A part of GE-04 didn’t want to move.

She had nowhere to go, after all. But her stomach gurgled--Tyler called it 'hunger'--and she allowed herself to stand and wander towards a shelf in the back of the store. Tyler’s favorite food was ‘Cheetos’. She spotted a vaguely familiar row of orange bags, huffed with excitement at her progress, and grabbed two bags with such force they exploded into orange dust. She stood perfectly still for a few moments, eyes wide, before wiping her hands off on her leggings and gingerly reaching for another bag.

With all the combined self-control of a superpowered amnesiac and a seventeen-year-old boy, she delicately tore the bag open, dumping half its contents to the floor, and stuffed the rest into her mouth as quickly as possible. Her mouth was full of dust by the time she swallowed, and now she was ‘thirsty’. She stared at all the bottles lining two walls of the store, grabbed a yellow bucket of greenish water on the floor instead, and dumped it into her mouth. She choked and coughed at the taste. Water was horrible, tangy and bitter. She threw the bucket away, and it smashed apart against a sprinkler with enough force to activate it. Water shot out of every sprinkler and began soaking everything in the gas station.

GE-04 gasped in surprise, then jumped onto the remains of the clerk counter to slurp from one of the sprinklers. That water was much better. She would have to avoid greenish water, she supposed. When she had her fill, she sat down on the counter and watched the way the water puddled on the tile. It seemed almost peaceful, but outside, wailing sirens grew closer.

She tried to ignore it, but when she saw police cars screech into the parking lot, she burst through the doors to greet them.

“Jesus! Hold your fire!” Many people were kneeling behind their cars, perhaps to hide. One man poked his head up over his hood. “You! Put your hands on your head and lay down!”

Fear rolled off the policemen’s minds in tangible waves. It was contagious. Her hands balled into fists, and she struggled against her wrist cuffs in a vain attempt to get free. The man seemed to pick up on it. “Do you understand English? Just keep calm, ma’am! We don’t want to hurt you!” Not that they could. Nothing could hurt her but her restraints.

“Take them off!” She shouted, and stepped toward the line of cars. Every trigger finger in the blockade flinched.

“W-we can take them off when you come with us, ma’am! Just lay down and put your hands out!”

GE-04 was drowning in the anxiety the officers expressed. She could sense it in their minds like a stench she couldn’t wave away. The horizon beyond the policemen was full of stars, and their light blurred together until it was blinding. “No!” She cried, agonized when that only made their fear worse. “St--stop! Stop!” She bit her lip, on the verge of something Tyler called tears. Crying was a sign of weakness. She growled to hide it. “Get away from me!”

The pumps were covered by a roof, and she whipped her hands out to smash the nearest supporting pillar. It crumpled into uselessness, bent, and dragged a corner of the roof with it. The collapse crushed two pumps, and more importantly put thousands of pounds of metal between GE-04 and the police. Screams rang out, but she ignored them, and turned to run into the wilderness away from the city. The darkness grew closer as she picked up an inhuman pace.

The brow of the Cowl narrowed as he stepped out of the sleek black car he used for travel, passing a subordinate holding open the door for him as his eyes caught sight of smoke coming from the Ironworks, his Ironworks. The same ones that not more than half an hour ago he was notified to meet Odette with hopefully his cash cow of a captive, the woman known as Racheli.

She of course did not mention that a new complication had arisen in the form of a scuffle in his building. There were already immediate signs of a scuffle that went into factory right from the start with the crumbling concrete from opening blows along with withering plants that had been more than likely used as failed restraints for the viral horror. A brief sigh left the mask, a slow stroll over to the building allowed him to brush his hand along the cracked stone on the surface, seeing the destruction continued further inside. He did not appreciate his building being destroyed, but he should have suspected that the girl would have made another escape attempt upon her kidnapping.

Which is why he made the educated choice to bring backup. Not too long after he left his car, five SUVs pulled up near the building, unloading troops of armed men from the unmarked black doors, a mixture of tactical gear and gang colors indicated their amalgamated histories, a strange mixture of corporate control and underworld influences. This was of course followed by a large unmarked white truck, about the size of a U-Haul vehicle tended due by a few anonymous workmen. As the back door was pulled up, the contents of the vehicle revealed itself to be an array of strange equipment. Unmarked crates and unnamed devices littering the truck, possible traps and sensors to protect the building. However, the most interesting piece of equipment stood in the very center. A single large box, clear windows of unmarked material highlighted by hard ceramic plates securing the sides, though devices and electrical equipment was attached to the box as well, humming and beeping as it took readings and diagnostics of the empty internals. a prison for a metas that The Cowl had commissioned to be built from the cybernetics equipment he received from Steel Lotus, a high-tech Yakuza gang.

“Five of you are with me, along with Specter and the two gentlemen who brought our device.” The Cowl ordered, turning his attention to the men once they all formed up. “The others are to fan out and take positions along the factory, out of sight but still within distance from the windows. We keep this building surveyed at all times, after the young lady leaves, there is nobody coming in or out of this building until our benefactors come to claim their prize.”

The subordinates carried out the word of the Cowl with military precision, the groups splitting into groups of five and splitting off, dipping into the building through its numerous exists to cover the unassuming building with enough firepower to take down squads of any indicated interlopers. Of course, if everything went to plan, they would have no resistance at all.

However, at this point while the Cowl waltzed into the building with his accompanying soldiers, he was not so sure. When he had given Lekh and Odette the drop-off point he had not sent them off unsupervised. His shadow, Specter, had been at the location as well, armed with nothing but a camera and a disguise as a unnamed homeless fool. From an alleyway no more than a street down, the mysterious meta had eluded detection long enough to capture the scene as it had unfolded, giving Cowl extra insight long before he was contacted to meet his captive. Aside from what he had learned from Jacqueline, he had learned two more important and ever discerning issues.

The first was Racheli was not the loner he had hoped for, there were friends and allies searching for her, metahumans and mechanical genius’ hoping to recover their friend and hopefully save her from her ever-increasing viral condition. If Cowl could expect anything at this point, they would not give up in their search even when he could hand her over to Gene Co, and more than likely they would find some way to discern her location. While he told no one about this job save for the men in the building already as well as Specter, he knew better than to think there would be no interference, and as such he would have to be prepared. Sending the video Specter had given him to a few select men around the city, he ordered them to gain as much information about the interlopers that had attacked Lekh and Odette on the truck job.

Of course, that video also brought the surprising information that Racheli did have more than just genetic changes from the viral agent in her system, in fact giving her powers that surpassed expectations. The young girl at this point could manipulate and bend metal, which would be a problem for an Ironworks building, though from what he knew from the limited tests his sawbones had given him about the virus, hopefully the heat generated from the mighty furnaces in the building would keep her in check like it did in smaller tests.

His train of thought ended when he finally did get a visual of Odette, standing in the refinery with a hole upward from the offices above, her captive encased in what looked like a chunk of concrete.

“Ah, Mademoiselle, it's good to see you again. No worse for the wear I'd hope?” Quipped the Cowl as he stepped into the refinery, getting a good look at Odette's flustered appearance from the very clear struggle that had just ensued. Of course, as he entered Odette would see Specter at his back along with the goons spreading into the room, well armed and already scouting the room for any surprises. “I’d ask if you had much trouble with her, but from what I can see of my building that question would be nothing more than bitter sarcasm at this point.” He took another glance of Racheli, her crumpled body and black blood spilling out onto the floor. “Ugh...the boys are going to hate cleaning up this mess...she is alive, isn’t she? I wouldn’t want to have to deal with explaining to my affiliates why I’m sending them a corpse.”

As he spoke, he reached into his jacket to pull the small red chest from his suit pocket, holding it out for her to see. “I have done what you asked, but I must remind you that this is for your eyes only, this is not to be given to anyone, nor to be used against me in any context. The agreement of our concordance was entirely laid upon those grounds and I ask you to hold up that end of the bargain out of respect. Of course, the added bonus will be transferred to Odette’s account once I get another verbal confirmation, both from you and your...unseeable cohort.”

He held the box out to her calmly, the men behind him being a bit more apprehensive with the two metas in the room as their fingers rested on triggers, not aiming at Odette but seemingly alert as they shifted their weight anxiously at her mere presence. “Do we still have a deal in that aspect?”

Kyra was between a rock and a hard place. Due to her powers that had only manifested after the dome at Atlanta had appeared, she was lost in a city that was unfamiliar to her. If she had not been trapped in the body of a nine-tailed fox, Kyra could have asked for help or even directions to her hotel, but her current appearance prevented her from doing so. Instead, she was laying down in an alley way with her nine tails wrapped round herself. Kyra had a rumbling stomach and a parched mouth, but she had not become so desperate to try to dig through some trash.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kyra saw a blue blur in the sky that was zooming away from the city. Shortly afterwards, the dome that had encompassed the city of Atlanta began to disperse. She gazed down at her fox paws, hoping that she would soon see her human hands return. However, even after the dome was no longer present, Kyra continued to retain her nine-tailed fox. Disappointed and depressed, Kyra rested her head back down on one of her nine tails, just as if it was a makeshift pillow.

While she was resting, Kyra heard footsteps from above. Therefore, she peered up to see what, or who, was causing the noise. As she looked, Kyra caught sight of some sort of projectile flying in her general direction. When it landed, while it did not strike Kyra, what turned out to be an arrow had a rope attached to it that lead back up above. Startled by the leading of the arrow, Kyra sprung up to her feet from where she had been lying down.

From above, a man slid down the rope and landed a few feet away from Kyra. In response, Kyra took a few steps backward, worried about what this man’s true intentions were. With each step the man took, Kyra followed suit by backing out. She wished to shout out to the man, tell him to leave her alone. However, how could she without human vocal cords? Kyra kept repeating in her head the word stop, hoping that something would miraculously happen.

Then suddenly, the man grasped at his head, as if he was experiencing a headache or some other head injury.

“God, damn it!” The man said aloud, “You can speak in people’s heads, too?”

Kyra wondered what he meant by ‘too’. Fortunately, she would not have to wait for long to find out. A second man slowly descended from above. However, this time, this man was levitating above the ground as he approached the ground. In his hand, he carried a staff that was giving off a bright blue glow from the ankh on the top of the staff. But this wasn’t the weirdest thing about him. Instead of a human head, the man had an avian head, either a falcon or eagle’s.

“Don’t worry. We’re not here to hurt you.” Both Kyra and the first man heard the Son of Osiris’ voice inside their heads. He then knelt down near Kyra and extended his hand that was not holding the staff in order to rest his hand on her head. At first, Kyra pulled away from the Son of Osiris’ hand. However, after he reassured her again that he was not going to harm her, Kyra relented.

When bird-headed man placed his hand on Kyra head, she began to feel a tingling sensation throughout her body. Before she knew it, Kyra saw her human hands again. A rush of joy surged throughout Kyra when she thought that she was now back to normal.

“Thanks for, um, helping turn me back to normal.” Kyra told the Son of Osiris. However, the two men turned towards each other and then back towards Kyra. Their silence worried her. She instantly peered down at herself. Her clothes had conveniently been restored, so that was not the reason for their silence. However, examining herself, she did find something off. Although she was no longer stuck in a fox’s body, Kyra discovered in horror that there were still some residual effects. Behind her, Kyra saw nine fox tails, similar to the ones she had as a fox, but scaled up to fit her body, still attached to her. Furthermore, her ears, now like those of a fox, had migrated towards the top of her head. The fur that only covered her tail and ears matched her natural hair color.

“Can’t you fix this?” Kyra begged the Son of Osiris, pointing towards her fox ears and tails. Unfortunately for Kyra, the Son of Osiris shook his head. Definitely not the answer Kyra was looking for.

“You have the ability to switch between your current appearance and the one you were previously in. You just need some practice to control it.”

“But this isn’t natural!” Kyra complained as she pointed at her nine tails again.

“We’ll return you to wherever you have been stay before these domes formed here.” The Son of Osiris’ voice echoed in Kyra’s head, dodging the girl’s protests about her current appearance. “If you ever need any help, you can find us in Pacific Point. My associate here can give you a card with a phone number if you don’t want to fly all the way out there.”

After Odysseus handed over a small business card to Kyra, the Son of Osiris teleported the three of them to the hotel where Kyra and her friends hand been staying at. Once they dropped the young woman off, the two men disappeared again.

Location: The Red Devil, Lost Haven
Time: Pax, Present

---

Marie ascended the stairs with quickened pace, fearing what her absence had wrought. I can’t believe I left them alone, she scolded herself internally, stopping at the first door on the second floor of The Red Devil. She had proven herself a valued member of the team, acting against the Silver Sorceress and her spells in the first phase of battle, but she had also allowed herself to fall prey to exhaustion, not to mention some strange, ethereal presence that liked to pop up and take control of her body. No matter what she had accomplished before, it had been undermined by the sorceress’s sleeping spell. Marie had to fix things.

“The Workshop” as the witches called it, was her destination. It was the only room in the entire tavern that held all the tools of the trade, and it was here where the witches crafted their spells for clients. Marie used the abundance of resources to create a mystical aromatic, a charm that, when lit, would emit a magical vapor that could reverse the effects of illusions and other bewitchments. Her counter magic had worked wonders against the sorceress’s other spells, she had no reason to believe this wouldn’t do the same.

After the spell was crafted, Marie tidied herself up, wiping away some of the dirt and grime on her tattered clothes, replacing her broken mask with a similar one kept in the workshop. Once she felt more collected, she returned to the ground floor and went straight for Puck’s door. She wouldn’t waste time wishing Joseph and company more luck, there was nothing else she could say to prepare him. She reached the door, knocked three times, said aloud her destination, and opened it, the otherside appearing in the factory that was Diplodoc’s base.

