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Chapter 27
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Like shattered starlight, Princess Undercut appeared next to the dock in Nerva, where Walter and Mortar Mage waited. She looked around for Psi Wizard, who appeared moments later on a boat.

He let the engine idle as he approached so that it wouldn’t make too much noise.

Princess Undercut handed Mortar a bag with a pillow in it. She said, “Will this work?”

“A pillow?” he asked.

“They both slept on it a few times.” Among other things.

“Let’s find out. Give me a moment to track them.” Mortar laid the bag on the ground before him, and sat with it.

Tracking from somewhere else was possible, but the further away they were, the longer the process. Besides, they needed a rendezvous point and time for help to come, if any were to do so, and Walter knew that the others would become restless if they spent too much time doing nothing.

“Why can’t we just use the armlets again?” asked Psi Wizard.

Princess Undercut said, “Kyra and Mary left theirs at the house. I’m not sure why they did that. Maybe they thought the armlets weren’t necessary right now with the old base being gone. Maybe they were just tired of wearing them so much. Whatever the reason, they don’t have them.”

Mortar stood up, “Well, this was certainly effective. I’m done tracking them. You’re not going to like this, though.”

“Please tell me they’re alright.”

“Oh, I can’t be too sure, but the trail ends, like a drawing that runs off the page, and these islands are the paper. We’ll be dealing with an arcane portal into another realm.”

“You can at least locate the portal, right?”

“Done and done. Shall we wait for War, or is he meeting us there?”

“He knows to follow the signal from our armlets,” said Walter. “Let’s go. Hopefully, he brought the hat on the stick. It looks like Psi Wizard couldn’t find anyone to help us tonight. That’s fine, that’s fine.”

Everyone rode the boat through a portal of Mortar’s making to reduce the distance to their destination. The waves were heavy, and the rocks were numerous, so Mortar dropped a gadget to stabilize and anchor the boat. A field of green light encompassed the craft and caused it to stopped moving, no matter how much the water smashed against the barrier that now fixed to the floor beneath the water.

The rest of the trip was quiet once they were all on foot again. No one guarded the Circle’s portal except for a deranged homeless man, but Walter bribed him with a lotto scratcher and a coupon for a fruity waffle plate at participating UHOW restaurants.

The heroes did not wait long before War Lagoon arrived and touched down on the ground. He nodded with his signature straight face only seconds before Trash Knuckle crash landed a short distance away. Walter waved a hand in front of his nose.

“Well, now,” said Trash Knuckle, “this is some party you’re having.”

“Party’s inside, big guy,” said War Lagoon.

“Oh? So what happened? Did some random mystic steal your mommies’ lunch money for the month? Or is this some petty land dispute between heroes and villains?”

“The Circle has been causing us some trouble. We’re here to sa—“

“The Circle, specifically! How about that? They’re one of my favorite groups in the whole wide world when it comes to thrashing skulls. Are you sure you want this to be our little favor?”

“Look, are you going to help, or not?”

“Of course I am. Looks like this will be the most fun bit of payback since I taught my last roommate and his buddies not to gamble with our pizza money. Just step back, and I’ll have this place cleared of every stinking Circle mage in no time.”

Trash Knuckle charged into the portal laughing.

Half of the group had been pressing their noses closed. Princess Undercut glared at War Lagoon and asked, “Do I even want to know what that was about?”

“I saved his life during The Event,” replied War.

“Well, now what? Do we wait for him to fight the whole battle for us, or do we go in?”

Walter examined his pocket watch, and stuffed it back into his pocket with a finger in the air. Mortar Mage sprayed some air freshener around the portal to do away with Trash Knuckle’s lingering stench.

“Maybe we should go in when the smell clears?” suggested Psi Wizard.

“That will take too long, I think,” said Walter. “Judging by the types of traps the Circle likes to use, and how fast our helping hand likes to move or pick fights with other, we should be able to go in right about . . . now.” He sank into the portal with only a smile on his face that had been aimed at the others.

The rest of the League followed.

The heroes stood on an island floating in the air. It was one of many, some bigger than others, and streams of water and lava could be seen flowing sideways in different places. All of this against the blended sky of night and day, Psi Wizard rubbed his face with one hand.

“It’s like a mindscape,” he said. “I never did like those.”

The villain Trash Knuckle flew past in the distance. He was duking it out with a trio of demons who weren’t even as tall as his legs. His laughter carried as far as the island where the heroes stood. Seconds after he disappeared from view, Trash Knuckle cart-wheeled through the air in the other direction.

“Think he left enough for us?” asked Princess Undercut.

Mortar Mage responded, “That’s . . . not going to be a problem.”

They were surrounded already by hordes of lesser demons of various shapes and sizes, led by a giant vulture.

“Ah, this is lovely,” Mortar remarked. “This is a down pillow, right?”

Princess Undercut said, “Yes. Why?”

“Only this!” he threw the pillow at the vulture’s beak after making it glow. The fabric casing exploded, and feathers burst from within. Mortar manipulated them to turn and jab the flying demon with the force of steel knives, which flew off after a screech. “That’s better.”

“Great, now how are we going to find the girls?”

“We can always check the floating castle over there.”

“Really? A floating castle? Fine, let’s kick some ass, and get Mary and Kyra home in time for breakfast.”

She teleported repeatedly across the demons, punching and kicking them along the way. Mortar and War flew at the others in opposite directions. Walter pulled out his guns, and took potshots at any demon within range.

