The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
Originally written 2006
Posted Jan. 21, 2021

.
.
.
.
.

THE KILLING MACHINE

My mother groaned, my father wept;
Into the dangerous world I leapt.

William Blake
.

“It sure seemed like you were dead,” the teenager insisted.

“If you say so,” I said. “What happened next?”

“The things Gus could do were incredible; he turned your house into a holodeck full of monsters and warriors.”

She had a lot more to say, but what surprised me the most was her encounter with the phantom of Eden Blake.

This “ghost” showed up almost immediately after Lauren’s powers manifested, but before Eden was killed. All I could think was that the living Mantra was making a telepathic communication with Lauren from the cracker box on the living room table.

“You need more magic than you have,” the specter told Lauren. “Find it before it's too late.” The girl admitted that she didn’t have a clue how to do such a thing. Before Mantra could tell her anything, Gus pulled the girl back to the living room to complete their battle. When the boy attacked, Lauren managed to fend him off, if barely. When Mantra called for calm, Gus sent a sizzling bolt at his mother and apparently killed her. Then, either by luck or by inspiration, Lauren took aim and blasted the plastic joystick that the boy was holding, seemingly using it like a magic wand. Startled, the boy vanished.

Lauren was now left alone; even Evie had used the distraction to run away and take her mother’s dead body with her. Oh, my God, I thought. No wonder the tyke had been traumatized!

Confused by the crush of events, Lauren dashed outside the house. But she'd no sooner looked at the door than a police squad started to bawl orders that she drop her sword. The startled teen hesitated only for a moment and that was enough to start the panicky police shooting. Somehow, without thinking about it, the girl ghosted, turning herself into a living hologram that bullets could pass right though. This was a reflexive defense move that I’d used myself many times.

Lauren was experiencing a police riot, plain and simple. It must have been a terrifying night for them, but they seemed not to have conducted themselves at all well. The officers decided to rush at Lauren and try to beat her down with their sticks. The teen surged with power and tossed them away like leaves on the wind. She used that same gust carry her away, taking to the air with the same technique that she had used months before, when she had briefly gained Mantra powers. Once again, Lauren found herself sailing through the moon-lit night like a paper airplane. But, as soon as the girl started thinking about the mechanics of landing, she gained density and dropped precipitously to earth. Her forward momentum threw her into a bumpy roll across the grass.

Shaken but unhurt, Lauren pondered the question of how to get more magic, like Mantra wanted her to do. Just then, she became aware of the bizarre phenomenon that had been going on in the sky over Canoga Park. The full moon was bright and the sky was glowing violet. Even more amazingly, green zig-zags were sizzling overhead. But these weren’t forks of normal lightning; they came across as a whole different form of energy, writhing in place like sparks from a Jacob’s Ladder. While staring at this amazing tableau, she started to pick up an odor, not exactly with her nose, but one that touched her psyche in a way that registered a smell. She realized, correctly, that magic gave off a fragrance on the spiritual plane. She reasoned that if those bolts were magical, and if she was seeking magic, the best thing to do was to go to where these sorcerous discharges were touching down.

Lauren took to flight again, following a magical streak that touched down at the home of a person she knew from school, Heather Parks. Two squad cars were already parked in front of it, probably checking out heavy damage that the house had sustained. There were inspecting a gaping hole in one wall,one large enough to exit to a buffalo. While the green-as-grass heroine was looking things over, these jumpy police tried to shoot her down.

I sensed a pattern. The Canoga Park cops that night had been scared out of their wits and their actions were inexcusable. It sounded to me that they needed retraining, but they weren't likely to get it -- not as long as media-pandering mayors kept insisting on cutting police budgets.

Lauren got herself out of there as swiftly as possible and ended up airborne over the Mall at Sherman Way. For some reason, there was a lot of frightened shouting going on there, and so she flew through the Mall's glass doors, trying to find out what the excitement was all about. To her amazement, she saw a monstrous armored being tearing things up for no apparent reason. Coming closer, Lauren saw that the creature had four faces, the faces of Heather Parks and her three mean-girl friends!

Tho startled, she kept her wits, realizing that the girls must have been affected by wild magic abroad that night, just like Gus had been. Not wanting to use force, she started to shout, hoping to lure the weird mutant out of the mall. She got its attention, all right. As fast as a speeding bullet, the magical creature sprang off the ground and slammed a fist into the teen's face.