As soon as she arrived back in West Virginia, she lit the aromatic, tossing it into the middle of the room. The smoke shimmered slightly as it weaved in and around her teammates unconscious forms, filling their nostrils with a sweet, invigorating scent. The effects of the spell wouldn’t be immediate. It would take some time to fully counteract the magic that held them unconscious, but they would awake soon enough.

Marie turned on her radio, which had been cut off during her fight with Odette.

“H-hey,” she said with a hushed tone. Realizing that she would probably just sound like radio static, she bucked up and spoke with more force. “Hey, Iron Knight. I got side-tracked and had to go silent for a while, but I’m back at Diplodoc’s base. Silver Sorceress is down and she managed to take out the rest of the team with some sort of sleeping spell, but I’m undoing it as we speak. Also, there’s, um, no sign of War Pulse. He must have gotten transported somewhere else.” She paced around the area, waiting for her teammates to awaken.

“I can join up with team two if you want, provide them with some magical assistance once they find the Doctor, or I can wait here for the rest of team one to wake up. I suppose it’s up to you.”

Lost Haven, Maine?

The Smith family's living accommodations were modest. They owned a duplex apartment in Little Sicily, right on the edge of the Carver waterfront. Unlike most places in Little Sicily, it was a quaint little neighborhood. Crime was statistically low and had been dropping like a rock since the heroes made their debut in Lost Haven. The house itself was nothing special. The apartment's exterior was well-maintained and the walls were constructed in glazed-headed Flemish bond with bricks of various shades and lengths, as was standard for that type of construction in Lost Haven. Unlike most other duplexes in the area, the landlord had paid for a duel garage attachment for the benefit of his residents; it was one of the main reasons Peter had chosen the apartment over others. He loved to work on his '68 Ford Mustang. It had become his obsession ever since he retired from the ring and was physically unable to fight any longer.

"Could you hand me that knife, dearest?" Mrs. Emily Smith asked. Laura crossed the kitchen and grabbed the small knife off the counter, returning it to her mother's hand. "I'm glad we could finally get everybody together. Seems like its been ages since we all sat down for dinner together." The young journalist chuckled. Emily placed the last bit of beef onto one of the finishes plates, glancing at Laura as she did so. "You two make it a little difficult to arrange anything, what with the two of you never answering your phones. Or returning my calls. Some things never change." Her mother was nearly done preparing the Beef Stroganoff, one of her best meals. "We have-" The heroine began, only for her mother to finish the sentence for her. "-Work. I know. And I'm proud of you. It's nice to know you're off saving the world and not wasted in some bar in Chinatown every weekend. Your uncle Mark's a wreck."

Laura sniffed, allowing the delicious aromas of the various food stuffs to flood her senses. "Mmm." Emily passed a couple of plates over to Laura. "Put those on the dining room table." She ordered. Laura took the dishes in hand and carefully carried them out of the kitchen and into the adjacent dining room. She put the food down in the proper place as requested and made her way toward a small hutch in the corner. A number of family photos sat on the top of the chest. A brief smile graced Boom's lips as she ran a single finger over her favorite picture of her family and closest friends, standing in front of a waterfall in the Amazon. "And could you find your brother? He's supposed to be helping your father with the car but Peter hasn't seen him all day." Of course he hasn't. Harvey had been pouring over old case files day and night for the past week. He barely ate and only slept when he couldn't see straight anymore. Laura had to literally drag him out of the office and over to their parents' place for dinner tonight. "Can't even spare a second for your family, can you?" Boom grunted under her breath.

The door at the top of the stairs exploded into splinters. Harvey tumbled down the stairway and crashed into the wall behind him. Laura crossed the dining room in an instant, not caring if her parents saw her using her powers. They didn't know about their children's double life and Boom would've liked it if it could've stayed that way; but she had more important things to worry about at the moment. Like her bleeding brother. Who, by the sound of his rasping breaths, was having trouble breathing. "Harv?!" Her hands immediately went to the dark red splotch at the corner of his shirt. She practically tore the material to shreds trying to get to the wound. The source of the blood turned out to be a splinter the size of a small knife, impaled up into Thunderbolt's ribs and likely right into his lung. "This is gonna hurt." Laura warned moments before she grabbed the spike and ripped it out. Harvey screamed, but his healing factor quickly went to work sealing the gushing hole in his side. "What happened?!" Harvey continued to gasp for air for a second and a half before his lung stopped collapsing and moved back into place. "Look ou-"

But the speedster's warning came too late. A powerful hand had already wrapped around the back of Laura's throat and chucked her across the room. The young woman soared right through the dining room wall and skidded to a halt in the kitchen, right at the feet of her terrified mother. "Laura?" She croaked, unable to process what was happening. "What the hell hit me?" The speedster whispered. She tried to stand. Halfway to her feet, she felt something impact her chin and she was off her feet again. This time, Boom flew straight up and through the kitchen ceiling. "Mhmmph." Laura crawled to the corner of her parents' room, her eyes glued to the hole in the floor. Fear crept through her very soul. She had no idea what was happening or what was attacking them. All Laura knew is that she was afraid. Completely petrified. She felt a brief tug on her hair. "H-" Boom went for another ride, dragged along the ground at frightening speeds and rocketed through yet another set of walls, ending up sprawled in the grass of her front yard. Pain wracked her body. She begged for the nightmare to end. Every bone in her body ached. Her muscles screamed for the sweet release of the void. "What are you?!" Laura cried.

A figure appeared above her broken body. It was an image like no other; one that would be burned into Laura's memory for the rest of time. The monster was ten feet tall, towering over her. The giant's skin was darker than the very night. So black was it that it appeared to absorb the very light around it. Hideous claws adorned its skeletal limbs, longer than any blade Laura had ever seen. The beast lacked any discernible features, aside from its emotionless white eyes. The thing couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds; it was skinnier than bones. When it spoke, the very earth seemed to stand still. It had no mouth yet it echoed louder than any other sound could have. Yet, at the same time, it was but a whisper within Laura's very skull. Her attacker spoke a single, powerful word. A word that could shake the heavens. It was inevitable. It was eternal. It came for all men, no matter how weak or how mighty. It was the end of all living things.

"Death."

Death's hand wrapped around Laura's entire head. He lifted her from her feet with such ease, one could've sworn Laura weighed nothing at all. The creature slowly applied pressure. His grip became a vice, crushing the girl's skull. Boom could only scream as the monster gradually murdered her. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Harvey appeared from the front door, charging head long at the monster, lightning-empowered fist held behind him. The beast caught Thunderbolt's hand in its disgusting claws. Harvey stared at the beast in utter horror, unable to even move. Death snapped Harvey's arm like a twig and shoved its clawed hand into the speedster's chest. Blood poured from Harvey's mouth as he turned to look at his dying sister. "Boom." He gurgled. "Boom." The hero repeated, defeat in his eyes. "Wake up."

Boom shot upwards, her hands instantly at her throat. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she fought the urge to scream. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. The young heroine repeated to herself over and over until her heart stopped racing. Laura looked around the warehouse, trying to distract herself from the vivid dream she'd just awoken from. Radiance, Bast and Lyger were all standing around a fallen Lion hybrid. They appeared to be the only other ones still conscious. Boom stood to her feet and quietly joined them, her arms locked around her chest and her eyes staring at the floor. "H-have you guys seen my brother?" She muttered.

---

Marie rose from her momentary sleep, gasping for air. Unfettering her soul from her body was quite the feat, one that she was familiar with, but had never performed under such circumstances. Joseph held her up in case exhaustion took hold. Aside from a few scrapes and bruises, they were both fine.

"You alright?" Joseph's worry was apparent.

"Yeah," Marie responded, a thin smile appearing on her face, flush with embarrassment and excitement. This had taken a lot out of her and she wasn't sure if she'd still be of use to her team in West Virginia. The witches turned to their timely companions, whose names they still did not know.

"H-hey," Marie called out to them.

Hydro felt terrible, he had been beaten in such an embarising fashion. To put it bluntly he had exploded by some masked man. The pain he had not felt in years had taken him by surprise. After he had reformed himself he felt groggy like he had the worst hangover ever. Rubbing his head his body rippled slightly as it regenrated using the moisture in the air. Concentrating he was returned to his original looks his body changing colour to look like his costume.

Flexing his muscles he looked around at the battlefield. The enemy was gone and with them their hostage Racheli. He slammed his fist onto the ground causing a crack to appear as his enlarged fist broke the ground. "God DAMNIT!" His cry of anger was cut short by two people calling to him.

Composing himself he turned to them. Yo. Couldn't of got here any sooner eh?Would have saved me a lot of time and pain if you'd been here while they were still here."

Hydro was not angry these two had at least tried to help. "Names Hydro, superhero, vigilante or just regular joe. What's your names?"

"Joseph Mathers," Joseph responded promptly, hoping to speed things along.

"White Witch," Marie answered in quick succession, unused to giving out her alias. "Joseph and I can take you and your unconscious friend there somewhere safe. You three can regroup and look for whoever that just was."

"Although chances are they aren't where we can search for them." Joseph chimed in. "You felt it, didn't you?" he posed the question to Marie, who nodded.

"The pull of the Otherworld. They've entered the Faerie Realms, there's no way we can track them while they're moving among the Fae, but The Red Devil is your best bet. If nothing else, it's a place where everyone can recover . . . briefly."

Joseph nodded. He turned his back to the group and made for a wall on the underpass. He quickly etched Puck's symbol, which flashed brilliantly and left a large, ornate red door in its wake. "Come with us," he called back to Hydro. "We'll help you look for the girl and her captors."

Gabriel stared in shock at where Racheli had vanished from. He had been right there. Right fucking there, close enough to touch her if he'd just been able to. And he had been able to. Up until everything went to hell with his senses. It should have been impossible- it should have been a breeze to overcome any trouble with his... operating systems, so to speak. But all of a sudden, everything broke down on his sensors, on his interface.

And in the interim, Racheli had been taken. He'd failed. He looked at the pair who had arrived too late. Too late to help, too late to do anything. Fire started kindling in his chest, rising in heat and intensity.

Why? Why hadn't they done anything? Why hadn't they saved her?

He sighed. No, that was the wrong train of thought. He hadn't been able to see past the "static" on his interface. Maybe they had tried to help. Maybe they'd done all they could. It didn't make him feel any better, to be honest, but it would keep him from incinerating something out of anger. His shoulders slumped, all six of them, before four arms disappeared, the power radiating off of him diminishing greatly. He looked toward the portal that had been opened in the air and scoffed. More "magic" bullshit. I'll need to look into this kind of stuff for the future.

He followed them through the ornate door in the air, head still whirling, but now with ideas, rather than shock. He would get his answers. He'd find Racheli.

And he'd make the bastards who tried to take her pay.

Hydro nodded and followed them through the door.

The group passed through the door into another world, or so it seemed. The walls were dusty and antique, the decor ancient, mystical relics from a time long passed, and the denizens a strange mix of beings. Faeries of all shapes and sizes mingling with the few present mortals, filling the tavern with light, laughter, and ethereal splendor; the occassional demon or imp lounging in the dark corners, engaging in heavy drinking and barking obscenities at the dwarves who accompanied them; and a plethora of witches, all entirely unassuming, making their way around the floor, entering into magical contracts on Puck's behalf.

The four of them closed in on the nearest table to the long, winding hallway that led from Puck's dimensional door. Joseph and Marie, being employees at The Red Devil, felt easily at home, though they suspected their mundane companions were less so.

"So," Joseph began, "everything you thought you knew was a lie, the world is full of mystery, magic and the supernatural exist, your wildest dreams are reality, blah blah blah . . ." he trailed off. Marie slapped his shoulder.

"Not the most elegant way of putting it," she interrupted, "but that's the short of it. This place is a haven for the strange and supernatural denizens who either live in Lost Haven, or who do business here. Joseph and I work here. Make yourselves at home, regain your strength, then you can go on about your business." She took Joseph aside, giving the others a chance to adjust.

The slap on his shoulder rippeled through his body. He was a scientist and knew there was more to life then the world he lived in.

"Nice place you got here. Sadly I can't drink or eat any of the things you serve here. Wish I could. It's been a long time since I've had a beer. I miss it."

Hydro looked around at the bar, there were a lot of different creatures here that Hydro couldn't even begin to name. "So what's the plan then?"

Marie sighed. "Well, first I need Joseph for somethine unrelated." She turned to him, hushing her voice. "I need your help with a binding spell."

"You might be too late," a voiced called to them from across the tavern. It had come from Puck, who sauntered down the stairs onto the ground floor. He motioned to the crystal mirror at the far end of the tavern. Upon it, the image of Marie's team was displayed, several members missing and the rest unconscious. "Looks like that Silver Sorceress knocked out the lot of them."

Marie sighed again, this time with greater weight. "Looks like Holt got there too late."

"Speaking of," Joseph spoke up, "where is Holt?"

"I'm here," came an eerie voice, sending a chill down the spines of all mortal denizens. From a collection of shadows, Holt's monstrous visage formed. To those unused to him, a sense of terror might fill their minds at the sight, but both Marie and Joseph where relieved to see that he was alright.

"And it wasn't a complete loss. I stopped the spell from reaching the other team. The one's going after the doctor are still in pursuit."

"Then I'll need to get going. I'll go upstairs and make a mystical aromatic to wake up the team." She turned to Joseph, her eyes heavy. "Please, be careful."

"I will-"

"No," she interrupted, "Listen to me. That chick got the best of you twice. You can't go charging in next time, you can't underestimate her. Don't try to be a hero, if it goes south, you get out. You're more good to me and everyone else alive." She spoke to him with great sincerity. Marie leaned forward, lifted her mask, and kissed Joseph. It was a quick but powerful gesture. Then, she disappeared upstairs.

Puck nudged Joseph and Holt gave him what felt like a cheeky smile. "First romance in 300 years." He teased.

Joseph wore a thin smile on his face as he turned back to Hydro.