Psi Wizard called out, “Be careful! The rules of gravity and distance aren’t going to be the same here as the mortal realm.”

Damn, now he had no way to get off of this island or do anything useful unless some enemy mages came along. Psi Wizard hated when that happened. He picked up a rock and threw it toward one of the smaller demons flying about.

As luck would have it, space and gravity were affected in that direction, which led to another island, and the rock pierced the demon’s head before it fell to the ground.

The psychic squinted toward that island. There were some minds over there. Enemy mages who were entering this realm.

“Will you be good on your own, Walter?” asked Psi Wizard.

“I’ve got my fencing sword on me, and enough fight to keep at this for a couple hours or more if I must,” Walter said. “Where are you going?”

“Don’t know yet. Wish me luck.”

He picked up another rock, and got a running start toward the edge of the island. With one hand, he threw the rock without letting go. Psi Wizard’s feet took off from the edge.

The doors burst open, but the arch-demon was hardly surprised by it. Faint sounds of combat entered the room, and so did Trash Knuckle.

Trash Knuckle said, “Those are some nice doors you got there. Maybe I should rip them apart and use them to beat you into a pulp. Or maybe I should use your sorry ass to knock them off their hinges.”

The red crystal glowed a brighter red. The arch-demon chuckled.

“All of this violence,” said the demonic master. “Why don’t you get lost?”

A forceful wind blew and threw Trash Knuckle back out the doors, which closed. The villain could be heard shouting a number of profanities as he drifted further away.

“Now hear this,” the demon formerly known as Bates said to everyone outside the castle, which was more solid structure than room space. “Your efforts only continue to serve me. The longer you fight, the more you fuel my plans. If only you knew. So keep fighting to your hearts’ content.”

He laughed, and then he turned to Mary with an arm extended.

“Come,” he said to her in a quieter voice. “The water awaits you, as do I.”

Mary trembled, her heart pounding like a hard-hitting speedster with super strength. She walked forward, and descended foot by foot into the water until she stood before her new master. His member was now standing to meet her.

The crystal glowed again. This time, it rang like someone rubbing their finger over the top of a wine glass. Its light radiated through the room.

Psi Wizard climbed the last few feet in order to get on top of the new island. The mages saw him, but there was nothing they could do. He exerted control over their minds, a feat not meant to be possible in an actual mindscape, not like this. And yet, he felt so much power over these mages.

The question, however, was what to do with them. The mages were a nuisance and notably evil, but they were still people. So killing them was not an option.

He reached into their minds, deep into their emotional states, and sought after their need to sleep. This many minds was going to take time, time that Psi Wizard might not have had, no matter which way he went about it.

As if too impatient to wait for a cue, the vulture demon stomped on the ground nearby. It was angry, and it swiped its wings, which knocked a number of mages off of the island. Psi Wizard winced when the third swipe came straight for him.

Smaller demons were melding together into larger ones to try and beat Princess Undercut. She continued to bombard them with a combination of teleportation and various strikes from her assortment of martial arts, but they were getting tougher and faster.

The thought occurred to her that she could try sticking around in the unknown between teleportation jumps, but the thought occurred too late. One of the demons anticipated where Princess Undercut was going to appear, and it smacked her onto the ground. It didn’t hurt, much, but the sheer force of the impact caught her off guard.

She was surrounded now by three larger demons, and they looked ready to gang up on her. This was when she saw Psi Wizard as he got knocked off of an island. The demons’ attacks came down, and her husband continued to fall into the abyss below.

Mortar Mage finally found what he was looking for. For years, it had been theorized by a few writers and fans of his journal that the Circle’s spirits were somehow unnatural. Really unnatural. That they came from somewhere grotesque and dangerous.

He knocked two of the evil spirits down, and two more appeared. One of the islands contained a twisted shrine, and the Circle’s spirits were coming from there.

Each pillar of stone and poisonous vine had something incorporeal attached to it. An innocent soul. This twisted shrine was not only reconstructing the evil ones who were defeated, but it was turning the spirits of the dead into their numbers.

Destroying the shrine was the obvious course of action, but Mortar was met with the only problem standing between him and doing the entire Paragon area a service. The spirits knew he was there, and they were coming at him in the hundreds. Spell after spell, attack after attack, he tried to push back their numbers, but they were far too many to handle at once without drawing in more power than his body could handle.

War Lagoon flew in, throwing some of his own attacks, but it still wasn’t enough for the oncoming spirits.

They stood in the middle of the island, and now they were firing off spells and shadow-based attacks in every direction. The spirits were joined by a number of demons. It was looking bad, like one of the worse things either hero could ask for.

“Warren,” and War Lagoon.

“Yeah,” Mortar replied, standing back-to-back with his ally and friend.

“It looks like there’s only one thing we can do.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

“It’ll be something.”

War Lagoon and Mortar Mage drew in as much darkness and arcane energy as they could gather. Together, they were more potent than the force that leveled the Vambracemen base, and more brilliant than a solar eclipse.

Atop the castle-that-wasn’t was a pylon. All of the fear, all of the anger, and all of the violence, poured into the red crystal in the single room below. The air around the pylon roared, and it glowed.

Then, in a single instant that would last a lifetime, a red beam shot up from the pylon.

Day turned to red dusk, and the night turned to pitch black. Amidst the entire realm was the sound of Mary’s tears, and the demonic realm stood still in shock.

Shock that it impacted the surface world.

Forever.