They fought, clawing and slapping, like two girls in a cat fight. The abomination, the stronger, threw Lauren into the decorative fountain. The monster then held Lauren down and almost drowned her but, of a sudden, she heard Mantra’s voice again, telling her that she had to fight back, that she had the power to save herself. This reminded Lauren that she controlled the elements, including water. Desperately she focused, turning the fountain water into a powerful surge that flushed the armored creature away from her. Lauren needed a breather, and so flew away, taking refuge atop an empty rooftop. Her mind was spinning. So many things were coming at her. It was like she had stepped into a whole different world. Every which way she turned, she was being forced to fight for her life.

The fledgling ultra tried to calm down and think. Her priority had to be the bringing Eden Blake back from the dead – somehow. And she had to corral Gus quickly, before his incredible bellicosity provoked him to start killing his neighbors. She also needed to stop the four-faced abomination’s rampage. The latter seemed to be the most urgent, but she knew she wasn’t strong enough to fight it toe to toe. That would take a much more powerful sorcerer than she was, someone as powerful as Gus himself. That was it! What an inspiration!

Lauren sniffed the air. She already knew that Gus’s magic, for some reason, stank like spoiled apple juice, only it was a lot more unpleasant. And she could smell him now, on a bearing leading back to the west. Buoyed up by new confidence, she flew back to the Mall to look for “Coven,” a name that she had spontaneously come up with due to the fact that Heather's group called themselves “Mantra’s Coven.” But the monster was no longer there, so Lauren chased after its rank magical scent. This led her to the nearest landfill, where Coven was, digging through the trash, probably moved by hunger. The young ultra came close enough to allow her foe to hear her mocking and jeering.

With a cry of rage, the thing sprang into the air and pursued Lauren as she fled. The teen, having summoned up a swift tailwind, sped back in Gus’s direction, all the while carrying on a running fight with her horrendous pursuer. Very soon, the two of them were over a strip mall, looking down at a squad of heavily-armed men skirmishing with the power-packing Blake boy. Whoever these military types were, Lauren thought that they were wearing suits of armor slick enough to make Star Wars stormtroopers envious.

Coven spotted Gus, too, and gave out an awful cry. Gus looked up, saw the monster, and felt like killing her. He threw green power-bolts her way but Coven wouldn’t stop. They clashed and fought close in, but in less than a minute the skirmish was over, both of them having been knocked cold. Coven, having hit the ground, broke up into four teenage bodies. The armed men, whom Gus had been holding at bay, now saw their chance take the pint-sized sorcerer. They discharged knock-out gas at the boy, and when slowed him but didn't stop him, they used some sort of launcher to snag him with what looked like electrically-charged tendrils. When he was rendered only semi-conscious, the tactical team bum-rushed the lad into a portable booth. It sounded like a tech device I knew of, one that was rigged to sap an ultra of his power.

Though Lauren didn’t know who these people were just then, I'd earlier learned from Evie that they were from Aladdin.

Fortunately, the Aladdin guys were pretty much ignoring Heather and her friends. The girls were starting to bestir themselves, confused about what was going on. Frightened by the excitement, they decided to go home and nobody stopped them.

Meanwhile, the soldiers had successfully manhandled Gus’s capsule into their van and sped away with it. To Lauren's surprise, my daughter Evie came rushed out from the shadows just then, overjoyed that her babysitter friend had showed up. The youngster explained things quickly and handed over Mantra's diminutive and inert body to Lauren, pleading with her to save her mother's life.

Lauren didn’t really know how to work that kind of miracle, but she promised to try. Not trusting the Aladdin people, having had enough of uniformed men with guns, she took flight with Mrs. Blake's body clutched in her right hand. The teen was still following Mantra’s last request, that she find magic. The Shepherd girl was glad enough that she could no longer sense either Gus or Coven, but there was something else in the air that she couldn’t ignore. Whatever it was, it was potent enough to make her gasp. She described it to me as the scent of hot cinnamon. I winced. I knew that smell, too. I couldn’t forget it and didn’t like the idea of that fragrance being so close to my home.

