardcase and Mantra were better friends in this world than we had been back home, to the point that we shared some kind of confidential history together?

Then the truth slammed me.

I’d almost forgotten one of the worst mistakes of my life. During the Godwheel incident, I had thoughtlessly blurted out the name of Eden Blake, both her first and last name, within other people's hearing. Too late, I found out that it hadn't only been good guys near me. Unknown to anyone, we had been infiltrated by a very evil being in disguise – the most dangerous foe whom I had ever dueled. I'm sure I only survived because I had had my friend Prime with me. Knowing what of knew of the foe, I'd be better off going up against Boneyard, or even N-ME! I’d seen the inhuman creature cross over into a different universe and, being an optimist, had so far been hoping that he’d be trapped there until he died.

But I knew that if he ever returned, he’d remember my slip. It was no secret that Mantra frequently defended the north Los Angeles suburbs and that would lead him into the vicinity of Canoga Park. The most basic metropolitan directory search would give him the address of Eden Blake! Worse, he had a very pressing reason to come after me. He wanted to claim the Sword of Fangs – preferably over my dead body!

"What, exactly, did War...? What did Strike tell you about what we're doing here?" I asked the ultra.

Hardcase shook his head. "Nothing much -- just that there was a grade-schooler running wild in Canoga Park and packing super magic. But the guy I fought with looked more like a circus dwarf than a kid."

"He's a kid all right," I said with a sigh. "Did you hear the story last spring about something that happened in Canoga Park, something that involved a local boy?"

He returned an uncertain glance.

"There was a sixth grader whose appearance had been inexplicably changed," I coaxed.

The blond man frowned. "Come to think of it, I did hear something about a youngster becoming disfigured. His name was, umm, August Blake.".

His face lit with comprehension.

"Oh, God! Is he your son?"

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 20