"So here's what I'm thinking. So long as the baddies are in the Faerie Realms, we can't track them. I'll have Holt monitor the city for strong magical convergences. Portals tend to cause a disturbance in this world. In the mean time, maybe you can catch me up on what's happening. I sort of stumbled into the kidnapping and I've no idea what's going on."

"Well keep me up to date. I want to know the moment that they're back on earth realm. Or whatever you want to call it. I have some payback to dish out!" Hydro clenched his fists angrily, he would wipe the floor with that masked man he wouldn't be so reckless this time.

"Ah that reminds me, Ga- I mean Icarus gave me the run down on this Racheli character. Basically a company called Gene Co found out that a virus they had discovered. An alien virus mind you and it escaped them. Jumping from host to host until it finally found Racheli. She's turning into a bio computer fairly slowly mind you but the rate of the virus's mutation will probably increase.

Her senses, abilities and many more are enhancing at a rapid rate of progression, far more than she can understand or accept really. And that's the nitty gritty of it.

"It's worse than that," said Gabriel, voice dangerously quiet. He looked up at the assembled trio of metahumans, glaring behind his visor. He crossed his arms, conveying his anger.

"I told you it was an alien virus because that was the quick explanation. The truth is that it's something much, much more dangerous. What Racheli is fused with is the same thing I'm fused with. I call them Phylacteries. They're a type of alien nanotechnology of unknown origin, but what I do know is that they are capable of defying the laws of physics as we know them. What's more, is that they get even more powerful when they bond to a host that can direct their abilities."

He began to pace, his tone growing progressively more heated. "The device bonded to Racheli, much like the one bonded to me, is progressively transforming her into something beyond human. Beyond human understanding, even. When the bonding process is complete, she'll be able to change shape, form, and even abilities as easily as you change clothes. She'll be nearly impregnable to any form of weaponry aside from another Phylactery, and she'll still be able to repair herself from any damage that does get inflicted. She'll have enough power at her fingertips to casually wipe Lost Haven off the map, and maybe make a week of it by incinerating the entire eastern seaboard.

"And that is the power that the four of us let fall into the hands of GeneCo and their ilk." He glared at the other three, each in turn.

"Care to guess what they might do with that power if they find a way to reverse-engineer it? This isn't just about your rivalry with whoever that... woman was that took Racheli, anymore. This is the possibility of the end of life as we know it. So I'd like some goddamn input on how to get my friend and responsibility back before I'm forced to put her down like a dog, since out of all of us, I'm the only one equipped to do so."

He breathed deeply, clenching and unclenching his hands. "Excuse me a moment. I have to go make a call." And with that, he walked a fair distance away from the others, tilting his head. Daedalus. Call Justine. I need her caught up to speed. And Racheli will trust her more than she trusts me at the moment.

acknowledged. do try and calm down, sir. you won't solve anything by getting upset.

No promises, he answered sullenly as his "phone" began to ring. Hopefully she would answer- he'd need all the help he could get for dealing with all of this "magic" tomfoolery.

Joseph shuddered at the thought, but he wouldn't be yelled at by some metal stranger.

"It's not like we just let her go," he replied to Gabriel's long speech, "and besides, it wasn't my mission to begin with, I just happened upon all of you, and lucky someone with magical knowledge stumbled across that little scene else you two would have no defense against it." He began to pace around the table.

"What's on your mind, kiddo?" chimed Puck from behind the bar, mixing up some strange drinks with ancient spirits - the alcoholic kind - and listening in to Joseph and Hyrdro's conversation. Nothing got past Puck.

"You're pacing again, it's making me nervous."

Joseph sighed, "I don't know how to handle this." He spoke loud enough for both Puck and Hydro to hear. "Once we find Racheli, then what? That faery chick packs a punch and she got to me twice, and who knows what other friends they've got at their lair." He continued pacing, turning back to Hydro and Gabriel to strategize.

"Got any ideas?"

The figure dressed in the cloak found his attention being drawn to the fact that the individual identified as "Joseph" was pacing back and forth and when that happened, it was a surefire sign that something was weighing heavily on said individual's mind.

He sat up a little straighter in his chair as he felt now was as good a time as any to speak up. He cleared his throat so as to get the other people's attention, "Um, excuse me? Hi there, name's Evergreen, I'm the new guy in town?" He pulled off his hood to reveal the green eye mask covering the better part of his face and the white hair looked more akin to rose petals as he scanned the faces around him, hoping his appearance didn't upset any of them too much.

"My apologies for interrupting, but I felt I might also like to offer my assistance too? I...I don't want to boast but I feel my abilities might be of use to you all?" He held up his hand...only for it to suddenly be covered in green moss and bloom out into a large blue rose. "My power is basically Plant Manipulation. If it's connected to plants in some way, I can control i. If you want I could drop a load of watermelons the size of minivans on someone's head each with the density of a wrecking ball..."

He looked around, "Anybody here play that game, Plants Vs Zombies? It's a bit like that..."

Oh geez, he hated the idea of showing off and yet here he was doing it. "If you give me a bit of time I can get together a few of my tree friends and make us a small army of tree beasts and maybe one of my giant venus flytraps..or some clones...and then we could go to town. I could probably distract the forces from the front while one of you goes in the back and do what needs to be done."

He scratched his head, "Though if you want a more subtle approach, I could probably use my plant sonar...just don't expect anything amazing in terms of intel and stuff...ok, I've said my piece..." He sat back, now looking a bit awkward at having spoken up, "Don't worry though, whatever you guys decide, I'm with you all the way." This part he actually managed to speak with some level of assurance.

Oh geez, he hoped he hadn't screwed up his first impressions already.

Joseph eyed the newcomer, as did a few of the patrons who happened to be near. Most of them were Otherworldly, uninterested in the affairs of mortals. Evergreen's pop-culture reference went unnoticed to all but the witches of the tavern, none of whom, save Joseph, were paying attention to the group.

"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into . . . Evergreen was it? You'd be dealing with a powerful Fae sorceress who could likely hijack your plant creations. Do you have any experience dealing with magic?"

Evergreen took a moment to ruffle the white petals that made up his hair as he tried to ponder the appropriate answer, "A good point...but diverting one's attention between so many creations can be difficult, I speak from experience so there has to be a limit to what she can do. She'd have to both divert her attention AND contend with my own force of will. and if it helps, my...my body is not one would call normal. If I can get close enough to her, I could probably take her on in hand to hand combat, regardless of whether she can control my friends or not..."

He put up a hand before anyone could say anything, "And I'll admit, I may not be as experienced as you all are...and to be honest, I understand your reservations. I've done my research, Fae are very dangerous and they see humans as little more than playthings. I'm sorry...but I can't just stand by and do nothing while one of them causes innocent people to suffer...and as for magic? Well...I guess what my...employer...did to give me my power technically counts as magic..."

He shook his head, "I've got a way to protect myself from the magic of the Fae..." He then leaned in while bringing his voice down to a whisper so that any Fae nearby wouldn't hear, "My research showed that Fae hate iron with a passion. As long as you have a piece on you, their magic can't touch you. I don't know how effective it'll be against a high-tier Fae sorceress...but at the very least it'll give some protection."

Joseph held up his right hand, displaying the iron ring he had enchanted earlier that day. "I came prepared as well, but that didn't stop her and her friends fro wreacking havoc on my mind. I won't turn down the help, just don't be surprised by anything she throws at you."

He turned back to Hydro and Gabriel. "You down for some more help?"

Hydro sighed sadly. "My greatest strength is my greatest weakness. I can't carry things on me really. I suppose if you injected me with iron fillings or dust that would work but I can't really haul around bits of iron, as the moment i change my body it'll slip through me. But more people would help greatly!"

"Hey," an ethereal voice broke up their chatter. Shadows collected to form Holt's monstrous image. "I've scouted the city and there's a strong connection forming to the Otherworld not far from here."

"I'll bet that's them," Joseph replied, "do you know where?"

Holt shook his head, or he made a gesture that resembled shaking his head. "I can't be sure, it's collecting over a large area. I can get us close, but it won't be exact."

"It'll have to do." Joseph replied resolutely. "Looks like we're in business," he turned his attention to his motley crew. They were an interesting collection of folks. A witch-boy, a tin man, a walking puddle, and a plant man. They all stood up and headed for the door that had brought them there. Holt took the lead. He whispered something incoherent to the door. Puck's sigil began to spin and shine, and the door swung open, revealing a dark alley of Lost Haven.

Evergreen sighed as he looked outwards at their destination. He was nervous, even a little afraid...but if there was one thing he had learned from comics is that true courage came from acknowledging your fear but moving forward anyways. He looked to the sides of him, seeing he was amongst fellow heroes and that lifted his spirits.

He would do all he could to ensure this whole ordeal had a happy ending. "Well then...what you say we go kick some Fae butt and get your friend back?"

Just across the way lie the Cowl's Ironworks. Outside, there were numerous black cars and men in suits, likely heavily armed. The collection of armed men around the building suggested that they were suspecting a fight, either from external forces or Racheli herself. It would be difficult to enter with Cowl's forces blocking all possible entrances. For now, all they could do was wait and hope that the odds didn't shift even further out of their favor.

Eight Days Before

For days, the leaden sky which menacingly loomed over them, notwithstanding their steady motion - truth be told, at a velocity which would be deemed unacceptably low whence they had come, owing to the unfamiliar driving practices with which most visiting continentals were constrained to come to grips - across the rather bleak landscape, had failed to deliver upon its threat of precipitation, which might have prompted them to jot down a note concerning the matter of “dispelling popular misconceptions about...”, had they been ever so rash in making assumptions (which they were) and actually interested in such an endeavour (which they were not). Notwithstanding the lack of sociological aspirations, they had unanimously concluded that the much-reviled Albionic climate might be better, or at least could not be quite so much worse than the only one they had hitherto known.

“Weren’t you thinking the same?” Johannes inquired, without, however, turning to face his companion.
“What?” the latter listlessly replied, in a tone dulled by a lengthy period of sitting and gazing before himself. One could, of course, argue that he had not been effectively doing anything beyond that, but that would probably elicited little more than genuine incomprehension.
“I say, that it has rained the entire time we were in Germany since we left, and some days before that, but not for a single hour while we have been here.”
“And Belgium.”
“What?”
“It’s also rained in Belgium.”
“Not in France, though.”
“A bit after the border, it did. What were you saying there, again?”
“No, I was saying, it seems to rain less here than in Germany, doesn’t it?”
“Could be. I think it also depends on the season. Don’t you remember we had a completely dry summer in Thüringen?”
“But that’s Thüringen.”

Having thus apparently exhausted their stimulating conversational subject, the pair finally exchanged a weary glance, then simultaneously turned backwards for a brief moment and eyed the sleeping Nejat with a hint of envy. The third member of their diminutive party lay all but sprawled on the back seat of the slightly battered automobile, amid rucksacks and satchels of varying sizes and colours, leaning toward the less tasteful end of the spectrum, with his feet a mere few inches away from resting upon an already abundantly scratched suitcase. His fellow-travellers found this all the more outrageous as he had not in the least contributed to their progress through virtually half of the (semi)continent, nor to the journey from Dover to Southampton, and yet was able to blissfully slumber for a length of time which would have put a sloth to shame, whereas neither Johannes, who steered the unreasonably crammed vehicle, nor Turan, who attempted to navigate their way by cycling through a series of maps, with the predictable result of frequently driving them to meander in such parts as they would never have dreamt of visiting, were able to enjoy a night’s rest without spinning about and repeatedly rising to raise or lower the blinds for some two hours beforehand. The final pause before the ferry boarding could have finally allowed them some respite before nearly a week of struggling against sea-sickness, yet even now they seemed to be unable to do anything but trade inconsequential remarks concerning the weather. How else could it be? The topic of their preliminary plans was already spent, and it was as yet too early to begin actually pondering their execution.

All of a sudden, a rap against the glass by his head startled Johannes from the slumber he had been, in spite of all, drifting into. Not a little irritated, he lowered it and turned to face the whiskered countenance of the customs officer peering from beyond it.
“What is it, my good man?” he asked, not immediately realising that his impromptu usage of a rather colloquial expression had yielded a potentially offensive result. Not that it would have concerned him, but it was somewhat embarrassing for being unintended.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man began quite civilly, probably not being altogether inexperienced in interacting with foreigners, “Your vehicle looks like it might be exceeding the weight limit.” Was its crammed state quite so visible? Most likely. Meanwhile, the boarding queue was beginning to move forth - and they were being detained by this overly zealous, or thus it seemed to him, fellow.
“I assure you that we have passed all necessary controls. Here, we have these tickets they give there. Turan, do you...”
But Turan had drifted away into a tranquil slumber. Curse him, could he think of no better moment? Johannes began hastily rooting through the sheaf of various printed pages - mostly maps - in his lap. Where could he have buried them? Before them, the path onto the vessel was now empty. Ah, that was quite enough. No more of this nonsense.

“Sir, do you have the...”
Johannes abruptly turned toward the mustachioed intruder and, gazing fixedly into his eyes, which made him stagger back in surprise, theatrically raised his right hand, with the palm stretched outwards. This gesture was functionally unnecessary, but what was life without a little flavour? He focused his mental energies upon the figure before him and, almost envisioning the outline of its psychic nucleus, hurled at it a brief sequence of visions - nothing especially astounding, but enough to serve their purpose.



The man staggered, flailing his arms as though he had suddenly lost his sight and were attempting to clutch it before it flew away. Failing to grasp any solid object, he nearly collapsed, but was able to moderate his fall by crouching with what seemed to be a supreme effort. After about a minute, the expression of his eyes grew slightly less wild, and he saw that the potentially overloaded automobile had already vanished beyond the ascension ramp. Rising totteringly to his full height, he waved reassuringly at the other drivers, who were looking at him with some concern, and moved toward his position with quivering steps.