The spicy odor led Lauren to a junky warehouse on Hollywood Boulevard. Eager, but clueless, the girl ghosted inside to check things out. She found one big room, dusty but in use. Its shelves and cabinets were cluttered with things, mostly bottles and jars, some of them giving off powerful magical odors of their own. But there was still that dominant cinnamon smell, and it was coming from the only occupant inside that room. It was a woman who had – wouldn’t you know it – cinnamon-colored hair. Otherwise, she was wearing a cape and a creepy costume that was on the skimpy side. The stranger gave Lauren a smile that chilled her blood, and tried to engage her a conversation. She called herself “Marinna” and claimed to be Mantra’s daughter.

Well, that was true – but only in a sick, twisted way.

In actuality, Lauren was meeting my most dangerous personal enemy. Once she had been the male knight Thanasi, and the two of us had been the best of friends. But Thanasi had been turning bad unbeknownst to the rest of us knights. Worse than that, she – he – was becoming murderous and psychotic. His betrayal of Archimage's knights left him and me the only survivor. I thought that she was dead; the last time I’d seen her, my enemy was being sucked into a dimensional vortex. I’d thought she was going into deep space or something and that that was going to be the end of her. But maybe history had been different in the world where I’d found myself. That was to Lauren’s bad luck.

“Marinna” tried to play it semi-sane for a little while and pump the teen who seemed to have powers like mind, but when Lauren wouldn’t open up, Necromantra went homicidal. Their ensuing free-for-all carried them outside, where passersby distracted the redhead long enough to let Lauren slip away and dart back to the warehouse, where she had left Mantra’s body. But she only had a moment of respite before Necromantra came ghosting in through the wall, wanting to take up where they had left off.

“Just then, I heard your voice again,” said Lauren. “You were telling me to use that mantra of yours – “Change, growth, power.”

Lauren, in a fight for her life, used the magical chant and they helped, but Marinna still had the momentum. “I guess she knocked me out; don't remember anything until I came to with you kneeling over me, telling me what had happened.”

“So what had happened?” I pressed.

“You said you’d been inside something called the “Soul Walk.” From there you’d been able to summon the Sword of Fangs that I’d brought to the warehouse with me. You used it to slash your way out of the spirit world. You said that your spirit had gone back into your own little dead body and broke the spell, making it come back to life at full size. I guess the Sword was all the magic that we had ever needed, but I hadn’t realized it. I felt so dumb!”

“Don’t sweat it,” I told her. “Magic is subtle and complicated. But what happened to Necromantra?”

“You told me that when you tried to use Mantra magic against Necromantra, you couldn't. When the witch realized your were no match for her, she tried to play it malicious and taunted you, wanting you to beg for mercy. But instead, you told her that the reason your power had drained was because you'd just used a huge slug of it to summon the 'Tradesmen' to Earth. Well, that really shook the witch and she took off like a bat out of hell.”

Yes, that trick sounded like one of mine. The Tradesmen were an alien race that, under their law, had a valid claim upon Necromantra as their slave. She had actually been their captive for a while, apparently, and was absolutely terrified of them.

But Lauren’s story had added some perplexing details to what I thought I knew. From what she’d been saying, Mantra's spirit gone to the Soul Walk, which was a halfway house between life and death, something created by my old master Archimage. Up to now, I’d been supposing that Mantra had lost her powers when she was hit by a power blast from Gus. But it was now starting to look like she only lost them after she left the Soul Walk and reentered her own dead body, restoring it to life. Was it the power needed to bring off that resurrection that had drained her, or had even burnt out her completely? That possibility made some sense, but I sure hoped that the effects weren’t going to be permanent!

Lauren was still talking. “You were wearing a black outfit that I'd never seen before. It looked super-cool.”

I knew that costume very well. “Yeah, I only use that suit when my better costume isn’t in reach." That little mishap is something that's happened to me twice now – once in my world and, apparently, at least once in this new world.

“Maybe you should let your fans know about it!” she suggested. “There could be posters and models to show it off, and it would be great for a Halloween costume.”

“No, I don’t think so. I want to keep that little number secret, to use as a sort of disguise when I don’t want to be recognized as Mantra. Please don’t tell anyone about it.”

“Uh, sure. You can count on me.”

