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Chapter 12
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Mary walked out of the coffee shop, and narrowly dodged the man she encountered right outside of the door. Her sidestep became an awkward step when she saw the man’s face. He wore no mask, but she recognized him regardless with his chin structure and green eyes.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said to him.

He smiled back at her. Of course he knew who she was. A few months ago, he saw Mary and Kyra naked after they washed up on the beach following a major battle.

The man she only knew as Mr. Sullivan or Saelum Blaster said, “Well, well. This is a surprise. Are you in a hurry?”

“No, I have a few minutes before I have to run off to my second day job,” Mary replied.

“Second day job? We teachers really don’t make much, do we?”

“I get by. This one’s more of a personal project than anything ever since a few friends of mine died without their folks knowing that they had done so as heroes. I happen to make a small income from it, but I donate most of it to various fundraisers.”

“Oh, I think I heard about that program. You’re informing family members of the deceased and putting fallen heroes to rest, right? I had no idea that was you.”

“It almost wasn’t.” In more ways than one.

“Hey, I have to get somewhere in a few minutes as well. Why don’t we talk about it tonight?”

“I can’t tonight. An old, dear friend is in town, for one thing. Also, Kyra told me this morning that she wants to treat me to dinner tonight. She was rather adamant about it.”

Just then, Mary could hear her friend Wyatt saying You could say she was Adamast about it. She pushed the bad joke aside with a hidden sigh, a blink, and a smile.

“Then I guess I’ll catch you later,” Mr. Sullivan said. He gave Mary a polite kiss on the cheek.

And yet, Mary could do nothing about the feelings of nervousness or lust for this man now walking the opposite direction from her. Mary shivered. Then she hurried off toward her office.

It was late in the morning when Kyra returned to the mansion after an errand.

Kyra heard Warren humming a random tune in one of the adjoined rooms as she entered the hall with one of the stairways around the expansive mansion. She often found it hard to believe that Warren and so many kids had grown up in this house, and not just because the whole building was still in one piece.

Through one doorway, she spotted Warren wiping the bracelet gifted by Trash Knuckle with a cloth. He was also checking on some machines in that room.

She looked back at the side of the stairway and saw Judy sitting down against the rail.

“I see you’re up again,” Kyra spoke softly.

“Yeah,” said Judy. “Mom and Tatiana came by moments ago to measure my new bra size. They handed me a smart phone with the understanding that I can’t be zapping myself into it, both for my safety and also because they’re going shopping. They want my opinion on what they find at the different stores around the mall. So now I’m just waiting around here for that.”

“That sounds rough.”

“It’s not as bad as having a small part of myself stuck inside a computer and watching everyone carry on with their lives, but it’s still so boring.”

“I hear you. I can hardly imagine, having been locked up or possessed however many times by now.”

“At least you didn’t get to see everyone naked except for Walter. Thanks for the peep show, by the way.”

“What?”

Judy giggled.

Kyra vaguely recalled her time spent inside of the abandoned base that the Dallevan League once rented from the Blue Pillar System. She once toyed with the idea of imagining the base’s watchful camera as someone attractive, but now this just made things a little awkward.

“Ha, it’s working!” Warren announced.

“What?” asked the girls at once.

Warren poked his head out of the doorway. “The system I built to record superpowers being used. It, and the other computers, are all fully operational again, and I got some recorded footage from last night.”

“Back-ups are nice,” Kyra said.

“Gods bless DVR. Now to check on the timeframe during Judy’s resurrection.” His voice trailed as Warren emerged back into the downstairs observation room.

Kyra said, “Oh yeah, there’s a thing. Were DVR and internet streaming a thing five years ago? I forget. But you can watch a bunch of stuff you missed while you recover.”

“Always a thought,” Judy said in a contemplative tone. “A couple of my favorite bands broke up, one of the biggest metal acts right now consists of girls who are now what my age was back when I’d died, and I hear there’s a girls’ show on TV that’s attracted a bunch of grown men. I never thought I’d ever see the day where I’d say that the internet scares me.”

“If you think that’s scary, I think some crazy guy made a top ten alien invasions in the last five and a half years, ranked by how enjoyable they all were.”

“Oh, those are still going? Fun.”

“I’m almost curious as to why they keep coming.”

“You’re probably better off not knowing.”

“Mortar’s fault?” In truth, Kyra meant it as a humorous jab at her friend and colleague.

“Mine, actually, and I sort of guess Tatiana’s as well,” Judy said. “Though, yes, it did involve one of his gadgets.”

After an “I heard that” from the other room, Kyra and Judy exchanged glances and laughed themselves silly.