Aboard the ship, Johannes smiled to himself with a hint of triumph. Petty, admittedly, but was life not likewise composed of simple pleasures? His mouth still set in its twisted shape, he let his thoughts hasten forwards. Soon, he would have crossed the ocean, and then the true merriment would begin. A world of adventure lay ahead.

Present Time

Despite their resolution to set off as early as possible, which in itself was a definition vague enough to warrant a reasonable degree of abuse, it was almost noon when the trio finally drove out of Brooklyn. It was not that they had been detained by the city’s graces, as they had devoted the entire previous day to the exploration of the latter - or at least as large a section of them as could be covered within such a period - and decided they had had quite enough of them. Rather, it was a combination of their own natural disinclination to rise early, compounded by habit, and the issue of the time zone shift they had experienced, which, though gradual enough not to significantly disrupt their self-sustenance routine, was proving a slight nuisance. The sum of these afflictions caused Johannes to perceive himself as, yet again, fairly tired, despite having been on his feet for a mere hour; this last concessive factor was, for him, a source of vague background irritation, which he strove to quell as he squinted in a vain attempt not to be blinded by the radiance he would probably have to face for the best part of the journey.

Thus far, the New World had not yielded all the excitement it had seemed to promise. True, the city they had just departed from was far larger than anything they had ever hitherto encountered, even more than their hazy conceptions of it, based as they were largely upon the rare “conventional” motion picture, had led them to believe, and with internal variety to match; however, it was not all they had hoped it would be. It ought to have been the threshold of the prodigious new reality rendered accessible to them by Johannes’s unexpected, to say the least, “empowering” experience, yet it was nothing more than a city. An impressive specimen of the sort, certainly, but a mere city nonetheless, not quite, all things considered, so different from Berlin - a city where people struggled and rested, worked and loitered, slept and walked, loved and loathed, lived their more or less ordinary lives and (usually) died. In short, nothing interesting. If there was something markedly unusual afoot somewhere, they had neither seen nor heard of it. Then again, this was, after all, merely the beginning, and a beginning was not necessarily a sample of what the future held. A beginning could very well be ordinary and unassuming, and what would come would seem all the more striking after it.

Presently, the landscape seemed to be inclined to encourage the latter possibility. After nearly two hours of monotonous highway-side sights, a poorly maintained sign designating "New Sardis" had directed Johannes into a minor road, seemingly distinct from the main inlets into Rhode Island - presumably, a sort of sanctioned shortcut. The latter’s surroundings, having retained the previous uniformity for some miles, gradually developed into a region of gently sloping hills, whose grassy sides began, after a while, to bristle with increasingly dark thickets. Soon the road became similar to a lost path running amidst wooded eminences, beset by green tides and obtrusive bushes and flanked by the occasional stream. Johannes was mystified. He did not recall seeing such a verdant patch upon any map, no more than he had, up to that point, been aware of a deviation toward New Sardis specifically – which was strange in itself, as the city was by no means close to the highway he had just left. Judging by their subduedly surprised comments, his companions were no less puzzled than him. He began to experience some hints of apprehension. There was something subtly wrong, for want of a better word, with this place. The patches of darkness beneath the distant trees began to seem to him unaccountably large and deep, and the hills gave the imression of being about to quietly slither forth and bar their way, leaving them trapped in some encroaching demi-monde of creeping fright.

Just then, Nejat exclaimed from behind him, pointing at a rivulet which had grown to a respectable size as they progressed along its course: “Look there! How did that thing even get in? It’s got to be as broad as the steam itself!” “What’s that?” Johannes inquired, without averting his gaze from the road ahead. “There was one big beast – fish or something. There’s it again! Ey, looks like it’s following us.” Johannes cast a swift glance in the direction Nejat was indicating and saw that, beneath the running water’s surface, there appeared for an instant a shadow whose size he could, in that moment, only think of as monstrous. It was truly a wonder how the creature, if indeed it was not a log or other piece of woodland debris, not only contrived not to empty the stream merely by being contained in it, but was even able to remain submerged as it moved. This was anything but reassuring, and he frowned as he accelerated slightly, eager to be parted with this region as soon as he could.

Finally, the hills came to an end, and all those aboard the automobile breathed more or less audible sighs of relief. It was, however, not long before the landscape treated them to yet another unleasant surprise. While at one side of the road there stretched the customary fields, at the other there lay a sight of ghastly desolation. For as far as they could see the soil was arid and barren, of a hideous grayish-yellow hue. A light breeze raised small motes of dust from the blasted surface, and bore them swirling among the irregular mounds and discolored rocks, small fissures and the few, sparsely placed skeletal shrubs. It conveyed an impression of brooding hostility, as though the land were inhabited by a malevolent genius whose slumber threatened to be disrupted at any moment. Soon there arose upon the horizon in that direction a grim black structure, too distant to be properly discerned but visibly vast in size and menacing in appearance. Despite resembling an industrial construction of sorts, not a plume of smoke was to be seen above its sable ramparts. After a bend in the road, it vanished from sight, and they finally came in sight of their journey’s final objective.

At first, the city was but an indistinct gray stain upon their sight. As they approached, however, it progressively acquired distinct contours, coming to resemble a somewhat oddly-shaped crown. Over a mass of low, staid buildings there jutted a number of anachronistically shimmering spires, among whom, even surpassing the least ambitious of them in size, throned a pointed tower of stone, resembling the calcified tusk of some primeval leviathan. Over the scene there hung an indecisive ashen sky, upon whose canvas one could discern neither cloud nor sun. The sight was somewhat unwelcoming and eerie, not altogether unlike the hills, and Johannes once again began to feel subtly disquieted. This time, however, the sensation was but transitory, and entirely faded as they drove into the suburbs and began making their way through a diminutive maze of winding, occasionally shoddily paved streets.

This last phase of the voyage was, it was unanimously agreed, much too lengthy for everyone’s taste, but eventually the ingress to the street they were seeking, despite being concealed by some misplaced refuse bins, was discovered, and the crew pulled to a halt before the squat, rather ungainly contraption they would presently have to call home. As they were clambering out of the vehicle stretching their limbs to dissipate the stasis-induced numbness, the front door opened, and a portly, shabbily dressed man with receding hair and a ruddy countenance came forth to meet them. “Hullo, hullo” he greeted, in a tone perhaps too eager to be truly welcoming, “I take it you’re Mr. Shmit? I’m Harries, much pleased to meet you. You’ll be wanting the keys…” “Yes, of course. Might we have a look around first?” Johannes interrupted, perhaps somewhat curtly. Harries rapidly nodded and led his visitors through a sequence of dim, dusty and in places somewhat damp rooms, a few of them furnished with slightly decrepit wooden (or simil-wooden, it was quite difficult to discern) articles, all the while extolling the habitation’s not always immediate virtues. After some confabulation with Turan and Nejat, Johannes reassured him of their willingness to conclude the transaction, and, after some arrangements and a set of keys had been traded, the portly man hurried away with a distinctly relieved expression, which was, however, not heeded.

Johannes cast what he intended to be an appreciative glance about himself, moved a few steps back and forth and, turning to the nearest window, spoke words which, though known to all those present, struck him as appropriate in that circumstance. “Now, we wait.”

“You better stay with our incapacitated allies.” Chris responded to the White Witch’s question about which team she should now assist. “I have faith that Team Two can handle themselves. And even if they do need some help, Icon is on his way back.”

Chris leaned back in his chair. This little operation against Doctor Diplodoc could have gone better, although at the same time it could have taken a turn for the worse. Nevertheless, it seemed like they were approaching the end of this tunnel. The domes have been dismantled. The doctor’s allies have been subdued. All they needed to do was take down the brains of this nationwide threat.

“You might also want to tend to their non-magically caused injuries. I bet that you could mend them up faster than we could get emergency personal down there to administer medical care. Radiance did not look good when I briefly saw her last and I didn’t need to see Bast to know how beat up she is.”

When he mentioned Bast’s condition, a chill went down Chris’ spine. Since all of the heroes had commlinks, he had the unfortunate displeasure of hearing what was happening. Chris felt helpless as he listened because there was nothing he could do to help. Everyone in the first team had been either incapacitated or had been rushed back to Sherman Center by Thunderbolt. He could have commanded someone from the second team to come to the rescue, but it would take time for whoever was sent to find Bast.

Boom’s voice then redirected Chris back to what was going on in West Virginia. She was the second hero, behind Lyger, to come out of the Silver Sorceress’ enchantment. The hysterical woman was worried about where her brother was, probably due to what she saw in the spell-induced nightmare.

“I’m sure he’s fine. He has been rushing people out of there last I saw him.” Chris tried to calm her over their commlinks.

Before they could advance forward in order to take down Doctor Diplodoc, Team Two heard news that the first team had run into some trouble. In a last ditch effort, the Silver Sorceress had unleashed a spell that placed anyone who were within the blast radius in a trance in which the individual would experience their nightmares as if they were real. While it appeared that someone or something had dampened the effects of the spell so that only Team One was affected, it still left several individuals incapacitated.

“I hate to admit it, but I think that we need to let White Witch and the others take care of Team One. Unless anyone here have any relevant powers that none of us know about, we need to move on.”

“Couldn’t agree more. That way’s a battle, this way’s the war. We take this guy down, we take the fight out of them. We’ve wasted enough time already.” The black-clad Vigilante yelled behind him to the others, already rushing headlong to the next fight and the man behind all the drama. A regular human, surrounded by those with powers and the only other regular human owning a ridable mystical tentacle creature; Isaac had little doubt the others would catch up. He just knew he had to keep his team moving.

The Beast Dickens that Eva had brought with her was stumped, he had no inkling as to where the other pillow girl had gone she vanished in a puff of smoke as it were. As the rest of the team tried to figure what the hell was going on topside they knew pressing forward was the right thing to do as the Doctor was waiting and would continue activating his domes if unimpeded. As his master Eva followed behind the team with Icon taking his leave to deal with the Domes in another way after Iron Knight had a theory to deal with them; Dickens found the cramped hallways too wide for his current massive frame and begun shrinking until he was roughly the size of a large wolf, big enough to carry a single person with ease.

”Righty then. Since that Effigy thing was recalled or some such, who else thinks Doctor Diplodoc has something quite nasty up ahead for us? That and every cartoon I’ve ever watched had some big battle at the Boss’s base.”

“Hey, don’t jinx us! We have already run into a few obstacles. Why ask for more?” Kelly responded to Eva’s comment.

“Hope for the best, expect the worst. If you thought we were going to shut this clown down without a fight, then you’re kidding yourself. Not everything we do gets solved with our fists, but this one… kind of had it written all over it.”

Now in agreement, the heroes followed Vigilante down the corridor, which would lead to where Doctor Diplodoc was waiting for the heroes. While the heroes continued down this hallway, they found that the corridor was filled with several doors that lead to rooms filled with equipment, but devoid of any people.

After they searched through several of these rooms, they stumbled upon an opened door. Inside the room, a large man sat in a swivel chair, looking at a computer monitor that read ‘Upload Completed’. When the man heard footsteps from behind him, he did not bother to turn around in his chair. Instead, he looked behind himself by bending his neck around so that his head was facing behind himself.

“I was wondering when you all would find me.” Doctor Diplodoc said as he pivoted his chair around so that his body would line up with his neck as the chair spun around. “While I know that you all have an affinity for violence, I’m sure we can come to some sort of solution without giving one another concussions. And I will make it easy on you all by waving the metaphorical white flag.”

”One question, before you up and surrender. I mean it’s grand and all. I kinda expected something worse really, I kinda get your reasoning, I do. I live in a world where people can fly and shoot beams out of their bloody eyes. Why force this on people?”

“Why?” The doctor began to answer Eva’s question, “Well, if you recall my little broadcast, because it had to be done. As you said, we live in a world filled with people who can fly and shoot beams out of their eyes. For humanity to survive, it must adapt.”

“What can a regular human do against a demon invasion? What about that group of metahuman serial killers that has been taunting S.T.R.I.K.E. for the past few months? What about that strange entity that attacked a police station and required the combined strength of Icon and some other heroes? As these events makes it evident that the answer is a resounding no.”

“And what about that one ally of yours that took out my devices, which were cloaked with magic? Archangel, I believe that was her name. Considering what she did to my devices, I would not be surprised if she could take any of us out with a flip of a switch. And you’re more concerned with me?”

Eva knew he wasn’t wrong, sure she only was aware of this Demon Invasion, after all the news was in a frenzy during the incident. But she also was personally aware how painful being unable to chose for yourself what you wish to do is. Freedom of Choice defined this Country and it needed to prevail above all else.”I’m concerned with personal freedoms, I lack the powers that other heroes have, I’m not a meta, mutant or alien with astounding powers; I’ve had my life dictated to me ever since I was born, I wasn't even allowed to chose what I wore. And you’re mutating people with anything from flight to full on animal parts. Forcing this change isn’t going to help anyone, it’s just going to create more crime, hate and violence as people begin to reject and rebel against society.”

“I’m sure you have heard the phrase don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And you can see the fruits of my work standing beside you.” The doctor gestured to Arachne, Raptor, and the Wasp. “They seem to have turned out to be law-abiding citizens, if you ignore their vigilantism.”

_{“I think we all know I’m not the least bit bothered by that…”} Isaac grumbled to himself.

“And you all did a jolly good job at preventing my plans.” Doctor Diplodoc leaned back in his chair, “Your so-called ‘Archangel’ blew up several of my devices that were designed to shield prisons and other similar facilities from my mutagenic domes. Because of your interference, you could have unleashed countless superhuman convicts. And let’s not talk about the device that you all dropped into the Atlantic Ocean. You have singlehandedly either crashed the Atlantic fish market or created an even more dastardly means of spreading my serum.”

