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Chapter 13
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Fire and arcane energy erupted beyond Mortar Mage’s hands, and his partner produced shadow constructs and summoned dark tentacles too. They spent minutes blocking and striking down the masked figures. Some were fast, some were strong, and some just took
more hits to bring down than the others.

A couple faster ones managed to hit Mortar. He wouldn’t have been surprised if War Lagoon was hit as well.

The glowing stopped after the figures were knocked to the ground. The earth shook for a time. Mortar was uncertain if it was one of those odd quakes that only affected the magic temple, or if Paragon City felt it as a larger whole.

Either way, he walked to the stones set up in the middle of the dip in the ground to look like some sort of table, or an altar. He flipped the button on one side of one of his belt satchels, and pulled out a thin stick. Mortar carried a number of these, but rarely ever needed to use them on the field.

He pointed it at the altar from above and circled the stick to get a reading of the energies around this area of the room.

Sacrifice and human ash. Otherworldly energies. A focal point not seen by the human eye in so very long.

If there was an easy way to quantify these things, Mortar would have written it down right now. Instead, he elected to jot it down inside his mind.

“I don’t think anyone’s home, save for these guys,” said War Lagoon. “Something feels very wrong about them.”

“I wouldn’t recommend undoing their suits or masks,” said Mortar. “You might not like what you find under there, if my guess is right. Can you use your shadows to examine this temple for a workshop of some sort?”

“Do you plan to make something? Here?”

“No. I mean to confirm a suspicion without having to look at anything too grotesque. But, if it’s too much effort, I’ll peek under their masks myself.”

“This temple is big, but let me try to find what you’re asking.”

War Lagoon shut his eyes and stood for a moment. He convulsed in what Mortar could only assume was disgust.

“I found a room with an unlit furnace, some saws, metal staples like you would find for heavy duty stitching, and is that dried blood?” War’s eyes opened. “What the hell did we walk into?”

Just then, the tiki masks glowed again. The figures were on the rise, and their growls added to the dark depths of this place.

“Think we should get out of here?” War Lagoon asked.

“Actually, I think we need to start digging deeper,” Mortar responded, preparing to fight this wave of abominations all over again.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

The second assault began.

There was a knock on her doorway. Mary looked up and saw Walter.

“Hi, Walter. No offense, but I’m busy with a couple of cases right now.”

“I was beginning to think that lunch might help you in your endeavors,” he said.

“No time for that, not unless you can miraculously get one of these parents to sit down with me for lunch.”

“Oh, trouble?”

“You could say that. Some parents are too far away, they say, to come here and hear about the fates of their missing children. Some want to live in denial that anything is wrong. And then there are two men here in Paragon who won’t give me the light of day unless I use brute force as a hero to bring them into custody, be it trumped charges or real ones. Then, on top of that, a number of heroes or villains who died four months ago had run away from home anywhere from overnight to fifteen years ago, and I’m having to organize their cases. I need help, and I can’t afford it unless I turn those cases into another charity, which takes time, money, and effort just to file.”

“Really? Well, that’s too bad. I have an appointment at the Aquamarine Pizzeria in Founder’s Creek, and was hoping you would be my plus-one. I could always use trusted backup when meeting a mob boss.”

“Which mob boss?”

“Vanni Rivano.”

The name caused Mary to shuffle through a stack of folders until she found the one she sought. It carried the Rivano name, and this was one of the two men she spoke of only a moment ago.

She rushed to the door and grabbed her things, ignoring the smile on Walter’s face. Among her things was a parasol built to take a beating.

“Walter,” she said, “I see your simple walking cane, and raise you a parasol. To lunch.”

Judy sent back another text message to her mom, saying she liked the pink, striped bra out of the three latest ones shown to her. Meanwhile, she ignored the curious glances she was getting from people on the sidewalks.

How many heroes went out in street clothes, nice ones even, and a simple mask?

She walked side-by-side with Ohm Wire, who was probably doing a better job keeping a lookout for crime they could intervene with since her folks weren’t texting her and expecting a response post-haste.