She wasn’t sure at what point her body slammed into the side of the stairway, but Kyra came down from her high and pushed away from it while she could. She saw that Judy was holding herself up by the railing, and trying not to pass out again. It was good to have a laugh with someone she could relate to. Here she was, enjoying her time with the girl whose shadow she lived and worked in for a while now.

Kyra wanted ever so much to truly be out of Judy’s shadow, and pretended that she wasn’t, that it didn’t bother her, but she felt like the first person who needed to help Judy in any way she could.

Why was life so complicated?

A moment later, Mortar Mage walked out of the room he was in, and said, “Alright, you two, I need to check something out. War Lagoon’s going to meet me there. I know this goes without saying, but try not start any thunderstorms in here. Unless you’d like to come along, Kyra?”

“I’ll pass, Mortar,” Kyra said, “but thanks.”

She waited for the man to leave, but he was barely out the door when Judy spoke up. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out?”

“Of course I do, but I don’t want to leave you alone if I don’t have to. You know what, though? You need to go outside and see Paragon with your own eyes.”

“What about my condition?”

Kyra pulled out a small case and extracted the item within it. She showed the new necklace to Judy. “Here, put this on. I think we still have a drawer full of domino masks somewhere around here.”

“Yes, we do. What’s this necklace?”

“I went shopping this morning, and tracked down an old acquaintance of mine from my villain days. I know you’re not a summoned spirit from the umpteenth and a half dimension or whatever he said it was, but he said the gem on the bottom should still work for similar cases where someone is caught halfway between dimensions.”

“So you’re saying I’ll be able to wander around and live like an actual person with superpowers with this on?”

“I hope,” said Kyra. “I didn’t want Mortar to confiscate this to see how it works when we could skip to field testing. What do you say?”

“My kind of dangerous. I want to say yes, but my mom and Tatiana!” On cue, she received a message on the phone in her possession. She checked it.

“You can bring that with you, you know. I’m only asking you to come outside with me, smile a little, and maybe show off your powers if you’re able. I don’t want to jinx it by asking what’s the worst that can happen, but, actually, that’s exactly what I should be asking.”

Judy put on the necklace and tucked it under the shirt she was wearing. “Go get your costume.”

Mortar traveled—first by portal to get away from the mansion, and then by magic-fueled flight—beyond city limits to the northeast. The recorded scan had picked up an anomaly just within its range during the time window he was looking for. No, an anomaly wasn’t the right word for it, but a mere magic spell wasn’t it either.

What he saw was a special kind of magic that had no place in the mortal realm, and was frowned upon in the eternal one. That much, he was sure with a glance, but being a scientist meant testing that theory. Being a hero meant acting against it. Being the sole guardian between the realms meant both.

He spotted and joined War Lagoon mid-flight. They were moving fast. If it wasn’t for their earpieces, then communicating with mere words would have been difficult.

“Do I want to know what this is about?” War asked.

“I’m not sure even I want to,” said Mortar.

“That kind of answer isn’t going to work anymore, not with Judy being back with us. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Did anyone fill you in on what I said about the war four years ago?”

“I’ve heard bits and pieces. Most of it, I heard from you some time ago.”

“I suspect it’s all connected. I saw the work of powerful magic right there when viewing last night’s map. We need to check it out.”

“Why aren’t we bringing everyone else?” War Lagoon said.

“If anyone with enough magic power to burn a dried leaf showed up on the map when I called you and left the mansion, I would have called the others. Still, it’s better to be careful. This is urgent, and I’m thankful you came.”

“Yeah. Let’s check it out.”

They descended and found the top of a temple sticking out of the ground. Mortar Mage and War Lagoon searched the immediate area for an entrance and found it. They went down some stairs, finding hollowed crystals of various colors, and no light, poking out of the walls and steps at some places.

This place must have belonged to the Circle before the Dallevan League evicted them from the city. That was Mortar’s only guess, judging by the type of stone the temple was made out of and the types of crystals they passed.

If that were the case, then the crystals would have been lively and full not five months ago. They would have been assaulted by protective mages and spirits as well, if the Circle were still here.

It didn’t take too long to find what looked like the central chamber. It was dark, but there was no arguing about how massive the room was, or the vibes that came from how important it was to this temple. However, there was something uneasy about this room. More than that, Mortar needed to see the chamber in great detail.

He needed to know it all.

War Lagoon said, “Mortar? I don’t like this.”

Magic surrounded them suddenly. Mortar cast some illumination magic to light up the chamber. Groups of dark figures appeared, all matching Ohm Wires description of the grave diggers. Their tiki masks glowed red, orange, and violet now.

He felt his gut recoil. “Yeah, I have a bad feeling too.”

The masked figures jumped at the heroes.