“Listen, Looney Tunes,” Isaac barked, clearly having enough, “Where do you think that metahuman serial killer came from? You prevented known convicted criminals from getting powers, but what about those who hadn’t been caught yet? What about last month’s riots? Regular people. You want to see what kind of destruction a bunch of riled up metas could do? You’re looking at a bunch of people who were victims of terrorism and your answer is giving everyone a random weapon of mass destruction.” Isaac spat with contempt.

“I don’t have powers. I don’t have a magical sword. So why do you think I’m here?” He paused for effect. “Right now I know the biggest gun in the fight, and Boy Blue fights on the side of the angels. I’m fine with the status quo. And you want to shuffle the deck and hope some psychopath doesn’t wind up a royal flush. Great plan, genius.”

“You obviously delusional enough to believe that a normal person like youself can stand among gods.” the long necked doctor dismissed Vigilante’s comments. “I can also tell that you possess a half-glass empty mentality. Sometimes, risks are necessary for preventing worse calamities. But I guess that you think we should rely your misfit band of heroes who have butted heads with one another more than fighting me.”

“I think I have already spoken enough.” Doctor Diplodoc told the heroes. “So, unless you all have anything else to add, I suppose it is time for you to metaphorically read me my rights.”

He then reached down to his wristband and deactivated it, causing him to shrink down to a regular human. His white lab coat the clothes he wore under that now dwarfed him now in his unpowered state. After he deactivated his powers, he extended out his arms out in front of him, as if he was waiting for someone to cuff his wrists.’

“Even though you all might have ultimately stopped my plans, I can still cling to the fact that I did not lose.” The doctor gave a smug smile to the heroes as he hinted that, even though the domes were dispersed, people were still affected by it.

“Even though you all might have ultimately stopped my plans, I can still cling to the fact that I did not lose.” The doctor gave a smug smile to the heroes as he hinted that, even though the domes were dispersed, people were still affected by it.

"And we'll be here to help those people. Icon said as he stepped into Dr. Diplodoc's lair, after returning to the site after dispersing the domes. "You may think that you've won, that you've achieved your goals, but I want you to know that you didn't. There are people out there right now, already working to cure the people that you violated with these domes."

Icon looked at the two most outspoken members of the team, Pendragon and Vigilante. He had been able to hear their exchange with the Doctor as he had approached them, and he knew that both had been spot on in their assessments.

"They were right." Icon said motioning to the two heroes. "Escalating a metahuman arms race is not the answer to any of the world's problems. Especially when you take away a person's ability to choose their own destiny. I want you to know that your plan failed Dr. Diplodoc, because we were here to stop it. Just like we will be if you, or anyone else were to ever try something like this again."

The night darkened. Grass and trees gave way to dense forest, spanning miles out from the coils of highway that led into the city. She slowed when she realized how lonely it all was. The stars couldn’t reach her through the canopy overhead, muffled into a polite glow as they peeked through the leaves. There was no set path ahead, only dense underbrush that was effortlessly trampled as she passed.

Tyler would be afraid in her situation. He would be miles from home, lost in unfamiliar wilderness. But GE-04 had no home, and everywhere was unfamiliar. All she could do was wander on and hope she found...something. She didn’t know what she was looking for, or if she was searching at all. The only emotions she’d ever known were anger and confusion, and all she knew at the moment was that those feelings were bad. Was there an opposite end of the emotional spectrum, a hidden goodness, tucked away somewhere in the forest? If she found it, would she recognize it?

She came across a cabin, after a while. It was an unrecognizable mass in the shadows when she first approached, squat and mossy as she grew closer. It didn’t look overly run-down, and when she smashed through the door, her feet met plush, vacuumed carpet. A deer head above the fireplace fixed her with a judicial gaze.

“What the hell was that?” A female voice came from one of the closed doors down the hall. “Oh my god, Jason, it’s not a bear is it? No, don’t--” A man appeared in the hall, his eyes snapping to GE-04’s form instantly.

The light from the open door illuminated the panic in his eyes. “Oh, god. Oh, god, please.” His eyes darted down, to GE-04’s cuffed wrists, then back up to her visored face. For her part, she froze, save for drawing her hands up close to her chest, anxious he’ll pull a gun out of nowhere and shoot her like the others.

The woman came out of the room, exuding a steady stream of fear. “Jason, what--oh jesus christ!” She grabbed her husband’s arm and tugged him into the room before slamming the door. GE-04 wandered deeper into the cabin, broke down the door the couple had escaped behind, and was met with an empty room and an open window. Driven by some odd curiosity, she stepped to the window and peered out. A truck came screeching into view, driving away from the cabin and down the dirt road behind it. They were gone.

GE-04 slept on the carpet by the fireplace.

_{White hands. Pale white hands. White hands that touched and pulled. Pulled arms and legs. Stretched out, stretching, pressing, prodding. White room. White hands, white faces, red hands, red table, shining red, new white hands, new red, new red, new red. Clean. White legs. White table. Clean now. Clean. White hands. Brown skin.}

It was still dark outside when she awoke. She sat up slowly, drinking in the quiet around her, and took a moment to examine her cuffs. She lifted her hands and craned her neck, regarding them from different angles. The one on her right wrist was dented, and the thick, short piece of metal that connected the cuffs seemed just slightly twisted. Gingerly, she rotated her forearms to twist it further. Jittery shocks of pain crawled up her arms until it reached her eyes, forcing her to stop and fall back to the floor, gritting her teeth until the excruciating spasms faded away.

Her face scrunched up and she drew her knees to her chest. Now that she was alone, tears fell freely down her face. It was like choking without dying, sucking in desperate breaths she knew she didn’t need. Her quiet sobs ruined the silence, and she stifled them by biting down on her hand with enough force to cut steel cables.

The gurgling of her stomach drew her out of her fetal position. It was worse than before. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for a well-placed bag of Cheetos, maybe a sprinkler on the ceiling. No such luck. She wandered around the den for a while, lifting the furniture and investigating the floor beneath it, sniffing around the hallway and in the adjacent rooms, before she finally stopped in the kitchen, scouring Tyler’s memories for where she could get food in a cabin like this.

She ripped the doors off every cabinet, most empty, before finding a colorful box of cereal. It wasn’t Cheetos, but she didn’t have very discerning tastes anyway. She ate on the roof, where she could see the stars better, and left the empty box on the porch. After a few more minutes of searching, she scavenged a pack of ‘hot dogs’ from the fridge. They were cold and slimy. She decided she didn’t like hot dogs, though ate the whole pack just to be sure.

The hunger was gone now, leaving her to focus on the bad feelings. She stared at her cuffs, willing them to explode into useless pieces. Tyler knew much more than she did. He had to know how to free her, but kept his knowledge hidden because he wanted her to suffer. She would have to free herself, somehow. She couldn’t trust anyone else--they were too weak.

Mortis arrived at the city of Lost Haven. Traveling there had cost him much of his magic and as he lay in the crypt meditating he formulated his plan. He could feel the pull of his Phylactery now it whispered to him in the silence of the crypt clawing at his being, wanting to be found. He rose his strength returning to him as the ritual was complete. He cast his eyes over the darkness around him he could easily see the handcarved coffins within was the bodies of those long since dead.

His fingers trailed across the coffins these were the places that Mortis loved to visit. The next best thing would be death in action right in front of him. What he would give for another world war. His strength as he strode the battlefield during those war was breathtaking. Not that he needed to breath. The memories of the fun he had during those days distracted him from the flashlight and gun aimed at his back, a security guard for the crypt had snuck up on him when he had been reminiscing the old days.

“Hands up buddy. No funny buisness. This crypt is off limits to civilians. Family members only and you’re no family member I’d recognise you.”

Mortis turned around slowly his robes swirling beneath his feet. The guards confident body language changed as he saw Mortis’s face. “Duh-Duh-Don’t move. I know how to use this thing.”

Mortis regarded the man with disdain. ”I’m certain you do. However mere bullets will do little damage to me” Mortis swiftly closed in on the man who fired his gun into Mortis’s chest. Grabbing the man by the throat he lifted him off the ground staring into his terrified face.

With his free hand he gestured towards the crypt the sound of coffins opening echoed in the confines of the crypt. Ten corpses shuffled out of their confines and stared at Mortis, eyes full of hunger. These were simple zombies, infected with magic a single bite which if left untreated would transform the infected into a mindless zombie hungry for flesh. Tossing the man into them they pounced on him with surprising reflexes tearing at him with their rotting teeth. The man’s screams were like symphony to Mortis who clicked his fingers once the man had stopped screaming. He waited for a moment and the dead man's corpse got to its feet looking at him expectantly.

This area wouldn’t work for a laboratory. Too many people came here. Leaving the crypt his newly created zombies followed him. Finding a deserted house on the outskirts of Lost Haven he began to set up his laboratory, here he would create the army he needed and with that army he would march upon the house and the person who held his Phylactery. It was a little overkill but he would take no chances. As he prepared his equipment he began his work. These zombies would make perfect ghouls and would allow him to gather more bodies, either by grave robbing or by picking people of the streets.

Smiling again he looked at the equipment he had set up on the table and began….

Gabriel tapped his foot as the dial tone sounded in his head, anxious to get over with a conversation he was certain he wasn’t going to enjoy. He sighed as he thought about Justine’s reaction to her friend’s capture- this was going to be a long day. The other line suddenly picked up, and Justine answered. Gabriel took a deep breath. Here goes nothing...

“Justine, it’s Gabriel. Icarus, whatever… Listen. The people who kidnapped Rach got away. Some kind of portal, or something, I didn’t see clearly. Somehow they shorted out all my systems before they made a break for it. Anyway, I need your help in finding her. The people who have her are bad news, and I can’t just leave her in their hands.”

Over the phone came the wail of sirens, ambulance, with the warbling of police and fire. Justine stood off to the side, for the moment powered down and in her plainclothes. Around her neck hung the lanyard with her press pass on it, and one finger was pressed to her ear, the phone was entertaining the other. “I got your text but by the time I got here LHPD was on-scene,[/color]” she said over the noise. “ I’ve been trying to get some answers out of these guys but they just keep stonewalling me. I guess press credentials only go so far.” She took that moment to shift away from more of the noise. “Your tech is better than anything I’ve got. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. - What can you tell me?” The words flowed quickly but calmly. Her mind was working overtime, but to find information, and solutions, rather than panicking about her friend. That’d come later. This had been the week from hell already.

Gabe wasn’t high on her list of favorites by the tone of her voice, but for now… she certainly couldn’t afford to be hostile or turn him away. There were other players in the field. It wasn’t his fault. There had been unexpected variables.

Gabriel took a breath, rubbing his temples with his fingers. ”Not much, I admit. From what information I’ve been able to review so far, someone had infiltrated the convoy before we took off from the CDC. I know the client in question who likely perpetrated this little coup- GeneCo. Apparently they were the ones in possession of Racheli’s Phylactery before she got it, and now they want it back. The perpetrators were… unusual. From what I can infer, one of them was a metahuman who could project electronic interference- powerful stuff, too, enough to obfuscate even some of my sensors.” He paused for a moment before continuing, trying to describe the next part in a way that didn’t sound absolutely insane.

”The other one… well, there’s really no other way to describe this- she was some sort of… magician.” He rubbed the forehead of his helmet, exasperated. ”She had these traps around the drop site that could bypass even my strongest metaphysical defenses like they weren’t even there. And the short-out I had at the very end of the confrontation, before I could get to Rach, might have been due to the same circumstances. I can overcome them, but not without a lot of effort. And they affect me a lot worse than normal meta powers. If that’s not magic, then…”

He paused again, rolling his eyes at his own floundering. ”I know this all sounds stupid, but whatever that woman is capable of, it can shut me down if she nails me with it at a critical moment. But it doesn’t seem to affect other metahumans as much as it does me. Probably something to do with the way I perceive and my material make-up. What I need is backup for when I find them again, someone who isn’t going to flail around like an idiot when hit with these annoyances, and your powers are the closest I’ve seen to this kind of caliber. Can you do that for me?”

“Gene Co. You remember that Bozo at the apartment? I’ve been doing a little digging… but the mask he had was from them,” Justine said quickly. “They’ve been doing metahuman experiments then? At least that would be my guess. Or something like it,” she said quickly, only to silently curse herself. Thena gian, she doubted Gene Co had any Echelon programs. “It does sound like you need a hand then,” she replied. Finally after a long beat of silence. “Are you alright? Thank you for calling me, and updating me.”

“Where can I meet you or do you want me to hang by the phone?”

Gabriel was quiet for a moment before answering. ”No, I’m not alright. I feel like a moron. I nearly got strangled to death by vines, and I don’t even need to breathe. I didn’t realize anything was wrong with the convoy until it was too late. I got shown up by two people who have less raw power in their whole bodies than I have in a single finger. But most of all, I’m scared. Not just what GeneCo wants to do with the device, but for Rach herself. These people… if they made that mask, too… if they’re willing to kill an innocent person just to make a point to me? Then they don’t have morals. They want that Phylactery, and they’ll try to kill Rach to get it. Moreover, they don’t have the capacity to merge with it like Rach and I do, which means it’ll revert back to viral form, most likely. Which, I don’t have to remind you, is a bad thing.”

Gabriel’s fingers drummed against his leg as he continued.

”These people are messing with things they have no understanding of. They think it’s another gun, a tool, a weapon they can sell and profit off of, like those gas masks. But it’s so much worse. Someone wielding a Phylactery, with the proper experience and application of power, could kill everyone on the planet, or at least a couple of continents. And they don’t care- they don’t care that they’ll likely have to kill Rach to get the Phylactery away from her. They don’t care that they’re trying to market what could literally be a doomsday device to people even less morals than them. And that terrifies me. It’s why most of my tech is under my own lock and key when it’s not already genetically coded to me. This stuff is more dangerous than anyone can imagine, even me.