On the other hand, it was nice to finally walk around again for the first time after five years. Some buildings changed by merit of having been rebuilt in all that time. Some changed by way of businesses moving in and out. Every other structure was so familiar and alien at once, begging to be basked within.

Every deep breath she took, though filled with smells not worth mentioning in addition to the more pleasant ones, told her she was alive. She was back. No one was taking that away from her now, no matter if she could remember what had happened before or not.

“So far so good, right?” asked Ohm Wire.

Judy said, “Hm? Oh, yes. If nothing else, we found a way to keep me awake. I haven’t felt dizzy or drained since we left the house.”

Ohm wire smiled at her, and looked like she was about to say something else when they were interrupted at random by a passerby saying good job to her for beating some bad guys trying to bomb a liquor store.

“What was that about?” Judy asked her.

“It’s a long story,” Ohm Wire said. “About a month ago, someone was going around bombing businesses that sold things like alcohol, adult toys, and a bus depot. Some people were getting hurt, and I ended up leading a trio of smalltime heroes to take down the lunatics responsible.”

“Oh, now I remember. Wait, why do I remember that?”

“Joule Say-cot-suu?”

“Sigh.” Judy stopped in place. “Joule Saikatsu fifteen. Oh my god, but how? I was inside the system when that all happened.”

“I was hoping you would tell me. You’re the only person who ever calls me 'Ohmie.' That means, all this time, my informant, whose only sign of a personality was that nickname, was you. It means I owe some of my success and heroic redemption to the one person whose shadow I sometimes thought I was living in.”

“Now what?”

“Now I try real hard not to think about how weird I look about this in public. Good luck, right?”

“It could be worse. I could be a figment of your imagination.”

“I’m pretty sure seeing dead people started someone’s villainous career somewhere, resulting in a long line of bad plots and twists.”

“Good thing I’m not dead.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t make movies.”

They smiled at one another and continued walking through Talos. It wasn’t long after that that they heard someone screaming for trouble, and both Ohm Wire and Judy went running.

They passed a few corners and traffic to reach a gym where a giant, inflated balloon of its gorilla mascot was standing out front. Judy spotted a trio of masked thugs with guns inside the gym. The trio had a hostage; everyone else was fleeing the scene.

One of them shouted outside, “Nobody try any funny business, or the cheating bimbo gets it!”

The abominations fell at War Lagoon’s feet, and the temple shook, for the third time now. He looked over by his friend, and saw that Mortar’s hands were glowing with arcane energy.

“Come on,” Mortar Mage said. He repeated himself multiple times.

The temple jolted again. This time, something broke through the altar. War Lagoon couldn’t see what it was, but he suspected that this was what Mortar was looking for. The temple rattled and roared as the elongated object seemed to grow.

“Almost there,” Mortar said.

Meanwhile, at that second, the abominations’ masks glowed again. How many times did War and Mortar need to knock them down?

War Lagoon was starting to feel like they were inside of a monster instead of a temple, and the object coming out of the ground looked like a jagged fang between its shape and pearl color. He prepared to fight the abominations again when he saw Mortar place a hand on the abnormal object.

“Duck!” Mortar yelled out.

However, War Lagoon realized what he said only a second too late. The chamber filled up with an explosion.

Ohm Wire wasn’t sure if her legs were trembling or if the ground was vibrating. All she knew was that both she and Judy needed to do something. Maybe if she used her faux invisibility? Oh, but the doors were closed and any idiot would notice them opening.
She couldn’t ask Judy to enter the gym by exiting the front desk’s computers, because no one knew yet, even with that necklace, if Judy could handle the trip. She wasn’t sure how Judy could get from here to those computers, either.

Then a blaze of static and light caught the corner of her eye. In a flash, Judy disappeared, leaving behind the phone and necklace as they fell to the ground where she once stood.

Most people backed away from where Judy had been. Ohm Wire took a step closer.

“Oh no.”