I actually believed her. To be honest, Lauren’s story had really showed me what a great friend she was, and also what potential she has as an ultra in her own right. But her catalog of battles was absolutely insane! She had escaped death narrowly several times just since Friday. And then there was what I knew had happened on Sunday!

#

“I've got so many questions I want to ask you,” the schoolgirl told me.

“I'll explain everything, later,” I replied, “but I'm in an awful crunch right now. Let's talk about the Mall fight on Sunday. How did you get involved with NM-E, and how did I end up there?"

"You'd come in with an armed group from Aladdin. You were wearing a gun on your hip and calling yourself 'Agent Eden Blake,'” answered the girl. “Does that mean that I've not only been Mantra's personal babysitter, but the local La Femme Nikita's, too?"

"I wouldn't say that I’m the La Femme Nikita type. I have no memory of that little adventure. I’m just a data analyst at my regular job.”

“So, how did you get that uniform and holster?”

“I don’t know. Sunday is part of my blackout. The problem is, I have to write a report about the fight at the mall. I really need you help to find out what exactly happened there before I can write it.”

“Too bad you're not still working in Canoga Park. I'm really sorry that you had to leave town.”

I chuckled. “Is that because I was so generous with the milk and cookies?”

“You know what I mean! You’re the best ultra in the world! And if I'm a kind of Mantra now, I could learn from you. Are you ever coming back?"

“I want to, really. Unfortunately, as long as Aladdin has Gus, I have to stay with him and protect him. But, please, tell me everything about NM-E and what went on at the mall.”

“Well, okay,” she sighed. “Once I took you back to Evie, I went home. I was dead tired. My dad was so wrapped up in his home office that he didn't seemed to realize how late at night it was. I slept like a log. On Sunday morning, tried to get all those awful things off my mind by catching up on my homework. In the afternoon, I went to meet my mom at the Mall. That was a mistake! All of a sudden, NM-E dropped down out of the sky, like a one-unit bomber squadron!”

“How did you stay alive fighting that thing?”

“It wasn't easy! I slipped away from Mom and flashed into my Mantra armor. The robot was just standing around, looking tough, but not doing much of anything. I gave it a shot of my power, hoping to drive it back outside, but it attacked me instead. We fought a little, but because it was a robot, I got the feeling that someone else was controlling it. So I zipped myself out of there and went looking for whoever was in control. I found a van and inside could see that it looked like the one that Gus away Gus. When I looked inside, I saw on of the same guys that had been in on the kidnapping. He had to be up to no good, so I fried his equipment, hoping that it would deactivate the 'bot.

“Unfortunately, without its controller, NM-E went absolutely crazy. It plowed into a crowd and almost killed my mom! I decided to try to phantomize it, just like I can do with myself. The trick worked, and once it wasn't able to hurt anyone, I dragged Mom to safety, without letting her realize who I was.”

She "phantomized" it? What an idea! I probably could have done something like that, too, but I’d frankly never thought of it. I was beginning to suspect that Lauren was an instinctive ultra. I could learn a trick or two from her..

“As soon as I was able to leave Mom by herself,” the girl said, “I checked in on the robot. It was crouching there passively where I'd left it, like a computer working on a problem.”

Just then, the new Wrath burst into the room where Lauren was, as mad as hell. He accused her of destroying the control center and allowing the automaton to run wild. The pair of them didn't have much time to argue before a crowd of television reporters mobbed them. They started jabbering questions, seemingly more interested in the man wearing red than they were in NM-E, or even in Lauren, whose armor was showing off a lot of leg. She seemed slightly miffed at being ignored.

But NM-E wasn’t down for the count. It suddenly solidified and came back at Lauren with a slashing attack. Somehow, NM-E’s A.I. had solved the problem of controlling its own density. The Aladdin file says that the metal monster has been in and out of history since ancient times. Who back then could have designed a machine so incredible? Had it been dropped off by a flying saucer?

Lauren went on to say that she'd tried to "ghost" the robot again, but NM-E had become immune to that gambit. As a fall-back plan, she pretended retreat. Unfortunately, the robot could fly faster and they had a battle in midair. The newby ultra hacked at the mechanism with the Sword of Fangs, but to no good effect. NM-E was able to repair itself almost as quickly as it took damage. Lauren next phased into the ghost plane herself as a place of refuge, NM-E changed its density likewise and kept after her. While fending off the killing machine, Lauren was struck a glancing blow, whereupon she dropped toward ground level like a stone.