“You’re at the CDC, yes? I can meet you there, or somewhere nearby. They’re probably looking for me, anyway- I’ve ignored a few calls.”

“Noooo, I’m at the site where things went sideways with the convoy. This place is a zoo right now,” she said. “I could sniff around over there but that’s likely to get me drawn into an investigation,” she replied. “Hang on you might lose me for a second.” Her steps carried her forward rapidly, only to turn into a darkened alley. With a slight thump she vanished as air rushed in to fill the space she vacated. She reappeared in a parking lot across town, standing just outside of her car. One hand fished her keys out and she slipped into the driver’s seat unnoticed as it was. The call had gone digital for a second due to the distortion in space and with the electromagnetic interference. But just as quickly it was resolved. Immediately the pandemonium was gone, and instead peace and quiet was left in it’s wake.

“So if that tech is so powerful, why keep it? Why not destroy it,” she asked him. “lso, I hope you’ve secured this call, otherwise we’re talking about really dangerous stuff over open waves.”

Gabriel snorted at Justine’s insinuation. ”Who do you think you’re talking to? I had this line secured the moment I started to dial your number. Things can interfere, sure, but I’d like to shake the hand of anyone who can break through my failsafes. Anyway, I have destroyed it. Most of it, anyway, the things too dangerous to keep around, that aren’t coded to my genes or whatever it is I have that passes for it. But some of it, I can use, and not just to destroy. I have the career I have because I want to help people, and this technology can make that happen. Perfect prosthetics, bionics, implants, things that can give people back their lives. But I can’t release hardly any of it for fear of people like GeneCo using it to blow everyone to pieces for profit, or shits and giggles, or whatever. The fact that I build things for benign purposes doesn’t change the fact that someone else can turn it to unsavory purposes.

“I want to make the world a better place, Justine. Not just by punching criminals in the face, but through more legitimate means than vigilantism. Anyway, where are you now? I can still come to meet you, the CDC can wait.”

“It’s noble, but the human race has to grow up first,” she said quietly as she stared out her windshield. “Hell as a species we aren’t even housebroken yet.” After a moment she sighed. “I’m at the McDonald’s parking lot on east thirty-seventh and south Van Buren right now. It might be easier if I come your way.” Her voice dropped in pitch a little, and there was a weariness to it. Perhaps she was coming down out of more heightened state and the fatigue from stress was catching up to her? Or maybe it was something else. “Also, I was just asking to make sure my bases were covered. It was just a question. Can’t be too careful.”

Gabriel blinked. ”Er, right… sorry. Didn’t mean to come across as callously as I did. It’s just… been a long day. I don’t quite know where I am right now, so it’ll be easier if I’m still coming to you. I’m going to finish debriefing the people I came here with, and then I’ll head for your position shortly. Shouldn’t be too much longer for you to wait… assuming I can figure out where I am.” He paused momentarily, then continued. ”And you’re right. Humanity does have a lot of growing up to do before I can make my dreams a reality. But that’s the beauty of no longer being entirely human, Justine- I have time to wait for them to be ready.

“I’ll let you know when I’m on my way, alright? Take care, Justine.”

“Perhaps you should be the change you’re waiting for. If you spend your time waiting it might never happen,” she said quietly, gently but she meant it. “Fine, I’ll stay put. At least you have my address and I can sponge off their wifi while I wait.”

”It’s why I do what I do, Justine. Fortunately for my ambitions, I’m somewhat of an impatient man, and apparent agelessness hasn’t tempered that much. But I need both of them, patience and ambition, to do anything. It’s why I’m a scientist.”

Another pause, then he cleared his throat. ”Anyway, thanks for your help- I don’t think I can do this without you. Mostly because Rach trusts you a hell of a lot more than she trusts me. So… thanks again. I’ll talk to you soon.” And with that, he hung up, marvelling at how much better that conversation had gone compared to how he thought it would go.

As the line went dead, Justine heaved a sigh, only to lean back in her seat. Her left elbow was propped up on the top of the door panel, her fingers being run through her hair. “Wonderful,” she muttered to herself, her voice rebounding slightly oddly off of the glass surfaces in the car. How long was he going to take? She had no idea, and right now she had only a limited amount of information. Rach had been taken, by mysterious bad guys. Gene Co was in the mix. It was all spinning out of control now, wasn’t it?

_{banner credit to Hellis}

---

Location: Ironworks - Lost Haven
Time: Present

“Ah, Mademoiselle, it's good to see you again. No worse for the wear I'd hope?”

Odette had calmly watched the team of armed men go about clearing the room with The Cowl himself and his shadow, Specter, on his heels.

While the Cowl spoke she gave the criminal kingpin a well measured gaze while he presented her final reward and restated the conditions of their deal. Bringing into question Racheli’s current state along with disappointingly a large amount of skepticism in regards to understanding their deal. It rubbed her the wrong way he even had to ask let alone assume she would go back on something as sacred as a handshake.

“Minimal resistance is what I recall you assuring me when we spoke of this job, Monsieur Cowl. Two witches,” She nearly spat the word, “and metahumans came bumbling onto the scene.” Casting a sidelong glance at Racheli. “Regardless, of all the imprévisible, unpredictable factors I never doubted in our success. Silence was imperative to the operation this evening.”

Standing from her resting place she strode among the men, the pause stretched to the sound of her boots. Giving Specter a weighted gaze before returning to observe the men they brought. They were armed to the teeth in no doubt the same way the Cowl had hoped to be prepared much like how Odette had thought her wards and traps would have been enough. Locking eyes with a few of them noting their unease.

“Is that what we said?” The Cowl responded, his silky upbeat tone acting in contrast to the bitterness in Odette’s words. “Last I checked, I never said anything about resistance, in fact I distinctly remembering you agreeing to help before I ever talked about what kind of opposition would possibly await you. Granted, I had very little information about that subject at the time, but thanks to your display and some eyes on the ground from my end, I gained some much needed insight into exactly what kind of enemies I have made today, so in that aspect it all worked out rather swimmingly.” The Cowl gave a confident, snide chuckle to punctuate his remark. “However, my question still goes unanswered; are we still in agreement to the terms at hand?”

Eying the red chest as the Cowl had presented it finally answering his question, “Of course we still have a deal. It rather offends me that you assume I would go back on a handshake. When I seal a deal with a handshake it is as binding as a written contract. Furthermore of course Racheli is alive. I have the patience to recapture a captive one hundred times over if it means they remain alive.” Odette’s tone was sharp and it was clear she was unimpressed. Her accent colouring every word.

“Easy there, madame.” The Cowl reassured her, raising an open palm towards the Fae-kin in a calming gesture “There is no need to be hostile, I'm simply re-affirming our negotiations. Communication is always key, especially with the company you keep. I wouldn't want the terms to be open to interpretation”

Giving the Cowl a withering look she carried on strolling back over to a pale and limp Rach she pried open her mouth for The Cowl to see.

Racheli growled, muffled by Odette’s fingers prying her mouth open. Her teeth immediately bit down in instinct and her eyes snapped open, glaring at the woman. A few more dribbles of black tar oozed out and stained her already filthy front.

Odette’s reflexes snapped her fingers away from Racheli’s gnashing teeth and swiftly back handing Racheli.

“Oh my, looks like she’s got a bit of fight in her still.” The Cowl remarked, “One must admire the tenacity of our guest, and here I was hoping for a bit more relaxed captive.”

Rach felt her head jerk forward as the slap impacted, her face buried in the concrete. Oddly enough, Michael didn’t appear. His voice penetrated into Odette’s head with a displeasure in his tone, making sure she knew he wasn’t surprised at his host’s reaction. Only she would’ve been able to hear it. “She was trying to sleep and you interrupted it. Now who’s being rude?”

Pulling a handkerchief from her purse and dabbing away the blood that spotted along the back of her hand, not the least bit surprised that Michael spoke up though from Cowl’s reaction he was not aware of Michael. Was the little apparition showing some stage fright now?

“There are several notes I have in regards to Racheli. From an impressive healing factor to a telepathic virus that unfortunately does not shut up.” Odette said venomously.

“Oh? Is that so?” The Cowl responded, his mask wrinkling as he raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know viruses had enough capacity to speak, let alone to communicate telepathically.”

Michael chuckled, darkly. His next words were a bit of amusement and disappointment while he quietly mocked her. “Nice to see you’re heeding my warning well. Keep in mind, things will end badly for everyone involved.”

“The virus itself is sentient. It is attempting to telepathically communicate with me as we speak, it is proving to be rather shy or too weak to reach out to everyone in the room.” Odette continued with a shrug.

“Nice try, but a bit of a failure. Michael commented, his image still didn’t appear and added. “Also, good luck proving it.”

“Well, if you can let it know I would love to speak with it, that would be fantastic.” The Cowl mused, taking a few steps closer to get a better look at Racheli, stalking her like a hyena approaching a wounded calf. “I’ve never spoken with a virus before, it could be fun.”

Rach naturally felt the Cowl’s eyes on her. Her head tilted up as far as it could go, heated with warning. Her blackened teeth bared and a small growl emitted. Her tongue was still knitting but it had managed to heal enough she could talk to be understood. “Back the fuck off.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well, Racheli.” The Cowl responded, barely missing a beat to the woman’s threat, crouching slightly to meet her eye-to-eye. “I assume at this point you and your ‘friend’ are both aware of who I am, but if not, it makes little difference...we will not be acquainted for long if all goes well.”

For once, Rach didn’t retort back. She merely glared and held it, knowing inside who Cowl likely worked for or at least had connections to. The only thing that worried her, something she was pushing to the back of her mind, was how he knew her first name.

“I am frankly glad that she’ll be on her way soon enough. She tempts me to rip her tongue out again.” Odette hissed at Racheli barely concealing the bristle when her captive swore again.

Bending back up she held her hand out for the chest, “In spite of the challenges this evening has presented the contents of this chest remain to be absolutely worth it.”

“Of course, I am a man of my word, after all.” The Cowl admitted, giving one last, longing look at the chest before delicately placing it in Odette’s waiting clutches. “Don’t you worry, my lady, I gave you a memory worth having, as I respect the effort you went through enough.”

“Merci, Monsieur.”

While the two were distracted, Rach laid her head against the ground and tried to determine if she was healthy enough to make another escape attempt. Naturally being apart of her, Michael spoke and answered her question. ’No and it would be a rather bad idea.’

Naturally Rach gritted her teeth in anger over hearing her virus in her head. ‘Get the hell out of my head, NOW.’

’Just trying to keep you from doing something stupid.’ Michael stated calmly, his senses already telling him that Rach was going to ignore him. A fact that was a bit too true when she tested her restrains, pushing at it from the inside and applied strength to the situation. It failed naturally as sweat beaded off her thanks to the intense heat rolling into the room. Her forehead pressed into the flooring, mentally cursing her weakness and gathering strength to push past her limits. It wasn’t like anyone would care enough to save her afterall.

’I can’t argue you with there as much as I would like to, Racheli. In the end, the world doesn’t have a place for likes of you or me…’

Unseen by either Cowl or Odette, Rach fought back hot tears collecting at the edges which threatened to stain her already grimy features.

“Right, now that the matter of payment is out of the way, I believe the matter of containment is in order.” The Cowl said, snapping his fingers to signal one of the men to open a nearby oversized door. Upon his signal, the men busily began to wheel in the containment device through the doors, the machine now beginning to whirr and hum as the walls began to glow, the box coming to life as it was wheeled towards the furnace.

Odette’s hand gently swept over the top of the chest her eyes twinkled with victory. While her smile was humble in accepting the reward. Finally having her prize lifted her sourness almost immediately. Stowing away the chest carefully into her purse. The hum of the new technology being wheeled into the area was eye catching to say the least. The glow and hum reminded her strangely of the arcane stream but still rather artificial.

“A little something cooked up from the materials I was able to bring in during the riots.” He bragged, watching for Racheli’s reactions as the containment unit was set down. “I call it ‘The Nullpod’...still a working title, but I figured I would need something like this when all these metahumans popped up.”

Racheli’s head scratched against the floor, trying to hide the tears evidence. It only stained her face with grim as he snapped her face to face the contraption being wheeled in none too quietly. This wasn’t good, her instincts screamed causing her to wiggle within her concrete restrains.

He walked over to the container, laying his hands upon the surface as he spoke, eyes fixated on the device with a glint of pride. “Reinforced ceramic walls with kinetic fields to box in the guest, enhanced by some lovely charms and talismans provided from black market cultists and magi, enough to thoroughly withstand a blast of natural or supernatural quality.” He motioned to the devices in each corner of the rounded box. “Of course, this isn’t complete without a biometric scanner that records vitals and brain patterns. Typically this is utilized to monitor one to make sure they stay alive, but I had the boys cook up something extra. You see, I’ve noticed one thing about weaponry...you can put pure concussive force to back up your armory, but that does nothing if the recipient is made of metal or has muscles thicker than titanium. Yet, there is a natural component that most seem to have little resistance to.”

He chuckled, giving Racheli a brief look of cold satisfaction as he continued to scan the room. “Would anyone like to hazard a guess what that is?”

Of course, this was followed by natural silence in the room, the men either too spooked or indifferent to answer him.

“Sound, the answer is sound.” the Cowl said, gesturing to the obligated crowd seemingly bolstered in confidence by their lack of input. “There is a science to sound that defies all material...turn on a certain frequency and you can shatter glass, amplify it and you can shred steel like it was tissue paper.” He gestured back to the containment unit, speaking with bolstered confidence. “If the container reads any heightened brain activity or altered biochemistry, say the usage of certain powers, it will immediately emit a sound wave designed to disrupt the action. It can come as pain, it can come as nausea, it can come as weakness. It will respond accordingly depending on the effort delivered, turning the power up to the point where the captive’s brain is reduced to liquid in their own head.”

He turned to Rach, again offering her a cold, cruel scoff. “This, my dear, is where we will make your home for the next few hours until you can be picked up.”