I didn’t like what I was hearing. Lauren had made a bad mistake! She had done a good trick, but on the wrong enemy! As dangerous as NM-E had been before, in the future it would know how to move through walls, avoid crushing blows, and be harder than ever to defeat.

“I fell through the mall roof and crashed onto a pile of boxed toys,” the teenager went on. “They had a lot of air packed inside them, so I lucked out.” Then she suddenly quieted. Maybe she had started to grasp that without her amazing luck, she would already be dead!

“Do you need a minute?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “No. I'm okay. After I landed on the toy boxes, I was alive, but bruised, scraped, and aching. NM-E just wouldn't give me any peace. It was coming in through the hold I had made in the roof! That's when that Wrath guy charged in to attack the robot. He was trying to save my life, I guess. Because I've started to heal so fast, I picked myself up fast and I went to back him up. But he was already hurt. That’s when I got the idea to do with the earth what I could already do with water. I brought up some of the pavement of the parking area to envelope NM-E and try to crush the thing. When it looked like it was slipping away, I started punching at it with cement fists. The Robo must have been taking a lot of damage, because it suddenly broke off and shot out there like a rocket. I guess it hasn't been programmed to fight to the death.”

She had actually figured out how to command the rocks and the soil while in the middle of a fight? Wow! If I ever got my powers back, I’d have a hard time keeping up with her!

“The newspapers didn't say that anyone was killed. Is that right?” I asked.

“As far as I known. I think guy in red came the closest to chalking out”

“Good job, gal,” I told her. I could have said a lot more, but the last thing she needed was a swollen head. Overconfidence might lure her into taking foolish chances and get her killed in the next battle. The girl could easily have been slain already during her short ultra careen.

"Right after NM-E took off, you showed up, Eden," Lauren said.

"Yeah? Where had I been before that?"

"I'm not sure. You were pretending not to know me, making like you were trying to arrest me. I took off and ghosted myself when when the Aladdin gang coming up behind you started shooting. Gees, how many trigger-happy psychos are wearing government issue these days? Why don't they shoot at bad guys instead? Anyhow, once out of sight, I switched back into my street clothes and joined Mom outside of the mall."

I shook my head. “Lauren, I have to warn you. Even with magic powers, you're going to get yourself killed if you go on this way.”

“Danger goes with being an ultra, doesn't it? Is it any worse than the risks you've been taking?”

“Maybe not, but I had years of practice before I started."

“Weren't you learning on the job, just like I’m trying to do?”

Oops, I’d slipped. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had lived for centuries before I ever became Eden Blake. Also, I didn't want to share my male history with anyone. So I fibbed. “No. I got my powers years before I ever let anyone see me in public as Mantra. I made contact with experienced ultras who taught me how to fight and to use magic. Sure, it was frustrating, because I wanted to go out right away and help people. But I knew I had a lot to learn about being an ultra first. Anyway, even if you’re not using powers, a life like yours is never going to be without worth, no matter how you choose to live it.”

“Oh, Eden, that's sounds like the corny esteem-building stuff that grownups are always telling to kids.”

“That doesn't make it untrue.”

I let the matter drop and went on to grill Lauren about every detail I could think of regarding the Mall action. By the time the interview wound down, I was was satisfied that Aladdin had brought the robot to the Mall and deliberately set it lose. But what, exactly, had they been trying to accomplish?

I thought I could guess. Odds-on, their plan was to draw in some upstanding ultra who would try to protect innocent people. When that ultra, whoever it was, showed up, the agents would be prepared to use high-tech gadgets to snare him, just like they had overcome Gus. I knew that they had more than one prison to keep such people locked up. They wanted two things from them: to learn how to duplicate ultra powers, and to brainwash captured ultras into becoming Aladdin assets. Aladdin always played dirty, and rarely did it for the good of the American people. I knew for certain that it had worked with a syndicate of subversives -- crooked politicians, bureaucrats, trillionaires, Big Tech, and Chinese spies -- to take over the government of the United States earlier in the same year. What kind of treasonous scheme would they be getting involved in next?

Deep State, thy name is Aladdin.

TO BE CONTINUED in Chapter 8