“And you’ll think I’ll let be that easy?” Rach snapped, her body still trying to worm itself out of the concrete. It wasn’t hard to imagine what that box would do to her if she let herself be put in and any chance of escape was out of the question. Unfortunately the heat seeped deeply in her skin causing it to sweat enough that her abilities weren’t obeying her desires and her strength didn’t do shit for the situation, her chest inhaling heavily.

“Undoubtedly, my dear Racheli.” He retorted, giving her an amused, arrogant snicker, bending at the knees to once more get on eye level with her. “You aren’t exactly in a position to argue, and I am not one to wait until shown otherwise.”

On a heel, he whirled about to face one of his men, who jumped when the Cowl turned to face him in mighty shock. “You, get the forklift and haul her in there, I want the box closed in two minutes.”

Racheli wanted to punch off that smug look right off the man’s masked face.

The man moved immediately. His figure nodded understanding then practically ran to the nearest machine before he hopped in and turned it on. The motor made a loud, deafening roar while he began to move it toward Racheli. Like a towering behemoth, it lowered its forklift and scraped underneath and rested there. He then hopped out to seize some hauling straps which he fastened over Rach’s still entombed form, securing each one to ensure she was safely in place. Satisfied with the result, he hopped back in and moved her into the container with the skillful precision she didn’t expect. Placing her down, he removed the straps and tossed them to the side outside the box before backing the machine back out. Shortly the doors were closed, sealing Racheli within.

“Good, now that business is concluded…” The Cowl said, turning back to Odette as a cell phone was pulled from his pants pocket, the same low-tech, unmarked flip phones that were common among The Cowl’s group. “I believe I have a call to make to my business associate. You may see yourself out, madame, or I can have someone escort you if need be, though I would much rather prefer you to stay, I would certainly like to know what else you may have found if you are willing to share, perhaps over a drink if I were so bold.”

Odette watched Racheli be placed into the containment booth, the Cowl was rather confident in this well invested technology and she hoped for their sakes the preparation proved to be enough. While her luck was never in question the day had been rather unlucky in spite of prep. Chewing on the inside of her cheek she wanted to slip away and wash her hands of the likes of Racheli but her instincts were keeping her rooted.

“I would very much like to share my notes on Racheli, especially what I had picked up from speaking with her virus.” She replied to her associate, a resigned sigh through her nose. “I would prefer to stay and see her exchange to the end, I have a dreadful feeling. Leaving now would beset me with unease.”

“Such dedication.” The Cowl remarked, offering a sheepish chuckle and a shrug. “I can’t turn down such a generous contribution, so by all means stay and see it done.”

Squinting at him pleasantly and a smile to match at his offer, “You are rather bold, monsieur. We will have cause to celebrate when today is over. Perhaps in Paris?”

“A very tempting offer, Madame, but it may be a while before I visit Paris once more,” The Cowl said. “I have much to do here in Lost Haven, and from the looks of it, business is really going to ramp up in this city. If this truly is becoming the home for metahumans, then what businessman would I be if I were to leave this ground zero of opportunity?”

“A drink in Lost Haven will have to do then. Perhaps Specter will join us as well?” Odette said flashing the shadow a perfect smile. “I would love to know what the shadow likes to drink.”

Specter barely seemed to acknowledge that he was being referenced, instead hanging behind the Cowl and keeping an eye on the transport of their target, the glint of his sunglasses flickering in the furnace’s heat as he watched Racheli get sealed into her ceramic jail.

Bach had sat patiently on her shoulder during the exchange watching the Cowl and Specter he pulled a face at the prospect of staying out as opposed to heading home directly. “I can think of a better way to celebrate. We have a memory to peek at.” He whispered into her ear.

Odette shook her head then replied in French, “Later, Bach.”

“Right, but that will come later.” The Cowl said, waving Odette off as he began to dial with free hand. “I have to alert the buyer that her package has arrived, she’ll hopefully be thrilled.” He said, walking off to another room. “I will rejoin you in but a moment...for now…” He glanced over to Specter, whose shoulders drooped at the inevitable order he was about to receive. “How about Specter keeps you company, yeah? Despite his stoic demeanor, he’s actually quite pleasant to talk to.”

The Specter raised a hand to try and object, but only silence came from behind his trademark scarf as the Cowl slipped out of the room in a coy display of footwork as he slammed the door behind him, left with a furrowed brow and frustrated sigh as he turned to Odette.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline was sitting in her office at the hour. Her building was more hollow than a smoked beehive, most the employees chosen the safety of their homes compared to the steel structure of their work. Her green eyes shifted to size up the news’ current details over the whole event over the mad man’s threat when the phone ring. Her head turned to the direction then reached over to pick it up, taking the care before her assistant could, and spoke. “I wondered when you would call. I take it any possible complications were dealt and it wasn’t too much of an issue?”

“Nothing I didn’t expect in a city like ours.” The Cowl responded, his tone dropping it’s upbeat optimism while keeping it’s elegance. “Your acquisition is ready and awaiting pickup in the old Ironworks. I’d suggest we use the opportunity at hand to our disposal to complete the transaction while the more prying eyes are concerned with the ravings of a madman.”

“Understood,” Jacqueline stated, noting the tone of his voice and slipping into business mode with her words. It seemed there something more to what he said but she knew better than to pry, at least for the moment. “My people will be on route to retrieve the package in less than an hour.”

“To add to that, whatever you intend to send to pick her up, send a security squad or two with it.” The Cowl warned. “The target was not acquired without opposition and there is no doubt in my mind they are working diligently to locate this place and assault it. Not to mention the issue that your prize may not stay in her containment field for long, she is much stronger and more dangerous than you or I gave credit for at this stage and she is rapidly improving. I trust the technology made to entrap her for only so long.”

“I did clearly mention we had little to no information over what happened when the virus took a host, so it’s only expected. However, it might be ideal for a trial run on another small project we’ve developing and if all goes well… they won’t be an issue. It might even solve both of yours and mine at the same time. As for the subject, we’ve contained it once before and it shouldn’t be much of an issue again.” Jacqueline was about to hang up when she then added little bit. “If things go well, you’ll likely find a suitable reward for the job and reap the results for your organization. If the subject provides too much resistance to contain or keep… cut her loose and we’ll pool our resources.”

There was a silence from Cowl’s end of the phone, one of the very rare times he did not have an immediate retort. “Did...did you just…?” He shook his head, ignoring the context delivered in Jacqueline’s last words. “Very well, we will expect your men as soon as they are able. Have them signal us when they are ten minutes out, you know what signal to use. I have the place fortified with my men as well as the Ironworks’ secret surprises, we will be on high alert until the delivery is off of Syndicate property.”

“Understood.” The line hung up from the other leaving Cowl to digest her words.

Location: Near the Docks, unknown for sure.
Time: Shortly after Odette and Rach exited back into the mortal world.

Isaac Vice stood quietly, his board frame and quiet demeanor overlooked the men exchanging their equipment. His steely eyes watched with judging expression when they flipped out their usual and reliable metal guns to state of the art plastic ones, but he held his tongue. Each man then selected a cartilage, each filled with about fifteen tranquilizers filled with a greenish black liquid. At the next reaching soldier, Vice gripped a cartliage then opened it up to dump several casings over the table top. He stopped them from rolling by placing his hand over top and picking a single one to eye. Studying it deeply, he spoke to Victor Black, the head scientist and designer of the drug within each one.

“And these are suppose to stop the virus’ host? This mysterious liquid?”

Victor was a thin, pale man. He rarely looked like he had seen the light of day outside his lab as he pushed up his glasses with his palm, careful not smudge it with his fingers. The man seemed to always have a stick up his ass over discussion and questioning of his latest project while he glared subtly at Vice, giving the larger man the shivers. If Black could be described as anything, in Vice’s mind it was a spider. A nasty, patient and venomous one.

“Yes. After studying the virus, we discovered it had the ability to target and activate the existing meta genes within a subject.” Black coldly said, his hand reached to pull the tranquilizer from his branch head’s grip, “It was perfectly logically we wanted to reverse this effect and cancel it out in natural and unnatural metas. It’s still in development and we’re gradually hoping that in time, all metas of any type will be affected after this event.”

He snapped them back in, one by one, while continually to explain more in his monotone voice. “Right now, it can only temporarily cancel out natural meta powers. If they were born or have the genetic code, then this should prevent it from working for a limited time.”

Black finally passed it back to another soldier, noting Vice’s next question. “You’re expecting trouble?”

“No, I trust Ms. Freeman's judgement and likely her associate will deliver what she expects. I, however, like to be prepared for the worst cases.”

“Additional measures?”

“Naturally, it’s only logical and if we’re lucky… there might be additional subjects to study.” Black let a small, wicked smile cross his lips.

Vice inhaled then felt a vibration in his pocket, his mitt of a hand reached down to flip it open. A familiar number was displayed and followed by a texted message to proceed with their plans, including a location and time. The man snapped it shut then nodded to Black. “It seems you would be studying the virus shortly, Doctor.”

Location: Lost Haven, Maine, Outside The Cowl’s Ironworks
Time: Natural Selection, Present

---

The heroes’ silhouettes vanished within the abyss of alleys and in-betweens surrounding the old ironworks. Despite their varied appearances, their sizes and gifts, each was masterfully concealed by their silence and the blanket of night. Suits were stationed at each corner of the building, guarding all visible entrances. At a glance, there was no way any of them would get in without riling up the Cowl’s men. Then again, was this group all that concerned with stealth and subtlety? It seemed that Joseph was the only one among them with the means to infiltrate their numbers quietly.

“Holt,” Joseph called out in barely a whisper. From the surrounding shadows, Holt formed, taking the shape of a jet-black raven. “Sneak through the front entrance and see if you can locate Racheli.”

He nodded, flapping his wings and circling above the guards who attended to the main door. He cawed a few times, tempting the guards to look away from their post, if only for a moment. This was less for his benefit and more to see how easily distracted they were. They responded with a few caws of their own, the imbeciles. Holt quickly shifted into his most ethereal state and passed through the unaware guardsmen.

The inside was a mess of metal beams and equipment, large barrels and vats full of scraps and metallic debris. Closer to the center, a large clearing came into view, where Odette, the Cowl, and a captive Racheli stood. Holt drew nearer, listening to their conversation. It seemed that Racheli had been placed in a device that would contain whatever powers she possessed, one that was also enchanted to keep away any mystical interference.

“Hmm. . .” Holt hummed, pondering how Joseph and his team might remove her from the containment device. He continued to circle above the villains, listening, waiting. Once he was satisfied, he evaporated, appearing before Joseph once more in raven form.

“What did you see?” Joseph questioned eagerly.

“The faery woman from before was there, accompanied by a tall, masked man. The girl, Racheli, was locked inside a strange device that, I believe, will guard against both her powers and all of yours. “ Holt relayed the information concisely, not wanting to waste time. “There were no strong magical fields and entities, meaning aside from the obvious threats, there shouldn’t be any surprises waiting inside.” This would have been good news for the entire team. Without Odette’s pesky traps, they all stood a better chance at safely retrieving Racheli.

“Good,” Joseph replied. He took a moment to consider their options. They could go in, guns blazing and likely make it through the front door. Odette’s magic posed the greatest single threat, but Joseph could shield his allies from it long enough for them to blindside her with a show of force. Joseph worried briefly about the masked stranger, but had no reason to believe that he posed much of a physical threat.

Alternatively, Joseph could send in Holt once more and initiate a surprise attack. He could channel magic through Holt and issue mystical commands from afar, taking all inside by surprise and hopefully taking the guards from their posts. This would allow the team to get through them much easier. After a few more moments of contemplation, Joseph decided to go with the later of the two plans.

“So,” he spoke up, “I’ll send my familiar in again and have him launch a surprise attack. He’s entirely resistant to physical force and can hold his own against faery magic. This will let us get through the front however we like and hopefully catch the guards by surprise.” He looked at Hydro and Icarus, who was no doubt feeling some contempt.

“I know this is your mission, I know that you know the most about Racheli and this alien virus, but just as we know nothing of her power, you don’t fully understand the capabilities of magic. Luckily, I do, so let me see to this and then you can go barging in with your metal suit.”
Not wanting to wait for objections, Joseph sent Holt with a command to enter the ironworks once again and cause a disturbance.

Inside the Ironworks, all stood momentarily still, the calm before the storm. Holt flew in once more, this time carrying with him a powerful wind that whistled through the metal beams, sending stray items clattering to the floor, their vibrations ringing throughout the building. Holt then took on a more physical shape, still keeping out of sight, and began to lift pieces of debris and smaller equipment, flinging them about while increasing the chill and fury of the invading winds.

The interior was slowly turning into a icy vortex, metal turning cold, loose shrapnel freezing over completely. This would surely draw the attention of all attending parties and leave an opening for the heroes to launch their assault.

_{banner credit to Hellis}

---

Odette spent the entirety of the conversation with Specter teasing him with silly questions. Amusing herself with his unease. The clatter of noise made the armed men quick to raise their weapons fully alert, when the sounds of movement continued in their direction an artificial wind ruffled Odette’s hair. Specter shared a look with the fairy mistress.

The whistle against the metal raised the hair on Odette’s nape. Her eyes tracked up watching the metal of the uncomfortably hot area cool quickly, the condensation collecting into frost. The noise increased with the strength of the wind and their surroundings dropped in temperature, their breaths puffing out in little clouds.

“Witches. I cannot stand them.” Odette snarled the wind whipping her hair and clothing about threatening to knock anyone off their balance. Bach held on tightly to the material of her jacket. “Specter, our intruders have returned. I will focus on the witch and counter the magic.”

Marching up to the doors The Cowl had stepped through throwing them open her eyes looking for the shadowy familiar that accosted the Archon. “I am not so easily tested by a shift in the weather!”

Pulling out her grimoire remembering a particularly strong counter-curse to magical weather systems. Meant originally for Air sprites to manipulate clouds, however Odette had modified it to calm storms. Her fingers skipped through elemental chapters the wind whipping at the pages angrily. Finding the spell she began reading aloud the spell in Common Fey. Words of Power rolled in synonymous tones.

The power from the familiar was pushing heavily against her own while she roared the words of the spell repeatedly over the howl of the wind. Clutching her grimoire with her feet planted to the ground not backing down. Misty blue light lifting from the skin of her hands as the spell continued without pause. Her spell came in the form of blue mist roiling at her feet and around her body. For several minutes they battled wills of power. The vortex carried on while her person was unaffected by the wind. There were few moments while her attention was threatened by flying debris and items. Ducking and hopping on the spot to avoid being hit.

Her eyes searched the ceiling for the familiar while her mouth and voice continued. When she spotted the physical form of a shadowy crow flying amongst the steel beams conjuring the wind. Focusing her spell toward the crow meaning to cut off the source of the wind. The mist of her spell redirected toward Holt climbing the walls heading straight for him.

Sherman Square, Lost Haven, 10:06PM

Detective Jason Allen cursed to himself as he climbed from his car. The bright lights of Sherman Square shined behind him as he made his way to his destination. He had been on his way home when he got the call over the radio. Some junky had found a body in a dumpster behind The Bangkok Café just off of 53rd Street. Reluctantly, he headed in that direction.

This was the last thing that Detective Allen wanted to do. He had already worked a sixteen hour shift, and his girlfriend had made it clear that she had big plans for him when he got home. However, the city had other plans for him.

“What’ve we got?” Allen asked a uniformed officer as he crossed the yellow police tape.

“You might want to take a look for yourself.” The officer replied.

Allen pushed past the officer and went toward the group of other officers and crime scene investigators who were gathered around the dumpster in the alley. Useless prick. he thought to himself as he approached the dumpster. As he walked up to the large green receptacle he spotted one of the few cops on the force that he actually liked.

“Jones.” He greeted the man with a nod. “Talk to me.”

“Detective.” Jones said in response. “It’s one of them.” he said looking up to the sky and pointing. “A cape.”

“Awww Jesus.” Allen said as the realization that his lady’s plans would most definitely have to wait. “Alright, show me.” Allen sighed as Jones obliged. The taller middle aged man pulled open the top of the dumpster, revealing the corpse of a young woman in star spangled attire.

Allen had seen a lot since he transferred to LHPD from San Diego, but nothing quite like this. The woman had suffered multiple stab wounds in the chest and stomach, and her neck was visibly broken, with her head twisted around 180 degrees. From the looks of things, she’d been there for awhile.

But none of that had prepared him for what he saw before him now. He knew the victim, a lot of people knew her. She had been around for decades, yet somehow looked to still be in her early 30’s. She had been a member of a group of heroes in the 1940’s who had fought against the Nazis, but hadn’t really done anything since. While the group had their fans, Detective Allen always thought that they were highly overrated. They were more or less living propaganda, figures that the people could rally behind. In fact, according to Allen’s great grandfather, who actually fought in World War II, their roles in the conflict were greatly exaggerated. The fact that they did absolutely nothing following the war was all the proof that skeptics needed that they were nothing more than frauds.

“Jeezus…Is that…Is that Lady Liberty?” Allen said as he felt his dinner threatening to force its way up out of his stomach. “When did this happen?”

“That’s the weird thing.” Jones said. “According to the coroner, she’s been here for at least a week.”

“Bullshit.” Allen said. “I saw her on TV tonight with Icon and the Super Friends as they were getting ready to take on those Pax Metawhatsits earlier tonight.”

“Well, apparently, whoever that was, it wasn’t her. Lady Liberty is deader than shit, and she’s been that way for days.”

War-Pulse’s blood was running hot, his heart beating at the rate of a drumroll as the smoke began to clear from his wicked attack. The sounds of screaming were heard through the ringing from his last blast, his eyes slowly refocusing after his own light had offset his vision momentarily. Still coursing with power, the kinetic renegade pulled back for another blow, realizing his first strike only removed the Sorceress’ companion, not the target herself. He was panting heavily, his eyes filled with mindless rage as he marched toward her, the kinetic power creating cracks in the concrete as he advanced.

And in all but an instant, the sounds and sensations all came to an end, a flick of the Sorceress’ wrist had banished him from the immediate vicinity, teleporting him out to Crystal Lake up in Central Maine. The warmth in his body was immediately offset by the icy cold water enveloping him as he dropped into the murky lake waters. The sobering chill almost immediately calmed him from his battle-rage, his growling now replaced with a surprised yelp which muffled through the water.

Or...was it really water? It felt rather thick to him, moving his arms through it to try and swim felt much more difficult as he powered to the surface. It tasted strange through the mask, almost like the water was metallic, or at least possessed some level of metal. He tried to open his eyes, but found the water stung to the touch.

Only when he got to the surface, drawing in a massive breath, was he able to open his eyes and see the curse Silver Sorceress had laid upon him.

He gasped in terror. Blood. The lake was red with blood, swirling and splashing amongst itself in a crude crimson. The illusion overwhelmed Trent’s senses, he frantically began pushing his way to the shore, letting a few kinetic bursts from his feet propel him towards the shore to get free of the horrid red lake. He clamored his way to the shore, seeing his silver clothes now stained red from the lake. He sat at the water’s edge, his eyes fixated on his now blood-red gloves, palms shaking as he tried to wipe what he could free from himself.

“Hey there, killer. Enjoying the fruits of your labor?”

His head rose, trying to get a bead at who just spoke to him, springing to his feet to whirl around and look through the trees to see if anyone was behind him. There was nothing to see but trees so far, his eyes wide with panic as he remembered his com link was still active.

“Warden?! Oh God, Warden, I was teleported away from the fight, but there’s a fucking blood lake out here! It’s just...there’s so much...it’s just a lake of blood!”

“Well, what are you so freaked out about?” The voice responded, the tone much more sinister than War-Pulse remembered, causing his brow to furrow and his breathing to halt. “It’s not like you haven’t seen blood before.”

“Yeah, but this is just disgusting, who would do something like this?!?”

“Well, maybe someone who made so many gravestones. Someone who took so many lives without a second thought, someone....like you.”

Warden laughed, Warden never laughed. What was going on? Why was he being so casual about this?

“Alright, what is going on with you? This...this ain't god damned normal!”

“It’s normal for us...isn’t it? Or are you so forgetful that you would never think about the bodies you leave behind everywhere you go?”

“Yeah...but...but those guys all deserved it, right?”

“And you have authority do decide that from who, exactly?”

“That ain't fair Warden, it was a bunch of war mongers, crooks, and militants, they knew what they agreed to!”

“Sure, the men you fought agreed to their abysmal fate,but what about those in the crossfire? What about those of circumstance trying to just feed their families?”

“Those are unavoidable!”

“But no less permanent, or do you not even bother to acknowledge that little destructive setback?”

On Warden’s words, War-Pulse blinked once, watching as the trees upon the shore had instantly morphed into gravestones. A field of uncountable gravestones that stretched out as far as the eye can see.

“Warden what the fuck is this?!?” War-Pulse screamed into his comm link.

There was no response from Warden, only static at first. No, no it wasn’t static, it was just a lot of noise. War-Pulse tried to pinpoint it, deciphering the noise. It was human, lots of humans.

Screaming, the ear-splitting sails of those in the throughs of death, calling out to gods or loved ones as agony choked their words.

“This is your legacy, War-Pulse.” Came another voice, a ghostly figure clad in exotic, tattered garb manifesting from War-Pulse’s peripheral. Colorful superhero tights and a long, torn cape, the colors now mixed with blood as the figure’s faded eyes locked onto the panicked mercenary. “The legacy of the Kinetic Renegade, the ‘Force of Nature’ himself! A mercenary who only leaves bodies wherever he goes.”

“Oh, come on, not you too!” War-Pulse whined, his knees buckling as the presence floated towards him. “How was I supposed to know you were a 17-year-old kid?! I’m sorry alright! I’m fucking sorry!!”

“Sorry? You think ‘sorry’ absolves you of your sins?” The figure responded, gesturing towards the graves. “For every man you kill, you affect their families. For each man’s blood you spill, you jeopardize their loved ones. For each criminal you worked for, you destroyed a territory. For each empire you crumble, you buckle a nation.”

War-Pulse watches in horror as the graves all began to emit a fog, each stone revealing not only the men he killed in ghostly apparitions, but those they were closest with.

“With the power you have, you could have been anything. A hero, a savior, a defender of the people. You could have changed the world, War-Pulse, but instead you chose to attack it. You chose to slaughter its people, to ravage its landscapes. You beat, extorted, and tortured, and for what? Money? Bragging rights?”

“That isn't fair! You can't blame me for all this!!” War-Pulse shouted, grabbing at the cloaked figure With a free hand and charging up a kinetic blast with the other. “War is war, you can't say it's all my fault!”

“But I can say you were a part, and deep down we both know that's really what matters.” The figure said, offering no resistance as the kinetic beserker snatched him out of the air. “But it's all you know, isn't it? You only know how to kill, it's all you ever bothered to know. Even now you want to solve this by ripping it apart, nothing more than a savage with powers. All the power in the world, and you use it to sate your bloodlust.”

“Fuck you!” War-Pulse screamed, anger and terror overcoming his body, tossing the cloaked figure in a rage. Who merely stopped his momentum in mid-air. “I never asked for this power! Nobody ever asked me if I wanted it!”

“But you needed it to survive,” came yet another voice materializing into the fog. A middle ages woman in a lab coat, auburn hair curling over her aged but angular features. “Which I why I gave you this power.”

War-Pulse froze, his pupils shrinking in his widened eyes as the cold sweat came trickling down his forehead, absorbing into his facemask. His shoulders drooped, a shaking hand reached out toward the newcomer as the words slowly came to him

“M...mom?”

“And what do you do in repayment?” She continued, as if he never even spoke, her eyes boring into him as she gracefully crossed the small beach Trent was standing on. “You ran away from home and went off to play the glory hog, building fame and renown on the backs of the bodies you broke.”

“And what, stay with you?! After what you guys did to me?! What you were willing to do to me!? You were going to turn me into a weapon!”

“You mean like you did.” She responded, circling him. “Instead of being a fighter for a better cause, you became a fighter with no cause, who kills only if you got paid well enough.”

War-Pulse tried to scream back, but nothing came out. She was right, that was exactly what he had done with his life.

“Who knows? Maybe if you had listened to your mother you wouldn’t have killed me.” The cloaked figure said. “But it’s too late now...your fate is sealed.”

By this point, the ghostly apparitions had made their way from their gravestones and were circling the mercenary, clouding around him with whispers echoing around the terrified merc.

“Killer…”

“Psychopath…”

“Monster…”

“Murderer…”

“No! Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” The Merc shouted, falling to his knees as the cloud of the dead etched ever closer to overtaking him, clutching his head and shutting his eyes to block them out.

“It’s time to accept what you are, Trent.” His mother said, standing over him as he cowered in her presence. “You are War-Pulse, slayer of men.”

“Indeed.” The cloaked figure said. “You are a killer, War-Pulse. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no redemption for your ilk.

Accept it.”

Just before the undead aberrations overtook him, he found himself springing up to a sitting position, screaming in horror and drenched in cold sweat on a beach on Lake Sebago. The Illusion provided by Silver Sorceress had ended, but the damage had been done.

Chris sat alone in his office that was located in the Sherman Center. Since the heroes that he had assembled had already defeated and apprehended Doctor Diplodoc and his allies, they all went their separate ways. Those who lived in Lost Haven returned to their own turf, while those, who did not call Lost Haven their home, were given transportation back to their respective cities. The only thing left to do was to hand over their vanquished foes to S.T.R.I.K.E. The only person who was not accounted for was War-Pulse. However, Chris believed that not looking for him was the correct choice because it gave the mercenary a head start over S.T.R.I.K.E. War-Pulse’s performance in the field at least warranted this courtesy.

As he reviewed the reports of their operation against Doctor Diplodoc, Chris came to this conclusion. Even though the heroes had butted heads against one another a couple times, in the end, they still managed to solve a problem that they could not have done alone. In fact, if these team-ups continued to be common occurrences, Chris thought that they might as well make some kind of active team so that they could respond to similar important events.

While he was still in thought, his desk phone began to ring. On the other line, his butler, George, alerted Chris that there were two black-suited men waiting in the lobby. Chris wondered what this was about because the S.T.R.I.K.E. agents were not supposed to arrive for another hour or so. And in his experience with the spy organization, Chris knew that S.T.R.I.K.E. would never be this early.

“Send them up.” Chris told George.

After a few minutes had passed, the two agents exited the elevator and entered into Chris’ office.

“So, what can I do for Uncle Sam?” Chris asked the two agents before they could have a chance to introduce themselves or show some credentials.

“FBI.” The two men told Chris as they pulled out their credentials. “We’re here to take Dorian Dipillan into Federal custody.”

Chris raised his eyebrows when he heard this. He was under the assumption that STRIKE was going to handle Doctor DIplodoc and his allies. The two FBI agents then handed over some documentation that supported the FBI agent’s story.

“So, why are you guys picking him up again?” Chris asked, trying to pull some information from the two men.

“That’s classified.” One of the agents told him, stonewalling Chris from gaining any more information on the subject.

“Well, we all know about the domes and their mutagenic effects on humans. That’s not really a secret.”

“Again, classified.” The agent repeated himself.

After contemplating his situation, Chris reached down to the intercom on his desk.

“George, will you please show these two fine men where we’re holding the good doctor?”

Once the two FBI agents had left, departing down the elevator, Chris turned his attention back to his computer. One way or another, Chris was going to find out what this was about.